Qi lai! Qi lai! Qi lai!

Every evening before the news I get to watch any one of these commercials:

(Actually there are a few more, but this was all I could find on YouTube.)

My intuition is that since they are being broadcast everyday for an indefinite period of time, they must have some effects on people, if not in the short run, then long term. Lazarsfeld had reassured us, though, that propaganda like these are only minimally effective, merely serving to reinforce and activate latent predispositions. What is certain, nonetheless, is that they do contain ideological messages.

One reoccurring theme in these clips is the portrayal of the national hero. In these two, the feeling created is that everybody – from the construction workers to white-collar professionals – is a national hero, because the message is that if you do your part you are making a big contribution to the country. There are two others I’ve seen which, in the beginning, even have the heroes of the national heroes, cyclist Wong Kam Po and Secretary for Justice Wong Yan Long, make the opening statement (“Fulfilling the duties of our roles, allowing Hong Kong to utilize its advantages, is making a contribution to the country.”) And of course a fixture at the end of every one of these propaganda is the hero of all heroes, the national flag.

By the way, where have all the poor people gone?

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