Out of nearly 1000 titles Staging China: The Politics of Mass Spectacle by Florian Schneider has won the Publisher’s Accolade in the Social Sciences for Outstanding Production Value at the 2021 ICAS Book Prize. The prizes (one of the most prestigious book awards in the field of Asian Studies) were recently awarded in Kyoto, Japan at the 2021 International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS). About the book The People’s Republic of China began the 21st century with a new-and-improved public relations approach that was meant to counter anxieties about China’s role in the world while simultaneously showcasing the leadership’s policies to a domestic audience. Crucial to this communication strategy have been networked spectacles: elaborate mass event, designed to reconfigure organisations, ideas, and the relations between people. In Staging China, Florian Schneider analyses large-scale projects like the Beijing Olympics and Shanghai Expo to show how such spectacles became part of the ruling party’s governance toolkit under Hu Jintao’s leadership, and how their legacy informs politics and political communication in China to this day. “This book is a timely, original, and relevant work with fine-grained yet essential nuances on the emerging, complicated repertoire used by the Communist Party of China to govern the world’s largest authoritarian regime. The author advances a theoretical frame for depicting the networked interactions and communications within the Communist Chinese state and its people.” – Jun Liu, University of Copenhagen About the author Florian Schneider is Senior University Lecturer in the Politics of Modern China at Leiden University. He is managing editor of the academic journal Asiascape: Digital Asia and author of China’s Digital Nationalism (Oxford University Press 2018) and Visual Political Communication in Popular Chinese Television Series (Brill 2013). Would you like to order Staging China: The Politics of Mass Spectacle by Florian Schneider Please visit our webshop> Are you curious about the other winners? See the full ICAS book prize 2021 list>