Mediaboss Marketing

Tuesday, 05 March 2013 09:19

PARIS: Chinese filmmakers must fight censorship even if it means removing their name from their own work, one-time banned Chinese director Lou Ye told AFP ahead of this month's Asian Film Awards.

His crime thriller "Mystery" has been nominated in six categories at this year's awards.

Lou's film, his second since he was banned from filming in China for five years in 2006, tackles the subject of a new breed of wealthy and middle income men in post-socialist China for whom taking a mistress is the norm, in a practice that harks back to imperial China.

With nominations including best film, best director and best actress for Hao Lei's portrayal of a betrayed wife, "Mystery" begins with a violent death and tells the story of one man's double life.

"The film is about a very small group of people. It is about what happens between two women, the double life that this man leads, but through this I get to talk about things that happen in wider society," he said in Paris where the film was shown as part of a China programme at the city's Forum des Images in February.

"What is important to me is the way in which we see that all the protagonists are linked to the death of this young girl, the way that no-one can say this has nothing to do with me," he said.

According to Lou, having a mistress is now commonplace in China for anyone with sufficient means.

"Currently we see this way of life in particular among people who have money," he said adding that it was seen as a status symbol for men while a woman acting in the same way would be stigmatised.

The film is his second since the end of the ban imposed after he took his love story "Summer Palace", set around the taboo subject of the 1989 pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests, to Cannes without official approval.

Follow this link:
Keep up censorship fight, urges acclaimed Chinese filmmaker

BEIRUT: You have the right not to remain silent, says MARCH, an NGO that is fighting media censorship and teaching young people how to use their right to freedom of expression as a basis for peaceful coexistence.

The problem is that people in Lebanon dont know their duties or rights as citizens, said Lea Baroudi, co-founder and general coordinator of MARCH. We realized that freedom of expression is the right which accompanies all civic rights, and decided to start with the basics.

Founded in 2011, MARCH aims to create an empowered civil society, the cornerstone of which is reconciliation of differences and fostering of respect between various groups, through freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression is the catalyst for tolerance, Baroudi added. We have to learn how to agree to disagree.

Hand in hand with the NGOs FREE initiative (Freedom and Right of Expression Events), which includes around-the-year workshops, conferences and distribution of newsletters tackling basic civil rights, is its fight against media censorship.

MARCH set up The Virtual Museum of Censorship (MOC), an interactive online database of censorship cases in Lebanon since the 1940s. The website provides information about the content, date and reason of censorship for material across different categories; press, books, theater, music and more.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle, says the MOC website, which offers individuals a platform to report cases of censorship to be added to the database of censored material.

The 2013 international Press Freedom Index proves the bleak reality of Lebanons censorship authorities. According to the index, published by Reporters Without Borders, Lebanon dropped eight places since last years report and now ranks at 101, below countries such as Guatemala, Mongolia and Kosovo.

General Security, the Information Ministry, the Interior Ministry all have a say in what gets published, Baroudi said. Then there are the unofficial authorities: religious entities, political parties and foreign embassies all can apply pressure.

Aiming to expand their network of volunteers and engaged citizens, MARCH is in the process of creating student clubs in universities such as the American University of Beirut, Lebanese American University, Saint Joseph University and Notre Dame University, among others.

The rest is here:
MARCH and bloggers fight censorship

Connecticut Lawmakers Demand Censorship after pressure by Kaitlin Roig and Donna Soto - Sandy Hook
CT Senator Richard Blumenthal http://www.blumenthal.senate.gov http://www.facebook.com twitter.com CT Senator Chris Murphy http://www.murphy.senate.gov http://www.facebook.com http://www.youtube.com twitter.com CT Representative Elizabeth Esty esty.house.gov http://www.facebook.com http://www.youtube.com http://www.youtube.com twitter.com CT State Attorney General George Jepsen http://www.ct.gov http://www.facebook.com twitter.com http://www.youtube.com

By: HOOKEDOnTheHoax

View original post here:
Connecticut Lawmakers Demand Censorship after pressure by Kaitlin Roig and Donna Soto - Sandy Hook - Video

A recent story by Caixin Magazine about a Chinese government crackdown on two public relations firms brought a couple of things to light: that the government no longer has a monopoly on media censorshipand that its actually a really good business.

Up until this past July, when the government threw 100 employees in jail, the companies in question were profiting handsomely from the post deletion business, the service of making unflattering things printed online simply go away.

According to the report by Caixin, which is one of Chinas best-regarded business magazines, these PR firms had developed a few different ways of doing this. One was to befriend search engine administrators who could tweak search results so that a keyword would fail to generate resultsmeaning, all the articles in which the keyword appeared simply wouldnt show up. But the best way to censor negative news about their clients was to buy off the reporters bosses. PR firms regularly bribed news editors to take down articles that they or their colleagues had commissioned in the first place.

And as this business turned out to be quite lucrativeone nervous government official paid the PR firm Yage Times 500,000 yuan ($80,400) for a single deletion projectthese PR firms had begun branching out. Their new line of business, reported Caixin, assigned employees to troll websites looking for negative news and, once they found some, to contact the relevant companies, citizens or government officials and conveniently offer them their services. But when finding articles proved to be just too much work, these firms started generating the bad press themselves, essentially turning the already crooked post-deletion industry into one of straight-up blackmail.

While it is unclear why the government launched the July crackdown,Caixin indicated that local government officials had been availing themselves of post-deletion services, which could possibly have something to do with it given the recent crackdown on corruption. An unnamed employee from Yage Times told the magazine that an estimated 60% of the companys profits came from government officials in small cities, as well as from police officers.

Theyll have no recourse now that the government has stamped out these types of servicesfor a time, at least. But as long as the government requires online media companies to enforce its elaborate censorship dragnet, this PR model is bound to surface again.

More from Quartz

Originally posted here:
Chinese government crackdown shows that its control over censorship is wearing thin

Chinese filmmakers must fight censorship even if it means removing their name from their own work, one-time banned Chinese director Lou Ye told AFP in an interview ahead of this month's Asian Film Awards in which his crime thriller "Mystery" has been nominated in six categories.

Banned in 2006 from filming in China for five years, Lou's latest picture tackles the subject of a new breed of wealthy and middle income men in post-socialist China for whom taking a mistress is the norm, in a practice that harks back to imperial China.

With nominations including best film, best director and best actress for Hao Lei's portrayal of a betrayed wife, "Mystery" begins with a violent death and tells the story of one man's double life.

"The film is about a very small group of people. It is about what happens between two women, the double life that this man leads, but through this I get to talk about things that happen in wider society," he said in Paris where the film was shown as part of a China programme at the city's Forum des Images in February.

"What is important to me is the way in which we see that all the protagonists are linked to the death of this young girl, the way that no-one can say this has nothing to do with me," he said.

According to Lou, having a mistress is now commonplace in China for anyone with sufficient means.

"Currently we see this way of life in particular among people who have money," he said adding that it was seen as a status symbol for men while a woman acting in the same way would be stigmatised.

The film is his second since the end of the ban imposed after he took his love story "Summer Palace", set around the taboo subject of the 1989 pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests, to Cannes without official approval.

Lou responded by continuing to work, filming his next feature "Spring Fever" in secret using a handheld camera as well as "Love and Bruises" which came out after the ban expired.

Although now able to film in China again, Lou remains the subject of unwanted attention from censors.

More:
Keep up censorship fight, urges Chinese filmmaker