Chairman Xi Jinping Animated Online Videos: Representation of Paternalistic Leadership in a Postmodern Age

Speaking of Chinese Internet, a lot of discussions fall into the “control vs. resistance” paradigm, while beyond such discussions, a possibility is that when people could make use of the Internet, the government could make use of it as well; when certain subversive discourses are welcomed online, certain official ideologies might be welcomed as well. Therefore, under what kind of conditions would official ideologies be welcomed online? Taking the series of Xi Dada videos as an example, this article aims to focus on not only its use of western techniques, but also its use of Chinese traditional culture, raising a Zhongtixiyong (Chinese learning as substance, Western learning as function) paradigm. By analyzing the content of Xi Dada animated videos, the article examines how paternalistic leadership with the myth of traditional just officials (qingtian) is embedded in such videos with an adaptation to postmodern culture in Chinese online society.