Cultural mediation and the making of the mainstream in postsocialist China

<jats:p> A case study of Chinese writers and their participation in the development and production of anticorruption dramas, this article uses the theoretical framework of cultural mediation to understand the reformulated role of media professionals in media and cultural production in postsocialist China. It is shown in the article that Chinese media professionals act as cultural brokers to mediate between divergent needs and demands, a key skill that sutures differences and subdues disruptive forces in the rapidly changing Chinese mediascape. The article first describes cultural mediation at the textual, programming and discursive levels, and then interrogates its ideological implications. It argues that while cultural brokerage seems to generate more ideological openness and polysemy, it also perpetuates an ideological bias by re-semanticizing the state ideology via a neoliberal lens. </jats:p>