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This paper investigates ‘newspaper reading groups’ (dubaozu) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1951–1955, and how these groups reflected the daily practice, possibilities, and limits of a particular news culture in China under high socialism. As local newspaper reading group leaders translated national and provincial news into locally intelligible form, they were encouraged to combat boredom among audiences by choosing sensational news stories and transmitting this news in an entertaining fashion, adding music, song, and storytelling methods to embellish the ‘dead’ text of the newspaper at hand. By researching the particular methods of the newspaper reading group, this paper revisits the role of emotion in creating political meaning among audiences in what has been deemed one of the most propaganda-oriented societies of the twentieth century, encouraging a reassessment of how propaganda systems function not only in Chinese contexts but also among low-literacy communities the world over.

‘Making the Paper Come Alive’: Entertainment, Emotion, and Newspaper Reading Groups in the People’s Republic of China (1951–1955)