Excellence in Online/Digital Journalism - Data
Victoria Jin; Other contributors: Lance Chen; Regina Li; Chris Wong; Wilson Tsang; Alex Zhang, “What Do 355 Chinese and Foreign War Films Tell Us?” 歪脑|WHYNOT
ABOUT THE WORK: The author writes: “The WHYNOT team watched 355 movies that were released between 2010 and 2022 that focused on modern warfare since the 20th century. WHYNOT collected, consolidated, and analyzed various film data grounded in film research and literature in order to find out why Chinese war films have always faced an inconspicuous and unbreakable ‘glass ceiling’ in international film. How are they different from globally acclaimed war films and why do they struggle to impress international audiences? China’s official explanation that ‘international audiences can't bear to see China becoming stronger’ is not supported by the evidence. Instead, we found that since 2018, renderings of the main melody ideology have grown more and more violent, and have gone hand in hand with the rise in nationalism in China.
This is the very first comprehensive content analysis data report proofing a long standing observation: the Chinese government uses films as a propaganda tool to beautify wars, whitewash brutalities, and rewrite history. In a politically complex world today, the Chinese audiences could be influenced and aroused by the sensation towards starting and winning a war, instead of promoting peace.”
Alex Zhang is the founding director of 歪脑|WHYNOT, a Mandarin digital news magazine tailored for young generation of Mandarin speakers. Since its launch in 2020 with the vision of creating “in-depth, visual, and uncensored” content, 歪脑|WHYNOT has provided valuable alternative perspectives and opinions to its readers and audiences around the world. Previously, Alex led Radio Free Asia Mandarin Service’s video team and won numerous awards including Edward R. Murrow for Excellence in video.
Regina Li is a designer working on creating visually-driven features and engaging storytelling projects.
Judges’ comments: “This story discussed geopolitics through the lens of film and data in a novel way. The reporter clearly had to do a ton of data gathering, wrangling, and analysis before he even started on the presentation. The visualizations were clean and compelling. Well done!”
Honorable mention: Janice Kai Chen, Daniel Wolfe, Emily Eng and Kevin Uhrmacher, “State affirmative action bans helped White, Asian students, hurt others,” The Washington Post
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