China clamps down on pop culture in bid to 'control' youth

From reality TV to online gaming and even pop fandom, China's leadership has launched a crackdown on youth culture in what experts say is a bid to ramp up "ideological control".

In a series of sweeping measures, Beijing has moved to check what it considers the excesses of modern entertainment, and urged social media platforms to promote patriotic content.

Authorities say they are targeting unhealthy values and "abnormal aesthetics", but the moves are a bid to check outside influences and snuff any resistance to the Communist Party, analysts say.

The changes represent a "very concerted effort at ramping up of ideological control," Cara Wallis, a scholar of media studies at Texas A&M University, told AFP.

Colorful and often outlandish entertainment formats have mushroomed in China over the past decade, including boot camp-style talent TV shows inspired by Japanese and Korean pop culture and celebrity gossip.

Along the way, it has also become the largest video games market in the world.

Regulators -- alarmed by what they see as decadence and degenerate morals -- want to rein in the entertainment and gaming industries.

They have made an example out of movie stars that allegedly stepped out of line, banned reality talent shows, and ordered broadcasters to stop featuring "sissy" men and "vulgar influencers".

They have also imposed daily limits on the time children spend on video games.

Authorities are threatened by the allure of entertainment obsessions that "allow an alternative to existing to the (Communist) Party providing spiritual or ideological guidance" for Chinese youth, Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute, told AFP.