A Tale of Two Cities：Creating city images through “Shanghai Police Real Stories” and“Guard the Liberation West”

吳俐伶

（廣州大學，廣東 廣州510006）

Abstract：The exhibition of “Shanghai Police Real Stories 2018” and “Guard the Liberation West” the two programs had fully highlighted the power of media. The two programs actually form contrasting epitome of urban development in China, while manifesting existing problems of this process. They showed the authority of state organs and shapes a more diverse image at the same time. The police station is becoming a combination of community law enforcement hall and public living room. The current relationship between police and other people also returns to the style of “Call the police in case of difficulty”. By different ways of description, the programs created new city images for Shanghai and Changsha.

Key Words：Media power; Urbanization; Police; Community; City images

一、Media Power Influences City and Society

Media has been playing an important role as recorder of city. Thanks to the development of tech,ways of media watch become varied. “Shanghai Police Real Stories” (Shanghai Police for short) “has manifested Shanghai’s city warmth, building a solid bridge for peaceful relationship between police and other people”.“Guard the Liberation West”(Liberation West for short) “popularized relevant security and legal common sense, building responsible, reasonable and humane police image through stories”.

Up to now, "Shanghai Police" has scored 9 points on Douban website, and more than 14000 people have evaluated it. Moreover, it has scored 9.8 points on the broadcasting platform Bilibili. The score of"Lieberation West" on Douban is currently 8.6, with more than 11000 people scoring, and the score on Bilibili is 9.8. Even the police station appeared in the program has become a new "clock in" place for many viewers to travel. They practice the idea and ideal of family and country in the form of individual. Just like a comment on Bilibili said, “Through factual cases, it shows all aspects of grass-roots police work, so that we ordinary people have a deeper understanding of the people's police who guard our security; through their work, we can have a better understanding of this society and how we should choose our own future ”.

The two programs also act as the epitome of China's urban development, forming a sharp contrast between developed and underdeveloped areas, and reflecting the social problems in the process of urbanization in China, such as regional disparity, old city reconstruction, resource shortage, drug control,floating population management, population aging. The images not only concern the ordinary people in daily life, but also the special professional group of police, and the increasingly "marginalized" characters in the rapid development, though these are only mentioned without in-depth discussion. Therefore, the programs showed the important achievements of China's urbanization and drives the audience to participate in the discussion of social governance and public topics.Media has played its due role in the society and shows its power.

二 、City Space: Public living room and community construction

Police station plays a direct role in urban security, so it is well deserved “Community law enforcement hall”. With the change of law enforcement role, police stations also play a more "service" function, becomes a veritable public living room. In the episode 1 of “Shanghai Police”, a man was taken to a police station for urine test on suspicion of taking drugs. In episode 10, the confrontation between two old policemen and drug addicts was fully on camera.The police interrogated of rape suspects in episode 1 of “Liberation West”.

Police station also help solving difficulties for the people. In episode 2 of “Shanghai Police”, two men accepted mediation at the police station because of their marital involvement; In episode 5, the police station has placed homeless people and other people in need of help. In “Liberation West”, people fought,wait for family and even cry in the Pozi Street police station. It thus became like a "public living room".This showed the transformation of executive organs of public power from managers to service providers.

Hsiao-tung Fei pointed out, “The whole urbanization … does not only mean the process of population concentration to cities or industrialization, but also the changing process of people——from farmers to citizens”. The face of Shanghai Community could be frequently seen in“Shanghai Police”. The neighborhood in Futao Road had a dispute over feeding the cat. A woman living alone had a dispute with the residents in the building because of rest time problems. All these cases had shown the fruit of Shanghai’s community construction.It could be seen from the program that many communities had set committees, who is quite responsible for their residents.

In contrast, Changsha presented in "Liberation West" obviously lags behind. Lack of community committees inevitably transfers small problems to police. But in the meanwhile, some areas in Changsha still keep well neighborhood. In episode 4, it was the landlord who found out that the tenant who called the police and found the tenant had died in the house.This kind of warm heart is a great characteristic of Changsha and even the whole Hunan people. Cases such as anti-drug, fight and sexual assault also depict the overall appearance of Changsha. The citizenization of the city is still in development, and has not been able to keep up with the rapid economic development.

三、Citizen and City Images: Modern Magic City V.S Internet Hot Star City

“Call the police in case of difficulty” was once a popular slogan but negative events had worsened the relationship between police and other people. The two programs highlighted the dual identity of both law enforcers and ordinary people, trying to play down the line between the two.

A police in "Shanghai Police" joked that he called his wife "empress", which showed the warm and humorous character of the police under their serious appearance. The young policeman Zong Chen stepped into his career as a police officer for the last wish of his late father. When managing the masses, they are friendly without losing dignity. More police officers with characteristics or universality in some aspects are selected in “Liberation West”, such as the lively and cheerful Yi Dian, Yang Guang and Liu Yisheng, who is warm-hearted. The current relationship between police and common people returns to the “Call the police in case of difficulty” mode after going around,which means the police does not only need to crack down on crimes, but also mediate disputes for the people and help those in trouble. This kind of return is spiral rise after the improvement of urban development level, not going back to the origin.

Although the same choosing police as core, the two programs are different in many ways.“Shanghai Police” is more official on the program’s theme and way of popularizing law. It emphasizes more on macro narrative, fully combines the characteristics of legal programs and documentaries. Shanghai’s "public security patrol network" composed of air patrol, water public security, ground patrol, rail transit patrol,sky eye patrol, anti-fraud center, etc. The program does not only present the image of Shanghai as an international metropolis, but also shapes an image of Modern Magic City. “Liberation West” depicts another kind of Chinese cities. Changsha is called "Star City" with a more youthful flavor in the program and chose one of the most prosperous areas Liberation West Road as the shooting point. Cases in the programs are more about drugs, fighting and so on. All of these create the image of Changsha, which is full of worldliness,human feelings and sense of the times.