4. Lead the cultural atmosphere construction with local cultural brands. Cultural atmosphere needs the nutrition from local culture and only a cultural atmosphere that reflects the local features can be labeled as an influential one. We need to push for the construction of media platforms with international influence, lead the city’s radio broadcasting, film, TV and other main-stream media to strengthen their understanding of missions and social responsibilities, optimize channel resources, deepen the reform of separating the production and broadcasting of cultural programs, increase supply of cultural contents to satisfy the needs of common citizens, continue to implement the clean-screen program, improve program quality and strengthen their modeling effects, and form a trend in this city’s cultural atmosphere, with active participation of main players, a strong leading role for real practice, and good supports from public opinions. We need to strengthen our supervision and management of the new media and lead them to adjust their structures, development patterns, operation capacity, stick to brand building and orderly development, following the needs of the city in its construction of the cultural atmosphere. We need to strengthen the strategic guidance and management of the mobile TV in terms of its deployment and contents as well as the management and services of radio broadcasting and TV services at district and county levels. We need to improve the methods to check the radio broadcasting and TV programs with more high technologies, so that we can efficiently check the contents and quality of our programs through listening, watching and testing. We can implement the Shanghai TV and film production development strategy for the private sector, strengthen the integration of resources for production in the private sector in Shanghai, organize relevant training, intensify supervision and evaluation, give more policy support, so that the production of TV and film programs in the private sector of Shanghai can receive inner power to make necessary the break-through and realize explosive development.

IV. Explore More Ways to Strengthen Cultural Atmosphere with Supportive Mechanism

1. Top design. Currently, Shanghai has numerous projects, large and small, that are related to culture, a huge number activities, platforms and carriers that are directly or indirectly related to culture, and also many institutions and authorities at different levels that have cultural functions or managerial power. We should start with the strategic goal to build a good cultural atmosphere for Shanghai and explore the way to set up such a platform that follows the world trend, equipped with the characteristics of our times, country and city, strong in management, coordination and vitality, and with balanced responsibilities and authorization, unified responsibilities and power, as well as capabilities to coordinate all relevant parties. In order to do so, we suggest that a work mechanism, led by the municipal CPC committee, government and the Publicity Department, centrally coordinated and managed by the Municipal Culture, Radio Broadcasting, Film and TV Administration and participated in by all parties related should be set up, so that a careful analysis and study can be conducted to understand the challenges, opportunities and tasks for the creation of the city’s cultural atmosphere, based on which a unified strategy, a visionary planning, a clear description of targets and responsibilities and necessary follow-up measures can be developed for the creation of Shanghai’s cultural atmosphere. We will focus on several categories, such as city metros, management of street performers, outdoor big screen setting, art markets, theatres, big shopping malls, film and TV, trading of artistic products and media, plan our works on three levels: on-site atmosphere and experience at the micro-level, reflection of effects of government policies at the middle level, and the revelation of the city’s cultural nature and spirit at the macro-level, and develop the three-year work plan to create a good cultural atmosphere in Shanghai. We should establish a statistical system that can analyze relevant index in building the cultural atmosphere, implement the plan to build a good cultural atmosphere in Shanghai and set up a corresponding joint conference mechanism to facilitate the process. We need to strengthen the guidance of the whole society, especially with more attention to the level of counties and villages, in building the cultural atmosphere, so that a hospitable environment could be formed, with full mobilization of the whole city, dynamic interaction between the city and its subordinate districts and active participation of the entire society.

2. Policy support. Under a framework of national cultural policies, we should start our work based on the local features, study and set up a supportive policy system for the construction of the cultural atmosphere. We should also pay attention to maintaining good communication with the central government, try hard to win their support with favorable national policies, and manage to welcome more national level good cultural products and brands to find their homes in Shanghai. We need to implement, improve and innovate the development policies for Shanghai’s cultural industry, promote the cultural industry as one of the pillars to support Shanghai’s overall development on the big platform set up by the Municipal Culture, Radio Broadcasting, Film and TV Administration, guide different cultural creativity parks to develop with differentiated scales and form the “Shanghai model” for the entire cultural industry in Shanghai. According to the Administrative Permission Law, we will further release the review and approval rights on cultural projects in a controlled manner, lower permission thresholds whenever possible and appropriate, and open more channels and areas for private and international capital according to pre-set plans. We will strengthen cultural legislation, push for the introduction and implementation of local regulations on cultural activity centers at the community level and laws on cultural relics protection at an earlier stage, encourage studies on legislation for street performances, conduct studies on various cultural entities, especially the civil performance groups, civil film producers, new media, painting institutions and auctioning industry, and develop supportive measures for these entities accordingly, continue to implement discounted ticketing prices in the market, increase the variety and expand the scope of discounts, and make real efforts to encourage and realize cultural performances with favorable prices for the public. We need to change, improve and develop laws and regulations on cultural development, including those on the public cultural services for new Shanghainese and disadvantaged social groups, and conduct research and set up effective incentive measures to cultural activities and products by the society and local enterprises. We also need to pay more attention to develop relevant supportive policies for the development of cultural services and push for the development of intermediary agents that can provide these services in a planned and orderly manner.

3. Guarantee of supportive funds. The creation of Shanghai’s cultural atmosphere now faces a bottleneck that the funds invested in culture cannot match with the city’s economic development or the needs of the city for its cultural development. Currently, Shanghai’s financial and fiscal policies lag behind surrounding provinces and cities in terms of flexibility. We should take the strategic viewpoint that cultural atmosphere contributes to a city’s soft power, competitive advantages, as well as international image, with the guidance and support from relevant municipal authorities, study to set up a supportive mechanism for cultural investments that goes along with Shanghai’s enormous cultural volume, influential status and huge investment requests, and stick to the principle that cultural and economic investments should be considered in parallel and receive balanced attention, arrangements and supportive policies. Based on the integrated platform for cultural development set up by the Municipal Culture, Radio Broadcasting, Film and TV Administration, we can further strengthen the cooperation between cultural and commercial communities, introduce various cooperative patterns, such as the 10-billion Credit Granting program to ensure that the financing needs of the key cultural sectors in Shanghai, such as film, are sufficiently met in a timely manner. We can strengthen our guidance on the social funds, private and foreign capitals to invest in culture. We need to stick to the principle of ensuring supportive functions, matching responsibilities with authorization and unifying responsibilities with power, so that we can reasonably plan, coordinate and manage well various kinds of funds from the Shanghai municipal government for cultural development and make the best use of them. We can also explore all kinds of innovative ways to use cultural funds well and create a benign environment that the entire society pays attention, participates and invests in the creation of cultural atmosphere for Shanghai.

4. Comprehensive evaluation. We need to set up a check and evaluation platform that can go along well with the inner rules of cultural atmosphere construction. We will recruit experts and invite common people to participate in the check and supervision of relevant parties for their implementation of the city’s “12th five-year” cultural development plan and the construction of Shanghai’s cultural atmosphere, push certain governmental branches to conduct examination and evaluation of social and cultural entities for their work in terms of the socialist core values, conduct supervision and checks of various cultural atmosphere builders, such as radio broadcasting, TV and film producers, for their work in building the cultural atmosphere for the city, conduct supervision and checks of libraries, cultural centers, art galleries, museums, community activity centers for their contributions to cultural atmosphere construction, push for the evaluation and checks on key areas, spots and main players across the city for their work in building the cultural atmosphere and function well as carriers. According to different categories, levels and classes, we should conduct content supervision and statistical studies of relevant data in cultural places, belts, corridors, circles, streets along the coastlines and river banks for items like sculptures, advertisements and signs, push to conduct evolution and checks of the results of socialist advanced cultural elements, such as city spirits, core values of the city and civilized behaviors of qualified citizens, entering residential areas, schools, hospitals, tourist attractions and various enterprises and social entities, and use the check results as one of the criteria in evaluating these units for winners as advanced counties and villages, civilized enterprises and honorary social entities. The key point is that we must keep cultural checks advancing in parallel with our checks on other factors, such as economic growth. We need to form the long-term incentive mechanism through a series of checks and evaluation, push for the construction of Shanghai’s municipal cultural atmosphere, and realize the ideal target of going along well with Shanghai’s overall development strategy that can expand the influence of such an atmosphere and realize further development for Shanghai.

To summarize, the creation of a good cultural atmosphere is a crucial strategic choice for Shanghai in the new age and a natural historical request of Shanghai culture if it wants to step out of Shanghai, expand its influence in China and win its place in the global market. The Municipal Culture, Radio Broadcasting, Film and TV Administration will stick to its mission to spread culture, push for a more coordinated development for Shanghai’s cultural industry on a new starting spot. We will make real efforts to allow the domestic and international cultural programs to develop in parallel, the traditional and modern cultural elements to prosper together, an orderly development with the mainstream contents leading other forms of cultural expressions, development of both elegant and common cultural products through competition, and joint development of indoor and outdoor cultural activities. Thus, we can build Shanghai a strong and healthy cultural atmosphere that ranks the first in China, famous in Asia and influential in the world.

（Hu Jinjun，director of Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film &TV）

（Translated by Xi Ruijia）