Chinese Youth Patriotic Education in the CCP Propaganda State: Case Study of China’s CCTV “The First Lesson” Program

The Chinese Communist government has over the past decades continuously promoted ideological work by improving its systems and accumulating working experiences from actual practices. It has effectively targeted patriotism education among young people as the core of its ideological work, entrusting them with the important mission of nurturing successors to communism in the new era. Against this backdrop, this paper explores how the CCP government, facing the development of globalization and an information society, promotes significant political achievements, responds to major emergencies, links history with contemporary events, and implements moral governance in the program “First Lesson of the School Year,” (開學第一課) jointly produced and broadcasted by the Ministry of Education and China Central Television, to constantly deepen patriotic education among young people. This paper also discusses the adjustments and changing trends in the CCP regime’s propaganda strategies for furthering the spirit of patriotism, particularly in response to internal and external environmental changes, and delves into the adaptations with Chinese characteristics.