Anchoring voices: The news anchor’s voice in China from television to AI

Abstract

This paper takes the recent introduction of AI-powered television news anchors in China as an invitation to explore the technologies and techniques that have long been used in the anchor’s voice production. Analyzing Chinese Broadcasting Science, the first pedagogical standards for broadcasters across mainland China, published in 1993, this paper demonstrates how the perception of the anchor’s voice as something that can be measured, manipulated, and programmed has predated the AI industry. We examine guidelines, diagrams, and figures used to instruct news anchor wannabes on training their physiological voicing “engine,” tracing the continuities between this model of television anchoring and AI-generated news anchors. We propose technovocality as a conceptual framework for considering the various social, political, and ethical questions arising from the intersections between voices and media, past and present and Western and non-Western cultural contexts.