Articles

  Issue Vol. 7, No. 1 / January 2011

Another Aspect of the Chinese Model of Development: An Interpretation of the “Hangzhou Model”
Author(s): Weidong Luo
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[China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 1-4]
Comparing Media Relations in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States: A Metaresearch Analysis
Author(s): Ming-Yi Wu
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This paper compares media relations in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. There are several significant findings. First, the media-public relations practitioner relationship is more informal and closer in Asia than it is in the U.S. Second, media ethics, such as gift giving and informal gatherings, are different in these Asian cultures and in the U.S. Finally, the U.S. journalists and public relations practitioners have more positive attitudes toward on-line types of source-reporter relations than Asian journalists and practitioners do. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed based on the findings of this comparative analysis. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 5-15]
Performing New Australians: Identity (Re)construction of Long-term Greek and Cypriot Immigrants in Australia
Author(s): Ferdinand J. Brockhall, Shuang Liu
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This study investigated how long-term settlers perform the diaspora “Self” as they reconstruct their identities in the new “home” country. Unlike most acculturation studies that have employed quantitative methods as primary research methodology, this study collected rich data by conducting in-depth interviews with 28 respondents who were mainly first-generation Greek and Cypriot immigrants who arrived in Australia during the post-World War II era. Clustered matrix techniques were used to analyse the interview transcripts. Findings indicated that the perceived diaspora “Self” was redefined by daily practices of immigrants, resulting in the former ethnic “I” becoming a new Australian “me”. This study argues that immigrants’ identity is an open-ended process that is always in the process of becoming. Not only new arrivals but also long-term settlers need to continuously reconstruct their identities as they try to live up to the expectations and changes of their host country.[China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 16-24]
A Study on the Communicative Effectiveness of Graphic Warning Labels on Tobacco Packages in Taiwan
Author(s): Chien-Tu Lai and Pei-Fen Li
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This study examines the issue from the perspective of advertising communication research and evaluates the visibility and persuasiveness of the six current tobacco warning labels in Taiwan. The study adopts an eye-tracking technique to analyze smokers’ reading mode of tobacco warning labels, their fixation distribution and fixation time. The results of eye-tracking experiments indicated that female smokers are more likely to accept social appeal and pay more attention to pictures related to them. Adult males and females tend to notice texts related to social appeal; among these, females are more likely to notice the text on the upper part of the picture. Out of the six warning labels currently in use, only “tobacco use may induce impotence” label caught the attention of adolescent subjects. Moreover, smokers who have the intention to quit or smoke fewer than 10 cigarettes per day are more likely to be influenced by the warning labels. Therefore, it is suggestive that more educational guidance should be enforced. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 25-38]
NGeneral Reflections on Virtual Communities Research
Author(s): Charalambos Tsekeris, Konstantinos Koskinas
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Virtual communities are collaborative virtual environments where individuals and groups can mutually and rapidly share information, knowledge, wisdom or interests in a surprisingly realistic manner. These online communities are productively being brought right to the very heart of the emerging ICTs-and-Society field, as well as of numerous free-flowing theoretical and methodological debates, because of their great potential as sites for transdisciplinary scientific research. They can inspire and serve as valuable gold mines for the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, resulting in fruitful modes of description, interpretation and dynamic explanation for various complex (or chaotic) processes and phenomena. This could potentially lead to a synergetical place of further unifying (transdisciplinary) dialogue among different or opposing approaches, perspectives, worldviews, traditions and schools of thought, where the scientific outcomes and profits could not be fully predicted and easily estimated. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 39-47]
The Effect of Sex and Age on Media Selection: Interaction Effect and Moderating Role of Education
Author(s): Majid A. Dehkordi, Seiichiro Yonekura, and Hamidreza Yazdani
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This study aims to investigate media preference between managers of Small and Medium tourism Enterprises (SMEs) and explore the age and sex interaction effect to assess communication media in these firms. Critical Social Theory (CST) was used to develop the hypotheses that the interaction between sex and age will affect media preferences in the firm and education plays a role of moderator in this relation. Tehran tourism context was surveyed using a mail questionnaire and it was found that this interaction just affects media that are low in richness. This study should help managers, especially nascent entrepreneurs, in implementation of the communication side of their SMEs. Further academic research can benefit beyond the limitations of this study. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 48-56]
Inspiring American and Global Audiences: The Rhetorical Power of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture in the Digital Age
Author(s): Mei Zhang
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Randy Pausch, Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S., delivered his last lecture “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” in September, 2007 after doctors told him that he had only months to live. The speech became an instant success and inspired millions around the world, thanks to media coverage and Internet technologies. He died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 47 in July, 2008. Informed by Kenneth Burke’s concepts of identification and pentad, this paper studies the rhetorical power of Pausch’s speech as he addressed American and global audiences and emphasized transcendent values by constructing an ideal world with unlimited opportunities for all. A Burkeian analysis reveals that Pausch’s speech featured the agent-act ratio and focused on human efforts to achieve professional success and pursue personal happiness by following childhood dreams and overcoming life’s obstacles. Pausch’s rhetoric challenges us to reflect on new conceptions of oratory and audience in the digital age and their implications for intercultural communication. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 57-64]
Analysis of an Anti-Domestic Violence Internet Forum in China: Mutual Help, Open Communication, and Social Activism
Author(s): Matthew M. Chew
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While the internet is rightly considered as a major facilitator of social change in China, studies of the social potentials of the Chinese internet tend to focus excessively on its anti-authoritarian and democratic capacities. This narrow focus has led some observers to dismiss the entire argument that the Chinese internet is useful for facilitating social change. If we take into account social transformative capacities aside from anti-authoritarianism, a much wider range of social potentials of the Chinese internet will be revealed and the Chinese internet can be more adequately understood. The objective of this study is to contribute to such an investigative re-orientation through examining the case of an anti-domestic violence internet forum. This study will identify, document, and analyze three socially beneficial and progressive functions that the anti-domestic violence internet forum is performing. They include i) providing practical mutual help, emotional support, and information for victims of domestic violence, ii) facilitating weak tie relationships among victims and open communication among abusers and victims, and iii) creating a platform for social critique, advocacy, campaigning, and mobilization against domestic violence. Data of this study were collected from discourses in the internet forum, chats with several frequent contributors to the forum, brief interviews with forum administrator, and news and reports on the forum. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 65-73]
Overseas Coverage and Local Reactions: A Case Study of Media Coverage, Translation, and Conflict
Author(s): Jun Tang
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In a cross-cultural context where marginal voices in a non-dominant language can be easily ignored, media discourse targeted at international audiences can be a powerful tool to influence global public opinion. Though the significance of balanced treatment of different sources and perspectives in the domestic media of a particular country has drawn academic attention, the social impacts and ethical issues of global media coverage of local affairs in a cross-boundary context have not yet been given due consideration. This article examines excerpts of Tibet-related media coverage in the first half of 2008 from Western news outlets, whose controversial content or conflict-generating discourse had been made known to Chinese citizens by different sources of information. Information on the subsequent reactions of Chinese nationals as well as the Chinese perspective on the controversial notion of historical Tibet has also been provided in order to give a better understanding of the conflicting ideologies. In doing so, the author intends to contribute to research on the cross-cultural dimension and ethical implications of media coverage of conflict and the role of translation in the dissemination and reception of external media coverage of internal affairs in a cross-boundary context. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 74-83]
A Comparative Review of Three Current Books on China
Author(s): Shengyong Zhang and Michael H. Prosser
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In reviewing Martin Jacques’ 2009 book, When China Rules the World; Robert Lawrence Kuhn’s 2010 book, How China’s Leaders Think, and R. Edward Grumbine’s 2010 book, Where the Dragon Meets the Angry River, Zhang Shengyong and Michael H. Prosser attempt to picture the image of China and the outcome of China’s rising from the western scholars’ eyes. Comparisons and contrasts are summarized through reading the books, reflecting on Jacques and Kuhn’s favorable predictions for the future of China, while Grumbine hopes for the dream of a harmonious society through sustainable environmental policies, but worries about the role of Chinese governmental development power over the role of conservation, especially in Yunnan Province. Jacques argues that Asian and especially Chinese modernity will develop uniquely with Asian and Chinese characteristics, and Kuhn offers support for the Chinese present and future leadership in their efforts to think and act in terms of reform. All three authors develop the theme of China as the continuing Middle Kingdom, and address issues relating to Confucianism as foundational, historical and the current perspective on a harmonious society, and the use of power to create China’s future. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 84-92]
An Interview with Robert N. St. Clair On Culture, Language and Communication
Author(s): Meng-yu Li
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Dr. Mengyu Li came to the Department of Communication, University of Louisville as a visiting scholar in September, 2008, working under the supervision of Dr. Robert St.Clair for four and a half months. The interview was conducted by email during her stay. The interview covers Dr. Robert St.Clair’s major academic achievements, his unique interpretations of culture, language and communication from a sociology perspective as well as his views on globalization, visual communication and intercultural communication. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 93-96]
American Journalism and Academia
Author(s): Josh Friedman
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***Editor's note: This speech was delivered by Josh Friedman, Professor at Columbia University and Pulitzer Prize Winner, to Journalism Students in Zhejiang University on November 7, 2010. Some notes in Italics to indicate student reaction. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 97-100]
Representing Chineseness in Globalized Cultural Production: Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine
Author(s): Chih-Yun Chiang
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In this essay, I analyze the Chinese Fifth Generation film director, Chen Kaige’s, film Farewell My Concubine by employing Stuart Hall’s notion of culture, globalization and representation of identity, and Homi Bhabha’s notion of cultural translation. In particular, I seek to examine the ways in which a non-Western cultural artist, such as Chen, not only negotiates a space not totally controlled by the dictates of Western commodity culture, but, reclaims some form of space for margins struggling to come into representation. By winning identification and recognition within a predominately globalized Western idiom, I argue that Farewell constitutes a transnational national cinema with Chen performing a work of “cultural translation.” He successfully transformed “Chineseness” into a complex but marketable cross-cultural commodity. I further contend that Farewell is Chen Kaige’s self-reflective life project, translating his personal memories into larger historical narratives, and foreshadowing the film’s epic span of fifty-three years marked by crucial political events. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 101-111]
Media Imperialism and Its Revisionist Approach Revisited: Toward a Synthesized Analytical Framework of Television Globalization in China
Author(s): Hong Zhang
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This paper aims to establish an analytical framework for Chinese television globalization. It critically examines the media imperialism school of thought and the revisionist approach to which it gave rise, arguing that both these dominant approaches have placed great emphasis on the consequences of media globalization, but have offered an impoverished account of the interplays of power dynamics that make such impact possible in the first place. Accordingly, they cannot provide a systematic account of the historical process of media globalization and the role of the nation-state. Based on this critique, the paper incorporates global transformation theories and proposes a three-tier analytical framework for assessing China’s television globalization. The three tiers are: (1) the transformation of television governance by the party-state; (2) the impact of party-state policies on Chinese television and (3) the interplays of party-state policies with other political, technological, economic and cultural power factors. [China Media Research. 2011; 7(1): 112-124]
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