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Authors: Judy Polumbaum (2014) - Research access to mainland China, once severely circumscribed, has expanded tremendously during the post-Mao reform period, with important implications for the study of Chinese mass communication. Fieldwork possibilities mean that scholars are privy to a great deal more of the media circuit – not only to voluminous content that can be systematically sampled, but also to structures, contexts, practices, processes, places, and people involved in production and reception. Drawing on experiences in the field, this article discusses challenges and rewards of studying Chinese journalism from within.
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Authors: Yeon-Ok Lee; Han Woo Park (2014) - Some argue that the label ‘Web 2.0’ is problematic, as it constitutes a dominant discourse by which professional elites define ‘what is associated with the Web today as common sense’ and ‘what enters the public discourse about the impact of the Internet on society’ (Scholz, 2008; see also Allen, 2013). Despite the controversy over the term, nevertheless, what can be safely said is that with the rise of whatever is labelled as Web 2.0 platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the likes, and their permeation into people’s everyday lives in recent years, social media1 have become an indispensable milieu for political interactions.
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Authors: Drew McDaniel (2014) - Even though the mass communication field has been affected by the growth of online media – and many scholars have been in the thrall of the trend – it is helpful to be reminded that the old media have not vanished, but continue to exert powerful influence in
most parts of the world. Two recent works, Regaining the Initiative for Public Service Media, by Lowe and Steemers and Small among Giants: Television Broadcasting in
Smaller Countries by Lowe and Nissen, take up the current state of traditional media.
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Authors: Hye Eun Lee (2014) - This book addresses core issues, current approaches, and possible future directions regarding the varied intersections between new media and culture by integrating different perspectives from information management, anthropology, philosophy, media and cultural studies, global and international studies, and communication. The editors of this book, Cheong, Martin, and Macfadyen, present 18 articles to highlight the importance of culture in the design, implementation and use of information, and communication technologies; the roles of new media in modifying and creating cultural contexts and systems; and the effects of mediated intercultural communication on individual’s identity, interpersonal communication, group interactions, online and offline relationships.
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Authors: Francis L.F. Lee; Frank C.S. Liu (2014) - This study examines whether and how political party support shapes inter-personal political discussion. Drawing upon existing research, party support is hypothesized to lead to more frequent political discussion and lower levels of disagreement within discussion networks. Party support is also hypothesized to moderate the relationship between news consumption and discussion frequency and the relationship between discussion frequency and disagreement. The analysis further explores if the impact of party support varies according to the parties being supported. The hypotheses and research question were examined using data from representative surveys conducted in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The findings illustrate the importance of political party support in structuring citizens’ interpersona...
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Authors: Na Yeon Lee (2014) - This study examines how an adoption of a spin-off publication, which is a subsidiary of a parent company, might be associated with changes in the frames of health news.
A content analysis of two Korean newspapers showed that reporters at the spin-off relied more on health news sources from potential advertisers, such as pharmaceutical companies and doctors who work at private clinics and hospitals, and that the frames emphasized medical treatments rather than the promotion of healthy lifestyles, which was the focus of frames before the spin-off. These findings suggest that news associated with spin-offs may be framed to emphasize services offered by potential advertisers. Because framing and sources impact readers’ perceptions of medical problems and their choices about what action...
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Authors: Pamela K. Morris (2014) - This research expands scholarship on cross-cultural investigations by examining ideas of beauty through the lens of outdoor advertisements. Using a content analysis method, 293 images of women in outdoor advertisements from six different cultures, including Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, South Korea, and Turkey, were reviewed through a framework of advertising and consumer culture, globalization, and theories of beauty. The findings revealed that differences across cultures exist and that beauty ideals are culture dependent.
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Authors: Hongzhong Zhang; Shuhua Zhou; Bin Shen (2014) - The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive investigation on perceived media credibility in China. In order to assess people’s attitudes toward six media formats (television [TV], newspapers, radio, magazines, websites, and mobile devices), a series of surveys were conducted with a random sample of 5807 residents in 10 cities in China. Findings indicated that Chinese respondents perceived TV to be the most credible among all media and that TV was rated as more credible than newspapers. In addition, two official mouthpieces, China Central Television and the People’s Daily, were both perceived to be highly credible. But readership in general was a nonfactor in terms of credibility. These findings challenged conventional thinking on media credibility. Implications and direc...
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Authors: Jeongsub Lim (2014) - This study examines the assumption that news websites apply their specific institutional rules to incorporating the platforms of social media into news content.
This study proposes the operation of three rules: functional platforms, functional individuality, and functional prominence. As functional platforms, Singapore’s and South Korea’s news websites embed Facebook and Twitter into news content, whereas China’s news website provides local-based social media into the content. In terms of functional individuality, the news websites focus on such individual activities as reply and connect. For functional prominence, the news websites locate the entry point of social media predominantly at the middle of the screen. However, these specific rules vary with the nationality of each news ...
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Authors: Nicolai Volland (2014) - When hundreds of thousands of young Red Guards assembled on Tiananmen Square at the height of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), they shouted ‘We want to see Chairman Mao!’ (Women yao jian Mao zhuxi!). Their rhythmic chanting, Perry Link observes, closely follows an age-old seven-syllable pattern (qiyan) found in much of Chinese classical poetry, as well as in nursery rhymes, ditties, and other popular art forms.
Mao answered the calls of his youthful followers, asking them to ‘destroy the four old, and establish the four news’ (po si jiu, li si xin), using a similar rhythmic pattern. Neither seemed to sense the irony in taking recourse to the very traditions that the Cultural Revolution was supposed to destroy.
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