Search

Since China implemented animation control policies in 2004, foreign animation programmes have almost disappeared from Chinese television. At the same time, the Chinese government has invested enormous amounts of money in developing the animation industry as a creative industry. A questionnaire survey was conducted to explore how the Chinese audience views domestic and foreign animation programmes. The results indicate that pirated Japanese animation is widely viewed via the Internet by adolescents; on the other hand, domestic animation is popular only among children. Preferences for domestic animation correlate positively with age and patriotism but negatively with Internet use, while preferences for Japanese animation correlate negatively with age and patriotism but positively with Internet use. These results show that nationalistic sentiments are associated with preferences for either domestic or foreign animation programmes. However, preferences for Japanese animation are not significantly associated with anti-government attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Typologies are widely used in the field of intercultural communication to explain cultural differences. Especially the typology ‘individualism versus collectivism’ (I/C) is a central theoretical construct in cross-cultural comparison. But are such typologies really suited for explaining cultural phenomena? Is their explanatory power limited because the theoretical underpinnings are based on a Western mindset? And is using typologies as scientific models appropriate to explain intercultural incidents and uncover cultural patterns from a non-Western view as well? Do such typologies meet the demands of a modern view on the field of intercultural communication? This article casts a critical light on the appropriateness and applicability of typologies. The aim is twofold. The first part examines the limitations of typologies from an East Asian standpoint, bringing out the hidden cultural mindset on which this bipolar construct is built. The second part presents a model meant to contribute to a more profound debate between East Asian and Western views on intercultural communication. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article uses cosmopolitanism as a theoretical basis for the investigation and analysis of the global corporate and state media's normative roles in human rights and democracy. Through the case studies of CNN and Xinhua's reportage of the Tibetan protests in 2008, the article observes patterns of ideological coalescence between western capitalist hegemony and the big western media conglomerates such as CNN. It argues that, as a good global corporate citizen, CNN undoubtedly made contributions in exposing human rights abuses in Tibet, but also unwittingly worked to advance the interests of a manipulative and unjust neoliberal international order that uses human rights as a political tool. This is demonstrated not only through CNN's selective articulation of human rights, but also the worrying coincidence between its ideological construction of the Tibet story and the rebuke of China's human rights record by the western governments and other western institutions. While Xinhua provided an alternative discourse to that of human rights, it was observed that whereas nationalism arguably protects China's revolutionary legacy and its modernization project, the discourse was also largely authoritarian and acted in contradiction to some of the constitutionally entrenched civil and political liberties of minorities while also raising cynicism about the Chinese government's commitment to international human rights laws that it ratified and acceded to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates latent and manifest dimensions of nationalism and their theoretical and empirical relationships with patterns of media use in the everyday life context of metropolitan China. Data from a face-to-face survey conducted with a random sample of 600 Shanghai residents show that the mass media's appeal to the public perception of nationalism acts effectively and differentially on both event-triggered and banal everyday forms of nationalism. It is also found that attention to news has a direct effect on manifest nationalism, but a largely indirect effect on latent nationalism through specific knowledge, mental complexity, patterns of information processing and interpersonal communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of this article are three-fold. First, it attempts to examine key features of a culturalist discourse reflecting a Confucian vision of a new world order that is being incorporated into China's foreign policy. Second, it analyses and assesses Chinese pragmatic nationalism that underpins an accommodationist foreign policy, contextualized within the ruling Communist Party's comprehensive revamping of itself on a new culturalist basis, in particular with the Hu-Wen leadership in the early years of the 21st century. Third, it examines the role of the press in disseminating the culturalist discourse and assesses its implications. The article concludes that the impact of the Confucian pacifist discourse on external perceptions of China is still limited, due to structural problems existing between China and the West, complexities and inherent tensions within Chinese nationalism and China's internal dynamics of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]