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According to the selective exposure hypothesis, media with the arrival of COVID-19, the output of communication and mediafocused peer-review articles have increased frenetically. As a result, this study examines the communication and media aspects, methodological characteristics and guiding theories, the geographic landscape of content, and the dominant publication avenue of peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals (n=576). Findings show that mass communication and social media are the leading media types, while Twitter is the leading platform. The quantitative research method, survey and grounded theory are the leading methodology, research technique and guiding theory, respectively. Countries in the Global North and China dominated the geographic content of this emergent area, while the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships and Health Communication were primary publication outlets. Within communication and media-focused communications research, ‘covid,’ ‘2020,’ ‘media,’ and ‘social’ are the most popular words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To not only celebrate the launch of this double special issue, but also to shine a spotlight on the variety of China as Method epistemological approaches shared by the special issue's editors and authors, the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Hong Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies, the University of Amsterdam's Media Studies Department, and Global Media and China, co-organised a hybrid symposium to generate intellectual exchanges on such a de-westernising mode of knowledge production. While the research articles in this double special issue extensively examine 'distinct' characteristics of China, in this introduction, we reflect on if we are essentialising China. We do not want to apply a universalist logic that exists in theories by and from the Global North to be 'experimented on' in the Global South; yet, we also seek to move away from 'China exceptionalism' and express the stance that China can only be understood in its positionality to other areas (and modes of knowledge production) of the world. Thus, this special issue seeks to further deconstruct China as Method, challenge the existing power imbalance, and pluralise knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary China, sexual minorities (SMs) are still a marginalized community. Prior studies have accorded SMs a great deal of attention, but little research has been conducted on the representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people in Chinese English-language news media. This article uses corpus linguistic tools to examine popular views on SMs in a larger corpus of 354 news articles, filling the gap in research. Based on data collected from four English-language newspapers in mainland China and informed by discursive strategies, the article concludes that Chinese SMs are prominently represented as unhealthy individuals, but also victims and progressionists. The findings also indicate that conservative and liberal perspectives on SMs co-exist in the English-language newspapers. In addition, potential contributing factors to these representations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global surge in Sinophobia. We examine how Chinese language users responded to COVID-19 on Western social media by compiling a unique database (CNTweets) with over 25 million Chinese tweets mentioning any Chinese characters related to China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chinese, and Asians from December 2019 to April 2021. Our analysis of Twitter users' self-reported geographic information shows that most Chinese language users on Twitter originated from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States. We then adopt the Robustly Optimized Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (RoBERTa) and structural topic modeling to further analyze the sentiments, content, and topics of Chinese tweets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results suggest that 61.8% of tweets in our database were contributed by only 1% of Twitter users and 62.2% of tweets were negative toward China. Despite the prevalence of anti-China sentiments, the target entity analysis shows that these negative sentiments were more likely to target the Chinese government and CCP than the Chinese people. Our findings also show that the most popular topics were politics (e.g., Hong Kong protests and Taiwan issues), COVID-19, and the United States (e.g., the US-China relations and domestic issues). Anti-China users focused relatively more on political issues such as democracy and freedom, while pro-China users mentioned cultural and economic topics more. Our social network analysis reveals that these pro-China and anti-China Twitter users lacked in-depth engagement in China-related conversations and were highly segregated from each other. We conclude by discussing our contributions to China and social media studies and possible policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the perspective of media ecology theory, this article will describe what Shenbao evoked sense ratios during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1896) to understand the new media environment in China at that time. The First Sino-Japanese War is a significant turning point in Chinese history. Since the war's defeat, the old international order in the Far East was shattered. The reformists and revolutionists of China began to step onto the historical stage to establish a modern nation. In the late 19th century, Shanghai was the center of modern printing, publishing, and western-style newspapers, promoting a new media environment forming in China. Shenbao, established in Shanghai in 1872, was the most important Chinese-language newspaper at least until about 1905. In this article, Shenbao will be chosen as an example to research the new environment in China during the First Sino-Japanese War. According to Marshall McLuhan, sense ratios are the key point to comprehending the media environment. There are two basic sense ratios patterns: audile-tactile space, which is kinetic, simultaneous, resonant, and non-homogenous nonlinear, and visual space, which is static, sequential, uniform, homogeneous and linear. Moreover, audile-tactile space relates to traditional tribalism, and visual space connects to modern nationalism and individualism. Furthermore, McLuhan highlighted that any artifact could be considered a medium to analyze, whatever hardware or software. As a result, this research reveals that based on the traits of the two basic patterns, a mixed space, including audile-tactile space and visual space, and a new possibility of perceiving and organizing the world was provided by Shenbao through analysis of several representative mediums: language, editing, publishing, fundamental principles, style of writing, punctuation, movable type and printing machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of Sinocentrism has attracted growing scholarly attention in reviews regarding the state of South East Asian Studies in China. However, reports in recent decades have not addressed the 'Sinocentric paradigm' in further depth. It remains unclear how this research appears under this paradigm and what paradigmatic changes are happening in the field. To answer these questions, this article examines research published in relevant Chinese journals between 1980 and 2019 and selects thirty-three representative samples for demonstration. I argue that research into the social and cultural interactions between China and South East Asia shows that South East Asian Studies in China are undergoing a significant paradigm transition. The established Sinocentric paradigm present in discourses of the old conception of 'Chinese colonialism' and the newer one of 'Chinese influence' is increasingly challenged by an emerging de-Sinocentric paradigm. This is particularly visible in the fields of media and communication studies and studies of cross-border ethnicities. The transformation of the landscape of this Chinese scholarship deserves greater attention from academics from both inside and outside China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study conducts a comparative phraseological analysis of media representations associated with the National Security Law for Hong Kong between China's and Anglo-American English-language press. Based on a corpus-driven methodology, four framing functions, i.e., politics and law, protests and crime, action and future, and evaluation are identified to suggest how the legislation is addressed and understood in different press. The findings demonstrate that the Chinese press prefers to solely highlight the law's potential benefits and its favorable results, whereas the Anglo-American press is inclined to construct the law as a weapon deployed by China to threaten Hong Kong's legal system and undermine its democratic autonomy. The study discusses the newly politicalized Hong Kong in different socio-political practices and geopolitical tensions between China and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of knowledge-sharing intentions has been well developed. However, little is known about the intention of sharing entertaining information on social media. In this study, we examine motivational factors affecting music sharing on social media using individualism/collectivism as moderators. Drawing on questionnaire data of participants from China (n = 527) and the U.S. (n = 862), we find that both intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect the music sharing intention in both countries, despite relationship development. Although our hypotheses are not fully proved, we find that the individualism/collectivism framework moderates the variables of social presentation, face risk, and perceived total benefits. Our results indicate that, in China, the individualism/collectivism framework moderates the relationship between perceived total benefits and music sharing intention on social media. While in the US, the individualism/collectivism framework moderates the relationship between the variables, social presentation and face risk, of music sharing intention on social media. The individualism/collectivism framework has no significant influence on the other variables, i.e., perceived enjoyment, social identity, and social presence. Taking the nature of music into consideration, future studies can extend our model to examine more dynamic cultural factors affecting the music sharing intentions on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introductory essay, the editors consider the current challenges in understanding a networked China. We consider how the digital media landscape has changed just since an earlier collection of research in 2015, subtitled 'global dynamics of digital media and civic engagement.' We take up this orienting concept of civic engagement to explore emerging mediated spaces for cultural production through global connectivities. Beyond an area studies contribution, we focus on China more broadly as a complex global assemblage: an intersection of technology, norms, and socio-cultural structures. Our contributors were invited to consider 'what' and 'where' is China, and 'how do we know China?' Along with logistical challenges of fieldwork involving constraints of geopolitics and pandemic, we encouraged an epistemic reflexivity around reliance on certain paradigms, concepts and kinds of data. This research is further complicated by sensitivities around by the very vocabulary often involved, including public, civil society, and civic engagement itself. In the search for digital China, contributors consider how to think about China and how to locate a digital China. In exploring digital production and performance of and in China, we include analyses of fandom, idols, and the curation of collective pandemic memories. Together, this collection provides a rich set of deeply researched cases and imaginative new strategies to understand how the contradictions of digital China – between connectivity and control – are playing out, with important implications for the changing nature of public life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Currency of Truth" by Emily H. C. Chua is a thought-provoking analysis of news creation in contemporary China. Chua challenges conventional perspectives on global media by examining how "newsmakers" perceive their work, rather than focusing solely on the impact of media on citizens. She argues that news functions as a form of currency, mediating agreements and transactions within the news industry. Chua's ethnographic study sheds light on the complex professional and interpersonal mechanisms within the media industry and offers a valuable perspective on the role of news in Chinese society. However, the book could benefit from further analysis of the interaction between media and censorship in China. [Extracted from the article]

In China, healthcare specialists discovered a new and unknown virus around the end of December 2019. Later, it was recognized as Coronavirus; the virus rapidly spread over the globe. Lockdowns, and social isolation were the primary measures taken by every nation's government to control of the virus. In February 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that fast immunization reduces Coronavirus infection rates by 21 percent. After the COVID-19 epidemic, the researchers anticipated that another pandemic, mental health, would spread over the world. In fact, the psychological influence on the general population during and after the COVID-19 outbreak has grown vulnerable. The purpose of this work was to do a sentiment analysis on Twitter data using the Python programming language in order to determine the psychological influence of Twitter users in the post-COVID era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study gives a critical examination of the performances of three top key opinion leaders (KOLs) on social media in China to explore whether gender serves as an important social factor in their interaction with their followers. A critical analysis of their Weibo posts has revealed that they construct different gender identities through their preferential choices of personality traits, speech acts, and addressing terms. This can be explained in terms of their target consumers and the products they promote. It concludes that although gender can serve as an important factor in top KOLs' performances on social media, it can be appropriated and exploited in varied ways to serve different communicative purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yesheng (野生), which literally translates to 'wild growing', is a Chinese internet term to describe social media creators who do not have contracts with multichannel network companies and operate their accounts independently. Drawing from in-depth interviews with eight current and former yesheng female lifestyle bloggers on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小红书), this article examines gendered entrepreneurial labour in relation to the platformisation of Chinese digital networks through the case study. On the one hand, taking gender and class formation into account, I propose that yesheng female lifestyle bloggers showcase a kind of postfeminist entrepreneurialism with Chinese specificities, which is encouraged by the development of Chinese social media platforms and the wanghong economy. On the other hand, yesheng bloggers' entrepreneurial labour is governed, regulated and commercialised by powerful social media platforms. Situated in a broader context of gender politics in contemporary China, this article demonstrates the complexities of gendered entrepreneurialism and the platformisation of labour from the perspective of feminist media studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay takes the example of a poem composed by a ghost in the Tang dynasty—one of many preserved in literary anthologies and treated as actually having been authored by the dead—as an entry point to ask broader questions of ghostly haunting and poetic presence. What the essay demonstrates is how both the ghost and the poem are informed by logics of analog mediation (rather than representation): how the ghost finds purchase in the world only through bodily possession, spatial haunting, material displacement, and psychic transference and how the poem effects the transmission of mind through the channels of linguistic form, meter, and rhyme. Neither the ghost nor the poem exists except in or as its mediations, yet through these mediations, both the ghost and the poem become present and are communicated into the world. While contemporary media theory has identified the intertwined discourses of technology and spiritualism, the focus has almost solely been on the nineteenth century and later, on the age of electric and electronic telecommunications. The medieval ghost poem, as an exemplary case, complicates this account, showing how poetry has long served as a necrotechnology that mediates the dead and returns ghosts to presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of medium- and low-carbon ferromanganese (M-LCFeMn) using the converter method has not been industrialized to date in China due to the high manganese loss and serious erosion of the furnace lining. To solve the above problems and to improve the refining technology of M-LCFeMn, the introduction of CO2 gas into the traditional converter process is proposed. In this study, the oxidation behavior of C and Mn in various conditions was analyzed by blowing different proportions of CO2-O2 mixed gas into the high-carbon ferromanganese (HCFeMn) melt. The results showed that it is feasible to make M-CFeMn by blowing CO2-O2 mixtures, and the Mn loss can be effectively reduced during the decarburization process. It is considered that when the proportion of CO2 reaches 25%, the mixed gas has the best effect on the decarburization and manganese preservation under current experimental situation. Two hypotheses and corresponding rate formulas of decarburization kinetics by using pure oxygen are put forward, and the effect of CO2 on the kinetics of decarburization was studied according to different hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical media studies have long understood the role of the media in not just illuminating disputes between nations but in inflaming them. The media can be used to inform or distort the background and causes of conflict and arouse public opinion. This article surveys the potentially calamitous decline of public perceptions in China and Japan toward the other and asks if the media is a monitor of this decline or a party to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most comparative studies of media are undertaken between different countries. It is normally assumed that there are considerable commonalities between the media in a given country and it is usually argued that these are sufficient to form a 'media system', which can usefully be contrasted with that of another country. It is relatively unusual to find two sets of media within one country that are sufficiently distinct as be considered as different systems. This paper explores one of the exceptions to that general rule: the case of the Hong Kong media as compared with those of mainland China. Given the different historical and current situations of the two locations at the time the research was conducted, it is to be expected that the kinds of journalism practised would be radically dissimilar. The results of a content analysis of five mainland and three Hong Kong papers demonstrate that, at the aggregate level, there are indeed important differences. A more detailed analysis, however, demonstrates that each of the three Hong Kong papers is in fact closer to mainland groupings than they are to each other. One Hong Kong paper, Ta Kung Pao, is closest to the most 'official' grouping of mainland papers, while Ming Pao falls in to a grouping with the 'liberal' mainland paper. The now defunct Apple Daily, on the other hand, has the closest links with the 'popular official' mainland press. Taken together, these findings suggest that the common assumption that different forms of journalism are best compared on a national basis is incorrect and that factors like market position and ideological orientation have an important influence on the kinds of journalism practised across borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces a new section called "Research Trend" in the journal Global Media & China. This section aims to highlight emerging research themes at the intersection of globalization, communication, and the unique context of China. The topics discussed in this section may not be well-established or frequently cited concepts, but they represent new research agendas and experimental approaches to communication studies. The current issue focuses on the concept of "China as Method," which explores the implications of de-westernizing, de-imperializing, and de-colonizing communication theories and methodologies in Asian societies. The article emphasizes the importance of amplifying Asian voices and fostering a dialogue between Chinese scholars and global scholars interested in Chinese media studies. [Extracted from the article]

Social media plays an increasingly important role in travel information seeking and decision-making. However, there is limited understanding of how a group of tourists use social media to plan trips collaboratively and the different practices between countries. In this study, we investigated the collaborative information seeking (CIS) and sharing behaviours of mobile social media users from Australia, Bangladesh and China. Specifically, we surveyed a total of 219 participants to explore the differences in CIS behaviours when people were planning a group trip. The findings suggest significant differences among three countries in terms of the motivations of using social media, CIS activities and social interactions outside the group. Key findings include Bangladeshi and Chinese travellers preferred known contacts on social media, while Australian tourists intended to use both known contacts and user-generated contents for seeking information. The findings also show that social interactions employed by individuals are considered as an important complement of and are interwoven with in-group CIS; both contribute to tourism information seeking. Finally, we propose a framework for CIS research in the tourism domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A theoretical framework that reveals the influence of affordance-based gratifications on different levels of engagement. • Interactivity-based gratifications affect initial and further engagement, but modality-based impact initial engagement. • User engagement on game live streaming platforms can be classified into two levels: the preliminaryand further engagement. • User identification with the streamer is a mediating factor between affordance-based gratifications and engagement. Game live streaming has become a flourishing phenomenon worldwide, yet research has primarily focused on understanding user consumption behavior from a socio-psychological perspective, neglecting the role of technological affordances. This study addresses this gap by proposing a theoretical framework that integrates affordance-based gratifications, user identification, and user engagement. Drawing upon the uses and gratifications theory, social media engagement theory, and social identity theory, we conducted a survey with 565 participants in mainland China. The findings reveal that interactivity-based gratifications significantly influence both preliminary and further levels of engagement, while modality-based gratifications primarily impact preliminary engaging behaviors. Furthermore, user identification acts as a mediating factor in the relationship between affordance-based gratifications and engagement. These results offer valuable empirical evidence for scholars and practitioners to consider technological factors and streamers' roles while examining user engagement on game live streaming platforms. The study suggests enhancing interactivity functions and emphasizing the role of live streamers to foster user engagement. By understanding the importance of technological affordances, this research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of engagement in the game live streaming industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many tunnels with large spans and small spacing have been constructed due to the rapid development and construction of China's expressways. The stratum settlement caused by the construction of these tunnels in shallow sections is large and difficult to control, and ensuring stratum stability is a key issue in the construction of expressway tunnels. According to the research differences in the prediction of stratum settlement under the tunnel construction at present, based on stochastic medium theory, in this study, the prediction formula for stratum settlement in the construction of double-line tunnels was revised and optimized by monitoring the construction of expressway tunnels with large spans and small spacing in shallow sections. The accuracy of the revised formula was verified by comparing it with on-site monitoring data. A numerical calculation method was also used to select effective deformation control measures. Results showed that the revised prediction formula of stratum settlement could roughly predict the position and shape of the settlement tank and reflect the uneven settlement caused by the mutual influence of double-line excavation. The accuracy of stratum settlement prediction was high. Moreover, reasonable grouting could effectively reduce stratum settlement. A reasonable grouting plan should be selected during construction in accordance with the actual situation to avoid material wastage and increased costs caused by excess grouting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On March 22, 2021 the US, UK, Canada and the European Union imposed a coordinated series of sanctions on current and former Chinese officials, increasing pressure on China for alleged abuses in Xinjiang. China replied with its own sanctions on European officials. Indeed, very recently after this event, on June 10, 2021, China passed a new law to "counter foreign actions". It has rejected the allegations of abuse, stating that the camps are "re-education" facilities utilised to combat terrorism. According to Xinhua Net netizens expressed support for local brands after H&M and Nike came under fire in China for refusing to use Xinjiang cotton. In addition to this, 11 topics connected to Xinjiang cotton were on the trending list in China's Twitter-like social media platform Sina Weibo, each issue attracting tens of millions of views and discussions. The study tried to relate this phenomenon to the concept of nationalism by taking literature from nationalism and media/media censorship theories, which mainly serve as a source of legitimacy and instrumental strategy for the state. The study aims to analyse the highest government's management of nationalism and public opinion, during the time it faces international pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The emergence of digital platforms has attracted considerable scholarly attention among media theorists. Yet, much of this scholarship has taken Western platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, Uber, and so on, as exemplars. In this article, we seek to contribute to the project of de-Westernizing and reregionalizing Internet studies through an analysis of Chinese platforms. Seeking to avoid dichotomizing China and the West, we identify similarities and four overlapping areas of difference between U.S. Internet platforms and Chinese platforms that need to be accounted for as part of a project of de-Westernizing platform studies. Understanding such differences, we argue, is crucial given the hegemonic roles platforms now play in a multipolar world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many descriptions of media realities in China and India. Few of them, however, look at these countries from the theoretical classification framework, and those who do often do not pay proper attention to the Western orientation of existing classifications. Denis McQuail's models of dominance and pluralism are not frequently mentioned in global media studies, and this article adds to the scholarly discussion about their use to explain media environments in the countries like India, which uses Western standards of media system, although having a cultural and historical background that is different from the West, and China, which despite implementation of one part of the Western approach, such as commercialization, ignores or rejects the others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-speed railway (HSR) station in a city can make a significant change to the way a city receives and transmits information, thus increasing its "borrowed size." How does an intercity passenger transport system shape the pattern of urban connection? To provide an answer to this question, a study is conducted to investigate the impact of the HSR project rolled out across China, which is known as the world's largest railway network, on intercity media attention as constructed from the information of local media coverage. A staggered difference-in-differences (DID) regression approach is taken to find out that the opening of a new HSR station increases the media attention drawn by a city from other cities by 1.88%, and that the direct link between two cities through HSR improves intercity attention by approximately 0.90%. To further explore the underlying mechanism, heterogeneity analysis is conducted to indicate that HSR has augmented the intercity connection network by reinforcing the cooperation between various cities, and this power has diminished with distance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the effect of foreign media on publics' psychological activeness during a foreign media–spurred national problem: air pollution in China. Building on theories of media diplomacy and public relations, it finds that affinity with foreign media significantly activates Chinese publics to engage communication actions against air pollution, as it relieves publics' constraint recognition. Dependency on foreign media also mediates such an effect. Moreover, the results show that perceived accessibility of foreign media heightens such mediation, such that when access to foreign media is low, the direct activation effect of foreign media vaporizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the first country to have faced an extensive contagion of Covid-19. The response it has given, in terms of prevention and control measures, has been effective in eradicating the virus, even though not completely. Those measures were based on an extensive and widespread use of technologies. The strategies adopted were not the result of improvisation: the social, cultural and technological structures were already in place well before the epidemic took place. In light of the news and the media theory, the present contribution draws upon the anecdotal experience of one of the two authors, who lives in China and has been there during the epidemic. Though the Chinese approach was, indeed successful, we argue that it is doubtful that such a model can be exported to countries with different history, culture and socio-political background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an additional device (i.e., smartphone) while viewing TV is becoming one of the most popular forms of media multitasking, and the motivations of the TV–smartphone multitasking are worthwhile to investigate. Extant studies on gratifications derived from media consumption mainly examined the consumption of a single medium and few studies evaluated gratifications from concurrent media combinations. But the gratifications of media multitasking vary greatly among different forms of multitasking. This study addresses the typology and impacts of gratifications in simultaneous TV–smartphone use through an online national survey in China in 2016 (N = 682), based on the affordance-based framework. The study identifies four kinds of gratifications in TV–smartphone multitasking: emotional, social, habitual, and contextual interaction gratifications. It also finds positive impacts of fear of missing out and social media use on all gratifications. The results finally show that habitual gratifications negatively predict the propensity that the audience select TV as the primary screen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The body of literature on underrepresentation and gender inequality is vast. However, despite its potential to perpetuate gender stereotypes, the overrepresentation of women in media has received inadequate attention. This study explores how traditional news media and social media overrepresent females as drivers when discussing traffic accidents, and whether social media could be the 'new equalizer' for gender. Focusing on China, we collected 97,120 posts from Weibo, China's largest microblogging site, and 11,290 newspaper articles dated between January 2010 and November 2018. We analyzed the data through a mixed-methods design and found that female drivers are overrepresented in discussions of traffic accidents, in both newspapers and on Weibo. While the gender bias against female drivers is more prevalent on Weibo than in newspapers, Weibo has provided a platform for gender-aware discussion. Our study closes by offering suggestions for cross-platform and cross-cultural comparisons of gender representation in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mass Communication Research is the property of Guoli Zhengzhi Daxue Xinwenxue Yanjiusuo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores how the internet changes the way we deal with and plan time in Germany and China. It looks at culture and media theories of temporal change from Germany and China, differentiates these according to micro, meso, and macro levels and integrates them in a micro-meso-macro-model. We consider network, connectivity, acceleration, and mediatization theories, and place particular emphasis on the effects of social media, online journalism, and algorithmic intermediaries. We then inquire in which ways the sub dimensions of the nine-dimensional construct 'temporal understanding' change through internet-mediated communication. Findings suggest a temporal homogenization in both countries laid out as Meta trends: The focus on the 'future' is reduced, 'present' focus increases and the 'past' fluctuates paradoxically between decrease and increase. Moreover, 'fatalism' and the 'pace of life' increase and with it 'interacting experience (polychronicity)' and 'future as trust-based interaction', with the last sub-dimension only increasing in China. 'Instrumental experience (monochronicity)' and the 'future as planned expectation' decrease. These Meta trends encompass inconsistencies and paradoxical notion and move past binary classifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We Media, as an important channel of information dissemination in today's digital world, has attracted many companies and brands to advertise in it. However, due to the low entry requirements and imperfect supervision of We Media, the content in We Media has proliferated fast. Only the interesting and unique content could secure consumers' attention and interest. Not surprisingly, "Storytelling" has become a popular approach for advertisers to use in We Media advertorials to create unique and interesting content that will resonate with the audience. However, little empirical research in extant literature focuses on "storytelling" in We Media advertorials and it remains unknown whether and how "storytelling" could help establish consumers' trust. In the present study, we develop and empirically test a set of theoretical hypotheses on how "storytelling" can affect consumers' trust in We Media advertorials. The four major characteristics of "storytelling" in We Media advertorials studied in this research include relevance, antithesis, concreteness, and positive values of the story. Based on an empirical study in China, we found that the characteristics of relevance, concreteness and positive values of story are positively related to consumer trust in We Media advertorials. We also discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current studies on the media effect fail to reach a consistent conclusion in a global setting. Lacking independence and highly controlled, the media functions differently in China and exerts unexpected influences on capital markets. Focusing on listed companies in China, the author analyzes the media effect on stock returns and further considers market states. Using a comprehensive database on firm-related news stories, stocks with high media coverage are found to possess higher stock returns, Jensen's alphas, and Daniel et al. [1997] adjusted returns over the 2007–2014 sample period. Moreover, the media effect is stronger in bull markets than in bear markets. The result is robust to model settings, alternative definitions of market states, estimation methods, portfolio formation, and sample selection. The study contributes to the literature by advancing the understanding of the Chinese media effect in bull and bear markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate negotiations have increasingly resonated with global governance and world power relations. However, media studies of climate change have paid relatively less attention to media frames of the problem solving. This study addresses this issue by examining the media coverage of COP21 from three countries that have considerable influence on climate politics: the United Kingdom, the United States, and China. By applying an inductive frame analysis, the study identified 10 media frames embedded in the discussions on climate negotiations. A deductive analysis further assessed the prevalence of these frames. The findings suggest that the frames were significantly influenced by the values of the established and emerging powers in the international policy area. The British and American media upheld the underlying norms that have long underpinned the existing Western-led order, while Chinese media coverage manifested a rising power in need of world recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land subsidence in the loess-covered mountainous area is a complex process that contemporary models could not accurately simulate. We assumed that flat-ground mining subsidence was the result of joint action of bedrock mining subsidence under equivalent load of the loess layer and the spread of bedrock surface subsidence to land surface via thick loess layers. Quantitative relationships between equivalent load of the loess layer and equivalent exploitation width, depth, and bedrock subsidence were examined. A double-medium model of flat-ground mining subsidence based on stochastic medium theory was developed to simulate the interactions between loess layers and bedrock. Another model was established to describe the slip deformation associated with loess in hill side mining. The two models were integrated to account for mining subsidence on flat ground and hillside. The integrated model was demonstrated to be robust in land subsidence deformation prediction for loess-covered mountainous area based on field measurements from a mining area in western China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the China-Africa relationship taking shape in both physical and symbolic spaces is reordering the global landscape. While increasing numbers of media studies are focusing on Chinese news media in Africa, what is largely missing from this scholarship is information pertinent to various other Chinese cultural forms; for example, television dramas and movies. In contrast to African viewers' somewhat indifferent reception of news productions by Chinese media, more recent times have seen two Chinese television dramas receive an unexpectedly enthusiastic reception by East African viewers. This cultural phenomenon gives rise to a range of questions, such as the choices of Chinese television dramas, the main factors and the key players involved in the transnational flow. In a bid to address these questions, this article employs various methodologies, including content analysis and interviews structured to stimulate a preliminary discussion. It suggests that at this stage, Chinese television dramas are committed to conveying a favourable image of a social/cultural China to the East African public. However, at the same time, the type of modernity that is attractive for East African viewers and the public in general is contested within China, as well as between China and East Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the institutional role of Chinese financial news in the deepening process of financialization in China. It analyzes the 300 most viewed articles on Sina Finance to examine how the mainstream financial news choose topics, themes, and styles in reporting "Internet finance," a business category initiated by the Chinese state in 2013 to vitalize the finance sector and offset economic slowdown. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses reveals that the major Chinese media outlets aggressively promoted the technological advantages of Internet finance and its profit potential in stock markets while obscuring the risks, uncertainties, and regulatory constraints inherent in it. Drawing on the institutional theory in media studies, this article argues that the mainstream financial news in China functions as a political, economic, and cultural-cognitive institution supporting the informatization and marketization of the finance sector. Such an institutional role is both a corollary and propeller of the increasingly financialized economy and culture in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based upon the case of Momo, a popular Chinese dating/hook-up social media, this article examines an understudied aspect of social media: the kinds of sexual activities a social media tends to encourage, facilitate and mediate, and the sexual ideologies a social media site/application chooses to align with in its advertising and promotional strategies. With a critical conversation with existing scholarships concerning the intersections between feminist/queer theories and media studies, the article considers how sexualities can constitute a useful lens for understanding social media so as to provide a glimpse into the complex interconnections between political, cultural, economic and the ‘private’ realms of sexual experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Motivated by the realistic demand of controlling the Internet public opinion risk caused by the local outbreak of COVID-19, this paper creatively proposes a COVID-19 local outbreak Internet public opinion risk grading research framework. The SMAA-FAHPSort II method combining Analytic Hierarchy Process Sort II (AHPSort II) method with Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA-2) method is introduced into this framework, to evaluate the Internet public opinion risk level of social media during the local outbreak of COVID-19. In addition, this framework is applied to a case of Internet public opinion risk evaluation on Microblog platform of China. According to the number of new cases per day in mainland China, this paper divides the period from May 7, 2020 to September 3, 2021 into seven stages. A total of more than 10,000 Microblog hot topics were collected, after screening and preprocessing, 5422 related topics are remained to help complete the Internet public opinion risk evaluation. The case study analysis results show that the number of days classified as moderate risk and above has reached more than 280. This proves that the local outbreak of COVID-19 will indeed increase the risk of Internet public opinion, and correlation analysis confirms that the level of public opinion risk is positively correlated with the severity of the epidemic in the real world. Furthermore, the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed method are verified by comparative analysis and sensitivity analysis. Finally, some effective public opinion management suggestions have been put forward. This paper can provide reference for the government to formulate or improve relevant strategies, and also has great significance for reducing the risk of Internet public opinion in social media. • An Internet public opinion risk grading framework about COVID-19 is developed. • The SMAA-FAHPSort Ⅱ method is proposed. • The severity of COVID-19 local outbreak will increase Internet public opinion risk. • Some effective management suggestions are put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To reverse the downturn in and develop EU-China relations requires mutual understanding. However, the opaque nature of Chinese politics makes it difficult to track China's expectations and its changing views of the EU and their relationship. This paper examines the official Chinese media discourse on the EU's 'actorness' and partnership with China. This helps to bridge the gap between international relations and media studies by linking government foreign relations to media discourse. It argues that China's relations with the EU should be characterized neither as a case of a 'Capability-Expectations Gap' (Hill, ) nor as an 'Expectation Deficit' (Tsuruoka, ), but should rather be seen as a matter of 'Reflexive Expectations' by China. The media analysis shows that China's changing national identity, interests and perception of the EU's capability at various times and in various situations influence expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is English-language communication scholarship translated into Chinese academia? This article uses the concept of cultural translators to understand the development of media and communication studies in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. After providing a brief history of translation in China and of communication studies in Greater China, the article zooms in on the work of two prominent cultural translators: HE Daokuan (...) at Shenzhen University in mainland China and FENG Chien-san (...) at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Georgette Wang's notion of cultural, conceptual, and structural incommensurabilities is adapted into a comparative framework for analyzing the translators, their motivations, and their modes of work. In addition to in-depth interviews with HE and FENG, the analysis draws from secondary materials and participation in various Chinese communication studies programs. Broader implications of this comparative exercise are discussed for Chinese communication studies and for the globalization of communication scholarship worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abstraction of space in ‘new’ media theory, together with the preoccupation with space in Asian studies, demands a rethinking of the time–space relationship in terms of Asia and digital media. This essay explores how spatiotemporal consciousness is articulated in the locational aesthetics of contemporary Chinese digital media, specifically the thematic interest in examining everyday space; the self-reflexive and experimental aesthetic that locates the media practitioner in the social space; and the creation of the independent artistic space. To accomplish this, this paper scrutinizes the practices of two art/film groups, Big Tail Elephants and u-thèque, in particular a digital documentary projectSanyuanli, for a broader consideration of their narrative experimentations, locational styles, site-specific practices, and negotiations with the spatiotemporality of the so-called Special Economic Zones. Specifically, this paper looks at how the locational aesthetics employed in digital filmmaking confirm and contest spatiotemporal constructions the Special Zones that reinforce the pre-existing urban-rural divide, naturalize the biopolitical management of the migrant workers, and contribute to a new developmental narrative of the state that endorses linear and progressive temporality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Existing analyses of human rights coverage by the media rarely explain why some human rights violations make headlines while others do not. The objective of this study is to examine how human rights in China are covered in three Chinese and US newspapers, and which factors influence the coverage. The Sino-American relationship and human rights discourses in the countries of origin of the newspapers are important factors explaining the selective nature of the newspaper’s reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While there is growing research on online politics in China some political uses of the Internet have tended to be overlooked. The focus of this article is on an emerging phenomenon in Chinese cyberspace, the human flesh search engine (HFSE), a term first used by the Chinese media to refer to the practice of online searching for people or ‘human hunting’. While existing examinations have focused on breaches of individual privacy by these so-called online ‘vigilantes’ this study focuses on the ability of HFSE to reveal norm transgressions by public officials and lead to their removal. In order to give readers a comprehensive overview of what an HFSE is, the first section of this article provides basic information about it. In the second part, 20 well-documented HFSE examples are listed to show their varying aims and then HFSEs which focus on local governments and officials are shown to highlight the political dimensions of HFSE. In the third section, four case studies of government/official-focused HFSE are explored in detail to show political HFSEs' internal processes and underlying mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although China ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [FCTC] in 2005, the partial ban on tobacco advertising does not cover the internet. Weibo is one of the most important social media channels in China, using a format similar to its global counterpart, Twitter. The Weibo homepage is a platform to present products, brands and corporate culture. There is great potential for the tobacco industry to exploit Weibo to promote products. Methods: Seven tobacco industry Weibo accounts that each had more than 5000 fans were selected to examine the content of Weibos established by tobacco companies or their advertising agents. Results: Of the 12073 posts found on the seven accounts, 92.3% (11143) could be classified into six main themes: traditional culture, popular culture, social and business affairs, advertisement, public relations and tobacco culture. Posts under the theme of popular culture accounted for about half of total posts (49%), followed by ‘advertisement’ and ‘tobacco culture’ (both at 12%), ‘traditional culture’ and ‘public relations’ (both at 11%), and finally ‘social and business affairs’ (5%). 33% of posts included the words ‘cigarette’ or ‘smoking’ and 53% of posts included the tobacco brand name, indicating that tobacco companies carefully construct the topic and content of posts. Conclusions: Weibo is an important new online marketing tool for the Chinese tobacco industry. Tobacco industry use of Weibo to promote brands and normalize smoking subverts China's ratification of the WHO FCTC. Policy to control tobacco promotion needs reforming to address this widespread circumvention of China's tobacco advertising ban. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]