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This research aims to measure the impact of cloud computing on economic growth in China by measuring the relationship between China's GDP and cloud computing. Quantitative methods were used to estimate the relationship between the study variables. The research results showed a strong correlation between some of these variables compared to the correlation of each of them with the gross domestic product. The explanatory variables with the highest correlation were chosen. These variables are: Exports of technological goods and information, the number of workforce in software services, the size of the cloud computing market, the number of Internet users, revenues (income) from software, exports of information and communication technology services, where the values of the simple correlation coefficients between the gross domestic product and each of the variables reached the values of The simple correlation coefficients between GDP and each of the variables are about 0.95, 0.91, 0.80, 0.99, 0.96, and 0.97, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the case of the Henan health code scandal and Chinese netizens' response to it to illustrate the local politics in the age of automated decision-making systems in China. It examines how a local stability maintenance endeavour has become a sign of the misuse and abuse of power and technology by an authoritarian Party-state and its ruling elites to safeguard their own interests and power. The performative disciplining of local culprits by the central government demonstrates not only the tension between local and central authorities but also the pitfalls of big-data-driven digital governance and social control systems when such systems are arbitrary and lack provision for human rights protection. Chinese netizens' response to the scandal demonstrates the possibilities and limits of networked communicative mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how Chinese netizens view Russia and how contested memories shape perceptions. It identifies and categorizes four different perceptions of Russia, held by pro-Russian groups, pro-Soviet groups, anti-Russian nationalists, and liberals on China's social media, who have divergent interpretations of the past. This study contributes a distinct case to the literature on Chinese collective memory and facilitates an understanding of Sino-Russian relations at the social level. Theoretically, it enriches the interdisciplinary dialogue between memory studies and International Relations by highlighting the complexity of historical narratives and the instability between the past and the present. It finds that when a collective memory involves multiple significant but symbolically and ideologically competing historical events, it can become a divisive force that creates confusion in the self-other relationship and motivates different social groups to resist and revise official narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the world, governments are contemplating taking steps to reverse or mitigate the negative health and developmental effects that come from the increasing amount of time children are spending online and using screens. In 2023, the People's Republic of China (PRC) released a draft regulation restricting minors' screen time and internet use, which imposes a significant burden not only on children, but also on technology and internet companies that wish to continue operating in the country. However, the PRC's proposed minor mode regulation is neither an extreme departure from the types of restrictions neighboring countries in East Asia have imposed on children's screen time and internet use, nor its own previous regulations in this area. As such, the proposed regulation is unlikely to have violated a norm of customary international law against restricting children's internet use. Similarly, although international instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantee a universal right of expression, which arguably includes an implied right to the internet, the proposed Chinese regulation is not likely to be deemed violative of either of these instruments because of ambiguities within them as to how states are meant to weigh children's rights against their protection. This conclusion is bolstered by the competing provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child about protecting children's fundamental rights while also ensuring their health and wellbeing. As such, the PRC's Draft Minor Mode Guidelines are likely to pass without facing significant legal challenges domestically or internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of agenda-setting has faced considerable challenges in the digital age. Not only are the existing conceptualizations inadequate regarding the new features of online media outlets, but traditional analysis has also become insufficient to address the nuances of agenda-setting in the dynamic online media environment. In this study, we refined assumptions of reverse and intermedia agenda-setting theory, introduced the news events and hourly intervals approach, and considered economic news events in China as an appropriate theme. Our analysis showed that the few popular media played a gatekeeping role in the Chinese online media environment, and the average time interval in which agendas transferred across media and netizens was about 4 h. This study, thereby, advanced the understanding of agenda-setting dynamics in the digital society and showed directions for future agenda-setting research in terms of establishing more up-to-date conceptual assumptions and employing more nuanced methodological approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There had been an information epidemic during the COVID-19, which led to a lot of adverse network behavior among Internet users. From the perspective of cognition and emotion, this study focused on exploring the influence mechanism of pessimism on undergraduates' adverse network behavior, and introduced the mediating variable of negative affect and risk perception. In this study, a cross-sectional questionnaire was used to evaluate pessimism, negative affect, risk perception and adverse network behavior of undergraduates to explore the characteristics of network behaviors of undergraduates during the COVID-19. 600 undergraduates from three universities in a city in China were selected as participants, among whom 312 students are female and 288 students are male. The results are as follows: (1) Pessimism is positively correlated with adverse network behavior, and pessimism has a significant positive effect on adverse network behavior. (2) Pessimism is positively correlated with negative affect, and negative affect is positively correlated with adverse network behavior. The mediating effect analysis shows that the mediating effect of negative affect on the relationship between pessimistic personality and adverse network behavior has statistical significance. (3) Pessimism is positively correlated with risk perception and risk perception is positively correlated with adverse network behavior. The mediating effect analysis shows that the mediating effect of risk perception on the relationship between pessimistic personality and adverse network behavior has statistical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization and development of online health service platforms have flourished in recent years. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those online health service start-ups surprisingly do not survive for a long time. For this reason, it is significant to investigate why some online medical service platforms have sustained, whereas others have not. Specifically, in this study we investigate the patient's journey of undergoing the optimal service configuration of online health service platforms. With the single service level, we propose a frequency – rarity framework to analyze the importance of individual services, whereas at the multiple service level, we adopt the rule of service chain continuity to analyze the service configuration strategy. Further, a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis based on the 14 most influential online health service platforms in China confirms the proposed research hypotheses. We employ a special dataset (i.e. telecom system logs of 2,000 randomly selected 4 G Internet users) to assess and investigate the performance of the online health service platforms. The obtained results suggest the configurations that lead to high customer retention may require the presence of at least one of the high-frequency services (i.e. health information or e-consultation), whereas the configurations that lead to a high customer acquisition may require the presence of at least one of the high rarity services (i.e. e-consultation or online pre-registration). The continuity of the service chain has proved to be essential for both high customer retention and high customer acquisition. In addition, the basic services at the beginning of the service chain are deemed to be vital for high customer acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scientific knowledge acquisition is a vital premise for citizens' self-protection against COVID-19, the impact of anti-intellectualism on scientific information seeking has yet to be fully examined. Based on a cross-sectional survey, this study investigated the association of distrust and stigmatization forms of antiintellectualism (i.e. AID vs. AIS) with the Planned Risk Information Seeking Model (PRISM) in predicting Chinese netizens' information seeking about SARS-CoV-2 variants. The statistical results show that AIS is positively associated with seeking-related subjective norms and perceived control, indicating that it may boost a sense of self-empowerment. However, AIS is negatively related to affective risk response and the knowledge-sufficiency threshold, suggesting its possible link to overconfidence and trust in government. AID was found to be negatively associated with seeking-related attitudes and perceived control. Because AIS is far more popular than AID among respondents, its contradictory health implications should be brought into the vision of health communicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mining user data and constructing web user profiles of older adults from the perspective of elderly services is conducive to understanding their behavioral habits, needs, and usage preferences on the web, which provides more targeted elderly care services. In this paper, IGA-SOMK + + , which is a novel clustering method for constructing web user profiles of older adults, is proposed based on the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) survey data, which include 6596 older adults aged greater than 60 years. The selected data aspects include basic information, work situation, health situation, living habits, and web use services. To describe the web user profiles of older adults, a hybrid method based on improved genetic algorithm (IGA) feature selection, self-organizing feature maps (SOM), and K-means + + is proposed. Data on older adults' web use behaviors are first processed, and IGA is used for feature selection based on the adaptive crossover and mutation probabilities. SOM is then used to determine the initial center vectors of K-means + + for further clustering, which is referred to as SOMK + + (SOM-K-means + +). The results of IGA-SOMK + + are compared with those of the state-of-the-art methods, including the K-means, mini batch K-means, Agnes, K-modes, FCM, K-means + + , SOMK + + , and IHPSO-KM. In addition, the significance and robustness of IGA-SOMK + + are analyzed. The experimental results show that the IGA feature selection reduces the influence of the redundant feature factors and improves the performance of the clustering algorithm. SOMK + + overcomes the sensitivity of K-means to initial cluster centers. Moreover, IGA-SOMK + + has the best clustering effect among the compared algorithms in terms of silhouette coefficient (SC), calinski-harabaz (CH) index, and davies-bouldin (DB) metrics. For example, it increases the SC from 0.280 to 0.629. Finally, by analyzing the results, the user group of older adults is segmented to perform the deep mining of CFPS data, which verifies the feasibility of the user profile model. This paper summarizes the basic situation of the current web access of older adults in China in terms of web use services, as well as the importance of the web in their lives and in the information channels. It also provides suggestions for the current problems of older adults in accessing the web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The popularity of Internet usage in rural China is on the rise while improving the nutritional status of Chinese rural residents remains a major issue due to prevalent unbalanced diets and deficiencies in some nutrients. However, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence linking these two aspects. The relationship between Internet usage and dietary quality remains inconclusive in both developed and developing countries. Using data from a survey of 2053 households in rural China, this paper examines the relationship between Internet usage and dietary quality among Chinese rural residents by employing an endogenous switching regression model to address the issue of selection bias. The empirical results reveal that respondents' gender, age, years of education, and household income significantly influenced their decisions to use the Internet, and Internet usage significantly improve dietary quality of their household. The findings of the heterogeneous analysis show that the impact of Internet usage on dietary quality varies based on respondents' dietary knowledge, per capita annual income, and household food expenditure. Through mechanism analysis, we find that Internet usage can improve the dietary quality by increasing the possibility of online food purchasing and fostering a more positive dietary attitude. [EconLit Citations: I12, O15, O33]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, particularly the deployment of generative AI in the creation of short videos, has exposed the anachronistic and incomplete nature of the copyright limitations and exceptions (L&E) within the Copyright Law of China. The US jurisprudential approach, characterized by the four-factor fair use analysis and the doctrine of transformative use, has been embraced in China by courts as 'general legal principles'. These principles have been localized within the restrictive framework of the Berne Convention's three-step test. However, the application of these principles to China's burgeoning AI and AI-generated content industry, exemplified by the short video sector, reveals a complex landscape. The purposes behind the utilization of copyrighted works are multifaceted, and the intense rivalry between 'long' and 'short' videos that represent established and emerging giant Internet platform enterprises further muddies the waters in the application of the American 'purpose transformation' concept. A better alternative would be to seek guidance from the Copyright Law of Japan. By grounding decisions in pre-existing, enumerated copyright exceptions, systematically categorizing L&E scenarios, and delineating key considerations for various categories, the judiciary can be steered towards a more nuanced and equitable resolution of individual cases and strike a balance between the interest of copyright holders, Internet users, and the emerging Internet platform enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study systematically examines, deconstructs, and maps the quotidian nationalist discourse among Chinese netizens and analyzes their 'liking' behavior on the social media platform, Zhihu, in order to investigate what and how they talk about nationalism. The analysis of the quotidian expression of nationalism marks a shift from the previous practice of relying on high-profile nationalist movements as evidence which may create an incomplete or inaccurate impression that much of Chinese nationalism is virulent and over-zealous. This study finds that Zhihu users are critical nationalists who are competitive but judicious. The existence of levelheaded nationalists in China's online space suggests the limits of strident nationalist contagion and nationalist mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roughly one-quarter of the world's people and Internet users live under governments that engage in heavy censorship. A large portion live behind "The Great Firewall" of China, which places strategic importance on Internet control. The Internet can serve counterhegemonic purposes, as numerous groups in civil society use it to connect isolated populations, unite women's movements, and enable human rights and political minority activists. However, China sees Internet censorship as crucial for national security and social stability. Through legal research, translating Chinese sources, and drawing on personal experiences in China, this paper argues that Chinese domestic censorship poses an international threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether the widespread adoption of digital technologies in cities has increased attractiveness. Based on China's smart-city construction (SCC), a pilot program aimed at promoting applications of digital technologies in cities, this paper finds that SCC has led to a higher urban population growth in smart cities in China. Two potential channels are suggested by mechanism analysis: improved ecological environment resulting from digital governance with respect to pollution and green production; essential digital information provided by internet users. Specifically, relying on difference-in-differences analysis, the results reveal that, from 2005 to 2017, SCC in China led to approximately 4.4% higher urban population growth in smart cities relative to non-smart cities. In particular, evidence from migrant survey data suggests that smart cities are more favorable destinations for distant migrants, and migrants with higher educational attainment and income. Our findings highlight the importance of digitalization in urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political ideology and political trust are key factors that affect people's political expression. With the development of the internet, social media is at the forefront of China's mainstream ideological dissemination, and social media users are becoming the dominant force in various online public opinion and political expression venues. This study examines whether Chinese netizens' trust in the government and their political ideology impact the relationship between their social media news consumption and their online political expression. By analyzing data from the 2018 Netizens' Social Consciousness in China Survey (N = 5,415), we found that social media news consumption is positively associated with people's online political expression, and Chinese netizens' trust in government mediates this relationship. Additionally, netizens' political ideology moderates the relationship between social media news consumption and online political expression. This paper explains the effects of social media news consumption on netizens' online expression through their political orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Chinese Internet users' discussions about Jacinda Ardern's maternity leave in the wake of her being elected as the Prime Minister of New Zealand, based on an analysis of postings retrieved from the most popular Chinese community question-answering (CQA) site—Zhihu. Drawing on critical discourse analysis (CDA), with the assistance of content analysis (CA), we reveal that Zhihu users' assessments of Ardern's electoral success are of a gendered divide in which women and men largely constitute the opposing opinion camps. In particular, male Internet users chiefly direct the discussion, attempting to rationalise the unsuitability of female politicians in Western-style democratic elections. In this process, they also legitimise the return of patriarchal orders to China, reflecting a domestic orientation of their engagement with international politics. The research findings shed light on the gender-politics nexus established in Chinese-language social media discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With over one billion Internet users in China, a large amount of public opinion is spreading rapidly in breadth and depth at an unprecedented speed in social networks. The establishment of an accurate public opinion dissemination (POD) model is vital for predicting and maintaining the construction of online civilization. On the basis of the traditional SIR model, a fractional-order differential is combined to solve the problem of "anomalous dissemination" in the process of actual POD. The influence of web hypers on POD in social networks is also discovered, and the S1 super-spreading node is introduced. In this paper, we propose a fractional-order SS1IR POD prediction model. The experimental results show that the model fits real data well and has small errors. Therefore, our model can play an aggressive and significant role for predicting POD in social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Internet has been profoundly changing how people participate in politics and is reshaping their political expressions in authoritarian countries, its exact effects remain ambiguous. This paper studies how Internet access and use influence public trust in local officials in authoritarian China. By using two-period panel survey data and combining difference-in-difference with propensity score matching, we find that, compared to Internet non-users, the Internet new-users show significantly lower political trust in local government officials. Further empirical evidence indicates that its causal mechanism primarily lies in the macro-structure of urban-rural heterogeneity and the micro-process of people's changing cognition and raised expectations. Our results substantially strengthen the argument that the diffusing power of the Internet is weakening the political legitimacy of authoritarian regimes like China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Studies have identified an association between Internet use frequency and users' attitudes toward homosexuality. According to the uses and gratifications perspective, users are diverse in their needs and expectations for using mass media and communication technologies and such diversity might also be involved in their attitudes toward sexual minority people. However, limited research has been conducted to examine this association. This study aimed to develop a typology to illustrate distinct patterns of Internet use patterns and to examine the variation in attitudes towards homosexuality as a function of Internet use patterns. Methods: By using a subsample (n = 1021) aged 18–37 years from the Chinese General Social Survey collected in 2017, we performed latent class analysis to identify distinct subgroups of online activity engagement. Multiple ordered logistic regression was used to explore the relationships between the profiles of Internet use and attitudes toward homosexuality. Results: The latent class analysis yielded a typology which classified the Internet users into active participators, pragmatic users, entertainment users, and idle users. Controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, and confounding factors as well as weekly hours spent on the Internet, the multivariate analyses indicated that idle users were less likely to accept homosexuality than active participators and pragmatic users were. Conclusions: This study suggests that Internet users' attitudes toward homosexuality is associated with not only their frequency of Internet use but also their patterns of engagement in online activities. These findings add to the knowledge about the drivers of societal attitudes toward homosexuality and can inform policies to promote inclusion and diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, a top-down rectification movement called 'Clean Up' impinged on Chinese idol fandom culture. This movement triggered discussions about the transforming governance strategy over fandom and broader Chinese Internet users. This article explores the complexity and shift of governance on Chinese idol fans by examining the digital fandom fundraising platform Taoba. Drawing from the walkthrough analysis of xiufen (fans of idol competition shows), we investigate three key stakeholders: platform, state, and xiufen fandom, to reflect on wider Internet governance issues in China. We argue that Chinese idol fans like xiufen are subject to a governance structure where power relations between different players are highly complex and entangled. The state-corporate-society co-opting mode of governance has evolved toward what we termed 'coercive co-opting', in which digital platforms and users conform with the imaginaries and ideologies of the state, while the authorities still intervene in an intimidating and suppressive manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strain has been well studied in traditional bullying, and recent research has begun to explore it in cyberbullying behavior. Drawing from General Strain Theory, the current study empirically examined the relationship between strain and the cyberbullying behavior of perpetrators and bullyvictims, respectively. Meanwhile, this study also considered the influences of the protective variables (e.g., constraints and morality) on the strain, which may potentially reduce the risks of participating in cyberbullying. The sample comprised 928 Chinese internet users (Male = 490, Female = 438) aged between 16 to 50. We identified the prevalence of cyberbullying in China, in which the percentages of cyberbullying perpetrators, cyberbullying victims, and cyber bully–victims were 23.40, 23.20, and 37.40%, respectively. This study mentioned a noteworthy phenomenon: cyberbullying victims quickly became cyberbullying perpetrators when they were cyberbullied. Secondly, according to the binary logistic regression, we hold that the strain was significantly related to cyberbullying behaviors, as individuals with low levels of self-control showed a higher tendency to participate in cyberbullying. As for protective factors, the results showed that constraints and morality can reduce the negative consequences of strain and then against cyberbullying, exploring the possibilities of using constraints and morality as variables to decrease strain and prevent cyberbullying. Thus, the unique values of this study are using the GST theory to investigate the empirical link between strain and cyberbullying between different roles in a new cultural and social background, demonstrating that negative emotion and low self-control had influences on strain and cyberbullying behaviors. Meanwhile, this study also contributes by discussing the implications for future research and practicing efforts targeting how to decrease the risks of cyberbullying engagement, for example, we suggest that the prevention and intervention of cyberbullying should adopt a cross-sectoral response to help individuals to view cyberbullying, vent dissatisfaction and relieve strain in the right way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the impact of firm-generated content on firm-related user-generated content. Researches have proven that firm-related user-generated content impacts firm revenue. Therefore, it is necessary to determine what factors stimulate the creation of firm-related user-generated content. Creating user-generated videos related to companies (e.g. E-sports) on Chinese online video platforms often includes the use of firm-generated videos as material. It may suggest that firm-generated content may play an essential role in influencing Internet users to create firm-related user-generated content. We collected a unique dataset using a Python web crawler and used the LSDV model for empirical analysis, including 2977 firm-generated videos and 49860 user-generated videos, to explore the impact of firm-generated video attributes on user-generated videos. The results show that some attributes of firm-generated video have a significant impact on user-generated video. The number of comments and coins on firm-generated videos positively affects user-generated videos, while the number of favorite on firm-generated videos negatively affects user-generated videos. We also found that the difference in how users feel about firm-generated videos affects the likelihood of users creating their original videos. User engagement and user brand identity in FGV positively impact stimulating user-generated videos. The authors suggest that companies can maximize the impact on user-generated content by targeting the creation of firm-generated content based on these video attributes. The authors also suggest that firms further investigate theories related to motivational factors, such as the impact of consumer engagement, brand identity, and perceived usefulness on user-generated content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article focuses on the carnival aspects of Chinese Internet culture, but it goes further by suggesting that the productiveness of the online carnival leads to the politics of naming in China's specific context. This article illustrates the questions of how Chinese Internet users name themselves diaosi ("losers") to separate and distance themselves from the governing power, how they identify the Zhao ("elites") to form an internal antagonistic frontier in the "us vs. them" context, and how the diaosi are "floating" and appropriated as xiaofenhong ("little pinkos") to identify the external enemy rather than the rulers inside. This kind of online carnival is not merely a cultural issue, but is also a political and governing theme that has its roots and routes in contemporary China's governing rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problematic Internet use is increasingly prevalent among college students and is associated with psychosocial impairments. Cognitive-behavioral intervention has been widely used in addressing addictive behaviors, and is shown to be a promising approach for problematic Internet use. This study presented a brief cognitive-behavioral group intervention developed to reduce problematic Internet use through modifying maladaptive cognitions and coping and enhancing self-regulation. This pilot study assessed the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effect of this adapted intervention with six Chinese college students who had problems with Internet use via smartphones. Important issues including conceptualization of the treatment model, feasibility and acceptability of the intervention protocol, and promising therapeutic benefits were reported and discussed. Findings on the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary outcome of this intervention may be informative to investigators planning similar studies. This study provides useful guidance to clinicians concerning cognitive-behavioral group intervention to address problematic Internet use among university students in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the audience of state-media broadcasts (SMBs) among Chinese Internet users—a missing link for understanding political communications in the high-choice media environment of modern countries. Using a "least likely case" strategy and a nationwide online survey, we created an audience profile of contemporary viewers among Chinese Internet users of Xinwen Lianbo (XWLB), the primary SMB program in China. We further examined the motivations driving viewers to watch the program, finding that external factors, such as media inequality, historical inertia, and family bundling, do not greatly alter people's watching behaviors. Instead, internal motivations, such as the pursuit of authentic information and psychological gratification, significantly increase the frequency with which viewers watch XWLB. These effects remain robust even after controlling for potential model biases and political desirability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes a popular meme that has spread rapidly among Chinese internet users in the last few years, 'garlic chives' (jiucai), as a self-mockery of the bio-economic subject in contemporary China. This metaphor refers to those ordinary Chinese people who are constantly lured to participate in all kinds of economic activities, but whose investments are destined to be consumed by the establishment. Through a close study of this popular meme and the social conditions from which it arises, this article demonstrates two main features of the Chinese economic subject that supports the state's economic sovereignty: the thriving of self-sufficient and rule-abiding individuals, and the quality of these individuals as hard working and capable of producing wealth on their own. This article offers a critique of PRC's post-socialist governmentality, and it provides insights about the relation between the biological and the political in our complicated world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the correlation between media effects and political trust, as well as the moderating factor in the equation. Specifically, the authors measured political trust within two categories: institutional trust and system trust. Analyses were based on two waves of surveys conducted among Internet users (2014: N = 2,970; 2017: N = 2,379) in China. Results indicated that (1) exposure to official media was positively correlated with political trust, whereas exposure to individual media and overseas media were negatively correlated with political trust, and exposure to commercial media was a nonsignificant factor; (2) correlation was higher for institutional trust than system trust; and (3) political values were a significant moderating factor. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant literature has studied the relationship between identity disclosure and online consumer reviews, yet no research has investigated the effects of the introduction of an "anonymous review" option on consumers' online reviews. With a unique restaurant review data set from a most popular online review platform in China, we exploit a natural experiment setup in which the platform launched a new function of "anonymous review" that allows reviewers' choosing not to disclose their own information while posting reviews. We ground in the theories of deindividuation and social presence, and the notion of negativity bias to investigate the effects of anonymity on consumers' online review provision in terms of their rating behavior and emotional expressions in review texts. The results show that the anonymity function implementation induces a decrease in overall ratings and a decrease (increase) in positive (negative) emotions on average. Furthermore, using the reviews after the policy change, we find that, compared to non‐anonymous reviews, anonymous ones are usually with lower ratings and more (less) negative (positive) emotions, which can further induce subsequent reviewers' negative reviews. Our findings underscore the doubled‐sides of an "anonymous review" function the public policy makers, platform and restaurant managers need to balance in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of field philosophy challenges a common self-understanding in Western philosophy. One question regarding this challenge is the extent to which it might be relevant to a philosophical and cultural tradition other than that in which it originated. The birth of gene-edited babies in late 2018 in Shenzhen and subsequent response within China offer an occasion for considering such a question. A narrative review, emphasizing how discussions in China itself have unfolded, rather than the course of international discussions of this real-world problem, suggests a need to qualify the applicability of field philosophy beyond American and European contexts. Many English language reports fail to note the broad involvement from government agencies, scientific institutions, professional organizations, news media, and netizens (both academics and the public). What we called field philosophical journalism can help identify limitations in some non-Chinese perspectives and complement if not directly contribute to field philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, companies depend on the Internet for posting job advertisements and attracting qualified personnel. However, with the vast number of Internet users and the tremendous amount of information on the Internet, it is difficult to accurately evaluate the credibility of the information that candidates provide on the Internet. Therefore, we propose an approach to assess information credibility in terms of trustworthiness and authority to identify unreliable user profiles in online professional social networks. Our approach calculates the trustworthiness probabilities of user profile information using the Tree Augmented Naïve Bayes (TAN) classifier. It also measures the authority of individual users by applying the PageRank algorithm for analyzing the user interactions in the professional social networks. Finally, a group of LinkedIn users' profiles is selected for conducting experiments to validate the proposed approach. Experiments based on a real-world scenario show that our approach integrating the TAN Bayes and PageRank algorithm outperforms other existing approaches in classification accuracy. In addition, the approach has been applied to another social network, namely, Maimai in China to further demonstrate its usefulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with the traditional fresh product retail model, the fresh food e-commerce model breaks the barriers of product production, sales and distribution, and realizes the integrated development of linkage. However, due to the many intermediate links in procurement, high cold chain logistics costs, and poor inventory management efficiency, the operating efficiency of China's fresh food e-commerce has always been at a low level. In the context of the internet, this article constructs three new business models for fresh food e-commerce, including pre-sales models, vertical logistics models, and value proposition models. Authority support policies should be strengthened and expenditure in agricultural research should be increased. At the very same time, the rate of domestic online sales is steadily growing, primarily due to the continued rise of online web users. A good client base for fresh food suppliers has been laid by fast broadband penetration rates. It also proposes the implementation path of the new business model to reduce the transportation costs of enterprises as much as possible, expand the online market share of fresh products, and enhance the competitive advantage of fresh food e-commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baidu search engine is the most common one adopted by Chinese Internet users, and Baidu index provides a platform to capture the behaviors of massive users on Baidu, which is one important statistical tool to mine the Internet users' behaviors and characteristics in China. Here, we utilize the Baidu index data on greenhouse gas from January 1, 2011 to November 29, 2019, to perform the related statistical analyses at first. Then, on the basis of Baidu index time series data, the corresponding network is constructed by use of the visibility graph method. Finally, the topology of the generated network is analyzed from different perspectives. Our results indicate that people's attention to greenhouse gases obeys the power-law distribution, and we can identify the significant nodes and find some outliers in time series data by use of the topological properties of networks. Taking together, the current model offers a novel means to represent and depict the time series data of Baidu index through the complex network analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Chinese college students' social cyberloafing out of class has a curvilinear effect on academic performance and whether students' levels of psychological detachment and relaxation mediate the effect. Design/methodology/approach: A field survey was used to collect 502 self-reported responses from student Internet users at a large university located in central China. Findings: The results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between social cyberloafing out of class and academic performance. Two types of effort recovery experience gained from social cyberloafing, psychological detachment and relaxation, mediate that effect. Students' social cyberloafing out of class is positively associated with psychological detachment and relaxation, which in turn, have opposite effects on academic performance. Practical implications: This study offers novel insights into the effects of social cyberloafing on college students' academic achievement. The findings illustrate how social cyberloafing can serve as a recovery experience and improve academic performance, but it can hinder performance if the cyberloafing is excessive. Originality/value: This study extends the cyberloafing literature by focusing on Chinese college students' cyberloafing out of class. The study finds that a moderate amount of social cyberloafing out of class can result in psychological detachment, relaxation and improved performance when returning to academic work. However, both too much or too little social cyberloafing can result in difficulty returning to academic work and reduced academic performance. The findings are novel to the cyberloafing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Suicide is a global health concern, exacerbated by stigma around mental illnesses. Online platforms like Twitter and Sina Weibo have seen a rise in "online broadcast suicide," where individuals share suicidal thoughts and actions. However, there is limited understanding of the epidemiological characteristics, particularly in China. This study aims to analyze the demographics and behaviors of individuals engaging in online broadcast suicide in China to inform targeted prevention strategies., Methods: A total of 525 incidents were identified through systematic retrieval of relevant news reports from online sources. Subsequently, a content analysis was performed on these reports to extract detailed information on the characteristics of each individual incident., Results: Among the incidents analyzed, the male-to-female ratio was 1:1.6, with an average age of 23.1 ± 5.9 years. Approximately 71.9% took place in Southern China. Unemployment was reported in 15.0% of incidents. Relationship breakup (62.3%) was cited as the leading cause of suicide. Wrist cutting (58.2%) emerged as the predominant suicide method, and home (36.2%) was the most common location for these tragic events. Instant messaging apps were the primary platforms (54.7%) for conveying suicidal thoughts and actions. Additionally, among the 525 incidents examined, 12.0% disclosed having a mental disorder, and 7.6% had a history of prior suicide attempts. Significant variations were observed across age, gender, region, and occupation categories., Conclusion: This study emphasizes the importance of developing suicide prevention programs for internet users. Besides, interventions should be customized to meet the specific needs of various populations., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Li, Xiao, Chen and Zhu.)

Existing empirical research has rarely examined the influence of Internet use on civic participation through the lens of consumer behavior. In this study, we propose a consumer empowerment model to explore the relationship between Internet use and civic participation mediated by consumer behavior variables including online shopping and consumer complaints. Using survey data (N = 1,000) of Internet users in China, we found a positive association among Internet use, civic participation, and consumer behavior to play a crucial role in this process: Internet use catalyzes online shopping, which leads to more consumer complaints, creating a spillover effect for civic engagement. The Internet will not turn China into a liberal democracy, but our findings suggest it may energize elements of civic culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misinformation about food safety has become a serious problem in Mainland China. This study explores the cognitive, affective, and environmental factors affecting the acquisition and diffusion of food safety misinformation. Based on a national sample of Chinese Internet users, we found that: (1) social media are the major source of misinformation about food safety, while exposure to online news reduces levels of misinformation; (2) Internet self-efficacy reduces levels of misinformation, but it also facilitates information diffusion; (3) individuals who possess more misinformation disseminate food safety (mis)information more frequently online; (4) negative emotions mediate levels of misinformation and the diffusion of information; and (5) levels of distrust moderate the mediating effect of negative emotion, where misinformation only triggers negative emotions among people with high trust in food safety. An emotion-driven cognitive dissonance model of misinformation diffusion is proposed accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current debate on populism is mostly Euro-American centric. Less attention is paid to how the rise of populist ideas echo and reverberate in other regions of the world. This paper examines how the core concepts to populism, namely 'the people', 'the elite' and 'the other', is constructed and contested in China. I show how the netizens contextualise the rise of populist right in America in relation to China, and how they construct a narrative of 'must learn lessons' for China out of the American experience, with identifiable populist elements. I argue that although non-establishment populist leaders or parties are unlikely to emerge under the one Party rule, the grassroot political narratives in China harbour significant latent populist tendencies, and the potential for populist rupture is real. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heightened securitisation of Islamic terrorism has received significant attention in Western countries, but little is known about the extent to which netizens in centralised political systems such as China have responded to this threat. This article seeks to address this gap by examining the localisation of the globalised fear of terrorism in China. It analyses online posts about international terrorism that appeared on Sina Weibo in China between 2011 and 2016, and shows how the opinions about terrorism expressed in the Chinese digital media sphere are strongly polarised. We argue that in China's online sphere the localisation of the "war on terror" frame generates two key polarised public responses – "negotiated acceptance" and "negative re-utilisation" – and that this polarisation of opinions about terrorism stems, in part, from China's stability-oriented approach to managing terrorism. These findings point to both an acceptance of and a resistance to the securitisation of terrorism and the globalised fear that it (re)produces. Moreover, the findings offer insights into the extent to which local security concerns and beliefs in the Chinese political system can create a divergence between the local perspectives on terrorism and the Western experiences and practices of security labelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Internet has had a profound influence on China's economy and society, the empirical research pertaining to political consequences of the Internet is highly sparse. This paper investigates the potential relationship between Internet use and trust in government of Chinese netizens. We find robust evidence of a significant positive effect of Internet use on trust in government of netizens in China. The beneficial impact of Internet use on trust in government is found to be heterogeneous across genders and age groups. We also find that the source of information plays a role in explaining Chinese netizens' attitudes towards their governments. In addition, we find that the key mechanisms through which Internet use affects trust in government are the changes in netizens' appraisal of government performance, deference to government authority and internal efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary China owns over 750 million Internet users, and a short-video-sharing app named Kwai has over 600 million users. From 2016 to 2017, when Kwai emerged as the largest short-video-sharing app and the fourth largest social media app in China, its major competitor Dou Yin was just released, and no other similar app could post a serious threat to Kwai. However, the emergence of Kwai to the mainstream public was tightly intertwined with a media discourse that established Kwai as a representation of rural China and low culture. Words like "vulgar," "low," "absurd," and so forth were constantly used to describe Kwai and its users, and Kwai embodied a representativeness of rural and low culture that carries a taken-for-granted characteristic. This article unpacks Kwai's controversial emergence and examines the power relations and cultural dynamics that were at play when Kwai was established by the mainstream media discourse a rural and culturally low. It interrogates the media discourse that constructs a regime of representation of Kwai, as well as how it contributes to the establishment of a regime of truth about Kwai, rural China, and rural Chinese. I unearth the seemingly natural condition of this representativeness and argue that Kwai's controversial emergence from 2016 to 2017 signifies China's rural–urban dichotomy, as well as a dominance of urban culture. I also indicate that we see a flow of this cultural dynamic from the physical world to the cyberspace, where the urban culture exercises the power to define and marginalize the rural. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the extent to which undergraduate and graduate students in China differ in their digital library use. Unlike the factors promoting digital library use, non-use factors, perceived influences, and degree of satisfaction are quite different between undergraduate and graduate students due to their differing emphases and expectations for information. The implications for digital library services are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asians comprise more than half of the world's online population, and China has long surpassed the U.S. as the biggest Internet market in the world. Through a series of in-depth interviews with senior managers at five prominent Asian news organisations – Lianhe Zaobao (Singapore), China Times (Taiwan), United Daily News (Taiwan), Phoenix TV (Hong Kong), and Chosun Ilbo (Korea), this comparative case study explores how these organisations engage Internet users in mainland China via their Chinese-language Web sites. The findings reveal how leading Asian news brands approach transnational news management through different operating models. Of particular interest are their content, marketing, and revenue strategies, political, economic, and cultural barriers to entry, and the extent Chinese Internet users constitute a strategic focus. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explain a new media ecology for online television in which the online audience or fans and their participation play a stronger role in swaying the online video content or production. I call it fandomization of online television. Dependent on the number of online users and the viewership, online television platforms have to produce programs that align with the fans' discourse and emotions to maximize their viewership. This results in a fan-discourse-led production, as in the case of China's huge online video or television market. Based on my study of the top online television production company, Tencent Video, and its top television program, as well as ethnographic observations of their productions, I illustrate how Tencent Video manages fans by establishing a fan-based platform that works in tandem with its television platform. The dual television and fan-based platform of the television industry forms an interlocking web of the network of fans, their idols, and social media, with the consequences that social and political public discourse are highly synchronized in China's extremely controlled Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Propaganda is integral to authoritarian rule. Yet, questions remain regarding what propaganda content is effective at influencing which opinions and to whom. Using an original online survey experiment conducted in China, this study finds that although propaganda is ineffective with average Internet users, it persuades highly informed participants when reality validates its messages. The propaganda treatments enhance opinions on government performance in several issue areas, including anticorruption and the economy, for participants who are politically informed. Propaganda thus sways opinions when real-world changes lend support, which necessitates a certain level of acquired information. These results suggest the limits of propaganda while specifying conditions for its effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues concerning cyber asset in cyberspace have intrigued the legislators, the judicial practitioners, the netizens, and even the onlookers in real world; simultaneously, academia is discussing the disputes aroused by this intangible object. However, various studies in the past refined the discussions in domains of law but the refinement fails to clarify the cyber-asset issues and to resolve the disputes. Therefore, a better understanding of what "cyber asset" is can be achieved by exploring cyber asset in the judicial discourses from a socio-semiotic perspective. In this study, judicial discourses are tantamount to the semiotic resource. Then, incorporating in a generic model of judicial discourses, we examine (1) how cyber asset as a sign has been framed by agents of the judicial institution of the People's Republic of China; (2) how the judicial institution justified their framing; and (3) whether any temporal change in the semiotic system of cyber asset took place. Furthermore, by applying the five questions introduced by Van Leeuwen, we examine why the quandaries of cyber asset are aroused. In conclusion, we propose that the cyber-asset disputes can hardly be resolved unless joint efforts are made by the legislature and the judiciary of the People's Republic of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]