"The Digital Silk Road is the component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative that aims to establish China as the global technological superpower. While the Belt and Road Initiative is generally understood to be a foreign policy initiative, it is important to view the Digital Silk Road as both a for
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eign and domestically focused aspect of the initiative. The first step to analyzing this component of the Belt and Road Initiative is to create a conceptual roadmap to understand the components of the Digital Silk Road. This paper argues that it comprises four interrelated, technologically focused initiatives. First, China is investing abroad in digital infrastructure, including next generation cellular networks, fiberoptic cables and data centers. Second, it contains a domestic focus on developing advanced technologies that will be essential to global economic and military power. These advanced technologies include satellite navigation systems, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Third, because China recognizes the importance of economic interdependence to international influence, the Digital Silk Road promotes e-commerce through digital free trade zones. Last, digital diplomacy and governance, including through multilateral institutions, are key to China creating its ideal international digital environment.
After outlining a broad conceptual map of the Digital Silk Road, this paper focuses on how China’s investment in digital infrastructure and the strategic technological competition between China and the United States will shape the international orders in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. It argues that China perceives technological advancement as the sphere in which it can most adequately challenge the United States’ global power without creating direct confrontation, including possible military confrontation. Second, the United States seeks to constrain the Digital Silk Road and China’s technological ascendancy by presenting Chinese technology corporations as posing an unacceptable risk to international security. Third, China does not want to replace the current international order that has persisted since the end of the Second World War. Rather, it would like to maintain the liberal economic order that has permitted its economic rise and export its form of digital authoritarianism to create an illiberal political international order. Finally, through investing in data centers and pursuing data localization policies, China aims to achieve strategic geopolitical objectives by projecting sharp power abroad, which will be facilitated by big data." (Executive Summary)
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"In the age of multiple screens, online streaming has in the 2010s become the most significant way of consuming overseas television programs in Mainland China. Due to rather strict government policy and censorship, foreign television series are presently only legally distributed and circulated on li
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censed online streaming services. Focusing on the streaming of US/UK TV series, this paper examines online streaming services’ distribution activities in order to understand both streaming websites’ business practices surrounding transnational TV and the features they employ to cater to online audiences for these series. To grasp how the online distribution of English language TV series operates in China, I begin by looking at China’s five major video streaming services, analyzing the design of their interfaces, scheduling of programs, and accessibility for different tiers of users. I then examine how streaming services use social media as a major tool to promote their US and UK TV series. Through this analysis, I argue that transnational TV flow has had to be localized to achieve distribution and marketing goals in a Chinese context, resulting in the uniqueness of these streaming practices. This article concludes that, with the development of online streaming technologies, distinctive modes of au dience consumption in China have informed the localization of this specific transnational TV content." (Abstract)
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"Transnational Media: Concepts and Cases provides a clear and engaging overview of media communication from a global and a region-based perspective. Rather than focusing on just complex theories and industry-specific analyses, this unique book offers an inclusive, comparative approach to both journa
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lism and entertainment media--introducing readers to the essential concepts, systems, transnational influences, and power dynamics that shape global media flow. Broad coverage of different media forms from Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania offers country-based and transnational perspectives while highlighting examples of media trends in television, radio, film, journalism, social media, music, and others." (Publisher description)
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"This edited volume discusses mediatized religion in Asia, examining the intensity and variety of constructions and processes related to digital media and religion in Asia today. Individual chapters present case studies from various regions and religious traditions in Asia, critically discussing the
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data collected in light of current mediatization theories. By directing the study to the geographical, cultural and religious contexts specific to Asia, it also provides new material for the theoretical discussion of the pros and cons of the concept mediatization, among other things interrogating whether this concept is useful in non-'Western' contexts." (Publisher description)
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"This book interrogates the possibilities of global thinking from the south in the field of media, communication, and cultural studies. Through lenses of millennial media cultures, it refocuses the praxis of the global south in relation to the established ideas of globalization, development, and con
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ditions of postcoloniality. Bringing together original empirical work from media scholars from across the global south, the volume highlights how contemporary thinking about the region as theoretical framework - an emerging area of theory in its own right - is incomplete without due consideration being placed on narrative forms, both analogue and digital, traditional and sub-cultural. From news to music cultures, from journalism to visual culture, from screen forms to culture-jamming, the chapters in the volume explore contemporary popular forms of communication as manifested in diverse global south contexts." (Publisher description)
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"People across 27 countries are divided on whether they trust traditional media (magazines and newspapers, TV and radio). These sources are equally trusted as they are distrusted. However, levels of trust in media sources vary greatly at the country level. Trust in traditional media is perceived to
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have decreased over the past five years. This survey shows two main contributing factors: the prevalence of fake news and doubts about media sources’ good intentions. Online media websites are slightly less trusted than traditional media, but trust in them is not reported to have dropped as extensively over the past five years. Proximity to people matters. People are most trusting of other people they know them personally. Furthermore, personal relationships are the only source of news and information that is perceived to have gained in trustworthiness over the past five years. Opinions vary widely across countries as to whether public broadcasters can be trusted more than private ones, depending on how broadcasting services are organized and controlled." (Key findings)
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"This volume seeks to analyse the emerging wave of data journalism in the Global South. It does so by examining trends, developments and opportunities for data journalism in the aforementioned contexts. Whilst studies in this specific form of journalism are increasing in numbers and significance, th
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ere remains a dearth of literature on data journalism in less developed regions of the world. By demonstrating an interest in data journalism across countries including Chile, Argentina, the Philippines, South Africa and Iran, among others, this volume contributes to multifaceted transnational debates on journalism, and is a crucial reference text for anyone interested in data journalism in the 'developing' world. Drawing on a range of voices from different fields and nations, sharing empirical and theoretical experiences, the volume aims to initiate a global dialogue among journalism practitioners, researchers and students." (Publisher description)
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"Featuring a wealth of interviews with a variety of actors – from Chinese and African journalists in Chinese media to Chinese workers for major telecommunication companies – this highly original book demonstrates how China is both contributing to the 'Africa rising' narrative while exploiting th
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e weaknesses of Western approaches to Africa, which remain trapped between an emphasis on stability and service delivery, on the one hand, and the desire to advocate human rights and freedom of expression on the other. Arguing no state can be understood without attention to its information structure, the book provides the first assessment of China’s new model for the media strategies of developing states, and the consequences of policing Africa’s information space for geopolitics, security and citizenship." (Publisher description)
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"Drawing from often overlooked sources of evidence, this report shows that China’s homegrown social media platforms have responded to market incentives by subtly shielding users from certain forms of online censorship and repression. Meanwhile, the party confronts rising costs—both economicall
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y and politically—for stamping out the diffuse forms of dissent that spread across these networks. Has the debate over the role of new communications technology in China’s political system really been decided? China’s $56 billion internet advertising market now dwarfs advertising in print, radio, and broadcast—and investments have frequently followed audiences to platforms where they feel free to express themselves. Chinese state officials are frequently raising concerns about the growing threat to the party’s control posed by social media, including the dangers of “out of control” algorithms. Hiding key indicators from the censors, reviving banned accounts, and creating opportunities for collective action: social media platforms are quietly and subtly testing the political boundaries in response to their audience’s preferences." (Key findings)
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"In den 1980er Jahren verstärkte sich das Unbehagen an der Gedenkkultur mit ihren Heldenerzählungen und nationalen Beschränkungen. Mit der größeren Komplexität des Gedenkens und der Hinwendung zu den sozialen Kosten historischer Ereignisse prägte sich eine neue Erinnerungskultur aus. Diese is
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t kein abgeschlossenes Modell. In diesem Prozess wandeln sich die Wahrnehmung der Vergangenheit sowie die zukunftsgerichteten Zwecke des Gedenkens." (Seite 17)
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"Governments with strict control over the information that their citizens hear from foreign sources are regular targets of human rights pressure, but we know little about how this information matters in the domestic realm. I argue that authoritarian regimes strategically pass on certain types of ext
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ernal pressure to their public to “internationalize” human rights violations, making citizens view human rights in terms of defending their nation internationally rather than in terms of individual violations, and making them more likely to be satisfied with their government’s behavior. I find strong support for this model through statistical analysis of Chinese state media reports of external human rights pressure and a survey experiment on Chinese citizens’ responses to pressure on women’s rights. This analysis demonstrates that authoritarian regimes may be able to manipulate international human rights diplomacy to help them retain the support of their population while suppressing their human rights." (Abstract)
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"Artificial intelligence (AI) is now receiving unprecedented global attention as it finds widespread practical application in multiple spheres of activity. But what are the human rights, social justice and development implications of AI when used in areas such as health, education and social service
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s, or in building “smart cities”? How does algorithmic decision making impact on marginalised people and the poor? This edition of Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) provides a perspective from the global South on the application of AI to our everyday lives. It includes 40 country reports from countries as diverse as Benin, Argentina, India, Russia and Ukraine, as well as three regional reports. These are framed by eight thematic reports dealing with topics such as data governance, food sovereignty, AI in the workplace, and so-called “killer robots”. While pointing to the positive use of AI to enable rights in ways that were not easily possible before, this edition of GISWatch highlights the real threats that we need to pay attention to if we are going to build an AI-embedded future that enables human dignity." (Back cover)
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"The book covers the trajectories and trends in social change communication, engaging the key theoretical debates on communication and social change. Attending to the concepts of communication and social change that emerge from and across the global margins, the book works toward offering theoretica
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l and methodological lessons that de-center the dominant constructions of communication and social change. The chapters in the book delve into the interplays of academic-activist-community negotiations in communication for social change, and the ways in which these negotiations offer entry points into transformative communication processes of social change. Moreover, a number of chapters in the book attend to the ways in which Asian articulations of social change are situated at the intersections of culture, structure, and agency. Chapters in the book are extended versions of research presented at the conference on Communicating Social Change: Intersections of Theory and Praxis held at the National University of Singapore in 2016, organized under the umbrella of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE)." (Publisher description)
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"Die iz3w erscheint in einem Land mit einer »guten Situation« für Presseerzeugnisse (globaler Index der Reporter ohne Grenzen). In vielen Ländern ist die Lage infolge von Repressionen »sehr ernst«, zum Beispiel in China, in Iran oder Sudan. Auch in Ländern zwischen diesen Extremen kann freier
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Journalismus lebensgefährlich sein, etwa in Mexiko. Dabei sind die Meinungs- und Pressefreiheit Grundvoraussetzungen für Gesellschaften, die aufgeklärte Zustände und Partizipation an politischen Entscheidungen anstreben. Es geht um demokratische, freiheitliche und soziale Regeln, die einerseits im Bewusstsein, andererseits als verbindliche Rechte verankert sind. Wir lassen Personen zu Wort kommen, die sich für diese Ziele einsetzen, und fragen uns: Wie sehen die Produktionsbedingungen für die Berichterstattung weltweit aus? Wozu braucht es freie Medien? Wo fängt die Repression an und auf welche Weise wirken sich neue Medien auf die Berichterstattung aus?" (https://www.iz3w.org/printausgaben/heft-365)
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"Dieses Buch zeigt, wie Unternehmen den Instant-Messaging-Dienst WeChat für ihr Social Media Marketing in China erfolgreich nutzen können. Denn WeChat ist viel mehr als ein mobiler Messenger – es ist Alltagsbegleiter und bezahlt beispielsweise Stromrechnungen, vereinbart Arzttermine, kauft Flug-
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und Zugtickets oder beantragt ein Visum. Für in China tätige Unternehmen ist das soziale Netzwerk als Absatzkanal und Internetplattform unabdingbar. Der Autor erklärt anschaulich, welche Einsatzmöglichkeiten WeChat bietet, beschreibt grundlegende Funktionen sowie das öffentliche WeChat-Konto spezifisch für das Unternehmensmarketing. Er erläutert den Bezahldienst „WeChat Pay“ und viele weitere Tools, wie beispielsweise Content-Marketing-Funktionen oder das Schalten von Anzeigen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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