"This study examines the authoritarian conditioning of political expression on social media in three Chinese societiesby analyzing three parallel surveys comprising 6942 respondents from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Results demonstrate that the use of social media to gather political infor
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mation triggers politically expressive use of social media and indirectly predicts offline non-institutionalized political participation. Individuals’ authoritarian orientation, however, moderates such indirect effects. Only people who demonstrate low or moderate adherence to authoritarian value systems exemplify this mediation model. Those with high levels of authoritarian orientation are not exemplary. Furthermore, the extent to which social media use interacts with authoritarian orientation to build a relationship with political participation presents two different patterns across three Chinese societies. The moderated mediating effect described here exists in Hong Kong and Taiwan but not in mainland China. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings." (Abstract)
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"In the algorithmic era, both users and the platform battle for visibility. Chinese fans are savvy users who explore the hidden algorithms behind platform functions. With the collectively developed algorithmic imaginary, digital fandom communities negotiate with the platform over algorithms to optim
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ize the visibility of celebrities they endorse. Drawing from participatory observation and semi-structured interviews in Chinese online fandoms of an idol group, INTO1, we detailed how fans as digital users collectively explore, interpret, and creatively utilize algorithms to increase their idol’s visibility. We conclude that visibility, as a representation of algorithm power, is co-defined through the constant push-and-pull between digital users and the platform. This paper contributes to both algorithm and fandom studies by describing large-scale non-professional users’ daily construction of the algorithmic imaginary in the unique context of Chinese fandom and beyond. It also discusses broader civic implications of fans’ algorithmic practices to wider digital users in China." (Abstract)
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"Through policy analysis and close reading of two films, this article reveals films’ increasing role in China’s geopolitical plan, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The co-production film Xuanzang shows that the Silk Road past is used to illustrate BRI’s pledge for a beneficial future. Even
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though Xuanzang’s story alludes to history, itwas selected for its significance in popular culture, thereby reflecting ‘hyperreality’. In any event, the Silk Road is insufficient for connecting a region characterized by complex histories and societies. As shown in The Composer, the Silk Road is a convenient metaphor used to portray any friendly history." (Abstract
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"The year 2012 stands as a significant milestone in China's government-led external communication activities. It was in early 2012 that Beijing launched television broadcasting and production centres in Washington, DC, USA (CCTV America, now CGTN America) and Nairobi, Kenya (CGTN Africa). Later in t
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he year, it began publishing an African weekly edition of the English-language newspaper China Daily; European and Asian weekly editions had launched in 2010 (Zhang, 2013). Set in motion under the leadership of President Hu Jintao, China's global media expansion, part of a larger 'going out' policy for the economy in general, sought to improve the country's image overseas, and to give Beijing a larger say in global information flows (Thussu et al., 2018). Ten years on, Chinese media's global engagement has not only grown, but diversified. Today, Chinese media companies, both State-owned and privately owned, are engaged all over the world in content production and distribution, direct investment in foreign media ventures, infrastructure development, training and media development efforts, and 'managing' public opinion overseas (Madrid-Morales and Wasserman, 2018). The growth and diversification of communication strategies can be partly explained by the fact that the global political and economic context under which Hu Jintao set out to improve China's international image through external media expansion has changed." (Introduction)
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"Studies about media self-censorship typically focus on its mechanism in traditional newsroom settings. But how media self-censorship may evolve in online journalism has remained largely unexplored. Using Hong Kong as a case, I examine the digital evolution of media self-censorship in a unique non-d
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emocratic context. Drawing on interviews with online journalists, my findings reveal that digital transformation has provided new valences for media self-censorship. With the financial hardship of legacy media in the digital age, Hong Kong online journalists are more directly exposed to external threats such as advertisement boycotts orchestrated by the state, and hence increasingly reluctant to offend external powerholders out of the fear of political and financial retaliation. Moreover, as online journalists adopt business-driven norms that favor the generation of clicks, political or policy news are further marginalized. These stories are often deemed boring, non-engaging to online audiences, and are not “sensationalizable” due to political risks, especially when compared to soft news types like crimes and lifestyles stories. Adapting to these changes, news managers are increasingly used to avoiding professional editorial debates that results are unpredictable but using “objective” web metrics as persuasive devices to discourage the production of sensitive news. Lastly, the dissemination of sensitive news is curbed in the social media gatekeeping process. These findings suggest that an authoritarian state can effectively influence online news production by controlling the capital that drives digital transformation, thereby limiting the liberating potential of the media in the digital age." (Abstract)
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"This study examined the effects of online harassment on journalists’ psychological trauma and their intention to leave work. It also investigated whether journalists’ psychological trauma mediates the effects of online harassment on their intention to leave the profession and whether gender mak
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es a difference in that relationship. An online survey of 404 South Korean journalists provided three categories of online harassment that journalists experience: (1) aggressive and abusive expression, (2) disclosure of private information, and (3) cyberstalking and hacking. The findings of this study show that aggressive and abusive expression was the most frequent type of online harassment whereas cyberstalking and hacking was the least frequent. As expected, online harassment was found to be positively associated with journalists’ psychological trauma (PTSD symptoms) and intention to leave work. The results further indicate that journalists’ psychological trauma originating from online harassment frequently resulted in an intention to leave work. Interestingly, journalists’ psychological trauma was a significant mediator in the relationship between psychological trauma levels and intention to leave work for female journalists, but not for male journalists." (Abstract)
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"This study aims to examine the impact of Internet development on the urban-rural income gap in China. By using a provincial level panel dataset comprising 31 of China’s provinces, it analyzes and compares the effects of the eastern, central, and western regions over the period of 2005–2016. The
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results show that Internet development aggravates the gap in the central region much more than that in the eastern and western regions. The trade openness expands the urban-rural income gap only in the eastern region. Urbanization reduces the urban-rural income gap in the western region more than that in the eastern and central regions. Additionally, the regional economic development level also reduces the urban-rural income gap in central region more than that in the eastern region. FDI reduces the urban-rural income gap only in the central region. Additionally, while the urban-rural income gap can widen further by Internet development with trade openness, it can be decreased if Internet development is combined with FDI and urbanization. To reduce urban-rural income gap, the government should accelerate the construction of Internet according to regional differences." (Abstract)
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"This article seeks to contribute to the existing research on journalist harassment by examining the experiences of Korean journalists who have faced online harassment. While extensive research has been conducted on this issue, there is a need for comparative studies to understand the unique pattern
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s and underlying causes in different nations. The objectives of this article are to explore the experiences of Korean journalists subjected to online harassment, identify the factors they perceive as triggers for such harassment, understand the impacts it has on them, and examine their coping strategies with such incidents. One of the key findings of this research is the significant stress caused by specific shaming websites that aim to insult and discredit targeted journalists. Additionally, this study delves into the impact of online harassment on journalists’ self-censorship practice, where they may avoid covering controversial issues or skew their coverage towards less sensitive perspectives." (Abstract)
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"This paper examines the influence of international political actors in perpetuating disinformation in fragile states, using Iraq as a case study. The advent of modern technology and social media has transformed the global information landscape, providing new avenues for the dissemination of disinfo
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rmation. This study delves into the history of disinformation in Iraq, particularly during and after the fall of the Baathist regime, and investigates how national and international actors utilise disinformation as a political tool. Through three case studies, the overlapping interests of regional, international, and local actors are explored, focusing on their use of social and legacy media platforms to execute influence operations targeting the Iraqi public. The first case study examines the Iranian-aligned Iraqi Radio and Television Union and their deployment of disinformation narratives during the 2021 national election. The second case study investigates unofficial Iranian-aligned Telegram media outlets and their promotion of the Russian narrative in the Russia-Ukraine War. The final case study analyses Pro-China and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Facebook influencers in Iraq and their engagement in coordinated inauthentic behavior. By connecting the interactions of these actors, this paper reveals a complex web of disinformation in the Iraqi digital information ecosystem, emphasising the role played by national and international actors in perpetuating it. The findings contribute to a better understanding of disinformation dynamics, enabling more effective strategies to combat disinformation and foster informed and democratic societies." (Abstract)
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"Based on theoretical frameworks of media sociology, political economy of communication and cultural studies, the book traces the development of Chinese documentary and discusses social transformation and cultural representation embodied in documentaries related to China. It is revealed how these wo
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rks witness, reflect and interact with social transitions in all aspects of a modernizing China, as well as how documentary production struggles among and mediates between technology, market, ideology, social forces and professionalism. In terms of future prospects of documentary in an era when media convergence is burgeoning, the author explores feasible paths to further promotion of cross-cultural communication and China’s national image, by analyzing documentary aesthetics and representative cases of documentary practice." (Publisher description)
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"[This book] addresses the long-standing puzzle of why China outlived other one-party authoritarian regimes with particular attention to how the state manages an emerging civil society. Drawing upon over 1,200 survey responses conducted in 126 villages in the Sichuan province, as well as 70 intervie
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ws conducted with Civil Society Organization (CSO) leaders and government officials, participant observation, and online research, the book proposes a new theory of interactive authoritarianism to explain how an adaptive authoritarian state manages nascent civil society. Sun argues that when new phenomena and forces are introduced into Chinese society, the Chinese state adopts a three-stage interactive approach toward societal actors: toleration, differentiation, and legalization without institutionalization. Sun looks to three disruptions-earthquakes, internet censorship, and social-media-based guerilla resistance to the ride-sharing industry-to test his theory about the three-stage interactive authoritarian approach and argues that the Chinese government evolves and consolidates its power in moments of crisis." (Publisher description)
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"Mixed Methods Perspectives on Communication and Social Media Research addresses the need for a discipline-cum-methodology-tailored book that navigates the current research spectrum of communication and social media ("CommSocMed"). It examines contemporary and relevant issues that intertwine the exp
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ansive spheres of CommSocMed. Authored by professionals with extensive academic and in-depth research and industry experience, the book highlights research-based themes that mirror qualitative and quantitative methodologies vis-à-vis socio-cultural, political, educational, and organisational issues and challenges. The first two sections present the mutually interwoven disciplines of CommSocMed where research works cover a comprehensive range of designs such as narrative analysis, case study, recombinant memetics, discourse analysis, visual semiotics, ethnography, content analysis, feminist theory, descriptive-survey, descriptive-correlational, model-building/testing, experimental, and mixed methods. The third section is a concluding segment which synthesises all the scholarly contributions in this volume." (Publisher description)
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"Welche Rolle spielen nichtstaatliche Akteure, sogenannte "Proxys", in staatlichen Cyberkonflikten? Und wie unterscheidet sich regimetypenspezifisch das (De-)Eskalationsmanagement? Kerstin Zettl-Schabath vergleicht mithilfe eines umfassenden Datensatzes für die Jahre 2000-2019 die staatlichen Cyber
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-Proxy-Strategien von China, Russland, den USA und Israel. Dabei zeigen sich je nach politischem System deutliche Abweichungen: Autokratien nutzen Proxys als "Puffer" gegenüber Demokratien, um für ihre Taten nicht belangt zu werden. Für Demokratien dagegen können Berichte privater IT-Unternehmen "Täter-Wissen" kommunizieren sowie Handlungsdruck infolge politischer Verantwortungszuweisungen reduzieren." (Verlagbeschreibung)
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"The book [...] examines the dedicated policies targeting the SDGs, as well as political and institutional drivers of synergies and trade-offs between the SDGs in selected key areas – both cross-nationally and in specific country contexts. Their analysis moves beyond the focus on links between SDG
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indicators and targets. Instead, the book takes advantage of recent evidence from the initial implementation phase of the SDGs and each chapter explores the question of which political-institutional prerequisites, governance mechanisms and policy instruments are suited to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs. The findings presented are intended to both inform high-level policy debates and to provide orientation for practitioners working on development cooperation." (Publisher description)
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"As the world was distracted by the long, drawn out economic and social disruptions caused by the coronavirus, Beijing seized the “opportunity” offered by the crisis to accelerate its national digital strategy, titled unassumingly “Digital China.” With a decades-long personal tie to General
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Secretary Xi Jinping, the strategy is designed to lift China’s core competitiveness and societal efficiency through comprehensive digital transformation at the national level. Mostly unknown in the West, Digital China has profound implications for China’s developmental path, great power competition, and for the norms that will undergird the international system for decades to come. Beijing hopes to leverage a latecomer’s advantage to win what it sees as the new focal point of great power competition in the digital age: the race to design and build the world’s first nationally integrated system of rules, institutions, and technology to comprehensively manage big data and its intelligent application. This expresses itself in the Digital China strategy’s intense focus on the governance and control of data, a process Beijing calls the “new stage” in national informatization. Equally important, the Communist Party also now considers the “control of data” to be essential to its own survival, on par with the control of media, the military, and personnel. Rooted in Marxist theory, the Digital China strategy is both deeply transformative and deeply competitive. In effect, it is the world’s first digital grand strategy. Internally, the party’s deft control of data will create the world’s first “Smart Society,” demonstrating to China’s citizens and the world that capitalism has nothing to offer over socialism. Externally, a successful Digital China strategy will usher in an era of Chinese innovation that brings with it great power status across multiple strategic domains, civilian and military. Although a self-described monumental task, party leaders believe that Digital China is the strategy that will enable China to win the digital age." (Executive summary)
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"The purpose of this Report is to help the countries that are in the process of migrating from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting. The Report examines the reasons why this is happening and the technologies involved. It provides an overview of digital terrestrial sound and television broadc
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asting technologies and system migration. The Report outlines the available options for making that transition and the route to be followed. The Report is divided into two parts. Part 1 deals with the main issues related with the transition to digital, presents the principal problems and possible solutions. Part 2 gives more detailed information on important aspects which have already been covered in Part 1." (Page 1)
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"This article examines China–US competition for narratives by analyzing whether and how Chinese and American diplomats engage each other in routine diplomatic outreach to African audiences on Twitter. Drawing on case studies of Kenya and South Africa, our study uncovers “asymmetrical discursive
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competition”—Chinese diplomatic accounts selectively launch discursive attacks (both defensive and offensive) on the United States, while the US diplomatic accounts tend to ignore China. We further find that in invoking the United States, Chinese diplomats largely bypass Africa and African issues, and instead, focus on contesting larger claims about China’s legitimacy." (Abstract)
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"This Handbook presents a transnational and interdisciplinary study of refugee narratives, broadly defined. Interrogating who can be considered a refugee and what constitutes a narrative, the thirty-eight chapters included in this collection encompass a range of forcibly displaced subjects, a mix of
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geographical and historical contexts, and a variety of storytelling modalities. Analyzing novels, poetry, memoirs, comics, films, photography, music, social media, data, graffiti, letters, reports, eco-design, video games, archival remnants, and ethnography, the individual chapters counter dominant representations of refugees as voiceless victims. Addressing key characteristics and thematics of refugee narratives, this Handbook examines how refugee cultural productions are shaped by and in turn shape socio-political landscapes." (Publisher description)
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"While online harassment directed towards women journalists are under wide discussion, the mechanism of audience intervention in stopping online harassment is less explored. Integrating bystander invention, ambivalent sexism, and social identity theories, we propose and test an integrative framework
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of audience intervention in online harassment of women journalists. Results from an online experiment in Hong Kong showed that type of harassment, ideological similarity between the audience member and the harassed journalist, and the presence of other responsive bystanders could shape the appraisal of harassment incidents and willingness to intervene. The study advances the literature by clarifying the contextual nuances and challenges of audience intervention in online harassment of women journalists. It bears practical implications on how to defend women journalists so as to protect press freedom, cultivate journalist-audience relationship, and enhance an inclusive and egalitarian online space." (Abstract)
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"This study offers a systematic theory of the institutional solutions to the dictator’s dilemma, which arises from the incapacity to calibrate repression and concessions due to the lack of information about elite and popular discontent. Empirically, the book presents a detailed discussion of the t
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ypes of information-gathering institutions created in autocracies, paying particular attention to the difference between standard mechanisms for the retrospective assessment of overt dissatisfaction and the more sophisticated channels for anticipatory evaluations of latent discontent. The book argues that the creation of institutions for the involuntary collection of information is straightforward, but that only certain regimes successfully promote the voluntary provision of information, which is essential for anticipatory governance. In ethnically heterogeneous countries, compactly settled ethnic minorities present a further obstacle for establishing a panoptical authoritarian vision. These problems notwithstanding, communist regimes are especially adept at developing sophisticated systems that mobilize the party, State Security, and internal journalism to assess levels of discontent. Methodologically, the book demonstrates that documents prepared for regime insiders are more likely to shed light on a secret activity like information collection than officially released materials. Theoretically, the book argues that although the dictator’s dilemma can be solved and abundant information does extend authoritarian lifespans, information cannot ensure the indefinite survival of dictatorships. The book is based on detailed analysis of the origins and evolution of information-gathering systems in communist Bulgaria (1944–1991) and in China (1949–present), supplemented by eight case studies of information collection in the complete range of authoritarian regimes." (Publisher description)
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