"Against the background of the media commercialization reform since the 1990s in China and drawing on the case of »X-Change« (2006-2019), Wei Dong investigates the entanglements between emotion and subjectivity, ideology, identity and hegemonic power in the multimodal text of the program. The focu
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s lies on the ways in which emotions are appropriated and disciplined by regimes of power and identity, and the ways in which affect - in this case primarily kuqing (bitter emotions) communicated by the material and the body - have the potential to challenge or exceed existing relations of power in the mediascape. Wei Dong shows how Chinese reality TV provides a historical and theoretical opportunity for understanding the affective structures of contemporary China in the dynamic process of fracture and integration." (Publisher description)
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"This publication aims to analyse China’s soft power strategies in selected ASEAN countries and issue recommendations for Germany and the European Union (EU) in this field. The subject of China’s grow ing influence on a global scale is of the highest importance for decision-makers and interested
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observers across the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and beyond." (Foreword)
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"This article examines how affective narratives of the COVID-19 pandemic on Chinese social media reinforce and challenge established scripts of national identity, political legitimacy, and international geopolitical imaginary. Taking theoretical insights from the scholarship on trauma, disaster nati
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onalism, and politics of emotions, I structure the analysis of social media posts from state media and private accounts around three emotional registers: grief as a crucial site of control and contestation during the initial stage of the outbreak; gandong (being moved in a positive way) associated with stories of heroic sacrifices, national unity, and mundane ‘heart-warming’ moments; and enmity in narratives of power struggles and ideological competition between China and ‘the West’, especially the United States. While state media has sought to transform the crisis into resources for strengthening national belonging and regime legitimacy through a digital reworking of the long-standing repertoire of disaster nationalism, alternative articulations of grief, rage, and vernacular memory that refuse to be incorporated into the ‘correct collective memory’ of a nationalised tragedy have persisted in digital space. Furthermore, the article explicates the ways in which popular narratives affectively reinscribe dominant ideas about the (inter)national community: such as the historical imagination of a continuous nationhood rising from disasters and humiliation, positive energy, and a dichotomous view of the international order characterised by Western hegemony and Chinese victimhood. The geopolitical narratives of the pandemic build on and exacerbate binary oppositions between China and ‘the West’ in the global imaginary, which are co-constructed through discursive practices on both sides in mutually reinforcing ways. The lens of emotion allows us to attend to the resonances and dissonances between official and popular narrativisations of the disaster without assuming a one-way determinate relationship between the two." (Abstract)
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"Nowhere is the effort to control the flow of digital information more extensive and sustained than it is in China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses a wide range of tools and strategies to achieve two related, but distinct, goals of digital information control: to shape public knowledge and to
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“guide” the public in the aftermath of sudden, unexpected events. Controlling social media is especially relevant to the second goal, and the CCP uses strategies of content removal (censorship) and content generation (propaganda) to pursue this aim. Recent studies of the Chinese internet and social media show that the CCP has adapted quickly to new digital communication technologies, though it is in sometimes unexpected ways, and CCP control of Chinese social media is integral to its efforts to shape public beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors." (Abstract)
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"This paper examines China’s international communication strategy during the initial phase of the global COVID-19 pandemic. In the spring of 2020, Western governments and media began criticising the systematic lack of transparency and accountability in the Chinese political system in relation to t
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he failed containment of the Wuhan outbreak. Facing an unprecedented reputational crisis, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mobilised its foreign-language media in an attempt to influence the international discourse on COVID-19. Surveying the English and Chinese editions of the People’s Daily, this study identifies CCP discourses aimed at foreign audiences and traces their evolution during the early stages of the pandemic. Overall, the study provides a comprehensive map of Chinese narratives on COVID-19 and generates fresh insights into CCP crisis communication." (Abstract)
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"Although China's official position on the war has been that of neutrality-not aligning with the West against Russia and not directly supporting Russia's war in Ukraine-its communications about the war, in particular its propaganda via state media and Foreign Ministry spokespeople have carried a mor
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e pro-Russia stance. During the past two months of the Russia-Ukraine war, Chinese official messaging has echoed and reinforced Russia's position: 1.) by promoting shared narratives about the origins and culprits of the war, namely blaming NATO and the United States; 2.) by drawing disproportionally on Russian sources and footage of the war; and 3.) by under-reporting on Ukraine's perspectives. This pro-Russia leaning during the Ukraine crisis can be understood as part of a larger propaganda trajectory vis-à-vis Russia and the United States. Domestically, China's propaganda messaging in large part appears to resonate with public opinion. Internationally, however, Chinese propaganda about the war, especially communications by Foreign Ministry spokespeople, delude China's neutrality position and antagonize the West, while more integrating China into the Global South." (Page 1)
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"History textbooks are the only history books that the majority of people read in their lives. This article investigates the impact of history textbooks on young Chinese people’s understanding of their nation’s modern history, as revealed on the popular microblogging site SinaWeibo.We analysed p
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osts related to history textbooks and their representations of three contentious turning points in the communist historical narrative: the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the nationalist assault on the communists in 1927 and the Yan’an Rectification Movement of 1942. Widespread engagement with and recollection of history textbook content indicates a substantial impact of these textbooks on people’s understanding of the past and a willingness to relate that past to the present. Responses to textbooks vary widely, from acceptance of the textbook narrative and the expression of strong patriotic and emotional connections to the past as presented in textbooks to open and angry critique." (Abstract)
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"On the basis of an online survey conducted among young Chinese adults, this study examines how the association between media usage and political trust can be explained by three factors: the mediating roles of the perceived credibility of traditional and social media; the moderating roles of trust i
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n sources – media and non-media sources alike; and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) membership. Analyses support the idea that (1) the perceived credibility of political information obtained from traditional and social media is a significant mediator, and that (2) traditional media credibility has a stronger effect than social media credibility." (Abstract)
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"This article aims to determine how digital nationalism influences gender politics in the context of gender-issue debates on Chinese social media platforms. To this end, I present an original case study, collecting empirical data from the most popular Chinese community question-answering (CQA) websi
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te, Zhihu. By using a mixed-method research design, consisting of content analysis (CA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA), I explored gender-issue debates between Chinese internet users. The analysis reveals how such debates inform divided opinions between women and men internet users, and how misogynistic men invoke a nationalist discourse to distort the debates." (Abstract)
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"This cross-cultural comparison study between China and the US aimed to examine the short video-sharing social media platform, TikTok/Douyin, particularly its use in the two countries. Because China and the US have some evident differences in cultural values, they are ideal for cross-cultural compar
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ison between Western and Asian countries. Other than knowing the platform itself, how people use it, and their influencer video use, the study further explored how cultural values influenced user behaviors on TikTok/Douyin. Two survey studies were conducted in each country. The questionnaire asked the same question but in two language versions Chinese and English. Questions asked about participants' demographic information, TikTok/Douyin use preference, influencer preference, and cultural values. In general, Chinese participants had a more extended time experience of using Douyin, and they spent more time on Douyin every day. Participants had a different preference for influencers' expertise on each platform. US participants favored music influencers while Chinese participants favored food influencers. Moreover, Chinese participants were more likely to be persuaded by influencers to make purchase decisions than US participants. Besides, Chinese participants claimed a higher individualism score and a lower power distance score than US participants, which contradicts with Hofstede's original cultural scores for each country." (Abstract)
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"This Open Access book examines the ambivalences of data power. Firstly, the ambivalences between global infrastructures and local invisibilities challenge the grand narrative of the ephemeral nature of a global data infrastructure. They make visible local working and living conditions, and the reso
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urces and arrangements required to operate and run them. Secondly, the book examines ambivalences between the state and data justice. It considers data justice in relation to state surveillance and data capitalism, and reflects on the ambivalences between an “entrepreneurial state” and a “welfare state”. Thirdly, the authors discuss ambivalences of everyday practices and collective action, in which civil society groups, communities, and movements try to position the interests of people against the “big players” in the tech industry." (Publisher description)
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"Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become a crucial sector of China–Africa relations. As scholars have noted, Africa’s 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) risks transforming into a new ‘scramble’ with foreign actors harnessing Africa’s data. The present article explores th
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is issue at a discursive level, i.e. delving into policies, bilateral agreements, and laws. The focus is specifically on Kenya in that it is one of the most developed ICT markets in Africa and it is here that the Chinese tech giant Huawei began its investments in 1998. Via a document review, the article provides a preliminary discursive assessment of the extent to which Kenyan actors are effectively (dis)empowered with regard to their own 4IR. The analysis shows that both pan-African and bilateral agreements remain at a high level of abstraction: while this is the typical Chinese way of framing discourses on technological innovation, it also leaves room for political manoeuvring and potential forms of data colonialism." (Abstract)
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"For months, our team has been tracking how China has exploited search engine results on Xinjiang and COVID-19, two subjects that are geopolitically salient to Beijing — Xinjiang, because the Chinese government seeks to push back on condemnation of its rights record; COVID-19, because it seeks to
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deflect criticism for its early mishandling o f the pandemic. In both cases, Beijing is quite focused on positioning itself as a responsible global leader and softening perceptions to the contrary. To evaluate these concerns, we compiled daily data over a 120-day period on 12 terms related to Xinjiang and COVID-19 from five different sources: (1) Google Search; (2) Google News; (3) Bing Search; (4) Bing News; and (5) YouTube. We found that Chinese state media are remarkably effective at influencing the content returned for the term “Xinjiang” across several search types. “Xinjiang,” which is among the most neutral terms in our data set, regularly returned state-backed content across news searches, with at least one Chinese state-backed news outlet appearing in the top 10 results in 88% of searches (106 out of 120 days searched). On YouTube, state media appeared among the top 10 results in searches for “Xinjiang” in 98% of searches (118 out of 120 days searched) [...]" (Executive summary)
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"WeChat, launched in 2011, has rapidly become the most favoured Chinese social media. Globally available, equally popular both inside and outside China and widely adopted by Chinese migrants, WeChat has fundamentally changed the ways in which Mandarin-speaking migrants conduct personal messaging, en
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gage in group communication and community business activities, produce and distribute news, and access and share information. This book explores a wide range of issues connected to the ways in which WeChat works and is used, across the world among the newest members of the Chinese diaspora. Arguing that digital/social media afford a great degree of individual agency, as well as a collective capacity for sustaining an 'imagined community', the book shows how WeChat's assemblage of infrastructure and regulatory frameworks, technical capabilities, content and sense of community has led to the construction of a particular kind of diasporic Chinese world, at a time marked both by China's rise, and anxiety about Chinese influence in the West." (Publisher description)
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"This study explores how news channels from the Global South challenge western narratives by co-producing TV programmes. It focuses on Telesur (Venezuela) and its collaborations with RT (Russia), Al-Mayadeen (Lebanon) and CCTV/CGTN (China). By combining quantitative and qualitative methods, this pap
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er examines the structure of these collaborations, the discursive construction of alternative narratives and their contribution to countering hegemonic discourses. The findings show that the efforts to construct counterhegemonic narratives are most evident in the co-productions with RT and Al-Mayadeen. Although the co-production with CGTN focusses on culture, it is nonetheless possible to identify the broadcasters’ distinct ideological agendas." (Abstract)
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"This book, produced on behalf of the IFLA Copyright and other Legal Matters (CLM) Advisory Committee, provides basic and advanced information about copyright, outlines limitations and exceptions, discusses communicating with users and highlights emerging copyright issues. The chapters note the sign
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ificance of the topic; describe salient points of the law and legal concepts; present selected comparisons of approaches around the world; highlight opportunities for reform and advocacy; and help libraries and librarians find their way through the copyright maze." (Publisher description)
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"This report focuses on Beijing's efforts to control domestic reporting by resident foreign journalists. It is based on interviews conducted by the IFJ in December 2021 with 19 current or recent correspondents from nine countries, who work across print and broadcast and whose experience in China ran
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ges from a couple of years to several decades. It also draws from Locked Down or Kicked Out, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China's 2021 Media Freedoms Report, and earlier FCCC annual reports based on surveys of the club's roughly 190 members. The research finds that China uses a wide range of coercive methods to control foreign journalistsf reporting. These include: outright expulsions, plus threats that make journalists feel compelled to leave; denials and delays in the granting of visas so that journalists are unable to start work on schedule or must live from one short-term visa to another, unsure if they will be there the following month; lighter scrutiny of journalists from nations viewed as 'friendly' or 'unimportant', although Beijing's attitude fluctuates according to political relations between China and the home country; lawsuits alleging breaches of reporting protocols, such as identifying oneself as a journalist, which carry the risk of being refused an exit visa until the case is resolved [...]" (Executive summary)
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"An international line-up of authors first discuss communication practices, strategies, and media uses by NGOs, providing insights into the specifics of NGO programs for social change goals and reveal particular sets of tactics NGOs commonly employ. The book then presents a set of case studies of NG
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O organizing from all over the world—ranging from Sudan via Brazil to China – to illustrate the particular contexts that make NGO advocacy necessary, while also highlighting successful initiatives to illuminate the important spaces NGOs occupy in civil society." (Publisher description)
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"In posts by Chinese diplomats, the US, NATO and the West were almost exclusively blamed or criticised for Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Russia was not specifically blamed. The most common posts shared news relating to the conflict (including readouts of Xi Jinping’s calls with world
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leaders), primarily from Chinese state media. Those articles usually presented China’s and, where they aligned, Russia’s views of the conflict. They frequently reported on the actions of Chinese officials reiterating China’s position. Chinese diplomats repeated Russian conspiracy theories about US biological weapon labs in Ukraine with gusto and linked the alleged activities to conspiracy theories about the origin of Covid-19. Posts about Ukraine on Facebook mostly underperformed compared to regular posts, except in Europe. On Twitter, Ukraine material appeared to broadly perform better than non-Ukraine material, particularly when the content attacked or blamed the West. Chinese diplomats did not appear to specifically target the Chinese diaspora (by posting in Chinese) in posts about Ukraine to any significant extent on Facebook or Twitter. A selection of CGTN content on YouTube largely mirrored the narratives of the Chinese officials on Twitter and Facebook." (Executive summary)
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"Vietnamese nationalism has a strong undercurrent of anti-China sentiments, and Vietnam’s leaders have regularly tapped into such sentiments to shore up their legitimacy and boost Vietnamese nationalism. Over the last decade, the helter-skelter growth of social media has bred new popular actors in
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Vietnamese cybersphere, who are deeply nationalistic but who pursue entirely different political and social agendas. In sum, they give rise to a new nationalistic narrative, one that paints the Vietnam Communist Party as being often too meek and subservient to China, and calls for drastic reforms to the political system—regime change not excluded—to deal with Chinese threats. An examination of prominent cases of online Vietnamese nationalism shows that anti-China sentiments have been a recurrent theme and a consistent trigger. The online nationalistic movements have been mostly instigated by popular figures, with state actors playing a facilitating role in stoking and harnessing them for their own ends. Manifestations of online nationalism, especially those centred on anti-China and sovereignty issues, may hold serious consequences, including violence and deadly riots. In some instances, online nationalistic campaigns both galvanize and dissipate relatively quickly once state and popular actors have somehow managed to achieve their aims. The growing salience of online Vietnamese nationalism has posed serious challenges and dilemmas for the regime. The authorities have had to encourage nationalistic patriotism without letting Sinophobia spiral out of control or turn against the regime." (Executive summary)
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