Popular Communication Audiences: A Historical Research Agenda

Popular communication research can benefit from a historical approach. Consistent with current approaches, historical research is contextual (e.g., looking at actual audiences in natural settings). It is also comparative. Comparing radio to television helps to highlight by contrast features not otherwise noticed, including assumptions we have made unawares. Historical research is developmental, allowing us to understand how things come about and change. Examples from the author's own research illustrate the benefits and surprising discoveries historical research can offer. Historical research has developed very unevenly across media and topics. There is a good deal of film history but a paucity of radio history; a good bit on media industry and technology, but little on audiences. This leaves room for a great deal of valuable history yet to do.     

作為物質文化的"中國現代文學"

作為學者,在公開場合發表演講有兩種策略,一是"小題大做",一是"大題小做".這有點像寫論文,必須先設定讀者:面對公眾發言,你得乾脆利落,越簡單明了越好,不能雲山霧罩,把聽眾繞糊塗了.     

Culture and Classroom Communication: A Pilot Study in the Post-Soviet Republic of Armenia

Using participant observations and informal interviews, the study examined whether and how classroom communication in Armenia reflects Armenian culture and history, including the Soviet influence for close to seven decades and Armenia’s transition from one socio-politico-economic system to another, followed by internationalization of education and globalization. Findings of the study revealed three major themes that have impacted the classroom communication style: courtesy, immediacy, solidarity. While consistent in some ways with Soviet communism, these themes may have also been influenced by Armenia’s traditional and family-centered culture and history which predate Soviet communism, as well as by internationalization of education and globalization.     

家谱史话

关于家谱的定义,简单地说,就是旧时家族记载本族世系和重要人物事迹的书。它与正史和方志一起,构成了中华民族历史大厦的三大支柱,不仅具有历史学、经济学、人口学、社会学、教育学和民俗学等多方面的研究价值,而且还为海内外炎黄子孙寻根认祖提供了有案可查的文字根据。     

Identity Management and Relational Culture in Interfaith Marital Communication in a United States Context: A Qualitative Study

This study explored the identity management processes in interfaith marital communication in a United States setting. Sixteen marital partners participated in this interview study. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, interpreted, and analyzed. Guided by identity management theory, the interview data analysis revealed three general themes: development of the interfaith relational identity via the co-creation of a superordinate spiritual and value system; implementation of relational boundaries to prioritize the relational identity; and identification of key milestone decisions (i.e. wedding plans and children socialization coordination) interfaith partners face in their intimate relationships. Contributions, limitations, and directions for future studies on interfaith marital communication are addressed.     

Intercultural Communication Training for English Language Teachers: A Case Study of an Immersion Program for South Korean Teachers

Little research has been conducted that explores connections between the fields of intercultural communication and English-language instruction. To address this gap, we report on an intercultural communication course delivered as an integral part of a short-term professional development immersion program for English-language teachers from South Korea. Study results indicate that intercultural communication training served to enhance participants’ pragmatics awareness along with sensitivity regarding sociocultural influences on communication that they experienced in situ. After the four-week course, most of the participants expressed desire and readiness to integrate intercultural communication into their teaching in South Korea. Intercultural communication training promises to complement pragmatics instruction aiming at improving English-language learning and teaching.     

Texas Cowboy Boots: America's Material Culture Melting Pot

Cowboy boots are some of the most recognizable dress icons in the United States and symbolize the American West. The mythology of these material culture objects has been built over hundreds of years in many types of oral and written narratives. The purpose of this study was to combine secondary sources focusing on specific dimensions of cowboy boots with interviews of bootmakers and firm owners, developing a clearer understanding of the multicultural evolution of this material culture icon. Results indicate that although most bootmakers are aware of the multicultural origins of cowboy boots, they do not possess a complete comprehension of the origins and development of this material culture icon.     

中国人刷牙的历史有多久

不少历史书说中国人刷牙的历史很悠久，甚至早在唐代，刷牙已较普遍，理由是敦煌石窟中唐第159窟《弥勒经变》中有《揩齿图》（李斌城等：《隋唐五代社会生活史》，中国社会科学出版社，1998年版）。这个说法虽然有实物证据，     

Free Trade and Print Culture: Political Communication in Early Nineteenth-Century England

This article highlights the potency of traditional popular print culture as a form of political communication for one of the pioneering campaigns of the nineteenth century: the free trade agitation of the 1840s. Contributing to recent debates about Victorian political communication, it challenges the view that the spread of literacy and print replaced a more traditional, inclusive, hybrid style of communication. The use and adaptation of broadside culture that blurred literacy, orality and visuality proved to be a more effective means of communicating free trade to popular audiences than ‘modern’ methods of political communication such as official newspapers or mass propaganda. Joseph Livesey, the most successful free trade populariser, was able to bridge the gap between free trade and Chartism, by drawing on elements of radical print culture, while seeking to shift them onto a more respectable trajectory. Livesey and cheap free trade print culture anticipated the shift from popular radicalism to popular liberalism in political culture and popular politics that occurred after 1850.     

吴哥考察之千年干栏

衣、食、住、行,乃人类生存所必需的四大要素。自古至今,凡有人群存在的地方,就有住宅存在,这恐怕也算是一个放之四海而皆准的真理。只是,因为居住区域自然环境和居民群体社会发展阶段的不同,其住宅建造制式和方法也有着各种各样的不同。     

Negotiating Narratives of Human Trafficking: NGOs,Communication and the Power of Culture

This article draws on interviews with anti-trafficking NGO employees in Thailand to illustrate the use of narratives as a tool for communicating cultural values. Drawing on theories of modernization, culture, and liberation psychology, I assess the way anti-trafficking NGO employees construct narratives, or “stories,” about human trafficking. These narratives rely on Western values associated with modernization, the role of NGOs in development, gendered constructions of victimhood, “Othering,” and Orientalism. Analyzing these narratives, I build a theory of “culture as a space of safety:” a self-reinforcing mechanism whereby employees ritualistically retreat from the overwhelming circumstances they confront in their work.