How China-based foreign reporters' aggressiveness changed: The honeymoon effect of the Chinese government's media relations strategies

This study analyzes how the aggressiveness of China-based foreign reporters when questioning Chinese officials changed as a function of the macrolevel international media relations strategies of the Chinese government. Over the past decade, the Chinese government has increasingly relaxed regulatory policies for foreign reporters and gained knowledge of modern public relations, particularly media relations. This study found that the level of foreign reporters' aggressiveness did not decrease in a linear fashion but rather displayed a ‘V’ shape. Implications for future initiatives by the Chinese government regarding foreign reporters are also discussed.     

After the spillover effect: news flows and power relations in Chinese mainstream media

Through a case study on the news flow of an online protest in China, this study explores how the power relations among the mainstream media affect, and are affected by, the spillover effect of news. Even though the Internet does serve as a catalyst to initiate alternative voices that otherwise wouldn't be heard in the established media, the results reveal that the power structure inherent in the mainstream media (particularly within their online versions) such as bureaucratic ranks and institutional ties with party organs, plays a significant role in shaping the trajectory of news flow and media framing strategies. The Internet compensates for the disadvantage of the lower-level media that are short of political resources, while the higher-level media tend to rely on the political capital to exercise their influence. At the same time, the media with more political resources have become increasingly intrepid in challenging the state. Such a dynamic takes place in the context of the changing state-media relations that have seen the authoritarian state shift its information control from a totalitarian mode to a practical one, even though the latter may open up a space for flow of information that can sometimes undermine state power.     

Social noise and segmented rhythms: News,entertainment, and celebrity in the crusade for animal rights

Building out from a case study of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), this essay offers a cultural account of popular social protest in the narrowcast era. Founded in 1980, PETA has grown into the world's largest and highest profile animal rights group. I trace the evolution of the group's public relations efforts and describe them via vocabularies of sound— as creating social noise and generating popular rhythms. Through the mid‐1980s, PETA made public noise primarily by orchestrating news‐based controversies, but by 1987 they were increasingly turning to narrowcast and broad circulation music and entertainment media as a way to spread the word to outsiders and ritually express the beliefs of the group. I argue that these cultures of entertainment and celebrity provided structured rhythms of affection that took the cause further than the more discordant sounds of news‐based controversy.     

Social media,legacy media and gatekeeping: the protest paradigm in news of Ferguson and Charlottesville

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the site of intersection between legacy and social media, whereby it asks how local legacy media (St Louis Post-Dispatch and Richmond Times-Dispatch) invoked social media (Facebook and Twitter) discourse within their coverage of the Ferguson (2014) and Charlottesville (2017) events. It thus explores how gatekeeping is manifested and, consequently, how the protest paradigm emerged in a news landscape of proliferating social media. Thematic textual analysis indicates that coverage of Charlottesville and Ferguson clearly relied on indulging the social media sphere in important ways. Common themes of social media as multipurpose platforms, as interfacing with law and order, and as reconciling material and digital modes culminating in social activism were revealed. The study shows that the protest paradigm that has long characterized legacy media’s coverage of social protest is not as “pure” as it may once have been, since a social media component is helping define the contours and content of legacy media’s landscape.     

Information networks and social media use in public diplomacy: a comparative analysis of South Korea and Japan

This article examines how South Korean and Japanese public diplomacy organizations employ digital media to embrace the principle of ‘networked public diplomacy’ through analyses of the web and social media practices. A network analysis was used to map interorganizational information networks among core public diplomacy organizations in each country. To reveal the key organizations' communication strategies on Facebook, a content analysis was also conducted. The findings indicate that Japan had a strong internal network infrastructure achieved through dispersed connections and partnerships; however, Korea had a centralized network, including a limited number of dominant actors. The results of content analysis suggest that both South Korea and Japanese public diplomats focused on promoting their cultural products and national values through their use of texts and visual images. In addition, user profile analysis gaged the degree of users' engagement in the organizations' profiles and identified the demographic features of users. Comparative data suggest the Korean public diplomacy organization was more successful at attracting and engaging with foreign public than the Japanese public diplomacy organization. These results imply that although these two countries had similar sociopolitical backgrounds and perspectives of public diplomacy, they had distinct forms of internal information networks, communication strategies, and social networking performances with public.     

Cognitive and emotional dimensions of perceived risk characteristics,genre-specific media effects,and risk perceptions: the case of H1N1 influenza in South Korea

This study explicates the mechanism underlying the process through which news and entertainment media shape people's personal- and societal-level risk perceptions. It combines the psychometric paradigm with the impersonal- and differential-impact hypotheses, highlighting the roles that cognitive and emotional dimensions of risk characteristics play in risk perceptions. Analysis of an online survey among 384 adults from the general population of South Korea in the context of H1N1 flu yields three major findings: (1) exposure to news media is positively correlated with the cognitive dimension of risk characteristics, while exposure to entertainment media is positively correlated with both the cognitive and the emotional dimensions of risk characteristics; (2) the emotional but not the cognitive dimension of risk characteristics is positively related to both personal- and societal-level risk perceptions; and (3) exposure to entertainment media affects personal-level risk perceptions – not directly but indirectly through the emotional dimension of risk characteristics. Theoretically, this study expands the impersonal- and differential-impact hypotheses by explicating their underlying mechanisms and incorporating arguments from the psychometric paradigm. It also adds new knowledge to the psychometric paradigm by highlighting the differential roles of the cognitive and emotional dimensions of people's perceived risk characteristics in risk perceptions. For risk communicators, this study highlights the importance of using entertainment media for shaping risk perceptions and educating the public about risk issues.     

The third-level agenda-setting study: an examination of media,implicit, and explicit public agendas in China

Through two separate studies in the context of Hong Kong, a Chinese society, this research tests the third-level agenda-setting effects and examines the differences between the explicit and implicit public agendas based on the attributes consciously and unconsciously reported by the public. A total of 1667 news reports and 680 responses to a public survey are collected for analysis. Evidence from both studies shows strong attribute agenda-setting effects at the third level, no matter the focus of the issue is obtrusive or unobtrusive. Results also demonstrate that the media agenda is positively associated at a higher level with the implicit public agenda than the explicit one. Findings well extend the network agenda-setting research.     

Politics of representation in the digital media environment: presentation of the female candidate between news coverage and the website in the 2007 Korean presidential primary

This study analyzes how a female candidate was presented in the news media and on her campaign website, in order to compare the politics of gender representation in news coverage and campaign communication. Content analysis of news coverage of a Korean female candidate and the candidate's website shows that the female candidate was differently portrayed in the two media in presentations of personal trait frames, the linkage between issues and personal traits, and other gender-related characteristics, although the quantity of issue frames did not differ significantly. The findings suggest that although the news coverage still tends to reinforce gender stereotypes regarding a female candidate, the candidate used or articulated gender identities in her campaign website to oppose framing stereotypes in the traditional news media.     

News media,movies, and anti-Muslim prejudice: investigating the role of social contact

This study examines the relationship between Indian non-Muslim adolescents’ Western and Indian news media use, exposure to Hollywood and Bollywood movies, and their prejudice against Muslim minorities. Based on contact hypothesis, the moderating roles of out-group contact were tested within this framework. Multivariate analyses revealed that Western news media use and exposure to Hollywood movies were significant predictors of anti-Muslim prejudice, while frequent, enriched contact with Muslims reduced out-group prejudice. The relationship between Indian news media use and prejudice was statistically insignificant. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Lifting the Curtain: Examining the importance of the Shared Foundation IV: Curate in the National School Library Standards for Learners,School Librarians,and School Libraries

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has offered a multi-layered approach to serving our schools with the National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries. This column explores Shared Foundation IV: Curate, and considers the importance and impact of school librarians modeling and sharing processes of curation with students.     

突发公共卫生事件中医学期刊的快速反应与社会责任 ——以新冠肺炎疫情为例

期刊的快速反应能力在重大突发公共卫生事件中具有深远的社会意义。面对新冠肺炎疫情,医学期刊发挥专业优势,采取策划专题组稿、开放文献获取、进行科普宣教等快速灵活的反应措施应对此次突发公共卫生事件。医学期刊在高效传播科研成果和引导大众科普等方面取得了一定的成果,体现了作为出版人的社会责任和担当使命。医学期刊应当建立并完善应对重大突发公共卫生事件的快速灵活的机制;强化社会责任意识;充分利用数字化的出版模式,提高自身快速出版发行的能力,以确保其在特殊事件中更好地履行传播权威科研成果、引导社会正向舆论、传递社会正能量等社会责任,用实际行动助力疫情防控。     

科技期刊融合发展难题解决策略与复合型全媒体出版——以综合指导类期刊《今日科技》创新探索为例

根据《今日科技》10余年的创新转型实践,分析综合指导类科技期刊融合发展面临的难题,总结解决“广”与“专”、“浅”与“深”、“慢”与“快”3大难题的经验,实现全流程、整体性出版传播能力与价值持续提升的策略和路径:从“大杂烩”转型到“五专创新”,从“扩音器”提升到“决策咨询”,从纸质扩展到复合型、全媒体的出版传播.