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Theorizing Intercultural Adaptation from the Perspective of Boundary Game |
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Author(s): Guo-Ming Chen |
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The impact of globalization on human society strongly demands a constructive process of intercultural adaptation and a more systematic study of the concept. In order to tackle the problem of conceptual ambiguity in the existing literature, this analytical paper attempts to lay down the conceptual foundation by theorizing intercultural adaptation as a boundary game after a brief review of the previous literature. Intercultural adaptation as a boundary game is further supported by the argument that the boundary game of intercultural adaptation must be treated as totality. The author then advocates “boundary wisdom” as the key to the success of achieving the goal of intercultural adaptation. It is hoped that the analysis in this paper can provide a basic guideline for further research on the subject of intercultural adaptation and for further employing the idea of boundary game to theorize the study of intercultural communication. [China Media Research. 2013; 9(1): 1-10] |
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Personhood, Agency, and Communication: A Buddhist Viewpoint |
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Author(s): Wimal Dissanayake |
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The purpose of this article is to explore the intersections of self, communication, and Buddhism in order to understand better Asian approaches to communication as well as to reflect on some of the deficiencies and blind spots of Western communication theory. The present article moves in four stages. The first section examines many-sided concept of the self as understood and interpreted by Western thinkers. The second section explicates the way the idea of the self figures in Buddhist thought. The third section is devoted to a discussion of the interlocking Buddhist concepts of agency, causality, and karma, all of which have a direct bearing on the process of human communication. The final section addresses some of the deficiencies discernible in dominant communication models and proposes ways in which Buddhist thought might be able to offer corrective measures. [China Media Research. 2013; 9(1): 11-25] |
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Navigating “Truthfulness” as a Standard for Ethical Speech:
Revisiting Speech in Ancient India |
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Author(s): Ramesh N. Rao |
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Truthfulness, it is said, was the “foremost standard” for speech in India. If truthfulness was the foremost standard, how would it be performed and maintained in situations where an interlocutor had to convey messages that triggered conflict? In this paper, the “truthfulness” standard is revisited, and commentaries from the Dharmasutras, the Manusmriti, and advice from the fourth century Indian philosopher, Vatsyayana, is used to contrast the truthfulness standard with other speech standards. [China Media Research. 2013; 9(1): 26-33] |
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Components of News Media Credibility Among Professional Administrative Staff in Malays
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Author(s): Davood Mehrabi, Muhamad Sham Shahkat Ali, Musa Abu Hassan |
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The main objective of this study is to determine the components of news media credibility among Professional Administrative Staff of the University Putra Malaysia. The credibility dimensions of news media have been studied by a number of researchers after it began to grow rapidly in the 1960s, and various studies employed a range of dimensions to credibility evaluation. Credibility is always introduced as a multidimensional concept and various scales were used to measure it. The current study utilized eight commonly identified items: clarity, biasness, telling the whole story, accuracy, believability, trust, fairness, and timeliness, to determine the components of media credibility. The results show fairness, timeliness, and clarity as the three elements were rated higher than other elements for newspaper, radio, television, and Internet. Three elements composite of clarity, bias and fairness were also rated as the highest elements for magazine. In sum, based on these finding it can be conclude that two components of news media credibility including fairness and clear. The results, therefore, would be useful for news agencies to provide an understanding on how audiences perceive the news media and components of news media credibility. [China Media Research. 2013; 9(1): 34-40] |
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A Quantitative Analysis on Network Communication Research Papers in China from 1995 to 2006
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Author(s): Chengliang Zhang |
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In recent years, network communication research became gradually popular along with the upsurge of new media. It has since turned into a new focus in the communication field. By studying network communication papers from 1995 to 2006, this paper makes a relatively objective analysis of present research and the latest explorations of network communication in China.[China Media Research. 2013; 9(1): 41-47] |
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The Founding of South China Morning Post: To What Extent Was It A Call for Revolution in China? |
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Author(s): NG Yuk-hang |
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May historians and journalists believe the South China Morning Post was founded to promote ideas against the monarchy in China. However,. A closer look into the content, management and leadership in the Post’s early years reveals that the paper did not intend to be a vehicle for the promotion of revolutionary ideas. It was more likely that the paper was founded as a pure business venture. Early board members were more interested in creating a quality paper with a neutral standpoint. [China Media Research. 2013;9(1): 48-51]
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Issues in Implementing Cooperative Learning to Improve Oral Proficiency in the Chinese EFL Context |
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Author(s): Meixiao Lin |
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On the basis of a literature review, this paper discusses some issues when cooperative learning is applied in the Chinese tertiary-level EFL classroom. Specifically, beginning with gaining an understanding of the College English teaching situation in China, it conducts an overview of cooperative learning and discusses what makes cooperative learning work in second language acquisition. It goes on to discuss the issues of the application of cooperative learning to improve Chinese students’ oral proficiency and provides suggestions on using this approach in the EL context. [China Media Research. 2013;9(1): 52-62] |
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Voices of Chinese Web-TV Audiences: A Case of Applying Uses and Gratifications Theory to Examine Popularity of Prison Break in China
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Author(s): Li Li, Yea-Wen Chen, Masato Nakazawa |
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This study applied uses and gratifications theory to explore the success of a U.S. television drama, Prison Break, in China. A content analysis of 775 posts on a popular online discussion forum found five prevalent types of uses and gratifications, namely general information, social integration, parasocial interaction, conflict between protagonists, and valuation of the protagonists. Subsequently, a latent class analysis was applied and identified three classes: “Evaluations and Identifications,” “Integrations,” and “Habitual Viewing.” The findings suggest both universal and cultural-specific understandings of uses and gratifications among Chinese audiences. Practical implications for television programming in an increasingly globalized world are discussed. [China Media Research. 2013; 9(1): 63-74] |
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Portrayals of Chinese Women’s Images in Hollywood Mainstream Files – An Analysis of Four Representative Films of Different Periods
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Author(s): Hanying Wang |
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How do western films speak to issues of gender, difference, history, and cross-cultural relationships? Have messages about gender and rave in Hollywood films about Chinese women changed over time? This paper intends to address these two questions through analysis of women’s portrayals in four representative Hollywood films spanning from 1930s to 2000s. The four films include ghter of Dragon(1931) , the World of Suzie Wong (1960) , Year of the Dragon (1985) , and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) , which were started by renowned Chinese American actresses of 3 different generations in Hollywood. By tracking various elements – oriental dresses, geographies, ideologies, stereotypes across these various generations of films, this paper reveals that Hollywood’s portrayal of Eastern women has not changed significantly over time. This paper also explores how anxieties about gender, race and interracial relationships circulating in Western, particular, in American society, find their way into these films by exploring the expression of oriental “otherness”, anxiety about the cross-racial relationship in the films. [China Media Research. 2013;9(1): 75-79] |
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Urban or Rural?An Analysis ofthe Stereotypical Media Depictions |
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Author(s): Li Chen |
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This paper analyzed the stereotypical media depictions of Phoenix Guys in China, a group of people who are members of the city middle-class but were raised in underdeveloped rural areas. The purpose of this study was to understand how media, especially television series, convey dominant cultural ideology through constructing the stereotypes of Phoenix Guys. The stereotypical media depiction was generally defined as the social identity of Phoenix Guys that was revealed in a popular TV series, The New Marriage Era. The study conducted textual analysis on the TV series to discover the stereotypes of Phoenix Guys and what cultural ideologies are conveyed by these stereotypes. Results indicated that Phoenix Guys’ stereotypes reflected the dichotomy of city and rural in contemporary Chinese society, resulting from globalization and domestic social stratification. [China Media Research. 2013; 9(1): 80-89] |
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Face Revisited – Negative Face Wants in Chinese Culture |
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Author(s): Xiaohui Yuan |
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Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory has frequently been challenged by Far East scholars on its claimed universality of face, in particular, the applicability of negative face wants to Far East cultures. The primary purpose of this article is to explore whether the notion of negative face can indeed account for Chinese people’s face interactions, thus the appropriateness of using the face model to analyse face negotiation in Chinese culture. It examines Gu’s and Mao’s arguments and finds that Gu does not offer a clear explanation of why negative face is not applicable to Chinese culture and Mao confines his conceptualisation of face to a lexical level. I propose to lift the research on Chinese face to a socio-pragmatic realm and use culture as an explanatory variable. Through a historical review of the development of Chinese culture, I find that the notion of negative face does constitute an inherent part of Chinese people’s ideology from ancient times to today. Using three exchanges from a Chinese film, I argue that the normative aspect of Chinese culture impacts on people’s use of politeness strategies, and it does not, however, provide evidence for the inapplicability of the negative face notion to the culture. [China Media Research. 2013; 9(1): 90-100] |
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Media Ecological Motifs in Intellectual History |
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Author(s): Eric McLuhan, Peter Zhang |
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This paper discusses a series of media ecological motifs in the form of a dialogue. It is organized around a coterie of thinkers in intellectual history, who are listed in chronological order to facilitate pattern recognition. The paper starts with Vico, whose New Science significantly informed McLuhan’s Laws of Media, and ends with Derrida, whose Of Grammatology arguably problematizes print media. [China Media Research. 2013; 9(1): 101-109] |
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