Download or read book Online News Prompted Public Spheres in China written by Xuanzi Xu and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that there are constant formations of online public spheres in present-day China, prompted by never-ending news. It contends that these publics are chronic, although individually they are usually transient. They are networked, which enables them to go viral in hours, and they may engender unexpected consequences. These features explain why online public spheres survive in China even though censorship and information manipulation are pervasively and strategically maneuvered to guide or manufacture “public opinion”. The book also proposes that there are deeply entangled structural factors bolstering China's online news-prompted public spheres: the continuous flow of news information, the countless public spaces facilitated by China’s digital infrastructure and the rise of rights-conscious netizens. Pushing forward a new way of conceptualizing the idea of public spheres, this book contends clearly that public spheres are most often sparked by chronic news in today's media-saturated societies. Delving into the life cycles of public spheres, it goes beyond static analysis of individual public spheres and instead studies their five qualities, which, except for the networked quality, have never been systematically addressed in scholarship.

Download or read book Online News Prompted Public Spheres in China written by Xuanzi Xu and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that there are constant formations of online public spheres in present-day China, prompted by never-ending news. It contends that these publics are chronic, although individually they are usually transient. They are networked, which enables them to go viral in hours, and they may engender unexpected consequences. These features explain why online public spheres survive in China even though censorship and information manipulation are pervasively and strategically maneuvered to guide or manufacture "public opinion". The book also proposes that there are deeply entangled structural factors bolstering China's online news-prompted public spheres: the continuous flow of news information, the countless public spaces facilitated by China's digital infrastructure and the rise of rights-conscious netizens. Pushing forward a new way of conceptualizing the idea of public spheres, this book contends clearly that public spheres are most often sparked by chronic news in today's media-saturated societies. Delving into the life cycles of public spheres, it goes beyond static analysis of individual public spheres and instead studies their five qualities, which, except for the networked quality, have never been systematically addressed in scholarship. Xuanzi Xu completed her PhD at the University of Sydney, Australia, and her MA at the Sorbonne University, France. Her research focuses on how the everyday news participation of ordinary Chinese Internet users contributes to the formation of online public spheres in China. More broadly, she is interested in the interplay between ICT, civil society and the state, and is keen to explore the political implication of the unfinished information revolution.

Download or read book China s Galaxy Empire written by John Keane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In China's Galaxy Empire target a development of enormous significance: China's return, after two centuries of decline and subjugation, to a position of prominence in world affairs. The daring thesis is that China is a newly rising empire of a kind never before witnessed: a galaxy empire. The first to be born of the digital communications era, this young empire is economically and politically powerful, and heavily armed. Its gravitational, push-pull effects are impacting every continent--and even outer space, where China is competing with the United States, India, and Europe to become the leading power. The galaxy empire interpretation rejects clich?d misdescriptions of China as a "big power" or monolithic "autocracy", and it explains why China defies older definitions of land, sea, and air-based empires. The book charts the developments that have made its rising empire so novel, including the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, the rapid rise of a global Chinese middle class, and internal colonialism in Tibet and Xinjiang. The book notes the protean, shapeshifting qualities of this young empire. It therefore warns against the political and military perils of simple-minded, friend-versus-enemy thinking and "Big China, Bad China" politics. But it also proffers a forewarning to China's rulers: while every rising empire aims to shift the balance of power in its favour, no empire lasts forever, and some are stillborn, because they indulge illusions of greatness and reckless power adventures.

Download or read book Making Online News written by Chris Paterson and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2008 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 2 summary: Online journalism has taken center stage in debates about the future of news. Instead of speculating, this volume offers rich empirical evidence about actual developments in online newsrooms. The authors use ethnographic methodologies to provide a vivid, close analysis of processes like newsroom integration, the transition of newspaper and radio journalists to digital multimedia production, the management of user-generated content, the coverage of electoral campaigns, the pressure of marketing logics, the relationship with bloggers or the redefinition of news genres. -- Publisher description.

Download or read book Engaging Social Media in China written by Guobin Yang and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2021-05-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing the concept of state-sponsored platformization, this volume shows the complexity behind the central role the party-state plays in shaping social media platforms. The party-state increasingly penetrates commercial social media while aspiring to turn its own media agencies into platforms. Yet state-sponsored platformization does not necessarily produce the Chinese Communist Party’s desired outcomes. Citizens continue to appropriate social media for creative public engagement at the same time that more people are managing their online settings to reduce or refuse connection, inducing new forms of crafted resistance to hyper-social media connectivity. The wide-ranging essays presented here explore the mobile radio service Ximalaya.FM, Alibaba’s evolution into a multi-platform ecosystem, livestreaming platforms in the United States and China, the role of Twitter in Trump’s North Korea diplomacy, user-generated content in the news media, the emergence of new social agents mediating between state and society, social media art projects, Chinese and US scientists’ use of social media, and reluctance to engage with WeChat. Ultimately, readers will find that the ten chapters in this volume contribute significant new research and insights to the fast-growing scholarship on social media in China at a time when online communication is increasingly constrained by international struggles over political control and privacy issues.

Download or read book Transnational Public Spheres written by Mohammadbagher Forough and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-28 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers the first systematic theorisation of transnational public spheres from non-Western, spatial, and infrastructural perspectives. The current era is characterised by transnational challenges, such as climate change, pandemics, and financial crises, that cannot be adequately addressed by national public spheres. Public spheres, defined as arenas of collective communication and action, are the cornerstone of any people-centred system of governance. This book puts forward a transnational public sphere theory and focuses on spatial, infrastructural, and non-Western perspectives, thus adding to the public sphere theory and practice at both national and transnational levels. The author offers a new conceptual construct, “the right to space”, as a way of transnationalising the theory and addressing its efficacy issues. Providing conceptual clarity on the public–private distinction, this book examines the historical roots of the public sphere in both Asia and Europe, establishes the methodological and ontological foundations for a theory of transnational publics, and analyses contemporary empirical instances of transnational publics in both Asia and the West. This transnationalisation is crucial now that authoritarianism is on the rise and democracy is in decline worldwide. A timely addition to the literature, this book will be of interest to researchers in international relations, political science, political theory, sociology, media and communication, cultural and literary studies, and Asian studies.

Download or read book China s Embedded Activism written by Peter Ho and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-10-19 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years China has been remarkable in achieving extraordinary economic transformation, yet without fundamental political change. To many observers this would seem to imply a weakness in Chinese civil society. However, though the idea of democracy as multitudes of citizens taking to the streets may be attractive, it is simultaneously misleading as it disregards the nature of political change taking place in China today: a gradual shift towards a polity adapted to a pluralist society. At the same time, one may wonder what the limited political space implies for the development of a social movement in China. This book explores this question by focusing on one of the most active areas of Chinese civil society: the environment. China’s Embedded Activism argues that China’s semi-authoritarian limitations on the freedom of association and speech, coupled with increased social spaces for civic action has created a milieu in which activism occurs in an embedded fashion. The semi-authoritarian atmosphere is restrictive of, but paradoxically, also conducive to nationwide, collective action with less risk of social instability and repression at the hand of the governing elite. Rich in case studies about environmental civic organizations in China, and written by a team of international experts on social movements, NGOs, democratization, and civil society, this book addresses a wide readership of students, scholars and professionals interested in development, geography and environment, political change, and contemporary Chinese society.

Download or read book China s Influence and American Interests written by Larry Diamond and published by Hoover Press. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.

Download or read book Governance in China written by Jude Howell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past two decades, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has paradoxically steered the development of a thriving capitalist economy. Unlike many faltering post-socialist states with fragile economies and weakly institutionalised democratic structures, China has witnessed a tide of economic entrepreneurialism that has raised living standards and the country's global economic stature. However, the strains of rapid economic change and the tensions between an increasingly liberalized economy and the partially reformed institutions of an authoritarian polity have become increasingly severe. Crucial to the success of further economic reform and development, good governance is the greatest challenge faced by the CCP. This groundbreaking book explores the key dimensions of governance in China. These include the prospects for political reform as a new generation of leaders comes to power and China enters the World Trade Organization; the processes of building institutions, such as developing a clean, competent, and meritocracy-based civil service, and improving the legislative framework; enhancing regime legitimacy through the sharing of power at lower levels and promoting citizen participation and voice; and finally the prevention and management of social discontent, with particular reference to worker unrest and the Falun Gong. Drawing on original fieldwork, the international group of authors provides a systematic analysis of the political, institutional, and economic causes underlying China's governance problems and considers the prospects for future social and political change.

Download or read book Social Media in Industrial China written by Xinyuan Wang and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life outside the mobile phone is unbearable.’ Lily, 19, factory worker. Described as the biggest migration in human history, an estimated 250 million Chinese people have left their villages in recent decades to live and work in urban areas. Xinyuan Wang spent 15 months living among a community of these migrants in a small factory town in southeast China to track their use of social media. It was here she witnessed a second migration taking place: a movement from offline to online. As Wang argues, this is not simply a convenient analogy but represents the convergence of two phenomena as profound and consequential as each other, where the online world now provides a home for the migrant workers who feel otherwise ‘homeless’. Wang’s fascinating study explores the full range of preconceptions commonly held about Chinese people – their relationship with education, with family, with politics, with ‘home’ – and argues why, for this vast population, it is time to reassess what we think we know about contemporary China and the evolving role of social media.

Download or read book Publics and Counterpublics written by Michael Warner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publics and Counterpublics revolves around a central question: What is a public? The idea of a public is a cultural form, a kind of practical fiction, present in the modern world in a way that is very different from other or earlier societies. Like the idea of rights, or nations, or markets, it can now seem universal. But it has not always been so. Publics exist only by virtue of their imagining. They are a kind of fiction that has taken on life, and very potent life at that. Publics have some regular properties as a form, with powerful implications for the way our social world takes shape; but much of modern life involves struggles over the nature of publics and their interrelation. There are ambiguities, even contradictions in the idea of a public. As it is extended to new contexts and media, new polities and rhetorics, its meaning can be seen to change, in ways that we have scarcely begun to appreciate. By combining historical analysis, theoretical reflection, and extended case studies, Publics and Counterpublics shows how the idea of a public works as a formal device in modern culture and traces its implications for contemporary life. Michael Warner offers a revisionist account at the junction of two intellectual traditions with which he has been associated: public-sphere theory and queer theory. To public-sphere theory, this book brings a new emphasis on cultural forms, and a new focus on the dynamics of counterpublics. To queer theory, it brings a new way of seeing how queer culture (among other examples) is shaped by the counterpublic environment.

Download or read book Discursive Pragmatics written by Jan Zienkowski and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ten volumes of "Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights" focus on the most salient topics in the field of pragmatics, thus dividing its wide interdisciplinary spectrum in a transparent and manageable way. While the other volumes select specific philosophical, cognitive, grammatical, social, cultural, variational, or interactional angles, this 8th volume focuses on theories and phenomena at the level of discourse, but leaving aside conversational interaction. It provides the reader with pragmatics-oriented information on discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and critical linguistics, as well as text linguistics and appraisal theory, while introducing other specific approaches to discourse through concepts such as polyphony, intertextuality, genre, and "enonciation." Furthermore, topics such as public discourse, narrative, figures of speech, cohesion and coherence, pragmatic markers, manipulation, and humor, are all dealt with in separate chapters. The binding idea, explained in the introduction, is that discursive pragmatics may serve as a platform for a diversity of perspectives on discourse, as they have emerged not only in the language sciences but also in the humanities and social sciences in general."

Download or read book Civil Society in China written by Timothy Brook and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of civil society was borrowed from 18th-century Europe to provide a framework for understanding the transition to post-authoritarian regimes in Latin America and post-communist regimes elsewhere. This book asks whether this concept is useful for analyzing China.

Download or read book Public Sentinel written by Pippa Norris and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009-11-19 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the ideal roles the mass media should play as an institution to strengthen democratic governance and thus bolster human development? Under what conditions do media systems succeed or fail to meet these objectives? And what strategic reforms would close the gap between the democratic promise and performance of media systems? Working within the notion of the democratic public sphere, 'Public Sentinel: News Media and Governance Reform' emphasizes the institutional or collective roles of the news media as watchdogs over the powerful, as agenda setters calling attention to social needs in natural and human-caused disasters and humanitarian crises, and as gatekeepers incorporating a diverse and balanced range of political perspectives and social actors. Each is vital to making democratic governance work in an effective, transparent, inclusive, and accountable manner. The capacity of media systems and thus individual reporters embedded within those institutions to fulfill these roles is constrained by the broader context of the journalistic profession, the market, and ultimately the state. Successive chapters apply these arguments to countries and regions worldwide. This study brought together a wide range of international experts under the auspices of the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) at the World Bank and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The book is designed for policy makers and media professionals working within the international development community, national governments, and grassroots organizations, and for journalists, democratic activists, and scholars engaged in understanding mass communications, democratic governance, and development.

Download or read book China s Public Diplomacy written by Ingrid d'Hooghe and published by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In China's Public Diplomacy, author Ingrid d'Hooghe contributes to our understanding of what constitutes and shapes a country's public diplomacy, and what factors undermine or contribute to its success. China invests heavily in policies aimed at improving its image, guarding itself against international criticism and advancing its domestic and international agenda. This volume explores how the Chinese government seeks to develop a distinct Chinese approach to public diplomacy, one that suits the country's culture and authoritarian system. Based on in-depth case studies, it provides a thorough analysis of this approach, which is characterized by a long-term vision, a dominant role for the government, an inseparable and complementary domestic dimension, and a high level of interconnectedness with China's overall foreign policy and diplomacy.

Download or read book Social Theory after the Internet written by Ralph Schroeder and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2018-01-04 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The internet has fundamentally transformed society in the past 25 years, yet existing theories of mass or interpersonal communication do not work well in understanding a digital world. Nor has this understanding been helped by disciplinary specialization and a continual focus on the latest innovations. Ralph Schroeder takes a longer-term view, synthesizing perspectives and findings from various social science disciplines in four countries: the United States, Sweden, India and China. His comparison highlights, among other observations, that smartphones are in many respects more important than PC-based internet uses. Social Theory after the Internet focuses on everyday uses and effects of the internet, including information seeking and big data, and explains how the internet has gone beyond traditional media in, for example, enabling Donald Trump and Narendra Modi to come to power. Schroeder puts forward a sophisticated theory of the role of the internet, and how both technological and social forces shape its significance. He provides a sweeping and penetrating study, theoretically ambitious and at the same time always empirically grounded.The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media and society, the internet and politics, and the social implications of big data.

Download or read book The Long Game written by Rush Doshi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-11 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a century, no US adversary or coalition of adversaries - not Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union - has ever reached sixty percent of US GDP. China is the sole exception, and it is fast emerging into a global superpower that could rival, if not eclipse, the United States. What does China want, does it have a grand strategy to achieve it, and what should the United States do about it? In The Long Game, Rush Doshi draws from a rich base of Chinese primary sources, including decades worth of party documents, leaked materials, memoirs by party leaders, and a careful analysis of China's conduct to provide a history of China's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War. Taking readers behind the Party's closed doors, he uncovers Beijing's long, methodical game to displace America from its hegemonic position in both the East Asia regional and global orders through three sequential "strategies of displacement." Beginning in the 1980s, China focused for two decades on "hiding capabilities and biding time." After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, it became more assertive regionally, following a policy of "actively accomplishing something." Finally, in the aftermath populist elections of 2016, China shifted to an even more aggressive strategy for undermining US hegemony, adopting the phrase "great changes unseen in century." After charting how China's long game has evolved, Doshi offers a comprehensive yet asymmetric plan for an effective US response. Ironically, his proposed approach takes a page from Beijing's own strategic playbook to undermine China's ambitions and strengthen American order without competing dollar-for-dollar, ship-for-ship, or loan-for-loan.