China Media Research - Vol. 11, No.2

China Media Research 11(2)

Issue Vol. 11, No. 2 / April 2015




Being Addicted to Chinese Twitter: Exploring the Roles of Users’ Expected Outcomes and Deficient Self-regulation in Social Network Service Addiction

Author(s): Kun Xu, Meichen Lin, Paul Haridakis

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This study focuses on people’s addictive use of Weibo in China. As Weibo is one of the most popular social network service sites in China, this study specifically investigates the relationships among people’s expected outcomes of Weibo use, deficient self-regulation, Weibo usage and Weibo addiction. Social cognitive theory was applied as the guiding theoretical framework in the current study. Participants from a public university in China were asked to fill out the surveys. The results suggested that participants have expected self-reactive outcome, expected status outcome, and expected novelty outcome in Weibo use. Expected self-reactive outcome positively predicted deficient self-regulation and all the dimensions of Weibo addiction. Weibo usage also positively predicted deficient self-regulation and all the dimensions of Weibo addiction. Research implications and future research directions were discussed in this study. [Kun Xu, Meichen Lin, Paul Haridakis Wang Pan. Being Addicted to Chinese Twitter: Exploring the Roles of Users’ Expected Outcomes and Deficient Self-regulation in Social Network Service Addiction. China Media Research 2015; 11(2): 1-16]. 1

Media Presentations of Cross-Strait Marriage in Contemporary China

Author(s): Wang Pan

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This paper examines media presentations in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) of PRC-Taiwan marriages or ‘cross-Strait marriages’ (liang’an hunyin) as they are known colloquially. The paper is presented in three sections. First, it outlines the political history of cross-Strait relations from 1949 to the present, from overtly confrontational politics to the normalization of economic and trade relations, and its influence on growing rates of cross-Strait migration and marriage. Second, it analyzes print media coverage of cross-Strait marriage from the 1990s to the present, tracing a shift from concerns about the disadvantaged and marginalized position of ‘mainland [PRC] brides’ living in Taiwan to positive stories about their desirability, and of a reversed migration trend wherein many Taiwanese now live with their PRC spouses in the PRC. The third section discusses presentations of cross-Strait marriage in PRC television documentaries, focusing on Yuanfen, a documentary series shown on Channel 4 of China Central Television Station from 2006 to 2009. These documentaries offer new constructions of cross-Strait marriage, emphasizing the desirability of the ‘contemporary mainland bride’, who offers their Taiwanese spouse love, support, and the opportunity to live and work in the PRC – the new land of opportunity. [Wang Pan. Media Presentations of Cross-Strait Marriage in Contemporary China. China Media Research 2015; 11(2): 17-28]. 2

Stereotypes of Americans and Hollywood Movie Viewing in China: A Uses and Gratifications Perspective

Author(s): Lin Zhu, Thomas B. Christie

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This study examines the relationship between intercultural contact, formation of stereotypical perceptions of U.S. Americans, and Hollywood movie viewing among Chinese college students. One hundred and twenty five college students from a major Chinese university completed a survey. Two competing models were proposed and tested: a cultivation model and a Uses and Gratifications model. The main findings from this study include: 1) intercultural contact with Westerners (including U.S. Americans and Europeans) was related to reduced stereotypes of Americans; and 2) viewing of Hollywood movies reflected participants’ positive attitudes toward U.S. Americans. Finally, the implications and limitations were discussed and suggestions for future research were offered. [Lin Zhu, Thomas B. Christie. Stereotypes of Americans and Hollywood Movie Viewing in China: A Uses and Gratifications Perspective. China Media Research 2015; 11(2): 29-37]. 3

Ganying and the Mountain: Devotees’ Experiences, Visions and Imaginations at Nanwutaishan

Author(s): María Elvira Ríos Peñafiel

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Ganying (??) is one of the oldest Chinese concepts that reveal the connection between Chinese cosmology and the human beings. From the Buddhist religious perspective, ganying becomes the stimulus-response between the devotee and the deity. The stimulusis attend a rite, make requests, read s?tras, pilgrimage to the mountain or just have a thought in order to achieve the benefit of the Buddha or Bodhisattvas. The responses comes in dreams, visions, emotions, sensations, imagination an even in fantastic tales. Probably, the most auspicious place to experience ganying in China is the mountain; Zhongnanshan (???) is one of them. One of them most important mountain in Zhongnanshan is Nanwutaishan(????), where the religious and lays devotees describe their ganying experiences. Their accounts create a communication which identify them with the space and their beliefs, with the supernatural and the power (ling?) of the mountain. I suggest a ganying’s descriptions of the Nanwutaisha’s devotees, the religious and cultural elements that influences in their experiences and the way which theirs accounts collaborate in the continuous construction of the sacred in Nanwutaishan. [María Elvira Ríos Peñafiel. Ganying and the Mountain: Devotees’ Experiences, Visions and Imaginations at Nanwutaishan. China Media Research 2015; 11(2): 38-48]. 4

U.S. Public Relations Preferences for Free Press Reporting in Contrast With Neo-Authoritarian Journalistic Approaches

Author(s): Jim Schnell

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This article will describe neo-authoritarian journalistic approaches used by the Chinese government during the 1996 Taiwan Straits conflict as context for understanding how the U.S. will promote free press reporting of controversies occurring in the China Seas as a public relations initiative in the future. As such, specific attention will focus on the role of the new communication technologies as a variable that will impact global understanding of such controversies. Initial concern is with neo-authoritarian communicative efforts by the Chinese government to influence perceptions of in-country U.S. citizens, regarding U.S. credibility and intentions, during the 1996 Taiwan sovereignty/re-unification controversy related to People's Liberation Army exercises in the Taiwan Straits. China Daily, the government owned and government controlled English language newspaper, is studied as a representative mass media channel (being inclusive of China Radio International and China Central Television news reporting topics). This report also addresses the increased emphasis on visual imagery over aural messages as it relates to journalistic reporting. [Jim Schnell. U.S. Public Relations Preferences for Free Press Reporting in Contrast With Neo-Authoritarian Journalistic Approaches. China Media Research 2015; 11(2): 49-56]. 5



[Special Section]

Interology

Guest Editor: Peter Zhang, Grand Valley State University



Prologue to Interology: In Lieu of a Preface

Author(s): Peter Zhang

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[Peter Zhang. Prologue to Interology: In Lieu of a Preface. China Media Research 2015; 11(2): 57-67]. 6

Interality Shows Through: An Introduction to Interalogy

Author(s): Geling Shang

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The paper introduces the eccentric or unfamiliar concepts of interality and interalogy by proceeding from the tradition of Eastern, especially Chinese, philosophy. After elucidating the etymological meanings and the philosophical significances of the terms, the author suggests that interalogy as the study of interality could be a way of looking at the world alternative to traditional Western ontological or metaphysical ones. [Geling Shang. Interality Shows Through: An Introduction to Interalogy. China Media Research 2015; 11(2): 68-79]. 7

Toward a Relational World from a Western Perspective

Author(s): Stephen Rowe

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Several glimpses or “pointings” at relationality and relational worldview: through encounter with the other, though encounter with the self and the void in religious experience and human development; and through the experience of democratic life. The essay takes note of the fact that a relational life cannot be sustained without forms of interpretation, education, religion, and family life which support and nurture it. The essay concludes with the suggestion that contemporary higher education in America has become the scene of conflict between the modern, Cartesian Worldview in decline, and the emergence – through the transformative orientation to education - of a new and pluralistic worldview of relationality. [Stephen Rowe. Toward a Relational World from a Western Perspective.China Media Research 2015; 11(2):80-84]. 8

Old Man Coyote and the In-Between

Author(s): Robert L. Ivie, Oscar Giner

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The archetypal image of Old Man Coyote serves as a case of interality applied to the problem of democracy drained of political import by U.S. war culture. The article illustrates the authors’ collaborative production of a primary draft, or poetic hub, from which to engender further writing in the spirit of Coyote’s mythic trespass on an imperial landscape of dead metaphors. It ends with a discussion of the role played by mythic tricksters in the reconstruction of political order. [Robert L. Ivie; Oscar Giner. Old Man Coyote and the In-Between. China Media Research 2015; 11(2): 85-92]. 9

The Human Seriousness of Interality: An East Asian Take

Author(s): Peter Zhang

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This article examines the Chinese sensibility and, to a lesser extent, the Japanese and South Korean sensibilities, through the lens of “interality,” and reveals the rich senses of the term while doing so. It makes a case for an interality-oriented Weltanschauung by marshaling a wide range of textual and praxial evidences. [Peter Zhang. The Human Seriousness of Interality: An East Asian Take. China Media Research 2015; 11(2):93-103]. 10

Interality in Heidegger

Author(s): YOU, Xi-lin, Peter Zhang

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This article engages moments in Heidegger’s work where interality is discussed, even though Heidegger does not use the term explicitly. It reveals understudied parallels and resonances between Heidegger’s work and Chan Buddhism, and points to the probability that Heidegger’s fundamental ontology may well be a precursor of the emerging line of inquiry called interology. [YOU, Xi-lin, Peter Zhang. Interality in Heidegger. China Media Research 2015; 11(2): 104-108]. 11



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