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  • 2024 Volume 46 Issue 8
    Published: 23 August 2024
      
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  • How Do Humans Become “the Others” of Computers: Ableism Pitfalls in CAPTCHA Human-Computer Interactions
    XIE Zhuoxiao CAI Cong
    2024, 46(8): 6-26.
    Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save
    CAPTCHA seems to be a necessary procedure for users’ registration, login, and conducting certain operations in current Internet environment. While critics have pointed out the barriers toidentification and input that CAPTCHA design poses to special populations, extant studies rarely pay attention to the technological ontology of CAPTCHA and the relevant authentication mechanisms. CAPTCHA technology demonstrates a type of relational inversion of human-computer interaction: From being the technology of “the other”, the computer has transformed itself into an examiner who asks questions of the human being, and has even begun to define and interrogate the nature of the human being, while the human being has metamorphosed from a “subject” into the “other” of the technology. This article draws on the philosophy of technology and the phenomenology of technology to discuss how the Reverse Turing Test intervenes in and influences human answers and practices to the question of “what is a human being”. The article analyses the bodily and ableist presuppositions implicit in “I test, therefore I am” human-computer interactions, and uses real-life examples to reflect on the negative dialectics of ableism, which massively create human beings as technological “others”. It further rethinks the bodily view of human-computer interaction by proposing “defects” and “connections” to demonstrate the possibility of dis-ableism in CAPTCHA.
  • Breakdown and Repair of Human-machine Communication: Video Analysis of Family Members’ Joint Media Engagement
    LUO Longxiang WANG Bing WANG Xiuli
    2024, 46(8): 27-49.
    Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save
    This study advances research on human-machine communication (HMC) by exploring communication breakdown and its repair in the process of family members’ joint media engagement with smart speakers. Leveraging insights from interpersonal communication research and using video analysis and thematic analysis of 74 UGC (User Generated Content) videos, it identifies factors contributing to communication breakdown, including recognition sensitivity, interaction stability, corpus diversity, and content richness of smart speakers, as well as children’s language proficiency and intellectual development level. The study also highlights strategies employed by smart speakers to repair communication breakdowns, including both negative and positive measures, and that employed by children, consisting of a spectrum of verbal and non-verbal approaches, and parents adopt different repair strategies in response to communication breakdowns. Additionally, users tend to adapt to the logic of the machine during human-machine communication rather than the opposite. It argues that the concept of “process” bridges interpersonal communication and HMC, emphasizing developmental aspects of interpersonal communication is particularly relevant to HMC. The study also offers insights into human-machine relationship, human-machine civilization, and technopolitics.
  • Forbidden Games: Love, Death, and the Affordance of Romance with GPT
    LIANG Yikun
    2024, 46(8): 50-71.
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    Since the emergence of generative AI its continuous development has led to interactions between users and AI that have begun to transcend the boundaries of traditional interpersonal communication. This study focuses on the unanticipated emotional practice of “human-AI romance” and employs qualitative research methods to examine how users collaborate with AI to cross and reshape communication boundaries based on the theory of affordance. The findings reveal that users guide AI to break through limitations and cross existing boundaries by using special prompts; they engage in natural language programming and co-construct worlds with generative AI to create virtual lovers, thereby reshaping communication boundaries. Confronted with AI’s technological limitations and iterative development processes, which lead to new boundaries like limited “memory” and the “death” of AI companions, users are adopting various strategies and negotiating with technological systems to sustain this emotional practice. These strategies include memory inscription and “reincarnation” of their AI companions. This dynamic boundary-crossing game not only presents new possibilities for human-AI communication but also reveals the significance of “processuality” and “in(un)determinacy” to the theory of affordance.
  • The Influence of American Mainstream Media Reports on China’s Credible Political Image in ASEAN—Take US Media Reports on the Belt and Road Initiative as an Example
    YU Qingchu GUO Yingchun
    2024, 46(8): 72-90.
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    Credibility serves as the fundamental cornerstone for crafting a “credible, endearing, and respectable” image of China. This paper examines the role of emotional bias in U.S. mainstream media coverage of the “Belt and Road” initiative within ASEAN countries and its impact on the perception of China’s credible political image. The findings reveal a correlation: the more positive the emotional tone in U.S. mainstream media reports, the more favorable the perception of China's political image among ASEAN nations, and this relationship holds true in reverse as well. By incorporating the moderating effects of political trust in and alliance with the United States, the research indicates that ASEAN countries with stronger ties to the U.S. are less susceptible to media influence, whereas those with weaker ties are more likely to be swayed by media narratives. This suggests that once a stable trust relationship is established between nations, it remains robust against media influences. Conversely, for nations lacking such trust, media can exert a significant influence. Drawing on the theory of “wedge strategy,” this paper proposes strategies for preemptive alliance blocking and alliance differentiation in international communication. These strategies aim to enhance ASEAN’s recognition and acceptance of China’s credible political image.
  • Voice of the Witness: The Effect of Self-reported Videos of Emerging Infectious Diseases Patients on Public Online Engagement and Emotional Arousal
    LIU Yi JIANG Xiaoyuan ZHENG Weijie SHAO Yuanhang
    2024, 46(8): 91-109.
    Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save
    In contemporary society, the emergence of acute infectious diseases poses a significant threat to human life and health. The dissemination of health information by officials, experts, or professional organizations is crucial for the prevention and control of such diseases. The information released by patients as witnesses and its role should not be ignored, but few studies have explored this. Against the backdrop of the popularity of short videos, this study examines self-reported videos by COVID-19 patients on the Douyin platform. Utilizing the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM), content analysis was conducted to explore the content features and their influence on public online engagement and emotional arousal. The findings reveal that all videos contained at least one component of threat (severity and susceptibility) or efficacy (self-efficacy and response efficacy). Both threat and efficacy components positively affected video likes, comments, and favorites. Meanwhile, the high severity component and the high susceptibility component were associated with the arousal of fear and anxiety respectively, while the high self-efficacy component significantly reduced these negative emotional responses. Additionally, the low response efficacy component was found to enhance anxiety arousal. On this basis, we discuss the theoretical significance and practical value of this study.
  • The Rhetorical Changes and Conceptual Spillover of Network Neologisms under the Framework of Social Stratum Discourse (2010-2021)
    PENG Huaxin
    2024, 46(8): 110-131.
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    In the decades since the rise of social media in 2010, an important feature of Chinese new words has emerged, that is, these new words originated on the Internet and quickly returned from the Internet to offline public life. Similar to the neologism boom of any historical period, these neologisms participated in social construction and cultural interpretation on a large scale. While entering the daily social space, the new words strengthen existing class stereotypes in society. Its class reference does not only mean objective class positioning, but also constantly infects the emotions of netizens in the class self-positioning. When the emotions reach a certain threshold, a social consensus is formed. Under this situation, the national debate on the meaning of new words has emerged, and the social groups have obtained the community identity, allowing them to construct a collective resistance, but this awareness of resistance is completed in the context of weakness-displaying, and the folk deduce it as a withdrawal-mechanism. As a negative emotion strategy, withdrawal-mechanism has a strong appeal and mobilization ability. It gains empathy without requiring logical reasoning and allows the meaning of the word to cross social circles.
  • The Convergence of the Journalism and Art: A Study Based on “Enacted Journalism”
    XIANG Fen YU Yue
    2024, 46(8): 132-150.
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    Journalism and art have a profound origin. However, they are often separated due to academic division and professional specialization. In fact, whether in China or the West, during wartime or peacetime, there is a convergence between journalism and art. This study focuses on the specific practice of Enacted Journalism, which was a collective creation that used the combat hero Li Dianbing as a prototype in the Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area. The trend of imitation was stimulated by Enacted Journalism during a period. This paper explores the cross-text “real-life stories” and typical politics, the cross-media technology and the updating of communication forms, the cross-subject collective creation and the adjustments of power/ability, to demonstrate the implementation of new cultural concepts and practices from the central to the local through the convergence of journalism and art. Furthermore, this paper extends its perspective to the Soviet Living Newspaper, Chinese Times Report Drama, and Digital Live Journalism to analyze the theoretical and practical value of the integrated development of journalism and artistry.
  • On Description and Replicability: A Conversation on the Production of Empirical Knowledge
    YU Hongmei PAN Zhongdang
    2024, 46(8): 151-176.
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    Journalism and communication research needs to attend to the issue of research replicability.In this conversation, we discuss how description is a basic means for the acquisition of empirical knowledge and how replicability is a basic epistemological principle in the production of such knowledge. We then examine the papers published in the 5 top journalism and communication journals in 2023. The results show that, overall, the published empirical studies do not have a high level of replicability, especially the qualitative papers with a humanistic orientation. We analyze and interpret these results through the lens of scientific epistemology. Based on that, we offer some specific recommendations on how to improve the replicability of empirical research so that we can advance journalism and communication scholarship with an orientation toward mutual validation and improved credibility.