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  • 2024 Volume 46 Issue 9
    Published: 23 September 2024
      
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  • Human-AI Robots Cooperative Child-Rearing: Boundary Work and Relationship Adjustment on Intensive Mothering and Intelligent Childcare
    REN Yunling
    2024, 46(9): 6-25.
    Abstract ( ) Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save
    Against the background of the increasing integration of AI-enabled early childhood education and companion robots into Chinese family dynamics, this study characterizes this mediated phenomenon as “Human-AI Robots Cooperative Child-Rearing”. Under the influence of the traditional cultural ideals of “being a dutiful wife and loving mother”, child-rearing has evolved into what is termed “intensive mothering”. At present, the majority of research centers on the dualistic “empowerment-conflict” relationship between AI child-rearing robots and intensive mothering, while neglecting in-depth and comprehensive exploration of the intricate dynamics of consensus, resistance, interaction, and segmentation between women and AI child-rearing surrogates. Using the sociological concept of “boundary work” as its foundational analytical framework, this study is grounded in in- depth interviews and participant observation with 20 middle-class Chinese women who employ AI child-rearing robots in their households. The study found that women utilize the meanings, scenes, and styles of human-AI robots cooperative child-rearing as the three key orientations of boundary work, while engaging in adjusting, identifying, and redefining the interactive relationship between intensive mothering and AI child-rearing. Human-AI Robots Cooperative Child-Rearing also illustrates how the intersection between gender and technology both strengthens and challenges women’s maternal experiences dynamically, thus emphasizing the intricate nature of intergenerational connections and gender dynamics when confronted with technological interventions.
  • Friendship or Kinship? The Mediating Effect of Different- sourced Social Support between Urban Empty Nesters WeChat Community Participation and Their Loneliness
    LIU Chanjun LI Shuang LIN Yongqi LIU Huan
    2024, 46(9): 26-49.
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    The mental health of urban empty-nesters has become one of the most serious challenges in the wave of ageing. In the Internet era, in order to solve the dual dilemmas of physical “empty nest” and psychological “empty heart” of urban empty nesters, we need to call for the joint care of family, friends and society, while social media support is essential as well. The study focuses on the specific online social activities of this special group of urban empty nesters. It outlines the pathways through which WeChat community participation affects loneliness. These pathways involve different sources of social support. The study further explores the underlying reasons for the differences in the role of different sources of social support. It finds that friend support has a significant mediating effect between WeChat community participation and loneliness among urban empty nesters, while family support and other support have no signfiicant effect. This is a result of the interplay between multiple factors, including WeChat community attributes, physical space segregation, public opinion orientation, and individual choices. However, a single source of social support cannot hide the reality of weak emotional support and the lack of social security for the empty nesters. Therefore, a social support system should be established in the future to effectively link online and offline support and promote a balanced and diversified approach to social support.
  • Mediated Distance: The Construction of Proximity and Difference between Migrant Workers and Mainstream Groups
    LIU Guoqiang ZHOU Caiyun
    2024, 46(9): 50-70.
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    This study focuses on the media texts on Chen Zhi Event, examines the ways in which the media mediate the distance between migrant workers and the mainstream, investigates the narrative and discursive strategies employed, and assesses their implications. The study finds that the initial release of non-fiction writing and most of the subsequent commentaries create a proximity between migrant workers and the mainstream based on the universal human nature of the “quest for meaning”, which codifies class differences as symbolic identity differences in an egalitarian perspective that masks the material aspects of inequality. In addition to the dominant trend of proximity, a few texts demonstrate alternative constructions of distance by rewriting individual and class differences, outlining distinct mappings of how media positions the public and its moral coordinates. Drawing on Silverstone’s notion of “proper distance”, this study argues that these three types of textual practices mentioned above, i.e., de-differentiation, re-writing of individual and class differences, fully reflect the complexity of the mediation of distant others as a political and moral enterprise. The moral power and political efficacy of media texts must be grounded in a constant negotiation and open discussion of our proximity and difference with distant others.
  • The World “Being Inscribed”: Reinterpreting Friedrich Kittler’s Concept of “Aufschreibesystem” and His Media Theory
    TANG Haijiang XU Haoliang
    2024, 46(9): 71-91.
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    On the occasion of the upcoming 40th anniversary of the publication of Aufschreibesysteme 1800/1900 by Friedrich Kittler, the article returns to this work and examines its core term, “Aufschreibesystem”, which is also the basic concept underpinning his media theory. It examines the reasons why “Aufschreibesystem” is translated as “discourse network” in British and American academic circles, and verifies its true meaning from an etymological perspective: inscription system. Additionally, the article explores the origin and relationship between the concept and Shannon-Weaver's information theory, Foucault’s “extériorit”, Lacan’s psychoanalysis and Derrida’s grammatology, and reveals the specific connotations of “inscription”, “transformation”, “surface”. In addition, it outlines the world picture of its “inscription” by comparing the relevant thoughts of Foucault, Lacan and Derrida. This views not only opens up many aspects of Kittler’s media theory that have long been neglected and obscured, but also reveals the methodological basis of his media theory,and leaves a unique and valuable ideological legacy for analysing both history and the present.
  • Rethinking the Legitimacy of Copyright in the Context of ChatGPT
    ZHU Hongjun LI Xinyang
    2024, 46(9): 92-110.
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    Legitimacy theory has been repeatedly tested by major technological changes. Reflection on the legitimacy of copyright is a traditional and often new topic. As a symbol of the transformation of artificial intelligence technology from quantitative to qualitative, large generative models represented by ChatGPT not only challenge current copyright law, but also question the legitimacy of copyright. The traditional foundational theories that support copyright legitimacy are facing challenges in adapting to new environments. In the context of ChatGPT, the empowerment basis and standard of Labor Theory have failed, the prerequisites of Personality Theory are unsustainable, the incentive vision of Utilitarianism can not be achieved. In the context of ChatGPT, as single theory cannot complete the task of proving the legitimacy of copyright, a collection of theories guided by multiple concepts offers new inspiration to copyright legitimacy. Labor Theory, Justice Theory and Social Planning Theory have respectively proven the diverse values of copyright at the levels of defining of the scope of rights, distributing economic benefits and constructing culture and society. This provides a relatively coherent and progressive theoretical foundation for copyright legitimacy in the context of new technology.
  • The Serial Participants in Mediatized Disaster Governance:A Case Study of Rescue Document in Zhengzhou Rainstorm
    DAI Jia JI Chenghao
    2024, 46(9): 111-134.
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    The frequent occurrence of extreme weather disasters in recent years poses new challenges for disaster governance. Through the examination of public participation in an online collaborative editing document in the 2021 rainstorm rescue in Zhengzhou, this article explores the process of self-organizing communities achieving collaborative governance in disaster relief through media. The research results indicate that serial participant in self-organizing communities is a core element contributing to the success of rescue efforts. Firstly, serial participants successfully increased the probability of converting victims in need to victims rescued by acting as network intermediaries and shortening the interaction distances between participants. Secondly, it is precisely because of the solutions of supply and demand matching, resource deployment, accelerating the flow of information, connecting multiple actors proposed by serial participants, that the interest reconciliation and joint action between multiple stakeholders, including the state, the market and the public, can be realized. Finally, as a response to China’s strategic goal of deepening the modernization of governance systems and governance capabilities, this article discusses the characteristics of mediatized governance in disasters, and how governance innovation based on digital media technology can optimize efficiency.
  • Social Bot Field Experiments in Computational Communication: Concept, Method, and Application
    WU Ye LI Zhanghao MIN Yong
    2024, 46(9): 135-154.
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    With advances in artificial intelligence technologies, social bots are increasingly being applied in social science research. From the perspective of computational communication, we discuss the conception, methodology, experimental design, and practical applications of social bot field experiments. Leveraging the advantages of big data analytics and simulation techniques, social bot field experiments have now evolved into a highly controllable research method. We highlighted how this method provides new approaches for observing, analyzing, and understanding communication phenomena in digital media environments, contributing to the verification, exploration, and expansion of communication theories. In the empirical research section, we conducted a preliminary investigation into the causes of filter bubbles through field experiments with social robots. The study finds that despite controlling for reading behavior preferences, social robot accounts may still fall into filter bubbles after random reading experiments.
  • Light Effect on Advertising Persuasion: An Experimental Research Based on Environmental Psychology
    XUAN Changchun
    2024, 46(9): 155-176.
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    From the perspective of environmental psychology, this research focuses on the specific physical situation built by “people-advertising-light environment” in which advertising is disseminated. Three experiments try to find the specific mechanism that light environment influences advertising effect. The result shows that product type serves as moderator between light environment and the attitude towards product of consumers . For utilitarian products, the attitude of consumers is more positive in the environment with sufficient light, by contrast, the attitude towards hedonic products of consumers is more positive in a much dimmer environment. This moderating effect is achieved through the mediating variable of consumers’ self-presentation consciousness. For utilitarian products, self-presentation consciousness plays a mediating role, that is, in the bright light environment, consumers’ self-presentation consciousness is stimulated to hold a more positive attitude towards practical goods. But for hedonic products, self-presentation consciousness does not play a mediating role. The research results can promote the expansion of advertising theory perspective and guide advertising practice.