In the process of technological change and the development of a media society, the interaction and functional evolution between media and society are gradually intensifying. Interpreting the relationship between media, society, and people from the perspective of structural function is an important path for modern social media practice and theory. The function of Chinese media is constructed and developed in the process of the Chinese path to modernization, which is not completely equivalent to Western definition of media function and value, but has its own connotation, characteristics, and reference. Based on this basic position, based on rethinking western functionalism and developing communication science, this paper proposes to return to the real world and reveal the formation mechanism and core performance of social functions of Chinese media in China’s specific social context, in the context of China’s long history and culture, the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and the historical process of Chinese path to modernization. Based on the social system theory as the fundamental theoretical perspective and empirical materials, it is found that the social function of Chinese media is formed and constructed in a system of “unity and isomorphism” between the state, society, people, and media. Its unique function is mainly manifested in two aspects: 1) serving the country and social governance, providing systematic government services; 2) shaping modern lifestyles and promoting human modernization.

Based on the perspective of affect theory, this article is dedicated to an interpretation of individuals’ affective experience when they use online crazy literature, focusing on the discussion of line of flight generated from the sequence-structure in their daily life, and its liberating potential in the ethical dimension. This research indicates that the affect of madness is mainly triggered by the preconditioned dilemma linked to power and emotion in communicative action,while the expressing practice of crazy literature leads to an experiment with stuff-stacking, as an overflows of the symbol system, by virtue of its deterritorialization of language. Hence, the subjects of the discourse expose their own entities during the differential setting process of “to become others”. The affect genealogy of crazy literature also highlights the fundamental significance of the body and its affective dimension in communication, so that the individuals’ events are endowed with an angle detached from the limited stipulation of the representational mechanism, through which people are enabled to find out their true life styles and forms in the practice of technologies of self.

Douyin’s sparks have created virtual digital contracts for intimate relationships and shaped new social behavior and culture. This study adopts observation and in-depth interviews to analyse the symbolic significance of sparks in intimate relationships, the process of relationship development based on sparks, and the impact of sparks on intimate relationships. Research shows that, sparks, as virtual mediators, influence and regulate user behavior. The process of maintaining sparks reveals dynamic developmental features. Based on social penetration theory and the ladder model, this study proposes the “contract metaphor”, which divides the process of sustaining sparks into six stages: “contract signing”, “contract compliance”, “contract strengthening”, “contract negotiation”, “contract internalization” and “contract breaking”. Sparks impact intimate relationships, either intensifying, downgrading, or reconciling them. This study triggers reflections on the role of sparks as virtual mediators and deepens existing understanding of how virtual mediators affect intimate relationships, which is conducive to exploring the path to the creation and positive development of intimate relationships.

On the basis of existing studies on geeks, this paper adopts a perspective of philosophy of technology and conducts qualitative interviews with technical enthusiasts to explores their human-computer interaction practices in the era of generative artificial intelligence. As a form of digital object, artificial intelligence technology continuously evoles through individualization. While technical enthusiasts combine technical elements to invent technical individuals and deploy technical infrastructure, they also act as technical individuals to co-create associated milieu with AI technology and develope discursive and existential relationships in both technical and material senses. These enthusiasts can grasp the causal logic and temporal relationships within AI systems, then the technology is ready-to-hand and the elixir could be refined, promoting the process of technical infrastructure. In the meantime, drawing on the phenomenological concepts of protentions and retentions, AI technology can serve as a kind of tertiary protention and tertiary retention, intervening in the infrastructure processes at both psychological and collective levels. And in this process, technical enthusiasts act as curcial transducteurs. Since AI technology can be both a poison and an antidote, the possibility of technical alienation could not be excluded from practices of human-machine. However, this paper prefers to emphasize the potential of technical enthusiasts as alchemists and the magical abilities possessed by human beings, thus highlighting the agency of the subject.

This paper attempts to explore the specific mechanisms and processes of the microscope’s influence on disease discourse. The microscope mediates human’s sense towards the world and also mediates the presentation of the world towards human. The former regards the microscope as an extension of the naked eye, and research inevitably falls into the premise that the microscope enhances vision in a similar way. The latter jumps out of the body-centered perspective, as a result, the specificity of the microscope’s visible way is highlighted in the process of presenting the world. Based on the latter, this paper introduces Foucault’s concept of discursive practice and proposes that the microscope frames the possibility of discourse formation by stipulating the visible way of the object of disease discourse. Unlike visual inspection with the naked eye, the microscope makes the object of disease discourse visible in the form of technical images, which represents an entity independent of the patient’s body, and the pathogenicity is judged by the “whether” relationship between technical images. On this basis, the disease discourse needs to be developed around professional terms, accurately and objectively pointing to visible, static and fragmentary disease entities. This paper attempts to open up the media research perspective of technologies such as microscopes.

Migrant children have become a focal point in contemporary discussions of urbanization and population mobility. The urban-rural duality of their identity places them in a predicament- unable to return home yet struggling to integrate into urban life. Grounded in Lefebvre’s spatial triad theory and employing an action research approach, this research engaged 19 fourth-grade students from Class 3 at X Primary School in Beilin District, Xi’an, in a year-long intervention comprising seven interactive new media courses, three collaborative new media practices, and three urban exploration sessions. By framing new media as both a pedagogical tool and a participatory platform, this research establishes an organic interconnected framework linking urban space, media use, and social relations. The findings demonstrate that implementation of structured interventions effectively enhanced migrant children's new media literacy and skills, facilitating a shift from passive media consumption to active use of media for self-empowerment. Specifically, their improved media communication skills strengthened their ability to express themselves and participate in urban spaces. Through city exploration and engagement with digital platforms, migrant children co-constructed a sense of shared identity, fostering localized social networks and enhancing their sense of urban integration.

After the Southern Anhui Incident, the Communist Party of China timely proposed the strategic concept of “establishing a new Subei” (Northern Jiangsu). In the context of this era, the “intellectuals” of the New Fourth Army participated in the struggle against the enemy a democratic construction through propaganda practices. The group went from “being cultural warriors of the proletariat” to becoming cadres of propaganda and culture, and then created a “new culture” through collective actions, and eventually became a key force in “establishing a new Subei”. Taking the cadres of propaganda and culture of “a new Subei” as the subject perspective of historical interpretation, the organic process and logical occurrence of this historical event can be clarified through examining individual actions and collective practices. The historical process from “a cultural city” to “an exemplary base area” and eventually becoming “a part of the new democratic republic” was essentially a process of the dual creation by the cadres of propaganda and culture of “a new Subei”. In this process, the cadres of propaganda and culture of “a new Subei” not only participated in revolutionary practices and transformed the objective world, but also they transformed the subjective world and eventually shaped themselves into a historical subject within the New Democratic Movement.

The emergence of hometown newspapers represents a fusion of hometown sentiments and the demand for information within a mobile society. These publications, a unique form of local newspaper published in Shanghai but maintained a strong focus on their hometowns, yet they have not received sufficient attention from academia so far. This paper takes “place” as the keyword and combines the history of local journalism with human geography, to analyze the multiple dimensions and meanings of hometown newspapers in “place” reconstruction, from aspects such as origin from place, visible place, from space to place, transformation of place, and beyond place. This study reveals that hometown newspapers make efforts to maintain a visible and enduring social, cultural, and emotional connection between immigrants and their hometowns, which is beneficial for the recognition and cohesion of local communities among immigrants. These newspapers also demonstrate a distinct critical consciousness of local issues, striving to reform local society in fulfillment of their local responsibilities and historical mission of “supervising the locality and guiding the villagers”. Furthermore, they guide readers to transcend localism, cultivating their national consciousness and ethnic concepts, thereby shaping the villagers into citizens, which is conducive to the production and reproduction of their national identity. However, outside of the home village and the country, there is no place for Shanghai. Hometown newspapers do not encourage immigrants to identify with Shanghai, which is different from the American immigration press.