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.

This article selects innovative journalism papers in addressing research questions, offering unique perspectives, and employing novel argumentation methods from nearly 30 Chinese academic journals (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) published in 2024. In 2024, Chinese journalism research maintained a relatively stable focus on topics and continue advancing through innovative perspectives. Firstly, research on journalism theory, news production,media convergence, journalistic practitioners, and audience engagement has supported the core foundation of news knowledge production over the past year. Secondly, with the continuous reshaping of news practice by digital communication technology, theoretical explorations on journalism business models and diverse storytelling techniques have returned to the forefront of journalism research. In addition, researchers have made significant progress in tracking and comparing innovative practices in Chinese journalism, critiquing and revisiting classic journalism concepts, conducting cross-disciplinary research between journalism history and socio-political history, and exploring issues such as gender representation in news and its role in society.

Over the past few years, there have been historical transformations in the global political, cultural, and communication landscape. Under these remarkable changes of the new era, academics have argued that the fundamental philosophy of China’s global cultural communication has to be advanced from “intercultural communication” to “transcultural communication”. This study will delineate the theoretical foundations of transcultural communication by following three trajectories--the communicative consequences of globalization, the critique of post-colonialism, and the methodological reflection--and inspect its implications within the current global political, economic, and cultural milieu, inspiring its potential to engage with China’s global communication practices. Based on this, we explore three transcultural practical directions for China’s global communication. The primary direction is to establish multicultural connections and fostering the networks among cultures worldwide. The second direction aims to attain the “liberation” of diverse cultural entities in practical politics within the framework of “critical transculturalism”, and to facilitate the “transformative reproduction” among Chinese and other cultures through hybridity. The third direction involves embracing a comprehensive perspective of global cultural fluxion, absorbing the traditional Chinese philosophical idea of “all-under-heaven” (tian-xia), considering the transcultural actors and establishing a “cosmopolitan risk collectivity” based on “rationality-cognition” throughout cultural interaction and transformation. These three directions are interconnected and mutually supportive, creating a synergistic mechanism when implemented collectively.

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.

The year 2024 marks not only the 30th anniversary of China’s full access to Internet services but also a pivotal moment in the accelerated development of generative artificial intelligence technologies and applications. This year has witnessed extensive scholarly discussions and in-depth analyses on topics such as knowledge production and human-computer relationships in the context of generative AI. Guided by criteria including topical relevance, theoretical innovation, and research depth, this article identifies five key themes from new media research published in core journals in 2024: the transformation of the knowledge production paradigm driven by generative AI, evolving dynamics and challenges in human-computer relationships, cross-disciplinary interactions and innovative emotional practices in the AI era, studies on digital nomadism, and research on micro-short dramas. By categorizing and briefly reviewing these themes, this article aims to provide a structured overview that serves as a reference for future research in the field.

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.

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.

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.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has led to significant advancements in human-computer interaction. However, the resulting confusion regarding self- identity and the emerging crisis of human-computer trust warrant closer attention in theoretical research. The emergence of AI anchors has not only driven profound changes in the intelligence transformation of the online live-streaming industry but also presents significant opportunities and challenges for reshaping media trust and constructing new forms of human-computer trust relationship. This study employs social trust theory as the foundation and media equation theory as the research perspective. Utilizing survey data and structural equation modeling, it examines the mediality of AI anchors and reveals the path and mechanisms of human-computer trust construction under the iterative development of artificial intelligence technology. The study found that anthropomorphic and intelligent mediality presentations directly impact the formation of human-computer trust in AI anchors; mediality also indirectly affects the human- computer trust relationship through the mediator variable of perceived value; technology self- efficacy plays a moderating role in the relationship between mediality and the trust formation, and individuals with higher levels of technology self-efficacy being more likely to develop trust in AI anchors during interactions. The innovative ideas put forward in the study can promote the construction of a new human-computer relationship with the core concept of “intelligence for good, technology for humans”, and thus improve the social trust system in the context of new technologies.

In contrast to western research on “digital disconnection”, which focuses on the digital “connection” or “disconnection” from the perspective of technology-based individual use, this paper explores the concept of “alienated connections”. It situates the disconnection practices within social media when the Chinese cultural context of guanxi, and focusing on the reconnection between contemporary youth who influenced by individual culture and their family and acquaintances in the context of guanxi-individualization, as well as the change of differential mode of association. In the horizontal, parallel relationships with family members and zijiaren (one of us), the traditional emphasis on deferring to parents (“obliged affection”) is no longer prominent. This has been replaced by “natural affection” expressed through intimacy without respect and the construction of pattern of “filial piety but disobedience”. Conversely, within the vertical hierarchical structure, the rule of renqing and mianzi continue to serve as strong forces in interaction. The inherent “order” structure of superiors and subordinates remains intact, manifesting itself as expressions of “obliged affection” characterized by respect without intimacy. In parallel acquaintance relationships, the intertwining of instrumental and emotional dimensions jointly determines the direction of the relationship. Under the mediation effect of digital media, the “internet-based relationship” established with potential relationships has become a new form of online acquaintance relationship. On the one hand, instrumental considerations cause such relationships tend to become distant. On the other hand, “natural affection” has become dynamics of such relationships to be close. In short, “alienated connections” is a coupling relationship strategy between individualization (self-culture) and guanxi culture for contemporary youth in the context of guanxi-individualization. “Alienated connections” not only aligns with Chinese practice between the guanxi structure and the process of individualization, but also has the theoretical potential for further dialogue with the western concept of “disconnection”.

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.

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.

Existing research often frames interns as proactive individuals under the concept of “manufacturing consent”. However, fieldwork reveals a private side marked by indignation and resistance, raising questions about the contrast between their onstage and offstage personas and its formation. Using the hidden transcripts theory and a processual perspective, this study examines the psychological transitions and authenticity shifts of interns at the Internet “giants” in China before and during their internships. Findings show that interns experience an emotional cycle of expectation, disenchantment, and resistance when facing the gap between ideals and reality. Yet, practical constraints compel them to endure temporarily through “compromise”. As self-awareness of authenticity grows, they adopt script-adjustment strategies to safeguard their interests. However, this compromise has limits, and triggering events may lead to performative withdrawal as a form of resistance.

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.

From merely being discussed online to being seen everywhere on the streets, Hanfu culture catches the public attention and becomes the subject of youth culture research. The article believes that in order to understand the tensions contained in Hanfu as a cultural phenomenon, we first need to regard Hanfu as a “mediating object” and studies its modern emergence and the social relations its connects. Secondly, it is necessary to bring in the theoretical perspective of boundary research to reveal the inner dynamics of Hanfu practice as a “reinvented tradition”, and capture clues about its directions.

The process of connecting the things we perceive with concepts and their meanings is representation. Throughout its century-long history, the Walt Disney Company has established a dominant presence in the global cultural market, not only through audiovisual productions centered on iconic character series such as “princesses” and “superheroes”, but also through its widely acclaimed animal-themed films, which have resonated with audiences across generations. However, the research on Disney’s animal-themed movies and their global dissemination has rarely drawn the attention of Chinese communication scholars. This paper sorts out the diachronic evolution process of animal images and the representation of views on animals in Disney’s animated films over the past century, and explores the value tools through which Disney’s cultural products achieve global dissemination. The study finds that Disney has produced animal-themed movies with global influence in different historical periods. The representation of its views on animals has echoed the historical development of the global ecological trend of thought, which has become main reason for its cultural products to possess global cultural influence. Nevertheless, since entering the 21st century, as a representative of the capitalist cultural industry, Disney no longer closely follows the more internationalist ecological trends of thought like environmental justice, and relies excessively on digital technological means. Its animal-themed movies have fallen into a double trap of representation. The malfunction of the ecological ideological value tool has caused Disney’s animal-themed movies to lose their leading impetus in global dissemination in the 21st century.

In traditional journalism, reporters need to be “physically present” to cover news stories. However, with the development of new communication technologies, the tradition of “reporters on the scene” as the primary source of information is changing. This paper examines the structural changes in news sources and the transformation of news production models in the context of internet technology development, using three major international conflicts in the 21st century as examples. The study identifies Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) as an increasingly significant source for institutional media. It further analyzes the characteristics and mechanisms of SOCMINT in three aspects: information production, fact-checking, and information dissemination. Finally, the paper explores the evolving role of institutional media in the SOCMINT era and offers new perspectives on how institutional media can function and fulfill their responsibilities through SOCMINT.

Incidental news exposure is a crucial way for social media users to encounter news. Different strategies for handling incidental news exposure affect users' knowledge acquisition, news engagement, and social participation. However, existing research has rarely focused on users' strategies for dealing with incidental news, leading to a lack of cumulative knowledge in studying the effects of incidental news exposure. This paper, based on the PINE model, categorizes incidental news handling strategies into browsing and reading. Using a configuration analysis approach, it examines key factors across three dimensions—user, social network, and content—to study how these factors interact and combine to influence users' handling strategies for incidental news. The research identifies the specific conditions under which social media users browse or read incidental news and finds that both news cues and social cues jointly determine users’ strategies for handling incidental news. The results reveal the reasons behind social media users’ handling of incidental news and provide empirical validation and theoretical integration of existing theories on incidental news exposure.

“Identity recognition” has always been an important topic in traditional journalism research. With the shift of the primary spaces for news dissemination, reception, and consumption from traditional mass media—such as newspapers, radio, and television—to social platforms operated by large Internet companies, the identity of platform hot topic operators remains underexplored. This article takes platform hot topic operators in large Internet companies whose work content is partially similar to that of professional journalists as the research object. Using an analytical framework that contrasts the two roles, this study builds on existing research approaches that summarize identity cognition based on work routines. Expand the existing discussion with the core concepts of “professional identity” and “self-identity”. This article finds that platform hot topic operators mainly play the role of “liaisons” to connect internal and external media, “traders” to complete assessment indicators, and “analysts” to find work patterns. These three main types of work not only objectively create professional dilemmas for platform hot topic operators in terms of discourse resources and action limit, but also cause them to classify themselves into the buzzword of “beating worrs”. This article further points out that at a more macro level, first of all, this negative ident fication reflects the structural nature of “inside and outside the system”, “the overall goal of the platform and the individual positioning of practitioners” of the existence of socialized platforms dominated by commercialism. Secondly, compared with the ideal-biased “homogenous identity cognition” of professional journalist as the frame of reference, the platform hot topic operators form “heterogeneous identity cognition” with realistic bias, and “professional” goals and “self” cogniion have emerged. A gap that is difficult to bridge. This provides valuable empirical material for further thinking about the relationship between platforms and journalism.

This study employs the theoretical framework of agency affordance to explore the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) technology in facilitating immersive communication of cultural heritage, as well as its impact on the subjective experiences and attitudes of different individuals. Through controlled VR experiments manipulating the affordance of agency in three levels (none vs. low vs. high), the study finds that agency affordance can enhance the identification and attention to cultural heritage, but this effect is only significant at low level. Higher level of agency affordance is more effective in promoting the willingness to replace physical visits with virtual tours. Flow experience has a suppression effect on the relationship between agency affordance and cultural identification, and a mediation effect between agency affordance and the virtual replacement of physical tours. Media experience moderates the effect of agency affordance on offline engagment intention: for individuals with extensive VR experience, high level of agency affordance may reduce their willingness to engage in offline cultural heritage activities, leading them to prefer virtual tours instead. This research provides a new theoretical perspective and empirical support for understanding the impact of VR as a new medium for cultural communication, and offers evidence-based insights for designing more targeted communication strategies for cultural heritage.

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.

With recent advancements in generative AI, there is a discussion about whether AI writing can be further applied to news production that requires more opinions and creativity.Economic and financial news commentary, which is a typical genre of economic journalism characterized by standardization, subjectivity, logicality, serves as an apt news genre to explore the application boundaries of AI writing. Based on the Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM), this study investigated the impact of AI involvement in the production of financial commentary on the perceived expertise of the content through two sets of scenario experiments (N1=110; N2=582). Study 1 examined the perceived expertise differences between AI-generated and human-written financial commentary without prompting the audience to pay attention to the author. The results indicated that when readers processed the financial commentary vias systematic approach, they found it difficult to distinguish the expertise level between content written by AI and that by human journalists. Study 2 employed a 2 (actual author: human vs.AI)×3 (author attribution: human journalist vs. AI vs. anonymous) online experiment, to explore the mechanisms of the different perception of financial commentary written by different author under heuristic processing. The findings showed that when the audience was aware of the author's identity, financial commentary attributed to AI could enhance perceived expertise through authority heuristics and machine heuristics. Moreover, the audience’s attitude toward AI writing significantly strengthened the effect of machine heuristics on perceived content expertise. Considering the research conclusions, the authority and expertise that professional financial media have relied on to survive are also facing great challenges in the current AI era. Therefore, it is necessary to fully rebuild the authority and expertise of financial media to cope with the impact of AI writing.

In contrast to the well-documented experiences of delivery riders in the gig economy, the struggles of food delivery vendors remain underexplored. This study focuses on delivery vendors in Beijing’s Songjiazhuang area, examining their platform labor experiences and urban migration patterns using grounded theory and field observations. The study finds the nature of the online on-demand market is such that it is more advantageous to be in the big cities in order to gain access to orders, but the urban-rural migration triggered by the shift in production will lead to new problems of social integration. The research introduces the concept of “platformized migration,” which is a strategy of labourer self-conditioning that caters to the operating mechanisms of the platform economy, in order to reveal the breadth and depth of the penetration of platform logic into the city. This concept captures the dual processes of “digital migration”-the shift from traditional restaurant models to online-only delivery businesses and “physical migration,” where vendors relocate to urban areas to secure more orders. The study proposes the “platform migration” framework, which encompasses both human and non-human factors, helps broaden our empirical understanding of the interconnectedness of platforms, labor, and urban spaces, offering new insights into the dynamics of the gig economy and platform labor.

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.

As a discourse strategy to strengthen personal reputation and avoid public discussion, the proliferation of bullshit in the era of social media is threatening the communicative rationality. Through three interrelated surveys or experiments (N = 400), this study examines Chinese netizens’ receptivity of the pseudo-profound media discourse and its influencing factors, the differential receptivity levels of pseudo-profound media discourse in different fields, and what systematic methods can enhance people’s ability to identify bullshit. It is found that Chinese netizens have a relatively high receptivity of bullshit, intuitionistic beliefs and performative refinement reduce their sensitivity to bullshit, and the discursive suspicion brought by the preference for market economy is partially offset by the obedience to cultural authority. People were relatively good at identifying empirical issues, advertising, and evasive bullshit, but could not distinguish machine-generated passages from human work in given issues. This paper discusses the effects and conditions of using public accountability writing task and blocking disgust excitation to reduce the receptivity of pseudo-profound media discourse, and puts forward countermeasures to avoid polluting public discourse with bullshit.

Friedrich Kittler’s media materialism is an insubstantial materialism. From the discourse network 1800 to 1900, is also a shift from the “materiality of voice” to the “materiality of inscription”. The media in Kittler’s concern exists in the insubstantial signification and is constructed on the “materiality of language” in (Post-)structuralism. In Discourse Network 1800, the “minimal signified” of voice is directly linked to meaning and the subject, and signification does not need to be “mediated” by meida, which does not yet exist; in Discourse Network 1900, the transcendental signified is negated by technological media, anti-metaphysics, and psychophysiology experimentation, and signification has to pass through the media of the signifier and becomes a meaningless “game” in the sliding of signifying chain. The “repetition” of the “materiality of inscription” makes the media in signification visible in different empirical domains such as literature, art, science and technology, and it is in this process that the tangible, solid media as material becomes visible. Kittler’s so-called media materiality is not the materiality of the media at all, but rather the break of the “materiality of language” that produced the media. Therefore, when we trace the true meaning of media materiality in Kittler’s view, and clarify the complex relationship between the concepts of matter and materiality, media and material media, we will find that what is really worthy of our consideration in Kittler’s case is the materiality of insubstantial linguistic structure, symbolic form, or significaiton. It is on the basis of insubstantial media materialism that we can really open up the rich imagination of materiality.

This article adopts key criteria such as problem-oriented research awareness, practical concerns, theoretical perspectives, and methodological rigor to analyze the state of communication studies in China in 2024. Based on a selection of 148 studies from 18 Chinese academic journals (including those from Hong Kong and Taiwan), it categorizes the research into eleven thematic areas: the continuity and transformation of communication research paradigms, human-machine communication and human-machine relationships, critical algorithm studies, platform labor and digital nomadism, health communication, digital interactions, media memory, rural governance in the digital era, parenting practices and aging in a mediatic age, the media practices of marginalized groups, and media materiality. These topics collectively outline the knowledge landscape of Chinese communication research last year.

In 2024, the study of Marxism Journalistic Views in China continued to revisit the fundamentals and innovate, yielding considerable results and demonstrating academic consciousness. Numerous studies have returned to the classic texts of Marxism, examining and rethinking the revolutionary leaders’ newspaper practices and journalistic thoughts, clarifying the origins and tracing back to the source. Regarding the CPC’s journalism endeavors guided by Marxist journalistic views, scholars have continuously deepened their exploration from multiple dimensions, significantly expanding the scope of research on Marxist journalism. Meanwhile, an increasing number of studies have focused on the present, integrating theory and practice, and discussing the new development of Marxist journalism in the new era, showing a distinct characteristic of “integration of essence and application”. Looking forward, the academic community should continuously promote the study of Marxism Journalistic Views to reach new heights and achieve new developments in the great journey of China’s modernization.

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.

Empathy is an important factor in revealing how individual emotions connect in the era of globalization, and has important constructive significance for “communities”. Children are often visual hooks that evoke empathy. This study was based on eye-tracking technology in communication physiology and psychology research. A 2 (children’s visual frame: with vs.without children) × 2 (photo caption: with vs. without photo caption) × 2 (graphicness level:high vs. low) three-factor mixed experimental design was conducted to explore the mechanism of the influence of children’s visual frame, photo caption and graphicness level in news images on individual attention and empathy. The results showed that 1) children’s visual frame significantly aroused attention, but did not evoke empathy; 2) the dual pathways in the ELM could produce adaptive changes in the field of risk communication, and dynamic and fluid cognitive path judgments were more consistent with current risk communication situations;3) the high graphicness of news images did not trigger individual attention, in addition to instantaneous effects, attention should also be paid to their long-term effects.

Contemporary game production aims to change gender and racial stereotypes, but these efforts often yield minimal results. This study employs the “warmth-competence” stereotype model and computational text analysis to conduct a “encoding-decoding” analysis of character stereotypes in the game “League of Legends.” The findings reveal that at the encoding level, game creators strive to break the strong association between character types and gender/race. However, when Chinese players perceive characters, they still project gender and racial stereotypes onto them, although some stereotypes dissipate as character types diversify. This research constructs a Chinese stereotype content dictionary and conducts a computational analysis of the bullet comments from videos interpreting “League of Legends” characters by Chinese audiences. The results show that audiences rate male characters lower in warmth but higher in competence than female characters. Women portrayed in traditional roles, such as heroes, are perceived as having lower abilities, whereas those in non-traditional roles, such as anti-heroes, are rated similarly to their male counterparts. This suggests that non-traditional roles can help dismantle gender stereotypes. Additionally, Chinese audiences rate characters representing Asian and White individuals higher in competence than those representing other people of color. However, the interaction effect of race and character type on stereotype perception is not significant. This indicates that Chinese game audiences have a persistent view of racial stereotypes, and the strategy of diversifying character types has little impact on changing these racial stereotypes. This study illustrates the need for game encoding to shift away from traditional stereotypes, promoting diverse perspectives among audiences through multimodal approaches.

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.

The expression of the early dissemination of the concept of Leninism in China generally experienced the process of subordinate phrase of Lenin's/extremist's ism, the word translated from English and Japanese, and the borrowing of the original English word "Bolshevism" and its transliteration and free translation. and then consciously interpreting and finally shaping into a special concept of “Leninism”. Before and after the appearance of “Leninism”, its acceptance and stereotype showed that Leninism gradually changed from “acquaintance with” to “knowledge about” and then became a guide to action.This process reveals the media bias, power relations and even accidental factors in the early dissemination of Leninism as knowledge in China. Among them, it not only comes from the insight into the knowledge source of “Leninism” and the struggle for meaning in the process of Leninism from thought to practice, but also is influenced by specific events, mobility of staff, even translation and writing, which suggests the process of historical choice.

While the field of Communication Studies has evolved through perspectives such as the “communication as transmission” and the “communication as culture”, it is in need of developing new epistemological orientations. With the development of new technologies, the media landscape has undergone profound transformations and the emotional tone of society has shifted dramatically, yet the epistemology of communication studies has remained stagnant. This stagnation not only reflects but also exacerbates the ongoing predicament of communication research and the discipline’ s development. How communication studies should develop and what stance it should adopt to conduct research that is social, public, and powerful is a matter of common concern among communication scholars. This paper presents an interview with Professor Yang Guobin on his concept of “communication as translation”. Professor Yang discusses a translation-oriented view of communication from the perspective of stance and methods. He emphasizes the importance of respecting differences and approaching the subject with a humble, learning-oriented mindset. By reflecting on and correcting existing biases, he advocates for conducting academic research that is not only rigorous but also compassionate and hopeful.

In everyday practice, the concept of boundaries is important, as it not only determines the allocation of resources for daily activities but also shapes the development trajectory of the social world. This paper addresses the issue of what constitutes the essence of boundaries when they are inscribed within algorithms. How do programmers engage with algorithmic practices to define and produce these boundaries? The research argues that algorithm programmers, as “technical experts”, pursue the indisputability of processes, the efficacy of tool models, and the coherence of technical cognition. The collective identity of “technical genius” represents a profound commitment that they make to both technology and organization, thereby expanding the technical authority of programmers through the establishment of social boundaries. However, programmers, technical perceptions are grounded not in a utopian foundation but rather on material rewards. Corporations encourage the passionate daily contributions of technical personnel through promises of wealth, ofen overlooking the rapid devaluation of their self-worth. Algorithm programmers reduce the expression of their skills and professional identity to the optimization of data metrics and models, conforming to standardized organizational practices and uncritically adopting vibrant user experiences. The “technical geniuses” do not become just arbiters of societal judgment, akin to cogs in the machine of algorithms. When their value is eventually depleted by the organization, they become a surplus category in the grand division of labor in technology. Laid-off programmers have to re-enter society to find positions, a mobility not personally desired but forced by the need to be revalued and ranked amid social competition. The collective technical aggregation fails to generate additional individual vitality. The boundary work and boundary objects undergo a process of reversal.

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.

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.

In the context of rural revitalization, discussing mediated governance requires going beyond media logic and delving into deeper social structural layers. A field study of an agri-tourism project in M Village, Jiangsu Province, reveals that the logic of intermediary rural governance is a more fundamental and structural logic beyond the technology and content of mediated governance. As an intermediary medium, the agri-tourism project not only connects the urban and rural economies and values’ but also actively reproduces urban-rural relationships, thereby creating a new rural village that integrates urban and rural areas. This holistic process reflects the mediated logic of rural governance, which contains three levels. First, it emphasizes connection and the resolution of contradictions; second, it stresses linkage, focusing on the capacity, process and changes brought to both ends by the medium’s active reproduction; finally, it highlights regeneration, shifting from process to outcome, and focusing on the new things that emerge from the collision of the both ends, which reflects the era and future potential.

Research on the philanthropic activities of commercial platforms has rarely explored the underlying power dynamics and governance techniques. Taking “Ant Forest” on Alipay as a case study, this paper employs participatory observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews, and proposes the concept of “new production politics” of commercial platforms within the framework of Michael Burawoy’s production politics theory. The study analyzes why and how commercial platforms engage in philanthropic activities from the three dimensions of “state-platform-individual”. The findings reveal that commercial platforms respond to government policy demands through policy sensitivity and discourse appropriation strategies; they utilize gamification mechanisms to drive users into labor competitions and create labor consent through redesigning the digital platform with factory-like features; Within this political framework, individuals’ capacity for “self-organization” is constrained, and behaviors such as “cheating” and “lying flat” are viewed as forms of weak resistance, manifesting more as “labor burnout”. This paper argues that the embedding of commercial platforms into “state-society” relations represents a governance technique that absorbs resistant forces and fosters social stability.

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.