Currently, entertainment-oriented expressions are gradually occupying the public sphere, and it seems to have become a consensus that communication effects can be enhanced by means of entertainment. However, further research is needed to examine whether entertainment will necessarily enhance communication effects. Built on the elaboration likelihood model and consistency theory, this study explores how topics and media attributes moderate the influence of entertainment on the number of likes, an important indicator of the communication effect, by content analyzing 467 anti-fraud short videos on Douyin. The results show that preventive education and unveiling scam information inhibited the positive effect of entertainment on the number of likes, but case description and property loss information strengthened the positive effect of entertainment on the number of likes. The use of entertainment in self-media significantly boosted the number of likes, and this effect was not affected by any type of information. However, the number of likes received by official media was not affected by entertainment. This study not only provides strategies on how to use entertainment techniques for public communication, but also reveals the boundaries of the effect of entertainment on communication effects, shedding new insights on the relationship between audiences and media in this era of pan-entertainment.

This study redefines the concept of digital hoarding from the perspective of communication and explores the psychological motivation associated with digital hoarding among young people through in-depth interviews. The research found that digital content hoarded by youth groups on social platforms pointed to “useful” self-optimization practices and “interesting” digital experience practices, the former stems from anxiety about coping with the dual performance of social space and real-life in the rat race, while the latter points to the need for positive emotional energy. We believe that the current widespread digital hoarding among young people is a kind of passive performance-oriented practice in the form of compliance and action laziness, and its psychological drive is the superposition effect of auto-exploitation and allo-exploitation, it can also be seen as a swaying practice of “enterprising lying flat” under the shadow of utilitarianism, which reflects the inner contradictions in the feelings and behaviors of the youth group. We need to be alert to the “suspension” mentality behind digital hoarding. Digital hoarding has the potential to magnify the risks of digital practices getting off track with reality. Beyond this case study, we need to continue to reflect on how the practice of negative-performancism based digital hoarding can address and whitewash the structuralism dilemmas of today’s society.

Different from the mainstream framework that focuses on the examination of conflicts between platform companies and workers, this study turns its attention to the non-mainstream group in the digital gig economy –“Zhinv”(needlework women), that is, those who use platform infrastructure to engage in textile gig work. Drawing on online ethnography, in-depth interviews, and survey, this study found that “Zhinv” are composed of women with different backgrounds and skill levels. They have developed complex strategies and double-encoded manual labor and platform infrastructure to form an informal economic network that is both flexible and resilient. Starting from the labor and organizational practices of “Zhinv”, the study further discusses how Zhinv digitalized the traditional textile gig work by making use of the platform infrastructure, and develops an imaginary of living labor based on their flexible strategies. Furthermore, a historical comparative perspective is introduced to connect the historical relationship between women and coding and its realistic paradoxes. This study hopes to provide empirical observations through the case study, supplement the gender perspective of the gig economy, and offer a more theoretically extensible vision for mapping aspects of China’s gig economy.

As a “social factory” implementation space, short video/live streaming replicates and produces specific masculinities of social life in particular scenarios of digital communication, then symbolizes and characterizes them to serve the purpose of profits. This paper studies the male anchors in Kuaishou and their cultural production through digital ethnography and discusses the connection and tension between the bottom life, the performance of Jianghu culture, the governance of the state and the platform in the process of the diachronic transformation of masculinity discourse from “shehuirener” to “jingshen lad”. By analyzing the relationship between the replication and production of masculinities, short videos/live streaming, and consumer communication in the virtual world, we aim to glimpse and reveal a corner of the practice and cultural reproduction of bottom men and masculinities, in order to better understand contemporary Chinese society in the context of digital fission.

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.

Digital game is an open symbolic field and playing digital game is a creative signifying practice. By focusing on the self-presentation and emotional narrative of gamer who is the main action subject of meaning construction in the game world and through semiotic analysis and semi- structured interviews, it is suggested that the gamer trend to establish the “transitional self” by avatar identification and objectification as well as construct the interactive subjectivity of “social self ” by interactive action and meaning sharing. Furthermore, they can shape collective identity and “cultural self ”by community symbol co-creation and interaction rituals and form a “right-subjectivity” to resist digital capitalism in the real-time or indirect symbolic struggle and feedback. By using and creating symbols, gamers not only promote the development of the game world, but also construct and evolve their self-concepts , social relations, and group identity.

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.

Cyber violence incidents have frequently attracted great attention of the whole society, and relevant research has continued to heat up. However, some basic academic issues need to be clarified urgently. Based on the methodology of “unification of logic and history”, this article uses a method that combines multiple-case studies and text analysis to conduct an academic analysis of the normative judgement and the theoretical basis in the researches on cyber violence governance. The research finds that there is a big gap between the existing research on whether the behaviors in the sample cases are illegal and the judicial reality. Most of the identification of what kinds of illegal behaviors doesn’t meet the standard of the normative judgement. Besides, the theoretical basis adopted by the researches in which the sample cases are characterized as cyber violence is mostly specious, and the misuse of the theory abounds. As a result, researchers’ characterization of behaviors in cases of cyber violence tends to be expanded, vague, and one-sided. Not only is it unable to provide the necessary academic support for the legalization of cyber violence governance, but it also may mislead the policy orientation and judicial practice of cyber violence governance, which deserves great attention on the issue.

As the digital government continues to evolve, citizen engagement in public governance through e-complaints has become a significant channel. However, addressing the challenge of providing high-quality online responses that align with citizen expectations to resolve their e-complaints and foster positive interactions in civil affairs remains unresolved. This study addresses this issue through a two-stage mixed-method approach. The research identifies that the perceived quality of governmental online responses encompasses five dimensions: responsiveness, reliability, procedural, powerful, and personalization. Furthermore, the perceived quality of governmental online responses enhances citizens' perceived equity and satisfaction with the e-complaints handling, thereby bolstering their political trust and continued e-participation intentions. Notably, the perceived quality of governmental online responses by bystanders has a more pronounced positive impact on their perceived equity and satisfaction with e-complaint handling compared to claimants. The conclusions offer practical recommendations for e-government management agencies and personnel to adeptly handle citizen e-complaints through high-quality online responses, thereby upholding public political trust and nurturing a commitment to co-governance.

In Western media trust research, content trust (audience's trust in news content) has become almost the only connotation of media trust, which later has been absorbed by Chinese researchers, resulting a systematic neglect of the state in an empirical way. Considering such deficiency in knowledge production, the essential goal of this paper is to incorporate institutional-based trust (audience’s trust in the media institution, referring to the relevant regulations, policies and other formal institutions formulated by the state) into the conceptual connotation of media trust as a latitude of equal importance to content trust, and to promote the localization of media trust research. To this end, this paper discusses the validity problem that may result from the Chinese scholars’ dependence on Western research results when doing domestic explorations, then highlights the presence of the state when talking about the concept of media trust in China; introduces institutional- based trust from sociological research and legitimizes its inclusion in the conceptual scope of media trust, explaining the connotation of institutional-based trust in China and providing clues for its operationalization; ueses confirmatory factor analysis, spearman correlation analysis, and path analysis (N=678), finding that the convergent validity of indicators of institutional-based trust is good and have good discriminant validity with content trust, and the combination of institutional- based trust and content trust has high concurrent validity with media trust, which can reflect the conceptual connotation of media trust in a more comprehensive way. This paper also discusses the localization path of media trust research in China, either by continuing to explore the measurement of trust in China or by reconstructing and reinterpreting the concept of trust with sufficient materials accumulated, while both ways should be based on the emphasis of the authority of the state.

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.

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.

This paper takes the hollow village named M in Zhang Jiakou as the research object, and aims to explore the characteristic of the media space in this hollow village and its influence on social structure. The paper has developed a conception named “embodied media space”. First, the paper finds that M has the characteristic of the inclination of “embodied media space”. The elderly are embedded in the media space constructed by technologies for instrumental purposes. They reproduce the family space and connect the “family” and “nation” space. The elderly particularly rely on the “embodied media space” constructed by body guided activities such as “chatting on the street”, reflecting the space subjectivity and the body creativity. Second, based on the reciprocity of benefits and emotions, the “embodied media space” has promoted blood-like relationship among neighbors. The traditional “hierarchical order” has been reconstructed. The conception of “embodied media space” has returned to the principal position of the body, valued the meaning of the neighbouring space and reemphasized the integration among “body, mind and space”. It has some enlightening significance on rural governance.

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.

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.

Nowadays, contemporary Chinese journalism has formed a relatively complete discipline structure composed of four branches: historical journalism, applied journalism, theoretical journalism and intersectional journalism. Among them, historical journalism is the root, applied journalism is the foundation, theoretical journalism is the soul, and intersectional journalism is the extension. The concept of logo in contemporary Chinese journalism is composed of the concept of logo in four branches. This paper mainly starts from three branches of theoretical journalism: news ontology, news format and news relations, and preliminarily analyzes the basic composition of the concept of logo in contemporary Chinese journalism. The paper points out that in the ontological perspective, the concept of identification mainly includes “positive facts” “positive news” and “whole reality”. In the perspective of business form theory, the concept of identification mainly includes “party media” “mouthpiece of the eyes and ears” “party spirit” “people’s character” “Ma Xin concept” “news and public opinion” “positive publicity (reporting)” “correct public opinion” “public opinion guidance” “all media” and “media integration”. From the perspective of relationship theory, the typical expression mode of contemporary Chinese news relations is “biased” mode -- propaganda bias, political bias and social bias, and the main identification concepts are “people- centered” and “news means”. Although each section has its own concept of logo, because of the systematic existence of news theory itself, the logo concept of the three sections is intrinsically unified, and they jointly constitute the logo concept system of news theory.

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.

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.

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.

The year of 2023 marks the 40th anniversary of advertising education in mainland China. Due to significant changes in the media industry and technological environment, traditional advertising operational models face severe challenges. Consequently, Chinese advertising education is also undergoing a transformative upgrade. This paper presents findings from in-depth interviews with faculty members from 24 top-tier national undergraduate advertising programs. It reveals that advertising programs are now cultivating talent for the broader advertising-related industry. The core of advertising education remains the cultivation of creative and innovative capabilities in information production, while adapting to evolving media environments, audience behaviors, and new technologies is crucial. Advertising programs must also foster students' abilities to adapt flexibly and respond to changing conditions. In evaluating top-tier programs, it is advisable to encourage unique features and move beyond rigid quantitative metrics. The research findings may also offer valuable insights for other disciplines within the field of journalism and communication.

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.

The use of UAVs has changed the execution of action, memory, and representation of contemporary warfare, which involves in communication directly without serving as any content. However, previous media studies on military UAVs have employed an ocularcentrism discourse which adopts the classical screen apparatus of the film as its paradigm and obscured the UAVs’ role as action apparatus and the body’s important part in it. Through the phenomenological analysis on the interface apparatus and the operation gesture of the military UAVs, this study tries to reveal a different kind of embodied relationship between humans, images and apparatus. The operation in a interface reunifies the multiple functions of apparatus and the operator, and realizes the telepresence of the body, which should be interpreted as a embodied practice of aiming instead of being summarized by the optical surveillance. In this feedback mechanism with operational images as the knot, the operator identifies with the apparatus through the synchronization of body operation and visual feedback in the image, and the presence of the body runs through multiple spaces, forming a new kind of subject, a distributed subject. As a result, vision and touch, previously separated by visual media, are reunified into the body as a whole, so vision falls from a transcendent and exclusive status. In the operation, images hide as a transparent surface to the human senses, while also shielding the hermeneutic technical code text. The unification of operation not only reconstructs the sensory configuration of media, but also shows a new human-image-world relationship which is brought by the technological development.

Since the founding of the Communist Party of China “CPC”, the “appropriation system” had become the mainstream of the source of funding for the CPC’s press, that was the party or the government’s finance to support. This system which bound the CPC’s press to the party or government finance, often made the CPC’s press fall into an untenable situation when the finance fluctuated greatly. Once this situation occurred, how did the CPC’s press respond to the shortage of funds? This paper takes the three times in the history of the CPC’s press financial outlays as the investigation background, and the response of the CPC’s press to the market-oriented reform to reduce the financial burden of the Party or government as the investigation object. We can see that in the past hundred years, the funding source of the CPC's press was like a pendulum, oscillating between the appropriation system and marketization, forming a variety of combinations, and transforming under certain circumstances. Once the financial difficulties occurred, the CPC’s press would adjust the newspaper price, advertise, improve the distribution network, seek diversified management and other ways to alleviate the shortage of funds.

“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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

This study explores the impact of debunking expert’s debunking language attributes on audience attitude change in health-related issues. Specifically, this study hypothesizes that compared to using abstract language strategies, the use of concrete language strategies by debunking experts in communicating with rumor recipients can more significantly lead to attitude change. At the same time, the language typicality and perceived expertise mediate the effect of language strategies. In addition, this relationship is moderated by the debunking expert's level of professional capital and the psychological distance of the audience. This study suggests that when debunking experts have a higher level of professional capital, the effect of their concrete language strategies on audience attitude change is weakened. When the audience perceives a closer psychological distance to the target of the rumor, the effect of debunking experts’ concrete language strategies on audience attitude change is more pronounced. Through three experiments, the hypotheses of this study are confirmed. This study provides important insights for debunking communication in the health field and offers suggestions and implications for rumor management in health issues.

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.

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 “Guan Guangmei Series Reports” in 1987 triggered widespread discussions on whether China’s reform is capitalist or socialist. The essay found that the news practice of “Guan Guangmei Series Reports” displayed the process of self-reform of Chinese party newspapers in the 1980s through the examination of narratives by senior leaders of Economic Daily, personal memories of journalists and published texts. Firstly, the essay presented the journalist group’s three visits to Benxi. It was pointed that through a series of news practice, they experienced from a mixed “news culture” to the “Mass Line”. At the end of the visits, the group established rational and emotional relationship with local masses. Secondly, the essay examined Economic Daily’s publication of “Guan Guangmei Series Reports”. It was pointed that the newspaper office adopted the strategies of “observe changes” and “take the initiative” to enable masses to fully participate in expressing their opinions. During the process, the discussions and editorials reached a consensus gradually, which highlighted the characteristic of People-centeredness of Party consciousness in the “Mass Line”. At last, it was pointed that the previous understandings of this news practice had limitations of teleology, which reflected the bias in the writing of 1980s’ Journalism History. Therefore, if we would like to establish Chinese characteristic journalism, exploring traditional Party Newspaper Theory by a “maintaining subjectivity” approach should be taken into consideration.

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.

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.

This paper interprets the early industrialization process under the leadership of the Party against the background of the social ecology of Yan’an and the realistic circumstance that gave rise to Zhao Zhankui and his Zhao Movement, to explain the crux of the erroneous claims in the Yan’an Strike, and to deeply reveal Mu Qing’s logic of the “hidden target” and its philosophical basis of dialectical materialism in his discovery and coverage of the prototypical figure. This important discovery, which has never been mentioned in the study of typical characters in the past, is rich in academic value. It is believed that this unique and innovative viewpoint will inspire and enhance our understanding of the regularity of the discovery and reporting of typical characters.

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.

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.