Comparative Study on Chinese and U.S. Media

China and the United States are two countries with quite different histories, philosophies, values and political systems and because of these difference, the two countries have two quite different media. The most notable or maybe the most fundamental difference lies in the relationships of these two media with their respective govemmentso The Chinese medium is often a part of the government and the U.S.＇ medium is basically privatively owned. This makes them almost two different things, like an apple and an orange. In most of the case, one can not use one as the standard to criticize the other and vice versa.     

Individual Motivations,Perceived Media Importance,and Political Disaffection

Mass media have been blamed for distancing people from the political process by increasing cynicism and voter apathy. A telephone survey of 592 registered voters in Washington state tested a set of relationships among political involvement, perceived media importance, political disaffection, and efficacy. As hypothesized, political involvement was positively associated with the perceived importance of newspapers and radio talk shows. These, in turn, were negatively associated with cynicism and positively associated with efficacy. Cynicism was negatively associated with efficacy, while efficacy was positively associated with involvement. The results suggest that involvement is a key variable in the political decision making process through its relationships with orientations toward information sources. Thus, media can serve as a catalyst for involved citizen decision making. Scholars should attend to the motivational context individuals bring to the media when examining the role of the media in political decision making.     

Media,globalisation and culture: issues and trends

Abstract

This article addresses some of the trends and issues as they relate to media and cultural globalisation. Grounded in a fundamental cultural perspective, the problematic of international communication is framed in different views of ‘local culture’, ‘cultural identity’ and ‘processes of cultural mixing’. In the end, a research framework for the study of cultural globalisation/localisation is outlined. The framework captures the issue of hybridised cultural products from a people centred perspective.     

Public Opinion Infrastructures: Meanings,Measures, Media

A model of public opinion is presented that incorporates and highlights historical knowledge. This model suggests that public opinion is best viewed as an infrastructure consisting of measurement tools, media, and conceptions of public opinion. Using this model, it is possible to gauge opinion, reading "backward" from analysis of cultural artifacts (e.g., film or art) and thereby detecting conceptions of public opinion at work in a given period. The usefulness of this model is demonstrated in a brief analysis of the American film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which can be treated as a register of a particular infrastructure of public opinion operative in the 1930s.     

Palestinian Social Media and Lone-Wolf Attacks: Subculture,Legitimization, and Epidemic

ABSTRACT

This article examines the impact of social media on the wave of Palestinian lone-wolf attacks against Israelis from October 2015 through September 2016. My principal argument is that social media played an important role in shaping the identity, perceptions, and behavioral patterns of dozens of assailants, and was key in creating the dynamic that ultimately characterized both the spreading of the idea of lone-wolf attacks and its execution. Social media reflected reality on the ground while simultaneously nourishing, amplifying, and escalating the situation by providing a platform for the emergence of new sources of authority, including an online subculture with distinct codes and pseudo-ritual patterns to support assailants. Social media also contributed substantially to shaping the contagious character of the attacks, and their capacity to persist without direct organizational guidance, following a typical epidemiological dynamic of spread, containment, and preservation.     

Overreporting Voting: Campaign Media,Public Mood,and the Vote

This study used regional telephone survey data collected after the 1996 U.S. presidential election to examine how two possibly important affective variables public mood and political cynicism predict actual as compared with self-reported voting. Public mood, a construct introduced by Rahn, Kroeger, and Kite (1996) to suggest how affective processes may play a role in political behavior, is shown to have two distinct but positively correlated dimensions, one positive and one negative. After demographic variables were controlled, perceived media usefulness predicted positive mood about the presidential election, which in turn predicted self-reported voting. Negative campaign attitude predicted negative mood, which, in turn, influenced actual but not self-reported voting. Political cynicism, although correlated with both positive and negative public mood, predicted neither measure of voting. The bifurcation of influence of negative and positive public mood about elections may explain why researchers have often shown positive affect to influence voting (as measured by self-report), and why political consultants have continued to rely on negative campaigning and the reported increases in negative feelings it engenders in voters to influence actual votes.     

Media,Muslims, and the Middle East: A Critical Review Essay

Abstract

Humanitarian Inter vention in Somalia, 1992–1994: Elite N ewspaper Coverage, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy

A Dissertation Completed at the College of Journalism, University of Maryland at College Park, 1995, Brian P. Hoey, Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama

Framing the Health Care Reform Campaign of 1993-94: News Frame, Interpretation, and Public Opinion Change

A Dissertation Completed at The Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1997, June Woong Rhee, Research Fellow, Korean Broadcasting System

Accuracy and Distortion in Judgment and Recall of Political Discourse

A Dissertation Completed at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1996, Darin W. Klein, Georgia State University

Deliberative Democracy and the Public Sphere: On the Interactions of News Media, Interpersonal Communication, Opinion Formation, and Participation

A Dissertation Completed at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1997, Joohoan Kim, Boston College