communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 86 original paper containing the high incidence of covid-19 in the urban slums of nairobi: the case of kibera amb. dr. john o. kakonge1* 1 president, the association of former international civil servants in kenya (afics-kenya), kenya * amb. dr. john o. kakonge, president, the association of former international civil servants in kenya (afics-kenya), kenya received: july 12, 2020 accepted: july 18, 2020 online published: july 23, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n3p86 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n3p86 abstract globally, urban slums (in most cases, informal settlements) have been hit badly by novel coronavirus (covid-19). the reasons for this include the cramped living conditions that make social distancing impossible, and high levels of poverty and unemployment that make masks and clean water for hand washing unaffordable to many slum residents. this paper makes the case for upgrading kibera, which is long overdue. the united nations general assembly endorsed the upgrading of urban slums as a priority sustainable development goal in 2015. to win the war against coronavirus in kibera, the government should adopt a bottom-up approach, using the existing community leadership and youth groups, as opposed to a top-down approach. given the increasing number of positive cases of coronavirus in kibera, the government must apply a selective lockdown, as it did in eastleigh, mandera and old town mombasa. winning the war in kibera ultimately depends not only on government efforts, but also on the commitments of local communities and individual residents. keywords covid-19, kibera slum, bottom-up approach, social distancing, nairobi county 1. background most coronavirus cases, globally, are concentrated in major urban areas, and particularly in cities with large informal settlements. for example, in brazil most cases are found in the slums of saõ paulo and rio de janeiro. in new york, the affected areas were in the poor neighborhoods of the boroughs, such as the bronx, brooklyn, and queens. ironically, in italy the epicenter of infection was in the wealthy lombardy region, with a large population of mainly elderly, retired people. in south africa, the main concentrations of infection are in townships, where most poor people live. in kenya, nairobi has nine www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 87 published by scholink inc. slum areas within the city. the biggest is kibera followed by mathare. this paper examines why the concentrations of infection are in the major slums of the city, particularly kibera. the paper also addresses what should be done to contain the outbreak in kibera and what lessons can be drawn for the future in the event of similar outbreaks. 2. methodology this paper is based on a desk review, including reviews of daily press statements released by the kenya ministry of health as well as interviews of people working with non-governmental organizations (ngo), and focuses on kibera1, the largest slum area in nairobi, which currently has the most cases of covid-19. 3. results 3.1 the kibera situation kibera covers an area of 256 hectares. the number of inhabitants is variously estimated to be between 180,000-500,000. the inhabitants constitute a diverse, fluid society, with a constant ebb and flow of people. planning interventions and the provision of assistance in such areas is a major challenge, especially during the current coronavirus pandemic. most of the buildings in kibera are temporary and dilapidated. sanitary conditions are bad, and most families share public latrines. most residents lack access to electricity, running water, medical care, and other basic amenities. many residents live in small rooms, 12 by 12 ft shacks, with mud walls, corrugated iron roofs and dirt floors (osman, 2018). unemployment is rife, with half the population without a job. most employed residents work as unskilled labour, earing around a dollar per day. poverty prevails. drug and alcohol abuse are common, and hiv affects about 20 per cent of the population (torres, 2019). it is clear to most observers that the inhabitants of kibera live in relentless and degrading poverty, but the government contends that they are illegal squatters on government land (kibera uk, 2014). this impasse cannot be allowed to continue and must be resolved. 3.2 kibera and covid-19 kibera has been hit hard by covid-19, accounting for 17% (456 of 2,665) of reported cases in nairobi county, as of 30 june 2020, as indicated in the figure below. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 88 published by scholink inc. figure 1. covid-19 cases in nairobi county by sub-county (as of 30.06.2020) covid-19 cases predominate in other informal settlements, notably in kawangware in dagoretti north, and kangemi in westlands. informal settlements account for 60% of reported cases. with houses barely a meter apart and housing up to 8 persons per room, social/physical distancing has been impossible. most residents depend on the informal sector for their livelihoods, which means that they have to leave the sub-county to seek work in other areas. the effect of this is that if the contacts of known cases are not entirely traced and quarantined, they are likely to infect others, both within and outside kibera. 3.3 challenges facing the residents of kibera kibera residents cannot practice social distancing because of their crowded living conditions and as a result, the number of cases of covid-19 is likely to increase and spread further (msf, 2020). two main water supplies have been installed by the municipal council and residents are charged for their use. water is controlled by youth groups to ensure that the pipes are not damaged. however, water does not reach every household because some families cannot afford piped water. during the covid-19 outbreak, most water storage tanks and sanitizers have been provided by ngos and charities at no charge. otherwise, regular hand washing, as recommended by the ministry of health and the world health organization, would not be realistic or sustainable. complicating the situation, a large proportion of kibera residents have underlying health conditions such as hiv and tuberculosis, and non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes, that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 89 published by scholink inc. increase the risks associated with covid-19 infections (msf, 2020). 4. the way forward moving forward to contain the situation in kibera, several things need to be done, including: 4.1 selective lockdown the government should apply a targeted lockdown for kibera, as was done in eastleigh, and carry out comprehensive testing of the residents of its 12 constituent villages. during lockdown, the government, ngos and other concerned groups should assist residents with food, cooking and water for hand washing. this should be well-coordinated among the ministry of health (moh), police and the village chiefs and elders to ensure the exercise is done effectively. 4.2 changing the attitudes of the residents most people in kibera live from hand-to-mouth. hence, they are more concerned with getting food to feed their family than combating coronavirus. they do not see covid-19 as a dangerous and deadly disease. one kibera resident noted that “the conditions in the slum are very dangerous, particularly where 30–50 people have to share one public toilet and some mess up the toilet and they don’t care that others have (to) use it after them”. despite these challenges, the kibera community is taking matters into its own hands (odede, 2020), so there is some hope of implementing effective disease control measures. shofco (shining hope for communities, a local ngo established by kennedy odede) in partnership with local community leaders, has set up hand washing stations across kibera, running a door-to-door campaign creating awareness of covid-19 and distributing various materials, including bleach, homemade soap and hand sanitizers (odede, 2020). according to a recent survey of nairobi slums including kibera, carried out by austrian and abuya (2020), many young people think that they are not at high risk of becoming infected compared with older people. whilst this may be true, young people are still at risk of becoming infected. some young people are even saying that the coronavirus does not kill or is not dangerous. much more needs to be done to target organized youth groups to assist them in countering widespread misinformation and disinformation about covid-19. dissemination of reliable information and appropriate messaging about how to control the disease is essential to encourage people to take personal responsibility for protecting themselves, especially where education and literacy levels are low. 4.3 self-isolation and social distancing most residents of kibera live in very small, sub-standard accommodation no more than 12 ft by 12 ft, with an average occupancy of 3 to 7 people. self-isolating is impossible under such circumstances, if one person becomes infected, it is highly likely that they will infect other cohabitants. people rub shoulders as they walk along narrow passageways. given the physical space, achieving social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 90 published by scholink inc. distancing is next to impossible. without individuals taking personal responsibility to protect themselves by using masks, the number of cases in kibera will continue to increase. where practical, the use of face masks should be compulsory. 4.4 reducing uncoordinated responses many activities are currently being conducted by various inter-governmental organizations, donors, ngos, charities, and individual organizations in support of communities affected by covid-19. most are providing food, water tanks and sanitizers. however, these efforts are not well coordinated and some are politicized. given the current situation, manke (2020) recommends that government should partner with the existing community leadership and partners to form an emergency planning committee to come up with an appropriate, locally coordinated response, rather than relying on top-down directives. participation should include the county government as well as the national government. if not, kibera will continue to be neglected and stigmatized by the political and economic elite. it should not be forgotten that kibera has been a hotspot of violence in the past, especially during the previous general elections. one of the lessons from the ebola outbreak in the slums of monrovia, liberia, is instructive: mistrust between the poor and the medical and public health professionals contributed to misinformation and treatment delays. well-coordinated support through community-led committees and groups should, therefore, be encouraged. 4.5 water and sanitation washing hands with soap and the use of sanitizers are two important ways of combating the coronavirus, but access to water and sanitation is a major constraint in kibera. various projects have been implemented in the past to provide water and sanitation points but are insufficient to meet demand. additional supplies are currently being brought by vehicle to serve local water stations, but this is unsatisfactory and unsustainable. urgent consideration should be given to improving and extending water supply and sanitation facilities in kibera. 5. recommendations the government of kenya should make a concerted effort to address the challenges of urban slums, particularly kibera, through the provision of affordable housing with water and sanitation. this would be a major national contribution towards achieving sustainable development goal (sdg) 11 (make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable), under target 11.1, whereby member states should, by 2030, ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums. currently, all the land occupied by kibera belongs to the government. the government should conduct a census of kibera to establish who is living there and when they arrived. long-term residents should be given priority in buying property in an affordable housing scheme. if individuals are unable to buy, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 91 published by scholink inc. they should be provided with low-interest loans to enable them to purchase. all new houses should have in situ toilets and clean running water, including new infrastructure with basic amenities. improved housing and living conditions are in line with the kenya government’s endorsement of the sdgs in 2015. it will also enhance human health and reduce the spread of infectious diseases. the director general of nairobi metropolitan services has prioritized the upgrading and development of infrastructure in nairobi’s long neglected informal settlements (kinyanjui, 2020), which should include kibera. experience from other countries would suggest that the actual number of covid-19 cases in kibera is likely to be far higher than reported. given that bed capacity for isolation within nairobi is limited and that isolation and home care in kibera is unrealistic, the moh and nairobi county government should consider the temporary use of the exhibition buildings at jamhuri park to isolate covid-19 cases. similar actions have been taken in other countries to avoid overwhelming existing hospital facilities, including the united kingdom (bbc news, 2020), nigeria (akinola, 2020), australia (davey et al, 2020), and south africa (winning, 2020). 6. conclusions covid-19 is a wakeup call for all kenyans to join forces to build the resilience of informal settlements such as kibera to protect residents against the coronavirus pandemic. at the united nations general assembly in 2015, member states committed themselves to ensuring access for all to adequate, safe, and affordable housing and basic services, and upgrading slums before 2030, as one of the sustainable development goals. kenya played a key role in the discussion and approval of these goals and it is now up to the government to demonstrate its commitment. the provision of affordable housing is one of president kenyatta’s four pillars of future development. priority should be given to the construction of low-cost housing and basic amenities in areas such as kibera. by so doing, we should be better prepared for the next pandemic, as noted in the standard newspaper editorial on 20 june 2020 (standard news, 2020). better coordination of external support to kibera requires the active participation and collaboration of community leaders with personal knowledge of local conditions and needs, otherwise, haphazard donations and initiatives will have minimal impact. with covid-19 cases increasing daily in kibera, the government must act urgently to implement a targeted lockdown, as it did in eastleigh, mandera and old town mombasa, and provide adequate water supplies for hand washing and cooking, weekly food rations, and sanitizers. government, ngos, and other partners should continue to work closely with local community leaders and empower them to disseminate reliable information and messages from the ministry of health and the world health organization. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 92 published by scholink inc. winning the war against covid-19 ultimately depends not only on government efforts, but also on the commitments of local communities and individual residents, including the washing of hands and the wearing of face masks, when and where required. disclaimer the views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to afics-kenya. references akinola, w. (2020). lagos government converts stadium to isolation centre over coronavirus spread. msn africa, 26 march 2020. retrieved june 29, 2020, from https://www.msn.com/en-xl/africa/nigeria/lagos-government-converts-stadium-to-isolation-centreover-coronavirus-spread/ar-bb11l4ef?li=bb10jn1k austrian, k., & abuya, t. (2020). we wanted to know how coronavirus affects nairobi’s slum residents: what we found. the conversation. retrieved june 27, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/we-wanted-to-know-how-coronavirus-affects-nairobis-slum-residentswhat-we-found-137621 bbc news. (2020). coronavirus: how nhs nightingale was built in just nine days, 17 april 2020. retrieved june 29, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52125059 davey, m., hurst, d., & butler, b. (2020). australian government will pay half to integrate private hospitals into covid-19 response. the guardian, 31 march 2020. retrieved june 29, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/31/federal-government-pay-half-integrateprivate-public-hospitals-covid-19-response kibera uk. (2014). kibera facts and information. retrieved june 25, 2020, from https://www.kibera.org.uk/facts kinyanjui. (2020). we’re not in political monkey business, says nms boss. retrieved july 10, 2020, from https://www.the-star.co.ke/counties/nairobi/2020-06-28-were-not-in-political-monkey-business-sa ys-nms-boss/ manke, k. (2020). urban slums are uniquely vulnerable to covid-19. here’s how to help. berkeley news, 27 april 2020. retrieved june 25, 2020, from https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/04/27/urban-slums-are-uniquely-vulnerable-to-covid-19-heres-ho w-to-help/ msf. (2020). diseases will not wait for covid-19 in kenya. retrieved june 26, 2020, from https://www.msf.org/diseases-will-not-wait-msf-response-covid-19-kenya www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 93 published by scholink inc. odede, k. (2020). shofco. retrieved june 21, 2020, from https://www.shofco.org/ standard news. (2020). 100 days of coronavirus: we have an obligation to do the right thing to save lives. standard editorials. retrieved june 20, 2020, from https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001375745/100-days-of-covid-let-s-right-all-the-wrongs -and-save-lives torres, j. (2019). visiting the kibera slums in kenya. against the compass. retrieved june 20, 2020, from https://againstthecompass.com/en/kibera-slums-visiting/ winning, a. (2020). south africa government, private hospitals agree a deal on covid-19 patients. reuters world news, 7 june 2020. retrieved june 28, 2020, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-safrica-hospitals/south-africa-government-p rivate-hospitals-agree-deal-on-covid-19-patients-iduskbn23e0eq note note 1. all data used in this document were obtained from the daily press briefings on the ministry of health website. it is important to note that on some days, cases were not disaggregated into the various sub-counties of origin. the total of 2,665 cases referred to in this study includes only disaggregated records from sub-counties. the aggregated total for the whole of nairobi was 3,130 cases on 30 june 2020. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 204 original paper gender roles and the impact of welfare policies on the gender gap in japan chen yuezhang 1* 1 ritsumeikan university, kyoto, japan * chen yuezhang, ritsumeikan university, kyoto, japan received: september 30, 2024 accepted: october 15, 2024 online published: november 1, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p204 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p204 abstract this essay investigates how, even though economic progress is being made, welfare policies deepen traditional gender roles in japan. the paper gives specific examples of such policies to show how such measures either work to promote gender equality or, on the contrary, strengthen stereotypes. conclusion overall, most of the policies outlined have good intentions, but they are groomed with little efficacy attributed to cultural norms and inadequate stakeholder implementation participation. this essay encourages future policy recommendations that increase childcare capacity, enforce equal pay, and encourage male involvement in caregiving. research should address overcoming cultural barriers in attaining a more gender-equitable society in japan. keywords gender inequality, welfare policies, gender roles, employment, cultural norms 1. introduction gender inequality remains a significant problem in an advanced country like japan, where traditional gender roles are still predominant despite significant economic advancement (fasbinder, 2015). this essay investigates how welfare policies influence gender roles and the gender gap in japan. the research question in this paper is: “in what ways do welfare policies influence gender roles and the gender gap in japan?” this research critically evaluates existing welfare policies about employment, income, and family roles. furthermore, the research aims to avail these understandings of the gender dynamics that affect these policies. japan has had a history of defined gender roles: men playing the role of breadwinners and women playing the role of caretakers and homemakers (tada, 1999). this division is very deep-rooted in cultural and social norms. indeed, this thinking already led to the completion of “ryosai kenbo”—a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 205 published by scholink inc. good wife and, a wise mother (racel, 2017). even though modernization entered full force, these roles have been carried forward to dominate almost all aspects of society, from employment opportunities down to family dynamics. in japan, there exists a wide gender gap. this inequality extends to employment, underrepresentation of women in more senior positions, and overrepresentation in part-time jobs. according to gender equality bureau (2022), when asked about how they feel about gender equality throughout society, 74.1% of participants felt that men are being given privileged treatment. further, there is a disproportionate family burden borne by them. according to the gender equality bureau, in 2020, women spent more than fivefold time in unpaid household and caregiving work compared to men. these are but a few of the telling statistics exposing deep-seated gender inequality in japanese society. nemoto (2013) deals with the persistence of masculine organizational culture within japanese companies, which curtails the woman’s chance of furthering her upward mobility in her career. in its findings, there is substantial cultural resistance to policies targeting engendering equality. in her other publication, nemoto (2016) rehashes that a very low percentage of women ever rise to management and attributes this to deeply positioned cultural and structural barriers. other studies, including matsuda in 2018 and ishii-kuntz in 2019, go on to concur with the above findings by nemoto, therefore proving correct that current policies do little to bridge the gap between males and females. 2. analysis of welfare policies 2.1 overview of japanese welfare policies japanese welfare policies include employment, family support, and income redistribution. employment insurance law is where the unemployment benefits regime and job-seeking support are arranged (yamakawa, 1992). then there is the childcare and family leave law made purposely for parental and family care leaves (lambert, 2007). public assistance law ensures that at least the minimum standard of life will be lived with self-support becomes automatically promoted (hayashi, 2010). in addition, long-term care insurance supports care for the elderly, and the child allowance law gives economic benefits to families raising children. these policies are said to be aimed at balancing work and family life but are debatable about being compelling enough to change gender roles and bridge the gender gap. 2.2 specific policies influencing gender roles japan’s parental leave policies are very generous. it provides up to a maximum of 12 months for leaves to either parent or an extension into 14 months if both parents take the leave (yamaguchi, 2017). with the inclusion of men in childcare, the policy targets ensuring gender equality. however, men’s participation still stays very low. according to japanese government in 2022, 17.13% of fathers took paternity leave in 2022, compared to 80.2% of women (kimoto, n.d.). this kind of disparity further reinforces the traditional gender roles that make women bear all childcare responsibilities. therefore, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 206 published by scholink inc. despite this policy being set up to achieve a balance in family duties, it is strongly affected by cultural norms and workplace expectations, which continue perpetuating the gap between genders both at home and in the workplace. the childcare support policies in japan have mainly been the three primary measures: subsidized daycare centers, financial assistance for childcare, and extended daycare services. these three indices are taken as the attempt to help or support women to return to work after maternity leave (zhao, 2024). currently, however, these three measures of childcare services—the subsidized daycare centers, financial assistance for childcare, and extended daycare services—seem to be not enough, as indicated by the taiki jidō (waiting children) lists, with large numbers of children on the waiting list of parents demanding such services. many women have been withdrawn from the labor market or working part-time jobs because of this shortage of daycare services. and that affects their career development and widens the gender pay gap. japan is graying, increasing the need for elderly care, typically a role fulfilled by women. however, the long-term care insurance law will establish support for family caregivers and professional caregiving services (ikegami et al., 2003). it often falls on women; hence, their likelihood of getting employed declines, and at the same time, traditional gender roles are reinforced. work reduction or leaving work to provide care is typical among women. this places them at an increased risk of income inequality and reduced chances of advancement in their careers. 2.3 impact of welfare policies on gender gaps the gender gap in employment is still vivid in japan. according to the ministry of internal affairs and communications, the participation rate for women is 54.8%, and for men, it is 71.4% (statista, 2024). several of these disparities are addressable by various welfare policies; however, their effectiveness is mixed. though the childcare and family care leave law is intended to motivate both parents to take a leave, it was mentioned above that male departments take advantage of this opportunity at meager rates (sano & yasumoto, 2014). this policy is supposed to advocate the work-life approach, but usually, the result is that the wife takes a leave since, without her, the child cannot be cared for. thus, it affects her career upward movement. the employment insurance law provides unemployment benefits and retraining programs, which could be helpful for women to be back in the workforce after a long break for family care. cultural expectations and workplace practices, however, persist in creating obstacles to long-term career development for women. income inequality has long been a problem in japan. women are paid much less than their male equivalents, and soni and amah statesthe average gender wage gap to be around 30%. this is also because a much higher percentage of women work part-time and non-permanent jobs, the payment for which is less along with the benefits. moreover, the greater concentration of females in traditionally lower-paid industries and underrepresentation in senior and managerial occupations also account for a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 207 published by scholink inc. large part of the difference in incomes. welfare policies in japan are also designed to mitigate some sources of income inequality but are relatively ineffective. increasing the gender-specific policies about women, which enable them to balance family life with work, in principle allows them to stay in employment with a continuous career track record. however, the low take-up of parental leave by men and a shortage of affordable childcare act to undermine the effectiveness of these policies. consequently, cases of family care very often still bring along with them interruptions in women’s careers and a decrease in income. some income redistribution policy measures alleviate those costs by providing tax benefits and allowances for families with children but are not designed to deal effectively with the sources of the gender wage gap. these measures can reduce the financial burden on families, but they do little to ensure pay equity or to encourage women’s promotion into better jobs. income-related welfare policies have a partial effect on closing the gender gap. on the other hand, approaches like parental leave and childcare support, for instance, are steps in the right direction with all potential but meager low implementation and utilization. for example, the endeavors of the government to increase the capacity of daycare are significant, but still insufficient—not all women can return to more full-time work. welfare policies should rather take steps to make equal opportunities in the workplace, for example, enforcing equal pay laws, leading the course for businesses to have transparency in pay, and motivating businesses to make women climb on top. on the other hand, a cultural shift regarding traditional gender roles and asking for more equity in distributing family responsibilities is imperative. 3. conclusion japan’s welfare policies significantly influence gender roles, gender gap in employment, gender gap in income, and family responsibilities. to level the playing field for all concerned, japan will have to make its policy measures more effective, enforce equal pay, raise the availability of childcare facilities, and motivate the males to share the responsibility of caregiving. further research should look at breaking barriers imposed by cultural societies, which will further help evaluate new initiatives to develop a more gender-equivalent environment. references fasbinder, k. 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(2024). childcare balancing policy in japanese corporations and women’s fertility intention. social sciences, 13(3), 175. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 44 original paper using mobile devices to access social media networks: students learning through web quest technique abdelwahed elsafi1* 1 college of education, university of bahri, sudan * abdelwahed elsafi, college of education, university of bahri, sudan received: april 24, 2018 accepted: may 12, 2018 online published: may 24, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p44 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p44 abstract this study aims to explore the effect of mobile devices and social media networks supported with web quest on student’s communication and motivation skills. a web quest was used for implementing the study as a way that enables learners to research on the web to navigate digital learning materials. this study presents the findings on students’ perspectives when searching the social media networks via their mobile devices following the web quest steps for achieving learning activities. the study follows the qualitative approach, the student’s used mobile devices to accomplish the learning tasks. the data were collected through a student questionnaire. the findings indicated that the use of mobile devices and social media networks provided opportunities for engaging in learning and increased students’ cooperation. the results also indicated that students enjoyed and appreciated the web quest technique. additionally, students recognized the importance of using mobile devices as tools for education purposes, and acquired the values of group collaboration. keywords social networks, mobile devices, web quest 1. introduction the development of computers and wireless technology have changed the way of people life and communication, especially social networking sites and mobile devices that are used for sharing information and communication among different people around the world. these types of technologies have increased communication and interaction among people in the world, especially students in an educational institution. selwyn (2012) in his research on social media in higher education reported that the most significant of social media networks for higher education is the use of social media for educational purpose which will provide the students with a new learning environment, and increase www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 45 published by scholink inc. their learning motivation and communication. many researchers like guy (2012) pointed out the use of mobile devices and social media networks were increasingly becoming vital learning tools to be used alongside the traditional learning environment to support instructors to develop the learning materials. the use of mobile technologies will meet the new generations making it interesting for them, and will cater to the modern school environment. as a result, this situation encourages many educational institutions to implement social media and mobile devices as learning tools to increase learning performance, and to develop the learning environment. mason and rennie (2008) stated that, there were many social media networks which were considered as educational tools for example; wikipedia, blogger, folksonomy sites such as del.icio.us and flicker, youtube, google doc and relevant websites. these tools enable students to use them both inside and outside the classroom, students can research or navigate for accessing learning materials, collecting data from the internet, discussing a subject idea with their colleagues, sharing videos and photos, publishing their educational works, and completing their teaching and learning tasks. regarding implementing web quest in teaching and learning activities, there were many studies that pointed out , the web quests have a positive impact on students learning collaboration, motivation, problems solving, and engaging. moreover, the web quest was considered as an effective way for promoting students higher critical thinking (drozd & donoghue, 2007; gülbahar et al., 2010). web quest is an activity based on constructivism learning theory. the learners build their own skills and knowledge by practicing. in this study, the learners worked in groups, in the way that enables them to discuss and participate in order to create more knowledge, and then reflect what they have learnt through the web quest tasks or activities. in order to increase student’s communication and collaboration skills, the study follows the web quest as a way of building learning materials on the web and making it accessible for the students, and then the student works in a cooperative manner in the learning activities. meanwhile the study focused on using mobile devices to access social media networks for educational purposes. 2. related work the rapid evolution in the era of web-based and mobile technologies bring new opportunities for both teachers and students for achieving their academic purposes (janosch, 2013). in addition to the face-to-face classroom, the teachers can prepare learning materials cloud in an online learning environment with different learning context, to be accessed by the learners, and the students can use their mobile devices to navigate or research following the links provided by their teachers for completing learning activities. many researchers have reported the potential of using cell phones as instructional tools to be used in educational settings (feng-kuang et al., 2015). in the study that was conducted by begum (2011) which aimed to explore the students’ prospects using cell phones as instructional tools, the study findings reported that, the cell phone has great potential as an instructional tool that enables users to achieve a variety of educational activities and purposes. moreover, the use of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 46 published by scholink inc. mobile devices will make the learning environment more meaningful and increase student communication skills (okunbor & retta, 2008). other researchers like cakir (2015) stated that, mobile phones offer unique functions including short message service (sms), voice-messaging, multimedia messaging service (mms), internet access, video recording, voice recording, mp3/mp4 player, digital camera, and capabilities to access social networking platforms such as facebook, twitter, whatsapp etc. all these functions (table 1) could be used for teaching and learning purposes to make educational learning environments more attractive as well as promoting students higher critical thinking. the term social networks is used to refer to any web sites that enable users to articulate a network of connections and accessing information, news, status updates, post comments, photos, or other forms of content (steinfield et al., 2012; dewing, 2010). tiryakioglu and erzurum (2011) stated that, the concept of social media refers to platforms such as social networks site, blogs or micro-blogs, and forums where self-generated content of users are shared by the user like a publisher. nowadays, many education institutions “universities, colleges, schools”, have been using social networking tools for developing the learning environments, and to achieve the teaching and learning purposes. many researchers have argued that the use of social network technology tools for learning and teaching has positive impacts on students learning (veletsianos, 2011; parise & crosina, 2012; almu & buhari, 2014). using online social networks as educational platforms may support learners to combine social connection with other classmates and support engaging while they perform their learning activities (greenhow, 2011; browning et al., 2011; mayisela, 2013); so far, they can access digital learning materials located on the web. therefore, using mobile devices and social networking tools could provide educational opportunities for students to access course content, and interact with instructors and colleagues wherever they are. accordingly, this study aimed to explore student’s communication and motivation using mobile devices as tools, the learning method was implemented through the web quest to provide students with a good learning environment that increases students learning motivation and communication. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 47 published by scholink inc. table 1. mobile tools and functions mobile tools function sms to send text messages camera to take a photo mms to send photo and video recorder for recording sound/video mp3/mp4 for listing what was already recorded memory for data storage apps for different purposes (e.g.communication) browsers to navigate the internet gps to provides geolocation and time information qr code to scan and generate for accessing information 2. method the purpose of this study mainly was to explore the potential of mobile devices and social media network in promoting students’ communication and motivation. to evaluate the effectiveness of this study, the student questionnaire was conducted for undergraduate students-electrical engineering course to gather students’ perspective after completed the course. the data were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (spss). 2.1 procedures the procedures of this study were conducted for undergraduate students in technological college, located in sudan, the data of this study back to 2014, when students were studied an electrical engineering subject, which aimed to provide students with a rich online learning environments, to be accessed using their mobile devices. in this study, the stages of web quest were implemented, and students using mobile devices for accessing online learning materials. at the beginning, the learning materials were collected and developed on the “blogger”, accordingly the social networks and other resources that support students learning were recommended. moreover, the students were orientated on how mobile devices can be used. the procedures follow the web quest strategy were described below: (1) introduction: this section typically provides the students brief information on the topic “electrical engineering ” to become aware of the learning subject. (2) task: this section of the web quest includes various activities that should be achieved by the students as groups, the students were notified on what they are supposed to accomplish. (3) resources: students were provided with links to high-quality internet-based resources, which help them to complete their learning activities. (4) process: this section outlined the steps that students need to follow as well as the resources that students need to achieve the tasks. also, this section of the web quest contains many of social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 48 published by scholink inc. networks sites such as ficker, quia and youtube which enable students accessing to learning materials relevant to the learning activities. (5) evaluation: the evaluation section of the web quest requires all students to participate in the final exam that was created online through “quiz maker see https://www.onlinequizcreator.com/log-in/item114?logout=1”, additionally, the evaluation section includes the questionnaire used to explore the student motivation. (6) conclusion: at the end of the course, students were requested to send sms (text) messages to the teachers as feedback to inform them about the course information acquisition. this study implemented a variety of social media networks, accessed by mobile. the teaching and learning strategy was the web quest technique as described earlier. at the end of the course, the students asked to respond on their perspective through a questionnaire (table 2). 2.2 participants to encourage students to incorporate social networks and mobile devices benefits into the learning activities, 25 undergraduate students at wadmdni technical college in sudan participated in this study. the participants have mobile devices and familiar accessing online learning materials. 2.3 measuring tools the method of data collection used in this study was a questionnaire, the data were collected in one week after the students completed the course, and they were examined online through the online social media networks, the students received email, text message “requested them to fill the questionnaire which was designed to gain students’ perspectives on using social media networking and mobile devices”. table 2 shows the student’s questionnaire reflection. 3. the results table 2 shows the results of the questionnaire of students’ perspective, using mobile devices and social media networks. from the statistics, the results shown that most of the students felt satisfied. among them, majority of the respondent’s use social networking websites (mean = 3.7 (1.38)). and also, most of respondent’s engage themselves using mobile learning (mean = 4 (1.14)), and the guidance provided by mobile learning (mean = 4.4 (0.81)). the student questionnaire also shows that the majority of them,confirmed that, they explored new tools for learning (mean = 3.9 (1.10)), and these new ways of learning makes them want to know more about web-based learning (mean = 3.8 (1.17)). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 49 published by scholink inc. table 2. results of the questionnaire of students’ perspective questionnaire item mean s. d use social network websites help to engage. 3.7 1.38 use social networking provides better learning environments. 3.3 1.33 i felt very interestingly when using social networks to achieve my learning task. 3.4 1.32 social media networking increases my understanding. 3.7 1.37 social networks increase my learning motivation. 3.6 1.05 with mobile learning, i can achieve my learning task more quickly . 3.5 1.14 m-learning, encourage collaborative work. 3.5 1.26 using m-learning save my time. 3.2 1.04 i feel engaged while using mobile learning. 4 1.14 learning with social networks was more interesting than traditional learning. 3.1 1.21 the guidance provided by the mobile learning is easy to understand and follow. 4.4 0.81 the new way of learning makes me want to know more about web-based learning. 3.8 1.17 i explored new tools for learning. 3.9 1.10 4. discussion this study primarily aims to explore the effect of mobile devices and social media network supported with web quest on the students’ communication and motivation. the results indicated that, the web quest learning environment motivated students. this result is supported with other studies that reported the positive effect of the web quest implemented on students learning (aina & sofowora, 2013; abu-elwan, 2007). the results also revealed that, the web quest learning environment was motivated students to work collaboratively and in groups discussion, so that the students were gained the values of cooperative work, taking the learning responsibility and developing the technology skills. additionally, the results revealed that, the use of mobile devices accessing social media networks were better learning environment which help students to feel very interesting. these findings similar to the study conducted by feng-kuanget et al. (2015) found that, the use of mobile devices as educational tools accessing digital learning materials were more enjoyable for students. additionally, when the students use their mobile devices accessing social websites (social media learning), their responses indicated that, the mobile devices enable them to perform learning activities more quickly and save their time. this result supported by the result of study conducted by hegazi and eltayeb (2014), their study concludes that mobile learning technologies meet learning purposes in the term of providing students advantages to perform learning activities more quickly. at the end of studying the course (in section of the conclusion), the participants sent messages to the teacher to reflect on their impression and motivation about the course, their messages have stated positive impression on the use of mobile www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 50 published by scholink inc. and social media based web quest technique as method of learning. moreover, the statements of students shown highly motivation such as “i learned something new, i developed my technology skills, i like this way of teaching, i learned from my colleagues, etc.”. the author has to state that, the new generations of the students are very familiar with using mobile technologies and mobile devices are becoming part of their everyday life. such conditions are very useful for teachers, educators, or instructional designers to provide students learning accessed by their mobile devices. therefore, the instructors, teachers, educators must develop their digital learning skills to provide students learning to be accessed by their mobile devices. 5. conclusion and limitation this study concludes that using mobile devices to access social media networks based on the web quest, increased students learning motivation and cooperation as well as provide them with a better learning environment. on the other hand, the values of using mobile devices for learning purposes were achieved during the students implemented mobile devices. in the term of the limitation, the study is limited to the small number of participants and only used a motivation questionnaire, instead of other data collection, for the future studies the author recommended that, the numbers of participants should be increased and studies will have to be focused on quantitative studies to examine students during learning activities. references abu-elwan, r. (2007). the use of webquest to enhance the mathematical problem-posing skills of preservice teachers. international journal or technology in mathematics educ, 14(1), 31-39. almu, a., & buhari, a. (2014). effect of mobile social networks on secondary school students. international journal of computer science and information technologies, 5(5), 6333-6335. aina s. a., & sofowora, a. o. (2013). perceived benefits and attitudes of student teachers to web-quest as a motivating, creative and inquiry-based learning tool in education. higher education studies, 3(5), 29. https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v3n5p29 begum, r. (2011). prospect for cell phones as instructional tools in the efl classroom: a case study of jahangirnagar university, bangladesh. english language teaching, 4(1), 105-115. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v4n1p105 browning, l., gerlich, r., & westermann, l. (2011). the new hd classroom: a “hyper diverse” approach to engaging with students. journal of instructional pedagogies. retrieved november 21, 2017, from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2397/96cd1a62ef2a75e848a065e369ea8aa37877.pdf cakir, i. (2015). opinions and attitudes of prospective teachers for the use of mobile phones in foreign language learning. journal of contemporary education, technology, 6(3). dewing, m. (2010). social media: an introduction. retrieved november 15, 2017, from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 51 published by scholink inc. http://www.lop.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/2010-03-e.pdf drozd, m., & o’donoghue, j. (2007). the use of a webquest to support undergraduate nurses. teaching learning nursing, 2(3), 239-255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teln.2007.03.001 eltayeb, m, & hegazi, m. (2014). mobile learning aspects and readiness. international journal of computer applications, 103(11), 22-28. https://doi.org/10.5120/18118-9401 feng-kuang, c., yu, s. q., & zhen, f. (2015). research and trends in mobile learning from 1976 to 2013: a content analysis of patents in selected databases. british journal of education technology, 114(1). greenhow, c. (2011). online social networking and learning. international journal of cyber behavior, psychology and learning, 1(1), 36-50. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcbpl.2011010104 gülbahar, y., madran, r. o., & kalelioglu, f. (2010). development and evaluation of an interactive webquest environment: “web macerasi”. education technology and society, 13(3), 139-150. guy, r. (2012). the use of social media for academic practice: a review of literature. kentucky journal of higher education policy and practice, 1(2), 1-20. janosch, z. (2013). a web-based approach for designing and deploying flexible learning tools. paper presented in international conference on web engineering (icwe). mason, r., & rennie, f. (2008). e-learning and social networking handbook: resources for higher education. routledge. mayisela, t. (2013). the potential use of mobile technology: enhancing accessibility and communication in a blended learning course. south africa journal of education, 33(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v33n1a629 selwyn, n. (2012). social media in higher education. in the europa world of learning. retrieved october 5, 2017, from http://www.educationarena.com/pdf/sample/sample-essay-selwyn.pdf steinfield, c., ellison, n., lampe, c., & vitak, j. (2012). online social network sites and the concept of social capital, frontiers in new media research. new york: routledage. okunbor, d., & retta, g. (2008). analysis of a mobile learning pilot study. retrieved november 10, 2017, from:http://digitalcommons.uncfsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=macsc_wp parise, s., & crosina, e. (2012). how a mobile social media game can enhance the educational experience. journal of online learning and teaching, 8(3), 209-222. tiryakioglu, f., & erzurum, f. (2011). use of social networks as an education tool. contemporary educational technology, 2(2), 135-150. veletsianos, g. (2011). designing opportunities for transformation with emerging technologies. journal of education technology, 51(2), 41-46. doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p44 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p44 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 133 original paper the entrepreneurial exploration and practice of college students’ photography studio —taking san jiu photography studio as an example yanyan feng 1 , yingjie yan 1 , yuhang shao 1 , & guohui rao * 1 school of foreign languages, chengdu university of information technology, chengdu, sichuan, china * corresponding author, guohui rao, chengdu university of information technology, chengdu, sichuan, china received: september 24, 2025 accepted: october 22, 2025 online published: november 16, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p133 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p133 abstract under the national “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” encouragement policy and relevant college education, plus the trend that people, especially college students like to record campus moments as souvenirs via cameras, we take our own “san jiu photography studio” as an example to share specific practices of college students’ photography entrepreneurship. the article conducts an analysis from four dimensions: team formation, operating strategy, innovative practice and entrepreneurial gains. initially, the studio identified students’ photography needs, integrated available resources, and solved problems as they arose. the studio’s core belief “life fragments documentary” records daily trivial moments on campus for students. in addition, we have expanded multi-channels promotion and collaboration, provided personalized services, like customized shoots tailored to individual students’ styles. the startup process brought many challenges, such as insufficient customer base, limited working hardware and some difficult customers, but the studio gradually developed solutions. it holds that team members’ strengths, accurate needs identification, and warm services are the keys to succeeding in the campus photography market. during this entrepreneurial practice, we have achieved all-round growth, both in capability and cognition. the studio hopes these practices can serve as a reference for other campus entrepreneurs and showcase the potential of college students’ entrepreneurship. keywords college students’ entrepreneurship, photography studio, entrepreneurial exploration and innovative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 134 published by scholink inc. practice 1. introduction under the dual background of the state’s encouragement of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” and the continuous deepening of innovation and entrepreneurship education in colleges and universities, college students’ entrepreneurship has upgraded from an individual choice to a trend of the times. this group, with their acute insight into the young market, flexible creative thinking, and the policy support and practical platforms provided by universities, is becoming an active force in the field of micro and small business startups. meanwhile, the digital revolution has made image dissemination the mainstream form of expression. photography is no longer confined to professional creation; instead, it has become the core method for ordinary people to record their lives and preserve their emotions. especially for college students, the growth and transformation, classmate friendships, and youthful memories during campus life need to be captured through professional and emotionally touching visual forms. however, the high cost of high-end photography services and the low quality of ordinary shooting create a stark contradiction, leading to a gap in photography services that precisely meet the needs of the campus. in this context, “san jiu photography studio” was jointly established by photography enthusiasts and entrepreneurs from universities. it focuses on the image recording needs of college students, and takes campus scenes as its core creative base, providing photography services that combine documentary and creative elements. the san jiu photography studio we established aims to systematically review its entrepreneurial foundation, operational strategies and innovative practices, and deeply analyze the complete logic of “demand exploration—resource integration—problem-solving” in the process of college students’ entrepreneurship. at the same time, by summarizing its growth experiences and existing shortcomings, it provides a feasible practical model that can be referred to for similar campus entrepreneurship projects. it also aims to offer micro-case support for understanding the value realization path and development potential of college students’ entrepreneurship in the new era. 2. the foundation of san jiu photography studio’s entrepreneurship 2.1 our team: a group of young dream-makers dedicated to light and shadow our photography entrepreneurship team, composed of 6 college students bound by a shared passion for the art of light and shadow. we firmly believe that behind every excellent photo lie not only advanced technical skills but also a well-organized and closely-coordinated team. core team composition: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 135 published by scholink inc.  photography director: the “artistic eye” of the team, guiding the creative vision and execution of every shoot. with a strong foundation in photography and a distinctive aesthetic perspective, this role also excels in post-processing, color grading, and image refinement—ensuring that every step, from shutter click to final output, delivers the highest visual quality.  mini program developer: empowering art with technology. independently developed and maintained the online selection mini-program for our studio, allowing clients to browse the original footage on their mobile phones at any time and place, and make initial selections easily and freely after the shooting was completed. this significantly enhanced the convenience and efficiency of our services.  operations manager: the “chief manager” of the team, in charge of the finances, ensuring the healthy operation of the studio; responsible for the publicity, planning and promoting activities through various channels such as social media and online platforms, telling our brand story and allowing more people to see our works.  photography assistant: assist the photography director in arranging lighting, preparing equipment, and coordinating on-site, ensuring a smooth and uninterrupted shooting process.  operations assistant: assist the operations manager in handling daily data, content layout, and communication with clients, making the promotional work more meticulous and detailed.  technical assistant: assist developers in conducting tests for the mini-programs and collecting user feedback, ensuring the stability of the technical platform and the improvement of user experience.  customer service specialist: the first voice clients heard when reaching out. handling every inquiry, scheduling appointments, tracking requests, and giving swift answers. warm, patient, and professional—this role forms the welcoming bridge between customers and the team.  aesthetic enhancement / stylist: serving as the team’s “beautician”, this role designs customized makeup and hairstyles that align with each client’s unique features and desired shoot style. professional expertise elevates confidence, allowing the most captivating presence to shine in front of the camera. 2.2 service contents and positioning campus moments chronicle· real record of youth life: saying goodbye to the monotonous “tourist photos”, we delve into every corner of your life the intense writing in the library, the bicycle figures on the tree-lined avenue, the joyful cheering on the playground, the playful and noisy scenes in the dormitory. we use documentary-style camera language to capture your most natural state of life, creating a “youth micro-film” exclusively for you. exclusive customization· personal creative portraits: everyone is a unique individual. whether you are fond of the cute and elegant style of japanese fashion, love the retro hong kong style, or want to try the cyberpunk trend, we can tailor it just for you. from theme planning, clothing selection to scene choice, the photography director and makeup artist will communicate with you throughout the process, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 136 published by scholink inc. working together to turn the wild imagination into stunning visual masterpieces. graduation season· eternal youth remembrance: graduation is the most passionate ending of the most exciting part of the youth’s musical composition. we offer you the most ceremonious graduation commemoration photography service. whether it’s a group photo of you and your close friends throwing caps and cheering at every campus landmark, or a solo photo in a classroom or auditorium wearing a graduation gown, we will use professional techniques to freeze the joy and reluctance of this life’s highlight moment for you. our target audience is college students. since we ourselves are college students, we are better able to understand the aesthetic preferences, consumption habits and emotional needs of our peers. communication without barriers, creativity in harmony. as a student entrepreneurial team, we have abandoned the high prices of traditional photo studios and offer professional quality at an honest price, making high-quality photography services accessible to everyone. from online consultation, custom makeup design, professional shooting to convenient film selection through the mini-program, we offer a complete and smooth service loop, saving you precious time and effort. tell stories through the lens, pay tribute to youth with light and shadow. we are not just photographers, but also your companions and recorders of your youth. 3. the operating strategy of san jiu photography studio 3.1 promotion and marketing pathway 3.1.1 multi-channels promotion we are well aware that even the best fragrance can be overlooked if it is not showcased. in order to enable more students on campus to discover us and get to know us, we have developed a comprehensive set of promotional strategies that deeply penetrate the campus environment and precisely reach the target audience. we not only thrive in the online world, but also encounter you in real life. online: focus on campus social platforms wechat official account and video account: content value is the core regularly release high-quality client photos and creative samples, presenting our photography skills and unique style in a “pictures + text + video” format. each set of photos tells a story, aiming to attract customers with similar aesthetic preferences. push out practical content such as “photography posture guide”, “graduation photo styling tips”, and “recommendations for the best campus shooting locations”, providing value to students and establishing professional trust. we have launched activities such as “leave messages for rewards”, “like for free gift” and “theme collection”, aiming to enhance the stickiness of our fans. we also seamlessly integrate our self-developed film selection mini-program to improve the user experience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 137 published by scholink inc. xiaohongshu: creating a visual brand platform by posting notes with localized popular topics such as #xx university photos, #campus photography, #graduation photos, etc., we can precisely attract students from the same university and surrounding universities who have the intention to take photos. launch the “unprofessional transformation program” series of content, presenting the actual makeup process and before-and-after comparisons, which will powerfully showcase our technical capabilities and stimulate users’ desire to shoot. offline: creating immersive experiences collaboration with student organizations: provide free group portraits and event follow-up services for student unions, art groups, and large-scale organizations, in exchange for joint publicity and credit ratings on the official channels of these organizations. 3.1.2 collaboration with photography associations and other clubs host public lectures such as “mobile photography skills” and “introduction to portrait photography”, sharing knowledge while naturally integrating the studio’s brand and attracting potential clients. 3.1.3 network of acquaintances for recommendations implement policies such as “offer discounts to both parties when introducing new customers” or “give away a premium makeover voucher”, to motivate satisfied customers to actively spread positive word-of-mouth within their social circles, dormitories etc. this is the most cost-effective and trustworthy way to acquire customers. 3.2 service quality control quality assurance: in the details, we witness professionalism. we are well aware that a set of touching photos stems from the dedication to quality in every aspect. from the initial communication to the final delivery of the full project, we have established a rigorous yet warm service process to ensure that each customer’s experience exceeds their expectations. 3.2.1 the initial communication stage through one-on-one in-depth communication with customers by dedicated customer service staff, they patiently listen to the customers’ thoughts, preferences and shooting purposes. before the shooting, we will provide a preliminary shooting plan, reference samples and makeup suggestions, and work with the client to jointly confirm the creative direction. 3.2.2 shooting stage the photography is shot by the photographer himself, who guides the client’s emotions and postures with professional experience, and strictly controls the core technical aspects such as lighting and composition. the photography assistant was on standby throughout the process, responsible for tasks such as organizing the clothes and adjusting the reflectors, to ensure that the shooting process was smooth and unobstructed. the makeup artist is always on hand to apply makeup and touch up the makeup, ensuring that the client maintains a perfect appearance in front of the camera. during the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 138 published by scholink inc. shooting process, we will periodically review the just-shot photos on the camera screen with the client, make timely adjustments to ensure the client’s satisfaction. 3.2.3 post-processing stage all the negatives are initially screened for standardization by the photographer, and the refined photos follow a rigorous process of “basic correction → skin tone uniformization → texture enhancement → stylized color adjustment”. we adopt a two-stage confirmation model. first, we will provide some sample images of the refined photos. please confirm whether the overall color tone and the degree of refinement are in line with your expectations. secondly, customers will use our self-developed film selection mini-program to browse all the initial processed negatives online and mark them. the entire process is clear and efficient, and customers’ choice rights are fully respected. finally, based on the direction confirmed by the client and the selection results, we will carry out the detailed processing of all the final films and deliver them within the agreed time. at the same time, we will provide a limited number of fine-tuning services to ensure that each final film meets the client’s satisfaction. 4. problems and innovative practice of san jiu photography studio 4.1 problems in the entrepreneurial process after all, starting a business for college students is not as hard and stable as starting a real business in society. problems such as imperfect management systems, lack of experience in entrepreneurship and financial management, insufficient time, and unprofessional equipment and technology, and any one of them may affect the progress of the studio. however, college students’ entrepreneurship is full of boundless passion and creativity, as well as the courage to forge ahead. whether a business venture succeeds or not is not the most important thing. what matters is what one learns and experience one accumulates during the process of starting the business. these are the most precious fortune in one’s future life. 4.1.1 insufficient customer base as all of the team members are college students, social circles are limited, and the recognition of the new brand is 0, the clicked rate of online promotion channels is low. the studio only has 5 sets of sample pictures and 0 real customer reviews, which cannot constitute “social proof”. in addition, the promotional channels were limited (relying only on wechat moments), the information spreading range was small, and the effective customer base was narrow. as a result, the final reservation conversion rate was less than 1%, presenting a vicious cycle of “low product visibility low trust low reservation conversion rate”. this led to only one group of orders being made in the first month of opening, far from covering the fixed costs. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 139 published by scholink inc. 4.1.2 limited working hardware in the early days of san jiu photography studio, the equipment was limited and there was no fixed working location. all the photography equipment was the personal equipment of the team members. besides, the venue, clothing, cosmetics, etc. were all rented by the team members at their own expense. 4.1.3 difficult customers the initial operation mode of the studio was mainly based on “mutual encouragement”, and most of the sample photos were also taken by models from it. however, the feeling that the model desires and the effect presented by the studio photographer sometimes deviate, resulting in prolonged shooting time and reduced efficiency. during the “mutual encouragement” and communication process, there were issues related to funds. sometimes, models were unwilling to bear the relevant expenses and may want to attain some gifts for free. 4.2 innovative practice 4.2.1 creative “fragmented life” style most traditional photography is presented in the form of film and cannot be replayed. it needs to be processed by professionals to form the final image. with the development of the times, various types of cameras have gradually become popular, like ccd, polaroid, film cameras, digital cameras, etc. however, most films are stored in electronic form, and the content mainly consists of portraits, objects, and landscapes, which can be changed by ps. however, “fragmented life” style refers to catching the minute events and material traces that have been left behind within an extremely short period of time, even in the blink of an eye, by pressing the shutter button to record this natural and beautiful moment, making the photo evidence that “a small thing happened at that time”, rather than “taking a good-looking photo”. “fragmented life” is not a grand narrative, but those fleeting moments that can stir up emotional ripples in the future, such as the clouds reflected outside the window in half a cup of coffee, your own shadow on the subway glass overlapping with the advertising light board and the warmth of a cat circling its tail to your ankle etc. to record the fragmented life well, the key is not the equipment, but to learn to “discover”. “there is no shortage of beauty in the world, what is lacking is the eye to discover it.” the studio sticks to the principle of “capturing the poetry of life with the mirror of innovation”, and upholds an innovative style, and discovers the beauty in the fragmented life. recording the fragments of college students’ lives with a digital camera is not just about “taking more photos”, but treating the “camera” as a diary to carry around. that means always on standby, quick to get started, and capable of telling stories. compared with traditional photography, the innovation lies in breaking the pattern, which means no studio, no model, no staged shooting, only the real breathing in the classroom, dormitory and campus corners. first of all, the “edges” should be the main characters. the subjects of the shoot should not be the school beauties or handsome guys, but “the sticky notes occupying seats”, “the dust from the blackboard eraser”, and “the night light from the dormitory water www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 140 published by scholink inc. dispenser”. then comes teamwork. a life observer is responsible for writing an “emotion script”, discovering multiple moments that can be caught and recorded. a photographer, who only do “decisive continuous shooting”, carry a camera with you all the time, and record those breathing moments. an operator, who post works on wechat moments and qq campus wall, collect feedback in the comment section to determine the theme of the next issue. it can also arouse the fans’ interests in participating by letting them guess which corner of the school these moments are in. after accumulating a certain number of fans, more students get to know this photography studio and attract more potential customers. 4.2.2 personalized services anyone who takes a photo album in our studio and spends at least 520 yuan will be given a free gift of 2 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage (micro film) + 3 polaroid photos worth 9.9 yuan+ 1 “blind box base film” (randomly developed waste photos that are not selected) + all negatives+1 custom 10-inch table stand. also, customers can voluntarily customize special keychain with small cards for 9.9 yuan, one 6-8 inch crystal/linen photo album, an upgraded version for 299 yuan, and one card-style photo album for 9.9 yuan etc. 4.2.3 other measures to keep pace with fashion trend, the studio adopts the “mutual encouragement” mode broadening the shooting style, increase the types of sample photos. and the studio constantly updates the daily life in the moments, making the customer service account “lively”, also expands the customer circle, and gradually get through the initial awkward stage. thanks to this mode, as time went by, the studio can purchase equipment such as reflectors and fill lights. facing difficult customers, the studio adhering to the principle that “the customer is king”, reduce profits as little as possible to retain customers and coordinate online to reduce costs. 5. entrepreneurial gains 5.1 all-round growth of team capabilities the entrepreneurial process has enabled the team to transform from “skilled individuals” to “cooperative collectives”. the team initially formed based on interests and gradually built a complementary structure that met the project requirements by clear division of labor and cooperation among photography, post-production, and operation. thus, the team overcame common problems such as single major and ambiguous division of labor in college student entrepreneurial teams. zhang wei and gao jian, in their article “research on key factors for the growth of chinese startups: a comparative analysis of successful and failed cases”, pointed out that the growth quality of startups is highly dependent on the complementarity and collaboration efficiency of the team through several researches on multiple entrepreneurial cases. clear role division, and a member composition with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 141 published by scholink inc. complementary skills can effectively reduce the cost and execution resistance in the early stage of entrepreneurship, which is the core support for the team to cope with market challenges. the growth process of the san jiu photography studio team precisely proves this conclusion. in the face of practical difficulties such as insufficient equipment and a shortage of clients, the members not only deepened professional skills but cultivated comprehensive qualities such as market analysis and client communication, achieving a transformation from “campus learners” to “market practitioners”. 5.2 meeting the needs of the campus the studio, centering on “recording the true moments of youth”, precisely fills the gap in campus photography service. through the “fragments of life” shooting style and personalized service innovation, it has broken the rigid model of traditional photography, which focus on neglected scenes such as classroom interactions and dormitory daily life, allowing the images to return to the essence of emotions. the studio provides college students with cost-effective solutions, earning recognition from the target group. 5.3 deep expansion of entrepreneurial cognition during practice, the team has deeply realized that the core competitiveness of campus entrepreneurship lies in “demand matching” and “emotional resonance”. compared with commercial photography institutions, a scene understanding of students’ lives, flexible service adjustments, and precise cost control can better form a differentiated advantage. at the same time, it is also realized that the standardized process management (such as communication lists in the early stage and modification standards in the later stage) is the key for small teams to ensure service quality. acknowledgement this research was funded by the project “operation of an innovative photography studio for documenting life fragments in an era of rapid change: san jiu photography studio, using the lens to write poems for life” (no.x202510621258) of chengdu university of information technology. references jing, y. et al. (2021). exploration on the entrepreneurial development of college student photography studios under the background of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation”: a case study of “cubic photography studio”. employment and security, (3), 67-68. li, s., liu, y., & yin, h. (2019). how college students establish and operate a photography studio. youth and society, (5, late issue), 1-4. li, w., & ding, c. (2016). how new ventures gain competitive advantage through brand building: a multi-case study based on resource integration and capability development. management review, 28(11), 240-252. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 142 published by scholink inc. li, y., & zhu, y. (2021). establishment and operation of campus photography studios in the era of self-media. science & technology information, 19(11), 20-22. liang, x., & ma, z. (2019). practice of university photography studios. chinese and foreign entrepreneurs, (31), 1-4. liu, r., & zhang, g. (2021). research on the entrepreneurial practice of photography studios by students in local undergraduate universities. tourism and photography, (20), 125-126. shu, b., hu, y., & guo, c. (2023). innovation and entrepreneurship experience of “huiguangshe” photography studio. journal of tonghua normal university, (9), 1-4. zhang, w., & gao, j. (2007). key factors for the growth of new ventures in china: a comparative analysis of successful and failed cases. scientific research management, 28(1), 1-8. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 149 original paper literature review on the digital museum in a chinese context qiong dang1* 1 department of communication sciences, free university of brussels (vrije universiteit brussel), brussels, belgium * qiong dang, department of communication sciences, free university of brussels (vrije universiteit brussel), brussels, belgium received: september 9, 2018 accepted: october 14, 2018 online published: november 28, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n2p149 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n2p149 abstract parry (2007) claims that “it would be an exaggeration to suggest that the computer has been the cause of the recent ‘reimagining’, ‘rethinking’, ‘reshaping’ and ‘reframing’ of the museum” (p. 140). technological innovation creates new possibilities for the development of the museum, and the digital museum as one of its products plays a key role in the preservation and communication of cultural heritage. however, research on the digital museum is lacking in china. therefore, this article is an attempt to determine the extent to which factors influence the construction of digital museums. in order to answer the research question, a systematic review has been utilized in order to comb the available literature in the chinese context. as a result, 1829 articles have been retrieved and 205 articles have been accessed, and finally, 41 studies have been selected and reviewed. the results indicate that the development of the digital museum is influenced by technology, human resources, and funding. then, suggestions and implications are put forward for further research. keywords digital museum, human resources, technology and funding 1. introduction and problem statement 1.1 introduction in the twenty-first century, technology has already brought about great breakthroughs in our society, which is self-evident in that technology is ubiquitous (maleuvre, 1999; chang, 2012). museums have been transformed by their social context and the proliferation of information technology. the history of automation of museums might have begun in 1963 in washington, d. c. (cui, 2015). since then, technology has changed the way museums interact and communicate with others. for example, in 2001, the palace museum’s website was open to the public, indicating chinese museums’ first step into the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 150 published by scholink inc. digital era (zhao, 2013). by the end of may 2016, the baidu encyclopedia digital museum project had 1,609 museum websites, including 56 3d panoramic digital museums (note 1). nowadays, as bearman and geber (2008) state, a museum without a collections database and a web presence is hardly considered professional. therefore, the museum finally might achieve the goal of being wall-less, which corresponds with andré malraux’s famous idea regarding the imaginary museum without walls presented in 1947. in china, confronted with this new situation, the state has formulated a series of policies to support museums to embrace technology, such as the state’s 11th five-year (2006-2010) plan regarding cultural relics undertakings; the state’s 11th five-year plan of cultural development; the state’s 11th five-year (2011-2015) plan regarding cultural relics undertakings; the ministry of culture on 12th five-year plan for the development of culture and technology and science; outline of museums medium and long-term development plan (2011-2020). therefore, museums in china have devoted themselves to the facilitation of the digitalization of the museum. however, in the current literature, research concerning the extent to which factors influence the concept of the digital museum is lacking. 1.2 problem statement in chinse-language literature, research on the relationship between new technology and museums mainly emphasize the following aspects: first, an emphasis on the application of new technology for museums (zhang et al., 2003; he et al., 2008; lu, 2012). second, an emphasis on communications channels for digital museums (jin, 2010; chang, 2010; ren, 2015). third, a discussion on the educational function museums would have in a virtual environment (guan, 2006; liu, 2009). however, little research has been conducted to explore the extent to which factors influence the development of the digital museum. therefore, the research question of “which factors affect the development of the digital museum in china?” has been proposed. more specifically, the objective of this study is twofold: (1) how is the digital museum conceptualized in previous studies in the chinese context? (2) which factors affect the development of the digital museum in china? there are two main research purposes to this study: one aims to provide theoretical insight for the better understanding of the digital museum; the other is to provide some managerial implications for museum practitioners. 2. method in order to answer the research question, a systematic review has been undertaken in order to gather data concerning which factors influence the development of digital museums. petticrew and roberts (2006) define that “systematic reviews are literature reviews that adhere closely to a set of scientific methods that explicitly aim to limit systematic error (bias), mainly by attempting to identify, appraise and synthesize all relevant studies (of whatever design) in order to answer a particular question (or set www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 151 published by scholink inc. of questions)” (p. 9). it can scientifically and comprehensively analyze the related resources and display the corresponding fair results. in the systematic review, all of the studies related to the topic have been identified, appraised and synthesized, aiming to guarantee that the research results are more credible and valid (petticrew & roberts, 2006). this study has selected the literature based on petticrew and robert’s (2006) pre-defined procedure which is presented as follows: 1) formulate the research question of an appropriate scope; 2) study and screen the related resources on the basis of the inclusion or exclusion criteria; 3) describe the study characteristics, sample appraisal, and synthesis. 2.1 search procedures this research has been conducted in a chinese context, so therefore we have selected the chinese database as the retrieval object. we searched through the available literature by utilizing the databases of the china national knowledge infrastructure (cnki), which is one of the most authoritative and largest databases in china). the search was conducted using a combination of the following three sets of key words: 1) digital media, digital technology, digital exhibition, digital environment, virtual reality; 2) museum computerization, online museum, digital museum, virtual museum, physical museum; 3) museum management, museum audience, museum talents, museum funding. 2.2 inclusion criteria and selection results studies that met the following inclusion criteria were selected: (1) the study focused on the concept of the digital museum in a chinese context; (2) the study focused on management, audiences and the public, and the media and technology related to the development of digital museums in china; (3) the published articles were written in chinese; (4) the scope of the literature (peer-reviewed journal articles were considered); (5) the journal articles had been published between 2000 and the beginning of 2017. the database search retrieved 1829 articles. first, the list of titles was scanned and 1442 articles were excluded. then, the abstract of the 387 remaining articles were evaluated and the full texts of 205 of them were retrieved and analyzed in order to make a final selection. based on the application of those five previously mentioned inclusion criteria, 41 articles were ultimately selected and shown to fulfil the inclusion criteria, and as such were included in this database (see figure 1). of the total number of studies included, there were 38 related studies and 3 theoretical studies. moreover, the articles were excluded if they solely focused on information communication technology and computing science, such as the case if, for example, the study was conducted in order to research the application of a new technology in museums from a computing perspective. the same topic and duplicate studies were not mentioned. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 152 published by scholink inc. figure 1. flow chart of the selection process 2.3 analysis of selected studies according to the system theory, an organization can be considered an open or closed system and may be affected by internal or external environments (von, 1986). an open system consists of three significant elements; the first is inputs, which means the resources the organization receives such as equipment, natural and material resources, their staff, etc.; then, the inputs are transformed, which are called throughputs, and then the products and services are yielded, which is called the output (rice, 2013). drawing on the system theory, museum management is defined in this study by a distinct ongoing process of allocating inputs (human, economic and material resources) by typical managerial functions (planning, organizing, directing and control) so as to achieve the stated objective (liu, 2009). therefore, the development of digital museums is mainly influenced by human, economic, and material resources. based on the above statement, each study was summarized into a classification scheme and included three central aspects: (1) how the digital museum is defined; (2) how human resources affects its development; (3) how material resources affects its development. 3. results 3.1 the digital museum defined in the literature remarkably, amongst the 41 articles reviewed, the digital museum was defined in 32 of them. six of the articles mentioned digital museum without providing a further explanation of what is meant by the concept. a considerable account of different terms was adopted in 32 of the reviewed studies in order to represent “the digital museum” in different stages. these terms included: electronic museum, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 153 published by scholink inc. digitalized museum, online museum, museum website, online museum, and the virtual museum. although these terms might overlap and are used in most contexts, each conception has evolved accompanying the innovation of new technology. meanwhile it indicates that there is no uniform definition of the digital museum in china, and the concept of the museum on the construction of digitalization is in a mess. the development of the digitalization of the museum experienced three different conditions from “museum digitalization”, “the digitalized museum” to “the digital museum”. next, three main terms have been discussed; then, the definition of the digital museum is adopted. first, the term “museum digitalization” had begun to circulate in the 1970s due to the application of computers in the field of museums and continues to be widely used today. based on the content analysis of the definition of museum digitalization, in brief, it is a dynamic process including digitalizing every aspect of the museum (zhu, 2010; peng, 2011; liang, 2013). scholars have indicated museum digitalization includes three main components: (1) it refers to the utilization of digital technology (such as computer technology, database technology (dbt), multimedia technology, network technology, communication mechanisms and automatic control technology); (2) to digitize the museum entity, which is a dynamic process that contains the establishment of websites, digital management of collections, virtual displays, building automation, network construction, etc. (li, 2008; gao, 2013; ran & li, 2016); (3) its purpose is to effectively achieve a sharing, utilization, and management of information resources in museums (zhao, 2012). this analysis also implies that a digitalized museum is one of the results of museum digitalization. second, the term “the digitalized museum” was traced back to the 1990s, with its associated integration of museums and the internet. zhen (1999) first defined the digitalized museum as “the digital museum is a museum that the functions of collection, research, entertainment, display, and education is presented to the public in a digital way” (p. 14). according to the content analysis of the concept of the digitalized museum, it is understood in two different ways. 1) the digitalized museum refers to an important application of modern information technology centered on computers at cultural institutions, which aims to combine internal information collection management with external information queries (zhen, 1999; chen, 2000; tian & zhu, 2009; zhao, 2013), and its development has resulted in a radical revolution in museum management. the digitalized museum is divided into four different aspects (chen, 2000): 1). a local area network of collection data management. workers utilized the lan to register, classify and manage the collection; 2) touchscreens and computer facilities are used to retrieve information. these facilities serve the visitor, and the visitor may use them to obtain further information regarding cultural relics and cultural knowledge; 3) the museum website provides the latest information for the audience no matter where you are and who you are; 4) the computer is used to manage routine work. 5) the digitized museum refers to an application of digital technology to store and process the information of collection, exhibition, the management of museums, and depends on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 154 published by scholink inc. lan and the internet to communicate with others (zhang & ning, 2000; zheng et al., 2004; li & pan, 2005; yang, 2006). in essence, it is a comprehensive information service system combining computer technology with communication technology, similar to the concept of the digital museum (gu, 2006; chen, 2007). it provides a comprehensive, efficient and convenient service for their audience or other users of the network. it is a new development trend for traditional museums, although traditional museums cannot be replaced by it. they complement each other and provide services to meet the different requirements of the audience. its essential characteristics include digital storage, network transmission, resource sharing, and management computerization (li, 2008; li, 2016). it aims to realize the resource sharing. the two different understandings both emphasize the application this new technology has to the field museums. the first understanding considers that the digitalized museum utilizes modern computer technology in order to transform the traditional museum by aiming to realize the digitalization of its collection and management. the second understanding stresses that the digitalized museum has completed digital processing and is also the result of museum digitalization. third, the term “the digital museum” first emerged in the twenty-first century, in addition to the palace museum’s website which was opened to the public in 2001, marking chinese museums’ first entry into the digital era. it is a new thing accompanying the digital library and one part of the digitalized museum (cui, 2015; zhou & yang, 2016). its three basic characteristics are the digitization of cultural relics and specimens, a network for information dissemination and liberalization of data retrieval (lu, 2012; liang, 2013). according to an understanding of the digitalized museum, it refers to an information service system and database, which takes information on cultural relics as kernel content and uses modern information technology (including computer technology, virtual reality technology, multimedia technology, internet and database, etc.) to gather, arrange and manage the information on the cultural relics in order to provide the public with the rich cultural resources through the internet. although these terms have differences, they do possess some dimensions of overlap. moreover, the three terms “represent the development of the digitalization of the museum in the different conditions, and their relationship is shown in figure 2. museum digitalization refers to digitalizing the traditional museum and the process for finally realizing the concept of digital museum and is the foundation for constructing it. the digitalized museum is a concrete and existing museum which has already achieved the museum digitalization and is a prerequisite for the existence of a digital museum. therefore, in this study, we agree that the digital museum, in essence, is an information system and database and includes the online museum, virtual museum, web museum, and internet museum. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 155 published by scholink inc. figure 2. the relationship of the three terms 3.2 the factors affecting the development of the digital museum in china 31 out of 41 of the studies mentions the extent to which factors influence the development of the digital museums. based on the analysis of the reviewed studies, three main factors have been identified affect the development of digital museums, i.e., human resources, technology and funding. 3.2.1 technology thirteen articles mention that technology is the decisive factor concerning the construction of the digital museum, in a total of 31 studies. technology, such as internet technology, virtual technology, and digital technology, provides the possibility for museums to endow a new life to cultural relics and enlarges channels of communication for the museum (jin, 2013). concerning the influence of technology on the digital museum, two aspects mainly are emphasized: data standardization and intellectual property rights. with respect to data standardization, it is mentioned among eleven different articles, which influences the dissemination and sharing of culture resources in museums. data standardization is the basic work of establishing a digital museum and is the prerequisite for accomplishing interconnection and interworking, resource sharing, safe business collaboration, and reliability. data standardization is the basic issue in terms of the construction of the information system, such as the resource classification standard, data exchange standard, application service standard, and so on. data standardization could aid the digital museum “actively created and constructed-in-practice” (harbers, 2005, p. 268). however, the fact is that there is a lack of a uniform data standard concerning the construction of digital museums in china, means this concept in the country still has a long way to go to build and improve. in terms of intellectual property rights, eleven of the reviewed studies involved the issue of intellectual property rights. intellectual property rights are an important part of museums’ assets, and their protection and utilization are also a significant part of the management of museums. huang (2018) states that it mainly contains “copyright, trade and mark right, patent right, realm name right and the right of the name” (p. 14). digital museums spreads their information through the internet, and as a result, almost anyone is able to access the digital resources the museum provides, causing a potential www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 156 published by scholink inc. information security hazard. therefore, more attention should be paid to defending the security of intellectual property rights. 3.2.2 human resources ten of the articles demonstrated that professional talents are an important factor for developing digital museums. a lack of inter-disciplinary talents and a brain drain are two key issues digital museums face. as the digital museum is a newborn thing, its development and growth cannot work without the guidance of new ideas. moreover, the construction of the digital museum has been a growing requirement for inter-disciplinary talent who possess a rich knowledge on management and business, as well as the late-model professional who masters modern information technology and has a better understanding of museum work. 3.2.3 funding nine of the articles state that it is expensive to introduce new technology and buy new equipment to create digital museums. in china, state-owned museums are public welfare cultural institutions and are not-for-profit. their financial allocation from the government is the main source of their money. however, this allocation cannot satisfy the requirements of the development of museums. seven of the articles mentions that the imbalance of this resource allocation results in an unbalanced development of digital museums. as china is a huge country, and the development level of museums is different across the different regions. for instance, in the more developed areas, such as shanghai and beijing, more resources can be obtained to facilitate the museum’s development; however, in the more developing regions, such as anhui and gansu, fewer resources are allocated to the development of digital museums. 4. discussion and conclusion to conclude, two problems have been tackled in this study: 1) the concept of the digital museum has been identified; 2) the factors affecting the development of the digital museum are illustrated in china. in essence, the digital museum is an information system and database and includes an online museum and uses the internet to disseminate its digital resources. the concept and connotation of the digital museum has experienced four stages: representation which emphasizes the protection of digital collections and online displays; reconstruction which recovers the disappeared and evolved cultural heritage; replacement which utilizes information technology to restore historical appearances; and recollection, which integrates the collection through the internet. the development of the digital museum has been influenced by these factors: technology, data standardization, intellectual property rights, information management, human resources, funds, and allocation of resources. according to the results, managerial implications are proposed for policymakers and museum managers. first, findings can be considered when policymakers make plans for facilitating the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 157 published by scholink inc. development of a digital museum. for example, measures should be taken to standardize the data and protect intellectual property rights. plans should be taken to manage the human and material capital to ensure and facilitate the development of the digital museum. second, museum managers should have a better understanding of digital museums and make plans to introduce comprehensive talents and new technology. moreover, in order to obtain more funding to support the development of digital museums, marketing should be employed to make further profits, creative products should be developed, and the cooperation between museums and the tourism sector should be enhanced. 5. limitations and future research there are several limitations. firstly, this study is an analysis of secondary sources and lacks first-hand data. second, the results cannot be generalized for museums due to the limited sample size. in the future, semi-structured interviews concerning which factors influence the digitalization of museums will be conducted in order to gather first-hand source to deeply probe into this topic. references cui, t. (2015). the development of the digital museum. heilongjiang chronicles, 3, 219. chen, h. j., & wu, q. (2001). on the transformation of digitalization of university museums. chinese museum, 3, 87-92. chen, j. h., & chen, s. (2000). a discussion on the digital museum. southeastern culture, 1, 95-99. chang, y. (2012). on the dissemination strategy of the digital museum. hebei academic journal, 32(4), 198-201. chang, y., & duan, s. f. (2010). the application of thematic digital museum in the dissemination of history and culture. journal of shijiazhuang railway university (social science edition), 4(4), 70-74 & 104. chen, g. (2007). the concept, characteristics, and development mode of digital museum. chinese museum, 3, 88-93. chen, g., & zhu, k. q. (2004). digital museum and analysis of related problems. intelligent building and urban information, 9, 29-33. guan, x. (2006). the digital museum and the public education. museum studies, 1, 3-7. gu, h. (2006). discussion on the digital museum. the journal of cangsang, 5, 104-105. gao, k. (2013). disscussion about the related problems in the digitalization of museums. the journal of theatrical home, 10, 77. he, l., hu, x. q., & jiang, x. m. (2008). application of virtual reality technology in network digital museum. the journal of technology and science, 12, 246-247. hu, c. (2010). museum digital resources construction. art and museum, 2, 93-96. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 158 published by scholink inc. harbers, h. (ed.). (2005). inside the politics of technology: agency and normativity in the co-production of technology and society. amsterdam university press. https://doi.org/10.5117/9789053567562 jin, r. j. (2013). disscussion on how to improve the digitalization management of museum collections. heilongjiang chronicles, 21, 247. jin, r. g. (2010). communication research of digital museum. art and museum, 4, 94-96. peng, x. h. (2011). problems in digitalization construction of museums. the journal of baozhuang shijie, 4, 12-13. li, j. j. (2016). research on the digital museum and related issues. the journal of heilongjiang science and technology information, 34, 283. li, j. c. (2013). feasibility study of the virtual museum in the current network. popular literature and art, 14, 63 & 146. liang, h. c. (2013). reflections on the digitalization of museums. popular literature and art, 6, 60 & 140. lu, m. (2012). discussion on resource sharing of the digital museum. information technology and informatization, 1, 51-53 & 60. liu, h. (2010). new exploration of museum network culture under the background of globalization. museum studies, 1, 17-20. liu, l. (2009). digital education museum research. technology and consult, 7, 32. li, w. c. 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(2012). research on image copyright protection in digital museum. computer applications and software, 29(5), 281-284. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 159 published by scholink inc. sun, s. s., zhang, m. m., li, l., & pan, z. g. (2003). application of digital watermarking technology in the digital museum. journal of systems simulation, 3, 347-349. tian, y., & zhu, y. l. (2009). discussion on database integration installation of the digital museum in the internet age. museum studies, 4, 83-85. wei, j., & xu, q. q. (2012). analysis of the bottleneck of digital museum development. the journal of guangxi light industry, 27(12), 117-118 & 149. wang, y. c. (2010). research on museum digital opening and network information security. gansu science and technology, 26(8), 46-48. xing, j. y. (2002). a rustic opinion on the digital museum. journal of southwest institute of nationalities (philosophy and social science edition), 6, 264-265. yang, x. m. (2006). research on the digital museum and the related issues. cultural relics of central china, 1, 93-96. zhu, g. (2010). discussion on problems faced by museum digitalization construction. the border economy and culture, 5, 186-187. zheng, y. q., zhang, l. y., zhang, j., & cao, x. d. (2004). thinking about the construction of digital museum. the journal of weishi, 1, 86-88. zhen, s. n. (1999). the rising digital museums. chinese museum, 2, 14-17. zhang, w., & ning, g. (2000). overview of the digital museum. the journal of ancient and modern agriculture, 4, 73-81 & 69. zhao, g. j. (2012). public demand and digitalization of museums. the journal of huashi, 1, 61-67. zhao, y. q. (2013). preliminary research on digital museum in china. statistics and management, 4, 109-110. zhou, r. f., & yang, q. (2016). research on digital museum construction under the perspective of “internet +”. identification and appreciation of cultural relics, 8, 112-113. zhang, m. d. (2016). analysis of digital museum construction in the information age. the journal of office operation, 19, 177-179. note note 1. https://baike.baidu.com/museum/ communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 10 review paper a research on the improvement of business english teachers’ competence in an internet plus era yu chunmei1* 1 foreign language department, sichuan university of science & engineering, 180# xueyuan street, huixing road, zigong city, sichuan province, china * yu chunmei, foreign language department, sichuan university of science & engineering, 180# xueyuan street, huixing road, zigong city, sichuan province, china research project on teaching reform of sichuan university of science & engineering (jg-19-58), 2019 received: november 9, 2021 accepted: november 15, 2021 online published: november 19, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n4p10 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n4p10 abstract in an internet plus era, the internet technology has brought an unprecedented change to people’s ways and habits of learning, so the traditional be instructional design cannot meet the talent needs of international business practice. be teachers’ lack of business knowledge and practical experience forms an obstacle to be teaching. be teachers in transition should make more efforts to improve their competence and teaching quality, so as to cultivate comprehensive and practical talents of high quality. this paper aims at discussing how to improve be teachers’ competence in an internet plus era. keywords internet plus, business english, teachers’ competence, comprehensive and practical talents 1. introduction business english, as an esp used in business environment, requires teachers not only to have a high level of english language, but also to have rich international business knowledge and practical ability. with the rapid development of foreign trade, the demand for compound and applied foreign language talents is increasing day by day. the ability of teachers affects the training quality of business english talents. “the quality of business english teachers has a direct impact on the teaching quality of business english” (weng, j. l. & weng, f. x., 2012). however, most business english teachers in china lack basic knowledge and practical experience of international business. the rapid development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. of internet technology has unprecedentedly changed people’s learning styles and habits, the traditional teaching mode of business english class have been unable to meet the demand of students’ learning, is bound to trigger a new teaching model reform—the advanced internet technology will be applied to traditional teaching process, in order to adapt to the development needs of the era of large data. classroom teaching is still the main way for students to acquire knowledge, while teachers are the main body of classroom teaching, and the growth and achievement of students is the goal of teaching. in the era of internet plus education, how to improve the quality of teaching through the development of their own ability, and cultivate comprehensive and practical talents of high quality is a problem that every business english teacher should think about. 2. method the author adopts qualitative method to make an analysis on business english teachers’ competence in an internet+ era. in the study, the author chooses the course design, business english teachers’ education background, classroom teaching methods etc. as the object of the research. questionnaires with twenty questions for each are designed to collect the data for research, and samples are selected randomly from the students and teachers in our school. 3. result prime minister li keqiang, in his government work report put forward the concept of “internet +”, points out that the “internet +” is the innovation of the internet and economic society in various fields depth fusion, to promote technological progress, improve efficiency and organizational change, promote the real economy, innovation and productivity to form more widely on the internet for infrastructure and innovation elements in new form of social and economic development. it can be seen that “internet + education” is not simply adding network technology to the field of education, but applying advanced internet technology to all aspects of education, including classroom teaching, textbook compilation, and students’ comprehensive evaluation system, to deeply integrate the innovative achievements of the internet with teaching. in order to promote the overall development of internet technology and education industry, promote the reform and innovation of teaching and improve teaching results. the guiding opinions on actively promoting the “internet plus” action issued by the state council clearly proposed exploring new ways of providing education services, including encouraging schools to make use of digital education resources and education service platforms, gradually exploring a new model of networked education, expanding the coverage of high-quality education resources, and promoting education equity. universities are encouraged to connect online and offline education resources through cooperation with internet companies, promote online learning models such as massive open online courses, and accelerate the reform of higher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 12 published by scholink inc. education service models. this also indicates the advent of the “internet + education” era. in this era, business english teachers are faced with a problem: how to develop themselves, achieve a successful transformation from language and literature to business english teaching, and adapt to the transformation from traditional teaching mode to new classroom teaching mode. 3.1 problems faced by business english teachers experts from ministry of education in national standard for undergraduate teaching quality of business english major in colleges and universities clearly pointed out that the training target is to cultivate comprehensive and practical talents of international vision and high quality, to cultivate their english basic skills with international vision and the humanities accomplishment, and to master international business knowledge and related rules of practice, with english application ability, business practice ability, cross-cultural communication ability, thinking and innovation ability, independent learning ability, can engage in international business work compound, application-oriented talents. the cultivation of talents is inseparable from the teacher’s teaching work, and the teacher’s ability and quality also determine the teaching quality. therefore, “business english standard” also puts forward requirements on the quality of business english teachers. business english teachers should have noble ethics, qualified basic english skills, professional knowledge, teaching ability, scientific research ability, practical ability, and the ability of applying modern educational information technology to carry out classroom teaching and teaching reform. however, the ability of business english teachers and the level of scientific research are not satisfactory. using esp demand theory, guo guihang and li dan (2015) found that the defects of business english teachers in terms of ability and quality were mainly reflected in the following aspects: first, the proportion of composite teachers who had both english language and business background education experience was low; teachers’ knowledge reserve is insufficient, english language, culture and business knowledge need to be improved; lack of business practice experience and weak business practice ability, most teachers are unable to keep pace with the times, unable to apply social hot issues as practical cases in classroom teaching; business practice teaching ability is limited, information teaching ability needs to be improved. since most business english teachers have changed from single language teaching to teaching business knowledge in english language, there are widespread problems of lack of business knowledge and insufficient business practice ability. to some extent, this restricts teachers’ inspirational and creative teaching ability, is not conducive to arousing students’ interest and enthusiasm in learning, and seriously hinders the teaching effect of business english classroom teaching. 3.2 suggestions on the development of business english teachers teacher ability refers to the personality and psychological characteristics that teachers show in educational and teaching activities and directly or indirectly affect the quality and completion of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. educational and teaching activities. “the key factor affecting students’ ability development lies in teachers’ ability, and there is a high correlation between the components of teachers’ ability and teaching effect” (lu & hong, 2007). zhang bo (2007) believes that teachers’ ability consists of four elements: teaching ability, scientific research ability, management ability and creative ability. students majoring in business english in colleges and universities are a group with mature mental development and self-behavior management ability. however, the particularity of business english requires teachers to constantly improve their business knowledge level and practical ability. therefore, how to improve the ability of business english teachers is mainly elaborated from the following three aspects: innovative teaching ability, business practice ability and scientific research ability. 3.2.1 innovative teaching ability of business english teachers teaching ability is “the individual psychological characteristics required by teachers to successfully complete teaching activities, and a professional quality formed by transforming individual intelligence and knowledge and skills required for teaching through practice” (yang, 1996). business english teachers should not only have solid english language and business knowledge at the same time, but also have creative teaching methods in order to successfully complete the set teaching tasks and achieve the teaching objectives. teachers’ creative ability refers to “teachers’ ability to synthesize existing knowledge, information and experience to produce unique and novel teaching, educational design, educational skills and new results that are different from others” (wang, 1991). the 21st century needs compound talents with innovative ability most, only teachers with creative ability can cultivate creative students. business english teachers create unique and novel teaching designs based on existing professional knowledge and teaching skills according to the particularity of their major, rather than “a simple tool for mechanically transferring knowledge” (zhang, 2007). with the rapid development of mobile internet technology, students have diversified channels and ways to acquire knowledge, and teachers are no longer the only representatives of preaching and clarifying doubts. under the traditional closed business english teaching mode, the teaching content is outdated, the teaching method is backward and the teaching efficiency is low. the current business english teaching design based on classroom teaching has been unable to meet the needs of the increasingly expanding practice of business english knowledge operation (wang, 2009), let alone meet the needs of the rapidly developing international business activities. “internet + education” has broken the monopoly of authority on knowledge and turned education from closed to open. students can access knowledge no longer only in class, but can enjoy the learning resources they want anytime and anywhere. the teacher is no longer the representative of authoritative knowledge, but the creator and consumer of knowledge as well as the student. at this point, business english teachers must change their role from the classroom controller to the guide of students’ learning, to stimulate students’ enthusiasm and initiative in learning. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 14 published by scholink inc. classroom teaching is an interactive process between students and teachers, and teachers should give full play to students’ subjective initiative. the teaching process is crucial to the training quality of students, and teachers’ teaching methods and methods directly affect students’ experience of the teaching process (guo & li, 2015). that is to say, teachers’ teaching methods and methods directly affect students’ learning results, high-quality teaching should be creative and inspiring teaching, stimulate students’ learning enthusiasm. therefore, business english teachers should strengthen the application of modern information technology in the teaching process, use multimedia and network resources to design creative activities in and out of class, and strengthen the vividness and extensibility of classroom teaching, so that students can not only stay in class, but also continue to supplement their learning and thinking after class. for example, when it comes to price terms, letters of credit and other knowledge, teachers can not only tell the relevant basic theoretical knowledge in class, but also organize students to conduct group case analysis, and provide students with after-class learning resources through social platforms to further consolidate the basic knowledge learned in class. teachers can find the latest case analysis materials and learning resources for students to expand their learning after class through the internet. in the internet + era, flipped classroom, mooc, micro-class and other new teaching models can mobilize students’ enthusiasm and enthusiasm for learning to a certain extent, but teachers are always the leader in the teaching process. therefore, business english teachers insist on student-centered teaching and meet the learning needs of students through their own continuous development. the full use of the internet information platform, not only can timely update the content of the teaching material, but also can extend the teaching content to the learning process outside the classroom. using internet technology, adding simulated business practice activities in the teaching process can not only improve students’ ability to analyze and solve problems, but also improve their learning initiative. 3.2.2 the business knowledge and practical experience of business english teachers “teachers’ abilities should include teaching ability, subject professional knowledge and ability” (song, 1999), while “business english teachers should not only have high english knowledge and skills, but also business professional knowledge and cross-cultural communication ability” (wang & zhang, 2006). therefore, business english teachers should not only have a high level of english language and culture, but also constantly strengthen the “input” of international business knowledge, so as to accurately “output” to students in class teaching and cultivate interdisciplinary talents with strong business practice ability. in the internet + era, international business knowledge is changing with each passing day. business english knowledge in practice is a constantly changing and developing “knowledge network”, covering knowledge in many fields, which is “rooted in all levels” and constantly updated and developed (mao, 2003). in other words, the knowledge of business english in practice keeps pace with the times, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. responds promptly and applies to the development of international business. however, the content of most business english textbooks is outdated after several years. students cannot acquire such dynamic business english knowledge from textbooks and coursebook-based classes, so they cannot adapt to the rapid development of international business. therefore, business english teachers should constantly update their professional knowledge and improve their professional skills, such as going abroad for further study, attending vocational training and various academic conferences, and strengthening communication and cooperation with teachers of related majors, to make up for the deficiency of teaching material knowledge. teachers’ classroom teaching should keep pace with the times. when teaching business knowledge, they should not copy the contents of textbooks, but carry out discussions based on current economic and social hot topics. combining business knowledge with hot topics that students are interested in can not only activate the classroom atmosphere, mobilize the enthusiasm of students to participate in the class, but also strengthen their business practice ability and critical thinking ability. the development of network technology increases the breadth of knowledge acquired by students, but most of them are superficial and fragmented, which leads to students’ passive acceptance and lazy thinking and systematization of knowledge. therefore, professional teachers should provide students with knowledge sources of depth and breadth by screening these easily available fragmented knowledge, encourage students to be good at thinking, and reconstruct the fragmented knowledge. let the internet be a resource for students to read and think and debate. the business english major aims to cultivate high quality compound and applied talents who can do practical work in the process of international business communication and cooperation. the business practice ability of business english teachers plays an important role in cultivating such talents. advanced teaching equipment, novel teaching methods and modern teaching means can improve the teaching effect to a certain extent, but teachers are the fundamental guarantee of teaching quality. therefore, teachers should use their spare time to strengthen the improvement of business practice ability, so that classroom teaching is no longer empty theoretical teaching, but a business practice experience sharing. teachers should take their own business practice experience as the teaching content in class, encourage students to actively participate in classroom activities, make classroom teaching more creative and attractive, and help improve students’ enthusiasm and initiative in classroom participation. 3.2.3 scientific research ability of business english teachers the scientific research ability of teachers is “the ability of teachers to creatively solve problems by taking educational phenomena as objects, using scientific methods and exploring the rules of educational activities” (zhang, 2007). it can be seen that teachers’ scientific research activities are teachers’ creative means to study and try to solve the new problems found in the teaching process, for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 16 published by scholink inc. the purpose of promoting teaching. shu dingfang (2004) said that; “whether a teacher is engaged in scientific research or not, is also the standard that distinguishes a teacher from a mere ‘teacher’ or an ‘expert’ in foreign language education”. as a business english teacher, we should not only ensure high-quality teaching work, but also actively improve our scientific research ability. in the usual teaching process, we should be good at finding new problems and looking for breakthroughs in scientific research. how to effectively teach language knowledge and silently impart business knowledge and skills in classroom teaching is a test of teachers’ teaching efficiency and teaching methods, and also points out the direction for teachers’ scientific research, that is, how to improve the efficiency and effect of business english teaching. teaching work provides teachers with scientific research materials, and in turn scientific research can promote the improvement of teaching quality and comprehensive quality of teachers. the composite characteristics of business english teachers determine that their research direction is mainly in the business field, including the research on various business activities, policies, talents and the development trend and laws of international business and other related affairs. the study of business theory and practice can effectively enrich teachers’ business knowledge and improve the specialization of classroom teaching. of course, teachers’ personal development is inseparable from the support of the school. hang in china (2008) said: “the good scientific research environment is the soil for young teachers’ scientific research ability raise, effective incentive mechanism is the innovative ability of young teachers fertilizer”, therefore, should schools for teachers’ scientific research work and more investment funds and equipment, efforts to create a strong academic atmosphere, establish excellent research team and effective incentive mechanism. encourage teachers to actively participate in scientific research to steadily improve their innovation ability and teaching level. under the leadership of the scientific research team organized by the school, business english teachers participate in systematic and standardized scientific research training to improve their scientific research ability; attend international academic conferences and cooperative research projects in the field of language and business, and pay close attention to the leading figures in the field, their research achievements and research topics they are engaged in, so as to understand the most cutting-edge professional knowledge and research trends; cooperate with local enterprises to do some horizontal research projects to help enterprises improve economic benefits and promote the development of local economy. teaching and scientific research are the two most important factors to measure the ability of university teachers. teaching is the foundation, and scientific research is the theoretical summary of teaching practice, which acts on teaching. if a teacher is all teaching and no research, teaching will stagnate. therefore, business english teachers must strengthen the awareness of scientific research; make full use of the scientific research environment and conditions provided by the school, and work hard to improve the teaching level and scientific research ability. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion in the era of internet + education, education can be realized without the restriction of time and place. teachers and textbooks are no longer the only channels for students to acquire knowledge. internet + education is a new ecological industry of internet in the field of education, which brings convenience as well as some challenges to business english teaching. to realize the strategy of chinese enterprises going global, it is particularly important to cultivate comprehensive and practical talents of high quality. the ability and quality of teachers directly affect the quality of teaching and teaching effect, and then affect the training quality of business english talents. however, at present, most business english teachers in china are deficient in business knowledge, business practice ability, business teaching and scientific research ability, which seriously hinders the overall development of business english discipline and the cultivation of business english talents. the competitiveness of business english teachers can be improved by promoting their competitiveness of business practices, creativity, and scientific research level. only the continuous improvement of teachers’ ability can promote the continuous growth of students and thus improve the overall development level of business english subject. references guidelines on actively advancing the “internet plus” initiative (2015). column on openness of government information. retrieved july 4, 2015 from, http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2015-07/04/content_10002.htm guo, g. h., & li, d. (2015). professional quality and teacher development of business english teachers. journal of pla foreign languages institute, 5, 26-32. li, k. q. (2015). government work report. beijing: people’s daily, 2015-03-17. lu, z. z., & hong, s. z. (2007). a review of thirty years of research on teachers’ ability in china. research on educational development, 2, 71-74. mao, x. h. (2003). internet rules of learning. distance education in china, 22, 70-73. shu, d. f. (2004). foreign language teaching reform: problems and countermeasures (4). shanghai foreign language education press. song, z. m., tang, x., & qian, q. l. (1999). evaluation system of professional quality development of normal university students. journal of guangzhou teachers college (social science edition), 6, 48-52. wang, f. (2009). design and evaluation of business english teaching based on network connectionism. foreign languages and foreign language teaching, 11, 35-38. wang, g. f., & zhang, h. s. (2006). research on the feasibility of independent discipline establishment of business english. proceedings of the 7th national conference on international www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. business english (wang g. f., & yan m., 6, pp. 55-62) beijing: university of international business and economics press. wang, q. q. (1991). friends of teachers. shanghai: wen hui press. weng, j. l., & weng, f. x. (2012). business english: an emerging discipline with strong vitality. contemporary foreign language studies, 9, 73-74. yang, w. h. (1996). a research on the teaching ability training of normal university students. journal of guizhou education institute, 2, 19. zhang, b. (2007). a research on the construction of teachers’ ability structure. educational exploration, 1, 78-80. zhang, n. g. (2008). analysis on problems and countermeasures of the cultivation of young teachers’ scientific research ability in colleges and universities. forum on contemporary education, 8, 91-93. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 15 original paper john keats’s geographical writing and construction of british national identity zhang junyao 1& cui dan2* 1 undergraduate student of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 postdoc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china; doc of literature, professor, dean of institute of international language and culture, leader of comparative literature and cross-culture discipline, jilin international studies university, changchun, jilin, china; doc supervisor of yanbian university, yanji , jilin, china * cui dan, corresponding author, e-mail: summerelephant@126.com zhang junyao, june600600@163.com received: april 27, 2022 accepted: may 10, 2022 online published: may 17, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n1p15 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n1p15 abstract british romantic poets generally illustrate distinctive geographical writing characteristics. among them, john keats is a representative in composing geographical space from a multi-dimensional perspective, either real or imaginary, thus illustrating the natural aesthetic characteristics of his poetry and the poet’s own humanistic thoughts and political concerns. in his poems, keats not only wrote about the landscape of english natural geographical appearance, including forests, grasslands, etc., which highlighted his love for britain and pride in folk customs, but also focused on the human landscape represented by castles and churches, which highlighted the central position of england within great britain and the anticipation of integrating scotland under english control. keats is not confined to a particular moment or a scene, but detached from reality and creating fantasy to incorporate elements of magical mythology in order to fictionalize the natural geographic environment including nature, river, mountains and human geography like castles, thus highlighting his hellenized britain and publicizing the civilized image of the great britain. on the other hand, he also highlighted the rationality and order of britain through the mapping of the east, and provided a rational explanation for its eastern colonization. keywords geographical writing, john keats, british national identity, greek myth, castle www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the era when keats lived was an era of major transformations in the western world and the emergence of various radical trends. the entire geographical environment, including natural and ecological, artificial geographical fields was undergoing an unprecedented and profound transformation. keats’s early poetry style was closely related to the political background at that time. the spirit and ideology of “democracy, equality and fraternity” brought about by the american war of independence and the french revolution inspired keats and directly aroused keats’s longing for the great liberty tradition in england. his early poems like “written on the day that mr. leigh hunt left prison” are not so much a tribute to his spiritual mentor, but a tribute to freedom. however, in the middle and late stages of his poetry creation, critics believed that keats’s poetry was biased towards aesthetics, including keats’s biographers finney, bate, and others. as a result, “non-political”, “apolitical”, and even “anti-political” became keats’s labels. it was not until nicholas roe had invested keats with new historicism that the critical circle began to realize that keats’s poetry did not deviate from politics and the pertinent political researches went from dying down to restarting. as a matter of fact, the political researches of keats in western academic circles gradually heated up after leask’s (1992) british romantic writers and the east: anxieties of empire had been composed and published and it is leask that admitted the existence of political sense in keats’ s poetry writing. however, in comparison with other romantic poets, keats was shadowed in their political passion and achievements. in recent years, some scholars have studied keats from multidisciplinary perspectives, and we have also been focusing our continous focus on keats, especially on his dream writing in view of psychology (peng& cui, 2021), his representation of sound, the primitive accumulation of capitalism and the mode of production of capitalism from the perspective of economics (shen& cui, 2022). in fact, keats’s poems highlight politics through aesthetics, especially his pondering over the british empire. chandler pointed out keats had never left england before 1818, and only traveled to scotland with his friend charlie brown and only left the british isles for italy after completing most of his remarkable poems. but there is no need to swim through the empire because the existence of the empire can be felt every day in the capital of the empire (chandler, 1998, p. 433). politics and ideology of the british empire influenced many romantic writers at the time, including keats himself. in chandler’s (1998) comments, in addition to affirming the political nature of keats’s poetry writing, he also pinpointed the particularity of keats’ travels, that is, in sense of geography, keats’ s travels and attention to the circumstance around him became the key to keats’ s researches. this indicates the focus that his poems are permeated with the writing of geographical space, including poets’ yearning for freedom and democracy, as well as pondering over the construction of personal identity and national identity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 17 published by scholink inc. one of the important literary themes in british literary tradition is the geographical composition of “nature”. brandes believes, “the english poets, one and all, are observers, lovers, worshippers of nature” (brandes, 1875, p. 6). nature constitutes the essential part of geography, and literary geography mainly highlights the migration of a writer to a new place where author’s book-like feelings and understanding of life may undergo certain changes. literature is produced and developed in “the necessary (though not sufficient) spatial and temporal conditions” (miller, 2017). nevertheless, the diversity of geographical environment influences the diversity of regional culture and also deeply influences the diversity of literature. the rich geographical environment factors include mountains, rivers, climate, landform and creatures, which can bring inspiration and rich materials to the world. also, certain artificial construction embodies his speculation over the political fate of britain. keats’s geographical writing demonstrates his passion for britain and pride in folklore tradition, thus highlighting his contemplation over national identity. keats adopted the writing of geographical space to outline the unique scene of the british nation, illustrating a strong geographical sense. these real or fictitious geographical writings also indicate the poet’s affectation, praise and sense of belonging to england, his appreciation and fear of scotland, his own cognition of the country’s racial exchange of identities. it also contains criticism and critical reflection on england. as thomas henry huxley once commented, “nations are to a very large extent invented by their poets and novelists”. it is true if we examine keats’s works, including typical sonnets and poetic narratives. 2. realistic physical geography writing keats admired the beauty and harmony of nature. he weaved the scenery description of climates, weathers, landscapes, mountains and rivers etc. into his writing. besides, he was also good at integrating the greek mythological elements into creating the imaginative geographical circumstances. the entire constitution of such depiction and portraying not only highlights the englishness of keats’s writings, but also shows the overall characteristics of britishness. 2.1 realistic english natural writing: climate, natural landscape, mountains and rivers the writing of geography lies primarily in the typical english environment that helps shape the character and personality of english people. a series of poems including “to autumn”, “after dark vapours have oppressed our plains”, “on the sea”, etc, show solely from the titles (or the first line of the poem) the geographical concern of keats over the sceneries, seasons and geographical characteristics. keats’s selection of specific seasons and scenes in nature and his meticulous depiction of these features formed a unique geographical landscape of great britain and england in particular. keats’s natural landscape writing possesses prominent national characteristics. similar geographical writings include “and hide in cooling trees, a voice will run/ from hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead—” and “with his delights, for when tired out with fun/ he rests at ease beneath some www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 18 published by scholink inc. pleasant weed” in “on the grasshopper and cricket”. this sonnet was written by 21-year-old keats on the night of december 30, 1816, when he was sitting indoors with his friends leigh hunt and charles cowden clark, sitting by the fireside. this poem is featured with vivid language and comparably expressive power. in his poem, keats contrasted the two sceneries in the summer field and the winter fireside. animals and scenery are integrated and complemented with each other to form a harmonious symbiosis picture, which deeply designates his pursuit of the beauty of nature, and an optimistic attitude radiating from the bottom of his heart. it illustrates his strong love for england. similarly, “to autumn” as the last ode of keats perfectly demonstrates the aesthetic value of keats’s poetry. during the process of creation, keats was in london being seriously ill, but he still insisted on writing poems. in fact, london is featured with the maritime climate for it is located in a plain that is mild and humid throughout the year. while immersed and refreshed in such sensuous autumn scenery, his thoughts gradually rose. with vivid and energetic vocabularies, keats described the fragrance and vitality of england’s melons and fruits. in the last stanza, keats vividly composed “river shallows”, “light wind”, “hedge-cricket”, “red-breast whistles”, “garden-croft” and “gathering swallows”, thus illustrating the beautiful daily autumn days. johann gottfried herder in abhandlung über den ursprung der sprache believes the character of a nation is determined by the geographical environment in which it lives, and people can understand and recognize the nation’s way of thinking and emotional language from related geographic literature (herder, 1986, p. 93). montesquieu stated in spirit of the law that “the inhabitants of warm countries are, like old men, timorous; the people in cold countries are, like young men, brave” (montesquieu, 1748, p. 161). he agreed the character and even the destiny of a country and nation are closely related to the natural environment. both philosophical thinkers point out how the environment helps shape the local people. likely, as an island country, britain is surrounded by the sea on all sides and the temperature is comfortable. such an environment shapes british people into a mild personality, which is virtually admitted by him in his diary and highly agreed with. besides, keats brought a glimmer of vitality and hope to life through his meticulous geographical depiction. in his poems, keats articulated his affection and yearning for the pure rural life in england that had not been polluted by industrialization totally. keats illustrated the british natural landscape in geographical space, expressed his identity with the british empire, and demonstrated the poet’s yearning for the free folk customs reflected in geography writing. keats expressed a strong sense of national pride in his poems. he demonstrated an extreme sense of feelings for the humanities and history of england. he devoted his life to voice freedom that has always been pursued and guarded by england since the past century, “to see no other verdure than its own; to feel no other breezes than are blown/ through its tall woods with high romances blent”. also, “happy is england! i could be content” clearly reflects keats’s high praise for england’s local rivers and mountains, highlighting its mystery www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. and solemnity, “to see no other verdure than its own; / to feel no other breezes than are blown” (keats, 1994, p. 46). as a matter of fact, keats adopted such writing to construct his perception of england’s identity. 2.2 realistic scottish natural landscape writing: appreciation and fear keats’ s writing of “sonnet to ailsa rock” on july 10th and “hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid! / give answers from thy voice, the sea-fowls’ screams!” (keats, 1994, p. 308) demonstrates the shock at the majestic vitality displayed by ailsa rock. in july 1818, keats and brown passed the western coast and when they were traveling in scotland, they met elsa, a huge rock. keats (1818) wrote in his letter to his brother, “at the end we had a gradual ascent and got among the tops of the mountains whence in a little time i described in the sea ailsa rock 940 feet high–it was 15 miles distant and seemed close upon us”(keats, 2011, p. 194). from the geographical composition in this poem, it is not difficult to see keats’s lofty praise of this natural force. in his mind, the rock symbolizes the destructive ancient power and independent spirit of scotland. scotland has certain sovereignty and military power, which is quite threatening to england. this brings the poets full of fear and anxiety about its adherence to the sovereignty of england during the tour. during the era when keats lived, england and scotland had always experienced sharp contradictions, which keats believed would threaten the political stability of england as the political centre and the unity of the british empire. also, after visiting burns’ s tomb during his trip to scotland, keats wrote “on visiting the tomb of burns” and “sonnet written in the cottage of burns” to illustrate his worship and respect for the latter. there were also some natural and geographical writings too, such as “the town, the churchyard, and the setting sun, / the clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem” (keats, 1994, p. 309). actually, keats was a little bit dissatisfied with burns’ s tomb. he sent the poem to his brother tom on july 1st, 1818, and complained in the letter that he felt the scots had not given burns due respect, for he sensed that “the clouds, the sky, the houses, all seem anti-grecian and anti-charlemagnish” (keats, 2011, p. 118). this also illustrates that keats was disappointed by the lack of literati who cherished the scottish national cultural traditions and despised its successors and spreaders (cui, 2019). 3. artificial construction of geographical writing 3.1 the writing of the church there is a mutual influence between literature and geography. the natural geographic environment offers writers with reference objects and sources of inspiration, while the artificial construction influences the writer’s writing style and way of thinking through religion, culture, and social background. the perspective of cultural geography connects the activities of the characters with the material world. by analyzing the descriptions of the natural environment, urban architecture and urban space in the works, observing the movement of the characters in different geographical environments and different spaces, so www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. as to understand the people and the materials. the interaction between the world space and human beings is no longer just regarded as the background and environment in which the realm occurs, but has a richer cultural connotation (liu, 2021). the “church” portrayed in keats’s “written in disgust of vulgar superstition” is not only a venue for narrative events, but also a metaphorical deep image of the poet’s religious outlook. the humanistic writing in the opening verse has prominent religious features. keats’s construction of space in the poem is embodied in these explicit and artificial representations, thus expressing his own special characteristics under this spatial religious background. the beginning of the poem “the church bells” and “toll a melancholy round” laid a depressive and dull tone for the poem, covering the shadow of death. “black spell” in the poems are used to refer to religious concepts that suppress human nature and suppress human rights tightly tied to people’s heads. the people “are dying” like walking corpses under the control of religious beliefs, highlighting the world’s secret messengers have caused them to lose their thoughts and freedom and become the victims of religion. the “church” and the recurring “bell” are both representative symbols of western religions. the bell of prayer in the church is a warning bell of cruel reality. the poet hopes that this warning bell will awaken those people who are deeply-poisoned by catholicism. it highlights keats’s criticism of british religion and his criticism of religious imprisonment. therefore, the church does not only function as the place where the citizens can conduct their ritual of praying to god, but a place to discipline people’s spirits and thoughts. during the 14th and 15th centuries, the rulers traditionally chose and distributed the english version of the bible and propagated the thought of endurance to overcome miseries and difficulties in their current life. the citizens were deceived and persuaded to endure the current life in order to enjoy the peaceful life for the next round after death. therefore, the existence of church played a significant role in offering support to consolidate their ruling through controlling people’s spirits. 3.2 the writing of the pub the existence of “public space” in social life is diversified, and there is also a literary space in it. in strukturwandel der öffentlichkeit, habermas (1990) pointed out that the literary public sphere is the embryonic form of the political public sphere since the early public space of the bourgeoisie was created in groups related to literary reading. they often conducted literary reviews and criticisms in public places such as bars. people conventionally conducted speech concerning democracy and freedom. keats’s “lines on the mermaid tavern” also creates a real humanistic space. this is a pub located on london’s bakery street and a place where literati often gather, such as shakespeare, donne, and ben jonson. although the poet has not personally experienced it, he did create such an ideal and real space through the narration and experience of others. the poet portrayed a humane environment like a fairyland, describing the real tavern as a paradise full of food and wine, to praise these great writers and poets. it is just this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. place that carries the memory and imagination of the poet. it conveys keats’s commemoration of the previous influential poets by “souls of poets dead and gone” and his anticipation of taking “mermaid tavern” as the “elysium and happy field” for the latter poets to pursue their dreams in the track of the those precursors. keats’s pursuit of this ultimate beauty and freedom is the epitome of keats’s philosophy of freedom and democracy, and it expresses the poet’s yearning for freedom of speech for english people. 3.3 the writing of the castle in a survey to literary geography, zeng daxing made a clear definition of “geographical space”: “the geographic space of a literary work is composed of emotions, thoughts, landscapes (or landscapes), objects, and objects that exist in the work. a concrete and sensible aesthetic space composed of characters, events and many other elements” (zeng, 2012, p. 143). keats also constructed a geographical space, namely the castle, in the eve of st. agnes. different from the real space with realistic basis mentioned above, this is a geographic space made up by the poet through rich ideas and vivid imagination. the castle is usually considered as the landmark building in medieval europe and even the united kingdom. the specific space is always closely related to the character’s personality and story. long diyong pointed out: “space or ‘place’ is indeed inextricably linked with the ‘self’ or ‘subjectivity’ of ‘person’ as ‘someone’” (long, 2014). the protagonists porphyro and madeline come from feudal families respectively. for porphyro, the castle is full of the dangerous and the unknown, and even the characters and he himself are mutually hostile. it offers relatively separate places and spaces for the characters to behave and fulfill their functions. the chamber is a place that is private and serene without risk of being disturbed by the knights of the front hall feast and the long curving stairs designate and reflect the psychological movements of the porphyro while on his way to hide himself in the cupboard. the castle is not only charged with the spatial significance for it offers a circumstance for the characters to behave and indirectly promote the ongoing of the plot in narrative perspective, but also possesses the symbolic significance, reflecting the sensitive gap between scotland and england. from “hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords”, “a huge empty flagon” and “warrior-guests”, we can see it reflects the poet repeatedly described the guests in the castle as extremely alcoholic and the gross ugliness, thus implying keats’s dissatisfaction with the scots who behaved inappropriately and drunk all day long and was dissatisfied with his folk customs. when porphyro entered the castle, “not one breast affords him any mercy”, which implies metaphorically the confrontation between scotland and england and scotland’s rejection of england. after entering madeline’s boudoir, porphyro played “la belle dame sans merci” with the lute, suggesting the union of the two lovers (cui, 2019). it also symbolizes the anticipation of thorough integration of england and scotland from the bottom of keats’s heart, and expresses the poet’s beautiful vision. the verse of “for o’er the southern moors i www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. have a home for thee”, porphyro aimed to take madeline out of the castle and flee to the south, implying england’s desire for integration with scotland and the latter’s expectation of integration. however, at the same time, the “storm” in the last verse also indicates the potential difficulties on the way to the integration of the two places. keats’s metaphorical writing of the castle implies his concern for the british current politics. although the act of union in 1702 integrated england and scotland, there only exists the political unification of the above, the culture and people of the two places did not merge and accept each other. the nation-state established under the merging act gave the british nation a collective identity and constituted the political basis for national development, but all of this is not enough to unite people of different cultural backgrounds to form a national community (cui, 2019). 4. mythological allusion of geography writing 4.1 hellenistic natural landscape keats is the purest and most sincere admirer and interpreter of greek culture among the english romantic poets. many of his poems are full of strong greek imageries. the most typical ode is no other than “ode on a grecian urn”, in which keats adopts the rhetorical questions to emphasize the pastoral life of an ancient unknown village, “what mad pursuit? what struggle to escape? what pipes and timbrels? what wild ecstasy”. in the second section, keats depicted the melodious and euphonious sound of the flute accompanied by singing, showing the unique eternal beauty of keats's poems, which seemed to be true and illusory, and there seems to be real music reverberating in the ears: “mysterious priest, your cow is calling to the sky”. through such writing, a picture of the priest leading the cow and the residents to worship together comes into the eyes of readers. through his writing, readers can sense the cheerful and lively atmosphere of young men and women living in a peaceful and tranquil life. such depiction illustrates the ideal days of ancient greece and keats’s nostalgia eagerness for the glorious past of england embedded in peace and high level of morality, which contrasted with the epoch while keats lived in. the poet is full of curiosity and yearning for the mysterious greek civilization. he seemed to be sent to distant greek period by this urn, and to feel and experience these scenes. rajan once pointed out its appearance indicates an idyllic pastoral entwined with green leaves, but its interior contained the ashes of the dead and the dead civilization (rajan, 1980, p. 133). therefore, it can be seen that keats implicitly expressed his anxiety about the fate of britain. the wealth of greek civilization and its important position in history made keats have a strong yearning and admiration for greek culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. 4.2 hellenistic human landscape this point is also reflected in “on seeing the elgin marbles”, in which keats’s representing “the parthenon” as the landmark construction illustrated his influence on greek culture and the worship of the greek spirit. wang zuoliang once commented on keats: “not only did his poems be fresh and fresh, but his experience of the grandeur of greece surpassed many greek researchers.” (wang, 2008, p. 316) keats’s integration of greek village and mythological atmosphere into his writing illustrates his hope for salving britain from the current morality declination. keats hoped that the british empire could reach the same level as greek civilization. at the same time, he spared no effort in trying to hellenize england in his poetry to give it the characteristics and elements of greek culture. 5. fictional humanistic landscape writing edward said once pointed out that europe always had the authority to define the east. europe incorporates the east into western consciousness and western empire, while the real asia is located in a silent and narrated position (1995, pp. 3-5). the political, cultural, and economic concepts of western countries are very different from those of eastern countries. this difference makes western countries construct an idealized “east” to highlight the superiority and advancement of their own national culture (zheng & zhang, 2009). this is also reflected in keats’s long narrative “lamia”. the prototype of lamia comes from greek mythology. it can originate either from a half-human and half-snake female monster in ancient greek mythology or a snake demon known for hunting children in the west fairy tales. besides, this image can also date back to asian legendary story of female snake showing affection for her male saver. although researchers have not designated exactly the origin of such a figure, keats’ lamia demonstrates the typical female characteristics like “a full-born beauty new and exquisite;” and “her soft look growing coy”, demonstrating the brave personality to pursue true love. what is special about lamia in view of geographical analysis is the castle description. lamia adopted the magic to create a castle for lycius, “that royal porch, that high-built fair demesne” highlights the splendor of the castle. in addition, the poet made use of elaborate gorgeous rhetoric to highlight the magnificence and luxury of the palace (cui, 2019). once this kind of literary space is produced, it is charged with strong political significance, since “from ethical value, aesthetic value to political value, there are specific indicators, connotations, tone, posture and fineness” (wu, 2008). keats has done much research on eastern culture, and this poem also embodies keats’s views from the perspective of orientalism. the east in the eyes of westerners possesses a certain perspective for they deem the east chaotic and full of darkness, but for which keats did not agree. judging from keats’s poems, we can tell his particular appreciation for oriental culture as well and among which, castle construction is necessarily included. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. under his pen, an amazing description of the construction illustrates keats’s expectation for the romantic and mysterious elements can be found out in the depiction of lamia’s castle, which metaphorically represents lycius’s aspiration for the ideal imagination in the mode of showing a strong willingness to resist apollonius as the representative of reason. keats also illustrated the british empire’s intellectuals and politicians held disapproving spirit against eastern colonies. keats confronted the rationality of the west by presenting such a humanistic geographic construction of oriental characteristics, showing that he hoped the british empire could reflect on the limitation of its own views, and also embodied his anxiety over the identity of eastern countries. 6. conclusion as a great british romantic poet, keats’s poetry is featured with geographical writing. under the political background at the time, keats’s national identity construction and identity recognition can be summarized from these geographical writings. in view of realistic geographical writing, keats portrayed the beautiful natural scenery of england and expressed his appreciation for the beautiful scenery of england. in view of scotland, keats wrote of his natural scenery through a trip to scotland, expressing his shock of his magnificent scenery and his concern for threats to england. there are also some humanistic landscape writings. the author’s depiction of artificial constructions such as “church” and “mermaid tavern” has not only clarified his own religious view, that is, abandoning the idea of religious imprisonment of people, opposing to the control of people’s freedom, and his longing for the beautiful ideal of free speech. in addition to the actual writing of real geography, there are also some imaginations of natural or human geography in the poetry writing as well. the poet appreciates greek culture and spares no effort to integrate greek elements into his poetry, whether it is the imagination of greek cultural relics or the rewriting of greek mythology. both express keats’s worship and yearning for greek civilization and hope to hellenize britain so that it could reproduce the pinnacle of greek civilization. “lamia” is also an adaptation of greek mythology, but keats gave the protagonist a new character and used a lot of pen and ink to depict the palace created by lamia. all of this is characterized by the imagery of eastern countries, and keats used this space to oppose the limited perspective of western countries on eastern colonies. acknowledgement first of all, i would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude towards my academic supervisor prof.cui dan for her invaluable instruction and inspiration, since if there was no her professional advice and devoted guidance, this study would not be completed, accepted and published eventually. my acknowledgements also go to my classmates, whose support and generosity influence me so much as well. last but not least, i must attribute all of my achievements to my family members, especially my www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. parents whose love always motivates me to hold on to my dreams. references anthony, d. s. (1993). national identity (p.53). university of nevada press. baron de montesquieu. (1914). the spirit of laws (p. 161). london: g. bell & sons. brandes, & george. (1923). main currents in nineteenth century literature volume iv: naturalism in england (p. 6). chandler, j. (1998). england in 1819: the politics of literary culture and the case of historic romanticism (p.433). london: university of chicago press. cui, d. (2019). anxiety and transcendence: a study of john keats’s writing of identities, ph. d dissertation. northeast normal university of china. cui, d., & li, z. (2018). sexuality, influence and national identity—writing of john keats’s identity anxiety in isabella. fudan forum on foreign languages and literature, (02), 49-55. habermas, j. (1990). strukturwandel der öffentlichkeit. frankfurt: suhrkamp verlag. herder, j. g. (1986). abhandlung über den ursprung der sprache (p. 93). leipzig: reclam, philipp. keats, j. (1994). complete poems of john keats (pp. 118-194). random house inc. keats, j. (1891). letters of john keats to his family and friends. macmillan and co. leask, n. (1992). british romantic writers and the east: anxieties of empire. cambridge: cambridge university press. liu, y. (2021). the textual space in the perspective of cultural geography. social science research, 69-73. long, d. (2014). narrative and space: postscript to “space narrative research”. literature and art criticism. miller, & harvey, j. (2017). time geography and space-time prism. john wiley & sons, ltd. peng, j. y., & cui, d. (2021). who is the ultimate dream weaver in john keats’s the eve of st. agnes? communication, society and media, 4(3). rajan, t. (1986). dark interpreter: the discourse of romanticism. cornell paperbacks. said, e. w. (1995). east isn’t east. tls(4792), 3-3. shen, z. t., & cui, d. (2022). capitalism, colonialism, morality renovation in john keats’s isabella or the pot of basil. communication, society and media, 5(1). wang, z. (2008). a history of english poetry (p. 316). shanghai: yilin press. wu, z. (2008). spatial theory and the representation of literature. gansu: gansu people’s publishing house. zeng, d. (2012). a survey to literary geography. cp. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. zheng, d., & zhang, m. (2004). the theoretical source and insufficiency of said’s “orientalism”. data of culture and education, 68-69, 111. note(s) note 1. this paper is the periodical research result of project on “the anxiety and transcendence of john keats’s individual identity construction” sponsored by national social science foundation of china (21fwwb015); of project on “a study of the construction of john keats’s national identity” sponsored by the fellowship of china postdoctoral science foundation (no: 2021m700496); of project on “a study of the john keats’s national identity writing” sponsored by social science foundation of jilin province; of project on “a study of english major course system construction with value shaping based on ‘global village’ as the foreign language lab” sponsored by the academy of foreign language teaching attached to the institute of higher education of china (no: 21wyjyzd08); of project on “a study of routes applied to cultivate the inter-cultural competence of english major students” (no: gjjx20201130). of project on “a study of the geographical writing and overseas introduction and translation of ‘northeast writers group’ from the perspective of nationalities and regions”. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 15 original paper what i have learned from conservative students teaching american politics at a predominantly white institution (pwis): reflections of a minority college professor earnest n. bracey 1* 1 social sciences department, college of southern nevada, las vegas, nv, usa * earnest n. bracey, social sciences department, college of southern nevada, las vegas, nv, usa received: september 5, 2018 accepted: january 14, 2019 online published: january 24, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v 2n1p15 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n1p15 abstract disruptive, conservative college students are a symptom of a larger problem that we have in higher education today. also, many of our students are unprepared academically, but some think that they should pass american politics—and other controversial courses—anyway, without doing the necessary work. of course, this higher education issue has taken on new gravity, given that liberal college professors are being verbally attacked and threatened by these conservative, college students, especially if they are from a minority group, or if they are african americans at predominantly white institutions (pwis). their major complaint is always about there being a liberal bent in academia, but many are tricked into thinking in a certain, conservative way. these are carefully crafted, politically motivated attacks, because some of these students don’t respect or believe in the veracity of anything told by minority professors, particularly their diversity of ideas about current political issues. as we might imagine, for example, the social injustices and racial terrorism of the past toward minorities, in the united states, just doesn’t register with some of these conservative students, with latent prejudices, because they mostly want to just rail against liberal professors of all stripes, ratcheting up the divisions we have at the higher education level. moreover, these conservative students also applaud the tactics and rationale behind their verbal, classroom attacks and threats, as they monitor certain (liberal) college professors. perhaps they have a prevalent belief that most liberal professors are somehow evil. finally, these disruptive students believe what they want to believe, which isn’t the best way to conside r important policy matters today. indeed, these misguided students should think more critically about the social and political issues, without blindly following someone because they tell the best story, or because of their conservative values. in the final analysis, we must wonder if the traditional ways of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 16 published by scholink inc. teaching students at liberal arts college and universities are dead. keywords diversity, justice, equality of opportunity, academic freedom 1. reflections i am an african american professor at a predominantly white college in las vegas; and i have been teaching political science and black american history for almost twenty -five years. during this entire time, i have personally en joyed teaching all these many years —that is, until recently, because of the (abrasive) caliber o f some co llege students that are signing up for my american polit ics classes. unfortunately, some conservative students are taking my political science classes for ulterior motives or nefarious reasons, which makes my job even harder. in fact, some of my conservative students are disruptive and disrespectful, because of who i am and what i represent. in essence, i believe that these particular students would like to quash any liberal voice that see the world differently than they do, which is beyond rid iculous. they even questioned whether i should be in the classroom at all, because of my race. where did these conservative students get their dyspeptic beliefs? why can’t they be reasoned with? and where do they come from? paradoxically, many d isagree with the known facts and objective truth if it doesn’t conform to their mistaken and narrow -minded attitudes, and far-right views. it is hard enough teaching american politics without their lud icrous interferences, and sometimes reckless assumptions and disruptions. in other words, these conservative students energetically and unapologetically state their right-wing ideologies and positions, with the insouciance that is the hallmark of white nationalism and racial tribalism. speaking the truth is verboten to many of them, as i always based my lectures on telling the truth. unfortunately, some of my previous conservative students had closed their minds about the truth in polit ics; or they were not open -minded, because many collectively wanted everyone to think about the social and political issues (of the day) in the same way that they did. but clearly, we are div ided by ideology in the united states. shockingly, some of my former conservative students were inclined to dislike p rogressive, liberal professors, like myself, as they saw me and others as true villains, for whatever reasons, and even un-american. never mind that i served honorably in the u.s. army for over twenty years. of course, my military service d idn’t matter to some of these students, nor did they care about me standing up for my liberal and progressive beliefs, as if i was unpatriotic in some way. to be sure, i recall that some of these conservative students tried to stoke fear and loathing against liberal professors who didn’t sh are their conservative values, or pretentious and negative ideas. many were offended even when i told them to step back and think critically about the political issues, or their interpretation of the facts. inevitably, these conservative students made their odd and preposterous positions known in a scripted and orchestrated way. they also believed in speaking their mind, and “out -of-turn”, even when they www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 17 published by scholink inc. were totally incorrect about politics and history, and not called on, which stirred their annoyance with me. i often cringed from their misperceptions and misinformat ion, as they trafficked in right-wing conspiracy theories. nevertheless, these students thought that their “voice” should be given a platform in every classroom, in every situation, no matter what. for example, one conservative student, only nineteen years old, didn’t want to believe in our common humanity. to say the least, we became completely at odds with each other, because of his perceptions about race. but every educated person knows that we (all human beings) have a common ancestor (crystal, 1994a; glaude, 2016; king, 1981; fairbanks, 2015). the particular point this student made was that what i was try ing to impart was “made-up”, as he didn’t want to p lumb the depths of the truth and the evidence, as it contradicted with his misperceptions about racial or ethnic groups. as if on cue, this same conservative student, with his political biases, would sit every day on the front row in my classroom and loudly fumble with his papers, as i tried to lecture, which was rude and unpleasantly distracting. on the surface, these conservative students seemed curious and eager to learn; but i quickly realized that nothing could have been further from the truth, as their modus operandi (mo) was to distract. a lso, this particu lar conservative student only wanted to talk about the benghazi investigation in congress, which had nothing to do with the reading assignment and lessons of the day. this was not totally unexpected, because we are liv ing in an academic world where some professors are afraid to speak their minds or the truth. as it turned out, many of my conservative students, as mentioned, d idn’t want to think crit ically about the political issues, because their minds were already made up, especially in our ideologically conflicted and polarized nation today. therefore, our capacity to teach and agree on historical facts is being threatened by sometimes angry, misguided students in a coordinated way. all in all, this situation in the college classroom today is problemat ic, and something professors, like myself, haven’t had to deal with in the past—that is, being hassled by lazy thinking students, which is certainly damning in regards to higher education and the breakdown of civility in our country and politics. many also use the techniques of whatifisms or whataboutisms, because some don’t put a lot of stock into what liberal professors say about mostly anything, especially the political issues. these conservative students also obsequiously asked inconspicuous questions, at awkward times—, which almost never related to the various assignments —as a pretext to starting a serious classroom dispute and disruption. so they asked about irrelevant things, just for the sake of argument. moreover, many didn’t want to know the incontrovertible facts about american polit ics, especially if it was negative toward conservatives. what these conservative students also failed to recognize was that we are not a monolithic society. that is, conservatives and liberals don’t think alike, particu larly about certain public policy issues. yet many believed that conservatives should be totally in charge (or control) of our governments, without knowing exactly why they felt this way, which was illogical and embarrassingly uninformed, considering that we have a two-party, democratic system. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 18 published by scholink inc. furthermore, many of my conservative students believed that facts were subjective, which was absolutely nonsense. in this regard, i told this student that made this equivocal comment that facts are facts, and can be checked for accuracy; but this abrasive student didn’t want to believe it. so i asked him to g ive me the exact date of h is birth; and he did so. i next told h im that his birthday was not really a fact, and that he was born on another date, to prove to him that his birth was not subjective. nonetheless, he still didn’t understand the nuance of what i was exp lain ing or impart ing to him—or the truth of my argument. in general, politics can be a dirty business, and it is hard to point out or disseminate the truth and facts when teaching polit ical science (in the college classroom) today, particularly for some conservative students, because some facts don’t fit their ideological frame of reference (robinson, 2018) (note 1). let me exp lain : in one of my classroom lectures about the american revolution, i informed my students that the first person to die for the american revolution was a black man, a patriot named crispus attucks, during the boston massacre (stevens, 2000a). another conservative student expressed his misgivings and opined that this fact really didn’t matter. after all, he went on to grandstand and argue that no one cared about the first person to die in the vietnam war, either. i told this conservative student that he was mixing apples and oranges, to use the metaphor, and that he was making a very specious argument. i went on to let him know that the vietnam war had nothing to do with our fight for independence from great britain. but this same conservative student, with his confusing beliefs, would brook no crit icis m, main ly because of the “mutability of the past” theory, where he thought that a black man, sacrificing h is life fo r the founding of our nation d idn’t matter; or that this truth should be ignored. it became immediately app arent to me, then, why this conservative student was registered for my american politics class in the first place. he was there to monitor what i was saying about current social issues, not to listen or to think and learn about the truth of our nation—in terms of polit ics. i also believed that his mission (this conservative student) was to verbally attack me personally, which he did, as he aligned himself with the far -right. and he told me so. some of my colleagues also knew before hand when there was a problem with a conservative student, because we discussed these matters in faculty, discip line/department meetings; but many failed to call these students out, which i thought was an appropriate thing to do. also, at the start of each semester, i made it a point to tell my students that there was a proper and respectful etiquette in my classroom—or any college classroom, for that matter; but they were “put-off” by this comment from me. in addition, many of my former conservative students were offended by me addressing other controversial, social and political topics, as if i d idn’t have the right or authority to talk about such matters. some students even refused to accept uncomfortable facts, even if the information was retrieved from a reliable news sources. they called it “fake news” (albom, 2018; stibel, 2018) (note 2). many of these same students also claimed that there was no real evidence to support the political facts that i presented to them, on a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 19 published by scholink inc. “silver platter”, so to speak, and even if everything i imparted to them made absolute sense. perhaps it wasn’t easy for them to think crit ically for themselves. or it might have been easier for them to be “spoon-fed” information from agents of their political socialization, like with family members, where they learned their political values. this is to say that many of my conservative students came to my classroom with preconceived, sometimes dubious notions about government and polit ics. and their faulty logic and warped attitudes about politics, generally, could be breathtakingly wrong. so is this a sad commentary on the state of secondary education in the united states today? (gambescia, 2018) (note 3) perhaps. moreover, i was once personally threatened by a female, conservative student in an anonymous phone call, as she didn’t believe that i should bring up controversial topics of our political past, or inconvenient, ugly truths about our government leaders, like with the knowledge of president andrew jackson, a slave owner, who was responsible for the “trail of tears”, where nat ive americans were forced marched from their native lands in the 1800s (east of the mississippi), leading to the death of over 4,000 cherokee indians (stevens, 2000b; wilkins & stark, 2018). equally important, many of my older conservative students didn’t believe in the orthodox, socrat ic method of teaching, either, as they never wanted to be asked probing questions about the specific, political lessons, as they were mostly unprepared, which was totally unacceptable. some d isrespectful students also believed that they were entitled to good grades, without earning them, and even if they didn’t attend any classes. additionally, some took the truth for granted, or out of context, as one conservative student told me, “the truth doesn’t matter”. i know that i couldn’t control these students and what they chose to believe, but i was actually flabbergasted when this conservative student told me this. but contrary to the op inion voiced by this student, i tried to let him know that the truth alway s corresponds to the facts and reality. in other words, facts are facts, as mentioned, and not in “the eyes-of-the-beholder”. this argument had no effect on this student’s thinking, however. when i began a lecture about watergate, this same conservative student opined that we should forget that the watergate scandal even happened in the 1970s, where the illegal activ ities of a conservative administration broke into the democratic party’s national headquarters (crystal, 1994b; edwards & lippucci, 1998), to steal operational/party secrets. eventually, president richard m. nixon, a conservative, had to resign, because he tried to cover up th is crime, but was later pardoned by gerald ford, who was never elected president of the united states by the american people, as he succeeded to the office of the presidency (crystal, 1994b), having previously been given the vice presidency by nixon and the congress. this same conservative student was outraged by this knowledge, and angry that i even brought up watergate, as he only wanted to discuss the second amendment. indeed, he firmly believed that only liberals wanted to take away the rights of the american people to keep and bear arms. however, i informed this particular student that nothing could be further from the truth, as he was a member of the national rifle association (nra). i added that this was a misperception. unfortunately, the nra continues to push or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 20 published by scholink inc. espouse this nonsense—that is, when liberals only want our government to address sensible gun control laws. further, the american people should know that many liberals are also members of the nra, in good standing. i also exp lained to my class, and this conservative student, much to h is chagrin, that the second amendment says nothing about the rights of individual cit izens to have arms (stevens, 2000c; volkomer, 2007). college students should always know the truth about this contentious and controversial policy issue. and more important, i have been tirelessly committed to the truth in politics, like d iscussing t he iran-contra scandal of the mid-1980s, involving illegal weapons transactions, by the reagan administration to iran to secure the release of u.s. hostages held in lebanon (stevens, 2000d). also, at that time our government was supposed to ban any aid to the contras (an enemy), and “a rebel force” that wanted to overthrow nicaragua’s legit imate government (stevens, 2000d). these complex facts have been largely forgotten by college students, or never really talked about anymore by american citizens today. or the american people have forgotten this politically damaging scandal. therefore, it is hard to see “eye-to-eye” with someone who refuses to accept the facts, or those who pass off their lies as the truth, and verbally attack anyone that disagree with them. but as their political science professor, i always tried to understand where my conservative students were coming from, respecting their right to express their views, as they are cut from a different political cloth. i tried to let them know that it is okay to disagree, without being disagreeable. but their romantic v iews about (the goodness of all) conservative ideas, without empathy or compassion, was enough to frustrate anyone. additionally, when it came to addressing the abortion issue, for example, these unnamed conservative students, who infiltrated my classes, argued that women should never have the right to an abortion, no matter the circumstances. however, all americans should know that the right of a woman to have an abortion is “settled law”, decided by the u.s. supreme court in the1973 roe vs. wade ruling (weaver & mascaro, 2018; volkomer, 2007; edwards & lipppucci, 1998) (note 4). many times, these conservative students also brought up planned parenthood and how horrible they thought that this organization was supposed to be, but without knowing the complete facts, the history, or much about this important women’s group. indeed, their weak arguments and distorted opinions could be irritating, to say the least. yet, i felt these students should be allowed to speak out about the abortion issue for the sake of discussion and fairness in the classroom. but many were sometimes stressed out by their disagreements, and lack of political knowledge, which was often on shaky grounds. or they looked for un attractive, alternative explanations (krugman, 2018; kazin, 2018) (note 5). moreover, many of my conservative students had foul dispositions, as they seemed angry with me personally, because i didn’t keep my (so-called) tongue, or sugarcoat anything in my political science classes, even when i was threatened by some of them, and especially when i was critical of conservative government, which was always based on the objective facts and the truth. some saw my www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 21 published by scholink inc. fearlessness in telling the truth about current politics and our political h istory as a threat, or an affront to their agenda, whatever that might have been. the bottom line: many of my conservative students were being exp lo ited and manipulated (perhaps without knowing it), and swayed by herd poison, where they conformed—to conservative notions—without thinking critically, which can be ext remely dangerous and disconcerting. indeed, some of these conservative students seemed to care only about protecting their hate speech, or alternative views of the world, which is slowly tearing our country apart from within, especially with the resurgence of white supremacist groups, and the climate of racial hatred in american politics today. perhaps most tellingly, these students wanted to dissuade and marg inalize pro fessors like me, or keep me from criticizing our ugly past. they told me (in no uncertain terms) that i should focus on our exceptionalism, and nothing else. furthermore, many of my conservative students didn’t want to be reminded of how conservative admin istrations brought us the great depression, which “was unprecedented in its length and in the wholesale poverty and tragedy it inflicted on (american) society” (harris & levey, 1975, p. 1132) between 1929 to 1934. of course, republican herbert hoover, a conservative, was the president of the united states during most of this time. conservatives were also responsible for the wall st reet disaster during the bush administration, where the american people had to bail out the big banks —because they were (so-called) too big to fail—with taxpayers’ dollars. to say the least, many of the wall street bankers were never held accountable. even more important, we have a tendency to gloss over the unending wars in iraq and afghanistan, started by a conservative administration. conservatives also don’t like to address the 2000 presidential election fiasco, where unfortunately, the conservatives on “the supreme court played a decisive role in determin ing who won the presidency when in a 5-to-4 ruling it halted the manual recounting of ballots in florida”, and gave conservative george w. bush the u.s. presidency (burns et al., 2004, p. 392). because of an inattentive public, american citizens have quickly forgotten these important political events. many conservatives only want to hold liberals responsible, in some way, as if they had something to do with the second major recession in recent american h istory, starting in the late 2000s, during another conservative administration. in this regard, my conservative students distracted from this discussion in my american polit ics classes by bringing up the spectacular moral failure of president bill clinton, who was impeached by conservative republicans in the house of representatives in congress, because he had a consensual affair with monica lewinsky, a young intern, and committed perjury by initially denying the relationship (burns et al., 2004; tomasky, 2017) (note 6). i let my conservative students know that their interruptions had nothing to do with the 2000 presidential elect io n, or the recession brought on by a conservative government. but they didn’t want to endure any kind of intellectual d isagreement, like their denial of climate change, which is negatively affecting our environment almost on a daily basis (albeck-ripka & pierre-louis, 2018; king, 2018; friedman, 2018; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 22 published by scholink inc. masto, 2018), because of the rolling back of environmental regulations. nor do conservative students want to discuss the dismissal of civ il rights cases under the current conservative administration (green, 2018), or a stolen supreme court seat. in fact, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, a conservative republican, has indicated that his greatest political ach ievement was “to stop former president barack obama from filling the supreme court vacancy created by antonin scalia’s death in 2016” (mcconnell, 2018, p. 10a) question: why did senate conservatives think that it was fair to deny federal appeals court judge merrick garland even a hearing? was this uncouth action even constitutional? i personally believe that some conservative students, as mentioned, didn’t care about these finer points, or which polit ical arguments even made the most sense, even if it was based on the real facts. or they disliked the concept of “constructive engagement”, which some thought was nonsense. surprisingly, many of my co lleagues have also been verbally attacked by some of these conservative students, who have accused them of harassment or discrimination, especially those professors who are orig inally from other countries, or who are naturalized u.s. citizens. i also firmly believed that some of these conservative students would like to d isparage and silence these professors —who often pose provocative questions, and tell the earnest truth—at all cost. what is going on at our respective college is “shameful”, and jaw-droppingly wrong. it has certainly been a wake-up call for some of us. unfortunately, some colleagues at my co llege are not even able to teach what they know to be truth, without fear or repercussions, which is a famous adage expressed by albert einstein. in the final analysis, these conservative students know almost nothing about academic freedom. why? 2. conclusions unfortunately, many historians, philosophers, and political scientists today, on college campuses, are taking a neutral stance when it comes to teaching history or american politics, because they are unwilling to take a (righteous) stand against these disruptive and seemingly d isgruntled, conservative students. but to my mind, this capitulation is a very cowardly thing to do. more surprisingly, many of these liberal professors are now teaching on-line, because many don’t want to resist the lies, or be targets or bothered by these conservative students in a “brick and mortar” classroom setting anymore. so are their actions just a cop-out, because of differences of opinions and viewpoints? clearly, some of these students appear to deliberately provoke certain professors with the lie that their first amendment rights are being violated in some way. to be sure, liberal p rofessors are even afraid to confront these disruptive, conservative students—to tell them what is acceptable, credible and what is not. but professors today must be undeterred and not afraid to teach what is right; nor should they be intimidated or bullied by these ill-informed students, just because they don’t agree with their part icular points of view. this is to say that some students see things only from a conservative perspective and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 23 published by scholink inc. nothing else, like their dis missal of affirmat ive action (stevens, 2000e), as some kind of inappropriate hand-out for minorit ies. what they should know is that affirmative action has tried to balance the inequality that continues in this country for racial minorit ies. moreover, many of these conservative students dislike being censored, even if their partisan or ideological informat ion is high ly suspect. there is also no doubt that these students want to avoid engaging in productive, tolerant, meaningful and intellectual discussions. therefore, i think that what these conservatives say in my classroom is deliberate and coordinated, particu larly when they make baseless assumptions about american politics. and they present the same unfortunate and tired ideas, almost every semester. but more than that, many use “identity polit ics”, to flame racial discord, to justify what they say in an effort to make other young, brilliant students in my classroom see things their way. equally significant, their ideological “orthodoxy” is like a train wreck waiting to happen. some conservative students are also dismayed and offended by me personally when i ask them to consider important parallels in po lit ical time, like the eventual failure of conservative or autocratic governments throughout (organized) human history. to further complicate matters, and in an effort to affect what we teach at the higher education levels, wealthy republicans and conservative “big shots”, like the koch brothers are spending millions to influence professors and students at colleges and universities —that is, what is taught, and what these billionaires want people to believe, which is a strict conservative view point (greenwald, 2012). it certainly doesn’t have to be this way. but the united states is in an unhealthy situation (and environment) when it comes to higher education, and the negative implicat ions are enormous. in light of this, it is all the more important that polit ical science students consider all the facts and the absolute truth, like the real reasons for the american civil war, which was essent ially to maintain the cursed institution of black slavery, in perpetuity, not some state rights’ issue (crystal, 1994c; jillson, 2005); and despite words to the contrary. to be b lunt, some conservative students, in my american politics classes tried to find excuses for some of their slave-owning ancestors, while trying to justify their inhumane actions. historically, we have had to deal with an american, slave-dominated world, but my conservative students didn’t want to hear it, as they told me that it was old news. essentially, i informed my students that it is hard to defend the indefensible. but this advice usually went on death ears. it also remained unclear if my conservative students would even learn from history, or the truth about our political system, and fragile democracy. or perhaps many see the issues presented in this reflection as irrelevant. but contrary to what some students might think, such issues, as presented in this work, are more important than ever. to say the least, many of my conservative students wanted everyone to respect their values, but felt no need to respect the values of others, with different viewpoints, especially liberal students and college professors. this, of course is a serious mistake, as our nation is a diverse, multi-racial democracy, and all our opin ions should be respected. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 24 published by scholink inc. finally, it is difficu lt to teach students anything if their minds are already made up about what they think is right, like the issue of creationism over evolution (crystal, 1994d; fairbanks, 2015; toler, 2012) (note 7). doubters about evolution should know that one theory is based on faith, and the latter is based on scientific facts that can be supported by solid evidence. many of my conservative students could have cared less about the truths of evolution. toward this end, political science professors must continue to repudiate unsophisticated, myopic ways of thinking, because something has to give. even more important, professors must indeed understand the malicious intentions of some of their students, while remain ing vigilant, and fighting back against racial tribalism and the conservative politics of division and polarization at the highest education levels, as it shows no signs of abating. professors must also be aware of the partisan divide, and mo of intimidation by some conservative students, and reject their divisiveness, as it is a dangerous recipe for undermin ing the “teacher-student” relationship at the university level. this doesn’t mean that conservative students should be shunned or banned automatically from the college classroom, because of their immaturity, but their d isrespect and disruption shouldn’t be tolerated. more broadly, conservative students should never be underestimated, either. in my ro le as a teacher, i often tried to tell students that they should strive to do better when it comes to understanding american politics and our polit ical spectrum, without shooting from the hip, and without knowledge, or making things up. but i was often ignored on this front. racism, for example, continues to raise its ugly head (in many ways), in our nation today; however, my conservative students didn’t want to believe it. obviously, they were not always challenged or intrigued by the topics at hand, particularly with their right-leaning political views. keep in mind, as mentioned, that nothing has prepared some professors for such existential threats to their livelihood and teaching profession. in the end, professors who are disrespected by these conservative students must never take what is happening to them personally in the classroom, or lying down. further, they must not turn a blind -eye, or accept their disgraceful behavior, either, especially if they are from a minority group, like me. conventional wisdom holds that professors should always listen to their students with respect and empathy, but their uncouth behavior must never be normalized. furthermore, a sense of humor and understanding, with patience, is also important too; however, it is also important to remember that nothing should be taken for granted at our college and universities, when professors are being personal threatened by students. finally, unflappable professors today must have the stones to push back (delicately) in higher education against the unruly, disruptive co llege student, no matter what, because ignoring this issue will have serious, negative implicat ions for our long -term education future. unfortunately, many american cit izens are stubbornly ignorant about this higher education issue. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 25 published by scholink inc. references burns, j. m. et al. (2004). government by the people (basic version, 20th ed., p. 392). new jersey: pearson prentice hall. crystal, d. (ed .). (1994a). race. the cambridge encyclopedia (2nd ed., p. 915). new york: cambridge university press. crystal, d. (ed.). (1994b). watergate. the cambridge encyclopedia (2nd ed., p. 1177). new york: cambridge university press. crystal, d. (ed.). (1994c). american civil war. the cambridge encyclopedia (2nd ed., p. 57). new york: cambridge university press. crystal, d. (ed .). (1994d). evolution. the cambridge encyclopedia (2nd ed., p. 401). new york: cambridge university press. edwards, d. v., & lippucci, a. (1998). practicing american politics: an introduction to government (p. 243, p. 600). new york: worth publishers, inc. fairbanks, d. j. (2015). everyone is african: how science explodes the myth of race . new york: prometheus books. glaude, e. s. jr. (2016). democracy in black: how race still enslaves the american soul . new york: crown publishers. greenwald, r. (2012). koch brothers exposed (dvd documentary). brace new foundation. harris, w. h., & levey, j. s. (eds.). (1975). great depression. in the new columbia encyclopedia (p. 1132). new york: columbia university press. jillson, c. (2005). american government: political change and institutional development (3rd ed., p. 362). belmont, ca: thomson higher education. king, j. c. (1981). the biology of race (revised edition). los angeles, ca: university of californ ia press. stevens, m. a. (ed.). (2000a). attucks, crispus. in merriam-webster’s collegiate encyclopedia (p. 110). massachusetts: merriam webster, inc. stevens, m. a. (2000b). jackson, andrew. in merriam-webster’s collegiate encyclopedia (p. 831). massachusetts: merriam webster, inc. stevens, m. a. (2000c). nat ional rifle association. in merriam-webster’s collegiate encyclopedia (p. 1132). massachusetts: merriam webster, inc. stevens, m. a. (2000d). iran-contra affair. in merriam-webster’s collegiate encyclopedia (p. 818). massachusetts: merriam webster, inc. stevens, m. a. (2000e). affirmative action. in merriam-webster’s collegiate encyclopedia (p. 18). massachusetts: merriam webster, inc. tomasky, m. (2017). bill clinton. new york: times books. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 26 published by scholink inc. volkomer, w. e. (2007). abortion rights. american government (11th ed., pp. 317-318). new jersey: pearson prentice hall. wilkins, d. e., & stark, h. k. (2018). indian removals, relocations, and reservations (1830s -1880s). american indian politics and the american political system (4th ed., p. 124, pp. 152-154). new york: rowman & littlefield. albeck-ripka, l., & pierre -louis, k. (2018, april 22). environmental laws under siege. here’s why we have them. the new york times, 4. green, e. l. (2018, april 23). civ il rights cases being dismissed as burdensome. las vegas sun, 1-5. stibel, j. (2018, may 16). fake news: it’s all in your brain. usa today, 2b. mcconnell says stopping garland b iggest decision. (2018, june 10). the las vegas review-journal, 10a. gambescia, s. (2018, august 3). nat ion needs a reset for civ ics 101. las vegas sun, 3. albom, m. (2018, august 8). the press is not the enemy of the people. usa today, 5a. friedman, t. (2018, august 18). will mother nature vote in 2020? las vegas sun, 3. king, l. (2018, august 22). epa p lan would pro long life of coal plants. usa today, 3a. robinson, e. (2018, august 22). truth can’t be spun from lies. las vegas sun, 4. weaver, d., & mascaro, l. (2018, august 22). kavanaugh: roe v. wade settled. las vegas review-journal, 4a. krugman, p. (2018, august 24). gop gripped by a climate of paranoia. las vegas sun, 3. kazin, m. (2018, august 26). america’s never-ending culture war. the new york times, 4. masto, c. c. (2018, september 1). we cannot afford to ignore climate science. las vegas sun, 1, 5. toler, p. d. (2012). the story of all of us: mankind (pp. 3-17). ph iladelphia, pa: running press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 27 published by scholink inc. notes note 1. college students must know that you cannot make up your own facts. perhaps this conservative student had an unconscious bias, and my factual viewpoints were unwelcomed. of course, ma ny conservative students want to shut down liberals with whom they disagree. note 2. it should be pointed out that the truth is not whatever you want or think it should be, especially given the egregious way polit icians are misinforming and ly ing to the american people. note 3. it is a “shameful thing” that some college students today don’t know a lot about “some founding principles of american government”. professor stephen gambescia goes on to write that such “discussions with students are important before we dig deeply into how policymaking occurs in the united states”. note 4. unfortunately, some conservatives try to offer a picturesque view of republican policies, which have been disastrous for american cit izens over the years, as exp lained in this art icle/reflection. note 5. conservative students are disrupting college and university classes throughout the united states. note 6. it should be noted that clinton was never removed from office, because you need two -thirds vote in both the house of representatives and the senate of congress. note 7. it should be noted that creationists oppose “the theory of evolution, and some evangelical conservative christians claim there is scientific ev idence to support creationism, though this has not been supported by other scientists”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 28 published by scholink inc. biographical sketch earnest n. bracey is a retired army lieutenant colonel, with over twenty years of active military service. he was commissioned through reserve officer train ing (distinguished military graduate) at jackson state university, where he graduated with honors (magna cum laude), and received his bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1974. in addition, he received the masters of public admin istration in 1979 from golden gate university, his masters of arts degree in international affairs in 1983 from the catholic university of america, his masters of business admin istration in 2009 from california coast university, and his doctorate of public administration (with emphasis in public po licy) in 1993 from george mason university. dr. bracey also earned his ph.d. in education from capella university in 1999. a recipient of numerous military awards and civilian honors, he is also a graduate of the united states naval war college and the command and general staff college at fort leavenworth, kansas, and previously served as director of administration at the prestigious industrial college of the armed forces, washington, d.c. he was also recognized as who’s who among america’s teachers in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. dr. bracey is professor of political science, and currently teaches american po lit ics and black american history at the college of southern nevada in las vegas. he was formerly chair and professor of political science at jackson state univers ity and chairperson of the political science and history department at hampton university. he serves as an editorial board-member for the nevada historical society quarterly. his work has appeared in professional journals and other publications, and he is the author of the books, prophetic insights: the higher education and pedagogy of african americans , university press of america, 1999, on racism: essays on black popular culture, african american politics, and the new black aesthetics, university press of america, 2003, daniel “chappie” james: the first african american four star general , mcfarland & company, inc., 2003, places in political time: voices from the black diaspora , university press of america, 2005, and the moulin rouge and black rights in las vegas, mcfarland & company, inc., 2009. he also co-authored the book, american politics and culture wars (2001). he is also the author of the novels, choson (1994) and the black samurai (1998), and the book of short stories, requiems for black folks, 2002. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 12 original paper nollywood: indigenous culture, interculturality, and the transplantation of american popular culture onto postcolonial nigerian film and screen samba diop1* 1 researcher, center for multilingualism in society across the lifespan, faculty of humanities, university of oslo, oslo, norway * samba diop, researcher, center for multilingualism in society across the lifespan, faculty of humanities, university of oslo, oslo, norway received: october 30, 2019 accepted: november 12, 2019 online published: december 12, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n1p12 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n1p12 abstract nigeria, the giant of africa, has three big tribes: yoruba, igbo, and hausa. it was a british colony which was amalgamated in 1914. the country became independent in 1962 and was right away bedeviled by military coups d’états and a bloody civil war (1967-1970). in 1999, the country experienced democratic dispensation. in the 1990s, the nollywood nascent movie industry—following in the footpath of hollywood and bollywood—flourished. the movie industry grew thanks to four factors: rapid urbanization; the hand-held video camera; the advent of satellite tv; and, the overseas migrations of nigerians. local languages are used in these films; however, english is the most prominent, along with nigerian pidgin broken english. many themes are treated in these films: tradition and customs, religion, witchcraft and sorcery, satire, urban and rural lives, wealth acquisition, consumerism, etc. i discuss the ways in which american popular culture is adopted in nigeria and recreated on screen. nigeria and usa share federalism, the superlative mode, and gigantism (houses, cars, people, etc.), and many nigerians attend american universities. in the final analysis, the arguments exposed in this paper highlight the multitude of ways in which nigerians navigate the treacherous waters of modernity and globalization. keywords nollywood, video and film industry, postcolonial nigeria, indigenous cultures, igbo culture, american popular culture in africa, gigantism, consumerism, modernity and globalization www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction historical background: “thou shall call twice” or when oral culture meets the moving image one of the biggest novelties in entertainment in africa towards the end of the twentieth century is, without a doubt, the birth of nigerian cinema commonly referred to as nollywood, following into the footsteps of the american giant hollywood movie industry and the indian one, namely bollywood. the latest newborn which joined the “wood” family is lollywood, the combination of lahore and hollywood. it is the film industry of pakistan mainly based in lahore. at once, nigeria epitomizes, highlights, and condenses all the hopes, impediments, success and failure of postcolonial africa. this is the most populated country of the continent, in addition of it being the biggest black country in the world. it is important to stress the fact that this country—like all the other african countries—came into existence thanks to the 1885 berlin conference where the main european imperial powers (france, great britain, usa, belgium, germany, portugal, etc.) met and partitioned africa. it was in 1851 that the british forces invaded the, then, small fishing village of lagos; however, it was not until 1861 that lagos was annexed and nigeria became a protectorate in 1901; the north and south colonies were born. in 1914, the governor lord frederick lugard amalgamated the two colonies and nigeria, as we know it today, was born. the name nigeria was taken from the niger river running through the country. this name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by british journalist flora shaw, who later married baron frederick lugard. on october 1, 1960, nigeria became independent. needless to say, the birth pang was very painful for the country experienced several military coups and the county was run by the military from 1966 to 1999. civilians came back firmly to power after that date. nigeria also experienced a vicious civil war (1967-1970) when the igbos in the east wanted to secede; this was unacceptable because the eastern part contained huge deposits of crude oil. the east lost the war, peace prevailed but until today, the healing process is incomplete. three main tribes occupy the front of the stage: yoruba in the west, hausa/fulaani in the north, and igbo in the eastern part of the land. there are myriads of smaller tribes and ethnic groups referred to as “minority groups”: ijaw, itsekiri, calabar, ibibio, igala, just to name a few. the case of nigeria, as described above, is emblematic of all african countries. it is also worth emphasizing that pre-colonial african societies shared many common features and the same culture crucible; of course, there were differences and customs among and between them since there were customs that were specific to each society. likewise, both colonial and postcolonial african societies and countries do share similar traits. the advent of the nigerian movie industry was rendered possible thanks to the conjugation of four factors: rapid urbanization; the development of the hand-held video camera; the tremendous development of satellite tv which brought into nigerian homes and living rooms films and documentaries from all over the world; and last but not least, the exponential migratory trends of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. nigerians traveling all over the world. i must add the influence of mexican and brazilian telenovelas and films as well as the minor role played by hindu movies (bollywood). there are many genres and sub-genres in nollywood cinema: satire, caper comedy, romantic comedy, horror, crime, supernatural thriller, etc. political tussles and power play are also featured such as the elections to the senate, the presidency, the governorship, etc., in short, all that has to do with the seats of power. current topics are also featured in nollywood films (cf., the uber driver, 2019). as emphasized by elizabeth lequeret (le cinéma africain, pp. 76-77), few other factors contributed to the expansion of the nigerian home video industry. in the early 1990s, the military dictatorship was in full swing, coupled with a growing insecurity; the sale of video recorders reached explosive records. one can add that celluloid cinema gradually died because the directors couldn’t find money to finance their films, in addition to the fact that most—if not all—movie theaters closed, a phenomenon that affected all african countries, not just nigeria. across the continent, movie theaters were transformed into churches and warehouses. in order to give credit where it is due, the nigerian movie industry owes a great debt to theater. patrick ebewo writes: “the current video film industry in nigeria owes a huge debt to the pioneers of nigerian theatre, particularly practitioners of the yoruba traveling theater, who branched off from mainstream theater to experiment with celluloid” (“the emerging video film industry in nigeria: challenges and prospects”, p. 49). thus, comes to mind the pioneer hubert ogunde, actor, playwright, theatre manager, and musician; in 1945, he founded the first contemporary professional theatrical company in nigeria, the african music research party. he changed the name to ogunde theater party in 1947 and ogunde concert party in 1950. we can add other notable names such as ola balogun, jab adu, moses olayia and eddie ugboma. it is worth noting the transition from celluloid to video by remarking that there is a huge difference between the two: firstly, in the former, the emphasis is put on directors whereas in the latter, the actors prevail. in early celluloid african cinema, directors were known and celebrated: ousmane sembene, souleymane cissé, idrissa ouedraogo, cheikh omar sissoko, ola balogun, oumarou ganda, moustapha alassane, etc. most of these filmmakers belong to francophone african countries such as senegal, mali, niger, and burkina faso. these directors depended a lot on french grants in order to make films. additionally, these directors won prizes at film festivals around the world. on the contrary, the proponents of the nigerian video industry taunted these directors and celluloid african cinema by deridingly calling them “embassy cinema”. needless to say, in the nigerian movie industry, all the producers are private entrepreneurs usually referred to as “marketers”. additionally, actors are more famous and richer than directors (the latter are hardly known); we have famous, glamourized movie starts and well-known actors such as: olu jacobs, pete edochie, ashley nwosu, zubby michael, ken erics, yul edochie, kenneth okonkwo, nkem owo, mike ezuruonye, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. john okafor, nonso diobi, desmond elliot, richard mofe damijo, ramsey nouah, chinedu ikedieze, kanayo o. kanayo, amaechi muonagor, chiwetalu agu, sam loco efe, clem ohameze, osita iheme, jim iyke, etc. among the female actors, we can cite a few: patience ozokwor, ngozi ezeonu, tonto dikeh, mercy johnson, ini edo, kate henshaw, omotola ekeinde, stephanie okereke, oge okoye, rachael okonkwo, funke akindele, liz benson, clarion chukwuma, queen nwokoye, uche jombo, rita dominic, chika ike, etc. these actors and actresses own mansions, jet set around the world, are crowned, dined and wined at parties and festivals, etc. it is said that video films gross an estimated 200 million dollars a year and nigeria has been ranked the world’s third largest film industry after bollywood and hollywood. thus, nigeria’s gdp was recently rebased from about usd 270 billion to usd 510 billion for 2013, taking into account the input of the movie industry. this section focuses on the igbo tribe even though yorubas and hausas also produce films. in these films, an array of languages is used: yoruba, hausa, igbo, etc. however, english is the most prominent along with nigerian pidgin english, a form of broken english. many themes are treated in these films: tradition and customs, witchcraft and sorcery, social satire, urban and rural lives, wealth acquisition, consumerism, drama, etc. in the same order of things, quite a few other themes will be discussed here: religions (including traditional religions also referred to as paganism, christianity (catholicism, protestantism, evangelicals). among the igbos, there are very few muslims, islam being predominant in the north and west of nigeria. in passing, it is worth noting that christianity entered into igbo country thanks to british colonialism, mostly in the course of the 19th century. in particular, irish priests were in charge of implanting the catholic church not only in igbo country but also across nigeria and the british empire. it is important to stress the fact that most africans have a syncretic type of religion which blends islam and african traditional religion, on the one hand, and christianity with the same african traditional religion, on the other hand. in order to truly understand african traditional beliefs, one must take into account the remarks made by ibrahima sow, who, in his book titled divination, maraboutage, destin; aux sources de l’imaginaire, asserts that ancient africa had “a fundamentally magical worldview” (p. 215). in the same order of things, sow compares the revealed religions, on the one hand, and african traditional religions, on the other; thus, he writes: “in religion, we pray to the god, in magic, we give him an order” (p. 191). as mentioned above, with the advent of islam and christianity, religion itself, as practiced across africa, became a syncretic one because both islam and christianity are laced with traditional beliefs hailing from the african pre-islamic and pre-christian past. however, concerning the concept of “gods” in the plural as invoked in film, this can be understood only when put in relationship with the real pantheon of deities in precolonial african cosmogony. contrary to what the first western/european africanists and anthropologists said and wrote, africans were not polytheists; there was a single god at the top, then followed the lesser gods usually associated with nature: fire, thunder, brimstone, river, sea, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. mountain, etc. thus, monotheism existed in pre-colonial africa. this idea of africans being polytheists had gained so much currency among these early european anthropologists that it was difficult to put it in disrepute; however, nowadays the myth has been debunked; things have been put back to their proper place and perspective. schooling (european/western education) was important and was intimately tied to the church; thus, the first schools in nigeria were christian and catholic ones. a few other themes featured in nollywood films are: human sacrifice, the supernatural and the pathological, kidnapping for ransom, the occult, the magical, ancestor worship, the explanation and understanding of death, the collective unconscious, etc. the masquerade is very important in igbo traditional society; it is performed by secret societies which re-enact the spirits of the living-dead and the ancestors. the expression “thou shall call twice” featured in the sub-title above is a cultural marker; the astute watcher of nigerian films notices that when people are calling someone, once is never enough; most of the time, the person has to be called twice—sometimes more than twice—before the person answers. this marker belongs to the domain of oral culture. more cultural markers will be brought into the fray of our discussion further below. for now, it suffices to say that many writers and anthropologists consider igbo society as being a “stateless” one or a non-stratified society, namely an acephalous society which is a society which lacks political leaders or hierarchies. other specialists maintain an opposite line of argumentation. when reading about the history and past of nigeria, one comes across general remarks, namely, that, in pre-colonial igbo society—like in most parts of africa—people lived in villages where the main activities were subsistence farming (yam being the main crop), fishing, and hunting. the igbos had shrines run by priests, also known as kings of the spirits (ezemo); thus, in the absence of chiefs, the priests played that role. however, in most nollywood igbo films, there are kings (called igwe) which fact runs counter to the idea that igbo society was stateless. is the nollywood king just an invented fictional character? what can explain this craving for royalty? has kingdom arrived into igbo society much later, after european colonization and after the igbos came into contact, as it were, with the yoruba, hausa/fulani or the nearby benin kingdom? all the aforementioned kingdoms had a more structured type of state run by kings and, occasionally, queens. it is a possibility that the igbos borrowed the concept of kingdom but the debate goes on. to come back briefly to the igwe as featured in film, he usually has a prime minister who is at the head of his cabinet; the igwe chooses himself the prime minister. one can often see very comical scenes of shouting matches among the cabinet members and it looks like the one who shouts loudest and drowns the voice of his opponent automatically asserts his authority, power, and manhood vis-à-vis his enemy or adversary. boldness is a sure sign of virility. at the opposite end of this male virility and, in contradistinction, it is important to consider gender issues, most notably the representation and perception of women in nollywood movies. we have two www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. prototypes of women: the first one is strong, ambitious, opinionated, smart—sometimes stubborn and domineering—who knows how to stand her ground against male bullies; she also knows how to use her feminine charms and endowments in order to push her way through and obtain what she wants; this type of woman is illustrated by the character of mama g (played by patience ozokwor). the second female prototype is a submissive, dominated, “traditional” woman. in front of the igwe or during the deliberations of the council of the elders, this type of woman must speak only when spoken to; she must apologize when she speaks out of turn and is, occasionally, scolded by the male-only august assembly. it is obvious that the second type of woman portrays an inferior status of womanhood. to come back to the priest, when people committed crimes or were accused of having done so, they swore or took an oath in front of the priest. in case of serious crimes (such as murders), the culprit was banished to the evil forest. the priest was also a healer and a soothsayer for, when people were sick; they came to the priest in order to be cured. in nollywood igbo films, death is never innocent or natural; it is always caused by a foreign agent or an enemy. this conception of death harks back to pre-colonial mentality when people were in symbiosis with nature and modern medicine was not known; thus, most diseases were not known or diagnosed correctly even though one must acknowledge that pharmacopoeia was well known, i.e., that the science of plants, trees, roots, and leaves was recognized and traditional medicine relied on natural remedies in order to heal sicknesses. along the same lines, the oracles were of the utmost importance; people consulted the oracles in order to know what the future holds for them, whether their wives will give birth to a boy or girl for example; fertility issues were very important, etc. thus, divination was a prime choice for the people; the priest (ezemo) who performs divination usually uses cowry shells; the latter enable him to indicate the sacrifices that must be performed by the person who comes for consultation: cows, cocks, goats, tubers of yam, cola nuts, hot drink (liquor being choice number one), cloth, etc. when it comes to social structures, igbo society adopted the lineage system which was linked to clans, each clan having a family head or a patriarch. this system rested on gerontocracy in which the older the person, the wiser he or she was supposed to be. speaking of old age, i must make a small digression by invoking the famous saying assigned to hampaté bâ: “in africa, an old man who dies is like a library that burns”; actually, this quote is wrong. here’s the correct quote: “in africa, an initiated old man who dies is like a library that burns”. it goes without saying that not all old men were initiated. what i find amazing is that so many people are wrongly quoting the african writer and oral history specialist; better yet, people are quoting him by leaving out the most important word, namely “initiated”. to come back to the igbo royal court, the council of elders is always invoked in nollywood films as the court where problems are judged and settled. in oral cultures (traditional igbo society was entirely oral); texts are communal properties as argued by i. okpewho: “since the texts of the oral tradition had www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. passed from one mouth to another and from one generation to another, we could no longer speak of one author or creator for any one of them. we could only see each text as the common property of the community and as a product of joint or communal authorship” (african oral literature, pp. 5-6). thus, many other cultural markers which belong to igbo traditional society are featured in films, the most pre-eminent ones being proverbs and sayings. these proverbs serve as pedagogical and educational tools since there was no formal schooling. children and various age groups were educated thanks to tools such as proverbs which contain enough wisdom and lessons. these proverbs, which belong to tradition, are still preserved in the contemporary age and passed on from generation to generation. however, as we shall see in the next section, the advent of the european brand of modernity is going to upset that tradition; modernity goes to the extent of radically altering the tenets of tradition. in my book oralité africaine, i have amply discussed the dyptich modernity/tradition, in addition to highlighting the relation that it has with writing, the new technologies, modern education, so on and so forth. to briefly come back to the concept of tradition, the way the latter is treated in nollywood film generally echoes the way it is concretely considered and lived at large in society, namely the usage of the concept in order to justify the most backward aspects of the prevailing culture; one often hears in the movies a character proclaim: “this is our tradition, this is how we do things, this is how our ancestor used to do things, etc.” obviously, tradition is invoked whenever it is convenient and it is used to justify the unjustifiable. this fact is well illustrated by the 16th century french writer etienne de la boétie who asserts that “the first reason of servility is custom (tradition)” (discours de la servitude volontaire, p. 50). needless to say, tradition has positive aspects and the latter must be cultivated, encouraged, and practiced. one last remark: in his book titled le cinéma africain; des origines à 1973, p. vieyra makes a slight differentiation between french-speaking africans (francophones) on the one hand, and english-speaking africans (anglophones), on the other. most importantly, the author highlights the way in which british and french colonial methods differ when it comes to assimilating their respective subjects. he writes: “the so-called english-speaking africans penetrated very little into the english mental chain, while french-speaking africans penetrated more deeply into the french mental chain. what created among the elites of the former less cultural alienation than in the latter” (p. 254). in other words, during the colonial period, anglophone africans were less assimilated into british culture for the simple reason that the english considered that they were the superior race; already, inside the british isles there was—and there are still remnants, to some extent—a racial dichotomy in which the englishman considered himself way above the scot, the irish, and the welsh. how one thinks that the englishman will consider the black negro man, the latter being, additionally, the colonially dominated subject of the former? in my opinion, the answer is clear and emphatic, meaning that in the englishman’s racial scale, the black man is at the very bottom of the rung. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 19 published by scholink inc. 2. in search of a viable model: american popular culture and film actually, all the discussions above and below bearing on igbo culture, are meant to showcase the intrinsic qualities, aspects, and values of that culture; moreover, the same discussions are done in order to highlight the contrast between a specific african culture (igbo) and its counterpart, i.e., american culture as featured in film. as i wrote in the preceding section, traditional culture was very strong in pre-colonial igbo society. however, with the encroachment of british/european values, world views, and lifestyle, that traditional world vanishes and is being gradually replaced by a modern structure. however, it is important to remark that the european encroachment was not deep as mentioned above by vieyra. all in all, the european/western dominance still prevails as asserted by r. armes: “just as the continuity of (european/western) imperial dominance from nineteenth to twentieth century (though now with a new dominating power and an added range of victims) is undeniable, so too is the hollywood film’s role as successor to the european novel as purveyor of the kind of narratives we so crave” (postcolonial images: studies in north african film, p. 3). another interesting domain to scrutinize is music, in particular musical scores as featured in nollywood films. to that end, one must take stock of the two-pronged reality of tradition and modernity and how the interplay of the two heavily influences the presence of music in film. thus, in order to illustrate the point just raised above, l. malkmus and r. armes write: “common to most african musicians is the concern to rework traditional rhythms for electric instruments and the recording studio, so that tradition and modernity become inextricably entwined” (arab & african film making, pp. 45-46). in nollywood igbo films, there is an array of traditional musical instruments that are featured such as: ekwe (slіt-drum), ogene (gong), igba (cylinder drum), oja (flute), udu (pottery drum), ichaka (for rattling sounds), okike (made from elephant tusk), ubo (thumb piano), etc. thus, besides proverbs and sayings, the utmost symbol of igbo authentic culture, as featured in film, is the traditional musical instrument. as for the presence of modern music in nollywood film, we are spoiled for choices with the presence of various western and european styles: classical music, in addition to america-influenced genres: jazz, soul, pop, rock, gangsta rap, rap music, etc., along with the instruments (electric guitar, piano, organ, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, guitar bass, violin, drums, etc.), and, of course, voice and soprano. starting in the 1950s, the synthesis/combination of traditional and modern musical styles gave birth to brand-new musical styles such as high life (ghana) or palm-wine music (liberia and sierra-leone). when it comes to the search for a viable model in nigerian film, there are two trends: in the first trend, there is an effort to be as close as possible to igbo culture (cultural difference) thanks, for instance, to the usage and adaptation of cultural traits borrowed from the tradition; however, this trend is in the minority. the most prevalent trait is the second trend, namely the adaption of western and american popular cultural icons and their avatars (culture contact). thus, the two trends are pitched and compete www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 20 published by scholink inc. against each other: culture difference and culture contact. in effect, the americanization of the world is a verifiable certainty and this is done through hollywood as rightly claimed above by r. armes. as far back as 1975, p. vieyra noticed that the americanization process was in full swing: “the world is becoming americanized and the united states is attracting more and more the intellectual elite of other nations of the world thanks to the exceptional material conditions that they offer them for the pursuit of their research. we see the process of the cultural affirmation of a language (english) by the economic power of the nation that speaks it, without this language having more than others a specific richness” (op. cit., pp. 256-257). what attracts our attention in the passage above, in addition to being relevant to the topic of this paper, is the language question; namely the usage of english. english, by extension, means “white” (race). the perception of the white man and his land is ever-present in nollywood movies. the term oyinbo is a nigerian word used in yoruba, igbo, and nigerian pidgin to refer to white people (in senegal and gambia the wolof expression “toubab” is used to refer to white people). added to oyinbo, is obodo oyinbo meaning the land of the white man (usually europe and america), a land of honey and milk, a paradise on earth where one can become quickly rich. no wonder so many people—specially the youth—all dream of traveling to the land of the white man in order to make it. i have already emphasized the idea that, nigeria being in the past a british colony, the english language came to the country thanks to the colonial canal. since the same language is spoken in the usa—albeit with a few dialectal and regional variations—it is not a surprise that american cultural values feature in nollywood films. however, film only reflects reality. of particular interest is the fact that nigerians went from the british model to the american one. the similarities between nigeria and the usa are at once numerous and striking: both are federations composed of states; both have a president and a vice-president, a senate, a congress, etc. however, it is fair to point out that it is the usa which inspired nigeria and, in turn, both countries are inspired by the ancient roman model of statecraft. the us dollar is widely used in nigeria, concomitantly with the naira, the national currency. after world war ii, many nigerians started enrolling at american universities, the most notable example being that of the igbo statesman nnamdi azikwe (columbia university, howard university, and university of pennsylvania). thus, it is important to consider the intertwining of film (fiction) and culture (reality). in order to have a better understanding of the many ways in which igbo film appropriates american culture and icons, one can take into account the remarks made by m. krings in his book titled african appropriations: cultural difference, mimesis, and media: “a single cultural product may be appropriated that is, interpreted, reworked, and adapted to suit new social contexts, interests, and media environments once it has entered transnational media circuits” (author’s emphasis, p. 2). i concur with p. loukides when he writes: “immense amount of cultural information is to be gained by examining www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 21 published by scholink inc. narrative conventions in american popular film” (beyond the stars: studies in american popular film, p. 2). in light of loukides’ remark above, it is no surprise that many hollywoodian narrative conventions are adapted onto the nollywood screen. here is a good example as provided by the film “show bobo” (subtitled “the american boys”) and, as explained by n. tsika in his book titled nollywood stars: media and migration in west africa and the diaspora (pp. 251-252). here’s a short summary of the author’s passage: in the film “show bobo”, ikedieze and iheme play two twelve-year old boys who, born in america to nigerian parents, fly to lagos for a month “vacation”. staying with their aunt, the boys grow bored almost immediately upon arriving in nigeria; their sense of cultural estrangement is inseparable from a general disgust with the activities of daily life, which here include eating a soup whose name (egusi) they cannot pronounce and whose taste they reject as “shitty” meant for goats and not for human beings. the boys’ allegiance goes to american brands, from converse to kellog’s and the boys themselves consistently call attention to the american style that they far prefer to whatever nigerian cultural traditions they witness. after reading this passage, one asks the question whether we are in presence of alienation or assimilation, or both. in the passage above, igbo cuisine is hardly mentioned for it is considered by the two boys as sub-standard when compared to america’s. yet, igbo cuisine and food are culturally significant; for example, the palm kernel is held in high esteem for it produces palm oil. a drink closely associated with the palm tree is, of course, palm wine, which drink has a huge cultural meaning for it is served at weddings and parties, in addition to being highly appreciated in bars and homes. to come back to igbo cuisine, soup is a main staple, served with yam. there is a whole array of soups: oha, onugbu, ogbono, egwusi, nsala, etc. these soups usually contain leaves. all in all, what is highlighted in the passage concerning the two returnee kids from the usa, as described in tsika’s book, is the culinary transition and transformation that many urban african societies are currently experiencing whereby fast food and junk food (american?) are gradually replacing the healthier traditional diet like the soups described above. the new diet, i.e., junk food, is full of food coloring, fat, salt, and sugar and is conducive to the advent of modern diseases such as cancer, high blood pressure, strokes, diabetes, etc. when we compare hollywood to nollywood, the former dwarfs the latter in terms of technical and financial means. needless to say, hollywood has a long history and has it all: scriptwriters, famous directors and producers, world-famous actors and actresses, in addition to massive logistics such as modern movie theaters across america. at the opposite end, nollywood is young, about 30 years old and adopted hollywood as a model that must be copied. however, it is fair to say that nollywood has gotten better and has made huge technical/technological progress and strides since the 1990s. witness the recent well-made sub-genre films bearing on social commentary such as lionheart (director: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 22 published by scholink inc. genevieve nnaji, 2018), the bling lagosians (director: bolanle austen-peters, 2019). quite a few films are shot in the igbo language (as well as in yoruba and hausa) but these films are for local consumption and for nigerians abroad who understand the language. otherwise, most of the nollywood film production is shot in english in order to reach a wider world audience. the two movies cited above (and many more) are featured on international pay-per-view satellite tv channels such as netflix and canal+ (rights are bought from nigerian movie channels such as nolly tv and iroko tv), with excellent actors, usually highlighting the successful nigerian entrepreneurs, business people, and a savvy, sophisticated, highly educated local bourgeoisie. at this juncture, one notices an overarching message, namely that, it is possible to succeed in nigeria (and africa); many people do succeed at home; thus, one does not always have to go abroad (usually europe or america) in order to be successful, wealthy, and rich. in nigeria the name that usually comes to mind and which is oft quoted, the poster boy, so to speak, is the billionaire, self-made man aliko dangote. there is a good skewer of millionaires and billionaires in nigeria. however, there is the other side of the coin, namely, in the same breath, these films showcase the corrupt and decadent lifestyle of the urban bourgeoisie and coastal aristocracy of lagos which speak queen’s english, goes on vacation to london, bahamas, spain and send their children to study at oxford, london, and cambridge. in order to understand the rise of the americanization of nigeria as seen through the lenses of film, we must revisit the past 100 or so years of nigeria’s history. two important periods must be taken into account: after world war i up to the 1970s and from the 1970s to the present. from the 1920s to the 1970s, the country was divided into three main economic and political zones, each having a staple crop which served as engine driver for the economy, in addition to enabling low-scale industrialization and the creation of factories. the north had groundnuts, thus producing oil and soap. the west had cocoa whose revenues enabled the lawyer, politician, and statesman obafemi awolowo to set up free primary education and free health care, in addition to creating the first television channel in sub-saharan africa in 1959. the east had palm oil in abundance. other economic activities existed besides the ones listed above; for instance the north had livestock which provided meat and dairy products to the rest of the country whereas both the west and east had subsistence farming with a staple crop such as yam, in addition to fishing in the numerous inland ponds and rivers. thus, on the eve of independence, nigeria was on a hopeful bright path with such a balanced geographical economic layout. all of that changed in the early 1970s and the country itself changed course for the worse at a 380 degree turn with the discovery of crude oil in the niger river delta region, in the east. the exploitation of crude oil caused the civil war (1967-1970) when the east wanted to secede and proclaimed the creation of a new country called biafra. thus, oil became a double curse: it created a war and destroyed the environment. agriculture was abandoned and, instead, nigeria started importing foodstuffs in great quantity. corruption became rampant; the political and military elites, who were running the country, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 23 published by scholink inc. stole the huge money proceeds obtained from oil exploitation and placed them in foreign bank accounts (here comes to mind the famous dictator president sani abacha who stashed away billions of dollars in swiss bank accounts). environmental catastrophe ensued, a tragedy which caused the pollution of waterways, ponds, and rivers, in addition to destroying the local fisheries and mangroves. one must add that the eastern part of nigeria has lush and green forests, a canopy that covers the whole region, extending to cameroon and, beyond, to the congo equatorial forest. we may recall the execution of the nigerian ogoni writer and activist ken sarowiwa by the abacha regime of tyranny. sarowiwa was executed for protesting the exploitation and pollution caused by oil companies such as shell and others. all in all, the local communities did not benefit from the oil manna; they were short-changed and became poorer; their traditional way of life was destroyed. in those poor communities, people see the toys of modernity (cars, tv sets, telephones, etc.) but cannot fully benefit from them, much less have access to them. in the 1990s, there was a new development, namely the birth of piracy in the gulf of guinea. many disenfranchised youths started enrolling in communities of pirates hiding in the mangroves and creeks, attacking the ships in the high seas, off the coast; the area that these pirates assail covers the whole region of the bight of benin. many nollywood films celebrate pirates’ and ghetto life; the pirates’ actions, which are akin—and assimilated—to robin hood types of wealth redistribution (taking from the rich and giving to the poor), are featured in films such as once upon a time in niger delta (2017) and delta blood (2019). if we come back to the americanization process of nigeria, another turning point is the early 1980s with the screening on tv of the american series dallas, a saga that pitches oil-rich families and their characters: j. r. ewing, bobby ewing, sue ellen ewing, miss ellie ewing, cliff barnes, etc. thanks to dallas, many nigerians discovered texas (dallas, houston, fort worth, el paso, austin, galveston, etc.). the state of texas has the largest nigerian population of all states in the usa. the organic link between oil in texas and oil in the niger delta is quickly established. one can also cite the example of hakeem abdul olajuwon, formerly a nigerian-american professional basketball player. from 1984 to 2002, he played the center position in the national basketball association for the houston rockets. without a shred of a doubt, hakeem has greatly contributed in putting nigeria on the texan and american map. likewise, this new phase of the americanization process was made into a movie. in 2014, the film 30 days in atlanta (director: robert peters) came out. the plot is a simple one: akposa, the main character, won a 30 days holiday for two to atlanta, georgia in the usa and decided to take his cousin richard with him on vacation. akposa experiences a culture shock, in addition to sampling the many facets of american culture. along the same lines, the concept of gigantism was born in nigeria: houses, cars, chiefs, people, etc. everything is considered in the superlative mode. the expression oga which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 24 published by scholink inc. means “senior” or “boss” is a well-known expression and is very much in vogue in nigerian parlance. of course, at parties, funerals, and weddings the oga is expected to shower people with gifts and money in order to show off and live up to his “oga-ness”. linked to gigantism is the concept of wealth acquisition. in turn, the two are closely associated with the dichotomy rural vs. urban. in many films, the city is described as a place of opportunity (but can also be a fleeting mirage) where villagers go in search of greener pastures. many characters who go to the city originate from villages and the countryside where there is no opportunity. thus, the exile to the city is a prevailing theme in nollywood. igbos are known as famous traders; however, when watching the films, one has the impression that trade is the only profession that exists, in particular the importation of goods from europe and usa: containers of clothing, electronics, furniture, cars, etc. what happened to the celebration of knowledge and intellect? where are the great writers: chinua achebe, ben okri, wole soyinka, buchi emecheta, cyprian ekwensi, and others? thus, the local products are undervalued if not shone aside, a sure form of alienation. a corollary to the theme of wealth acquisition is the feud and competition that this race to wealth creates. the youths’ own parents shame them by telling them how the son of so and so had left the village just a few years ago; now he is back with luxury cars and money and is even building mansions. in the meanwhile, you (my son) are here in the village being useless and idle. without a doubt, there is a willful encouragement towards get-quick-rich schemes by parents and the community at large. pressure is put on the youth to migrate. often, people do not enquire about the source of the wealth of an individual, except in the case of mysterious deaths; for instance when a husband is accused of sacrificing his wife in order to be rich and, conversely, when a wife stands accused of having sacrificed her husband or brother, etc. besides human sacrifices, there is the trade of illicit drugs which is a major theme in nollywood movies. at this juncture, it is important to mark a pause and reflect a little on other aspects of wealth acquisition and how these aspects are featured on screen. we have the characters of sugar daddies and sugar mammies (rich, single, or divorced or widowed men and women giving money to a young woman or man for sexual satisfaction). the sugar daddy is usually an older, rich man who exploits poor young girls and this borders on pedophilia. along the same lines, there are forced marriages when parents pressure their daughter to marry a rich man without even checking on the origin of his wealth. another common character is a man or woman who becomes rich overnight thanks to occultic means or human sacrifices; usually, at the end of the film, there are two choices: he either dies or redeems himself. when the second choice is made, the man loses all his ill-gotten wealth, and is saved by a catholic priest or an evangelical pastor; after that, our saved man becomes a preacher, talking to people in the streets and at marketplaces, bible in hand, enjoining them to leave their crooked ways and come back to god’s way, back to christ. thus, the theme of redemption is an important one and is highly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 25 published by scholink inc. cherished by nollywood filmmakers. redemption and forgiveness are usually associated with being given a second chance in life. 3. conclusion in a final conclusion, i concur with p. ebewo when he writes: “with the global world united under the sway of visual culture, the emergence of the video film in nigeria is timely and crucial as it serves as the voice of its people and responds to the drudgery of a social and economic existence characterized by high unemployment and dwindling opportunities” (op. cit., p. ix). the sharp watcher of nollywood movies will notice a device that is often used by the scriptwriters and directors, namely the concept of verisimilitude, which consists in projecting the appearance of an event or fact as being true or real. in other words, when fiction imitates reality, plus the dramatization of real events. all things considered, what is being highlighted in these movies is a dialectics predicated on pairings: positive and negative, light and dark, beautiful and ugly, good and bad, etc. in fact, a universal norm; just like all human societies, igbo society is not an exception. in my closing argument, an important question must be asked and is the following: how long will the usa serve as a model for nigerians and nollywood? how long is it possible to sustain the outward gaze toward the usa? it is hard to provide a straight answer. however, if we consider that the us model is being challenged by others (here comes to mind the chinese/asian model for instance), in addition to the fact that america is increasingly being hostile to dark-skinned immigrants (the rate of deportations has never be higher than under the presidency of donald trump), then, one can contemplate the us model running out of steam. it is usually acknowledged that the 20th century was an american century; however, the 21st century is not projected as being a continuation of the 20th. we are increasingly witnessing the birth of a multipolar world and the rise of other economic powers such as the brics (brazil, russia, india, china and south africa). in the meantime, europe is aging and is experiencing a drastic deindustrialization process, in addition to becoming hostile to immigration (mostly of color), xenophobic, nationalist, populist, scared of tomorrow (withdrawal syndrome). as for africa, it has (for now) a demographic dividend, namely a young population; however, the youths must be educated, trained, and jobs provided to them. needless to say, that is an enormous challenge. can an endogenous, native, authentic, original, and sui generis model be conceived? in other words, will nigerians and africans create their own models instead of always looking far away and copy others, such as the borrowing of an american model as amply demonstrated above? nigerians and africans are invited to have their own dreams, worship their own heroes, and show self-confidence in order to build a prosper society and a developed continent. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 26 published by scholink inc. references armes, r. (2005). postcolonial images: studies in north african film. bloomington, indiana: indiana university press. diop, s. (2012). oralité africaine, entre esthétique et poétique. paris, l’harmattan. ebewo, p. j. (2007). the emerging video film industry in nigeria: challenges and prospects. journal of film and video, 46, 49-54. krings, m. (2015). african appropriations, cultural difference, mimesis and media. bloomington, indiana: indiana university press. la boétie, e. (1954). discours de la servitude volontaire. in les cahiers, no 3, juillet-septembre. paris. lequeret, e. (2003). le cinéma africain, un continent à la recherche de son propre regard. paris, cahiers du cinéma. loukides, p. (1991). beyond the stars: studies in american popular film, vol. 2. bowling green, ohio: bowling green state university popular press. malkmus, l., & armes, r. (1991). arab & african film making. london: zed books. okpewho, i. (1992). african oral literature: backgrounds, character, and continuity. bloomington, indiana: indiana university press. sow, i. (2009). divination, maraboutage, destin; aux sources de l’imaginaire. dakar, senegal: ifan ch. a. diop. tsika, n. (2015). nollywood stars: media and migration in west africa and the diaspora. bloomington, indiana: indiana university press. vieyra, p. s. (1975). le cinéma africain, des origines à 1973. paris, présence africaine. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 96 original paper the exposure to animated movies and constructing adolescents’ perception towards gender role shrook a. fathy1* & prof. amany s. fahmy2 1 teaching assistant at broadcasting department, october university for modern science and arts (msa), cairo, egypt 2 professor at radio and television department, faculty of mass communication, cairo university, giza, egypt * shrook a. fathy, teaching assistant at broadcasting department, october university for modern science and arts (msa), cairo, egypt received: february 24, 2020 accepted: march 14, 2020 online published: april 16, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n2p96 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n2p96 abstract this study aims to know the egyptian adolescents’ perception towards gender roles; coinciding with the evolution of the female lead animated movies. being affected by the third and the fourth wave of feminism in american society and its effect on egyptian adolescents; since animated movies are mainly american produced. the study found that egyptian adolescents perceive the female role in the society to be independent decision-maker and has her own rights, reassuring that women hold much more work-load than men and her biggest enemy and fighter is the society itself, not her capabilities, while animation movies from 2012 till 2018 hold more muscular personality traits and behavioral traits than feminine ones. keywords animation, adolescence, perception, gender roles, gender stereotyping, femininity, androgyny, masculinity, feminism 1. introduction new generations are growing up in an environment saturated with different kinds of media; which impact our children, especially that media access became much easier through cell phones, which affects child’s perceptions and attitudes about various aspects within the society, like gender stereotypes; as gender roles in society has become one of the most recent yet; an important issue that concern many people; especially after the spread of the third feminism movement and breaking major www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 97 published by scholink inc. gender stereotypes inherited by the egyptian society. research problem this study focuses on the portrayal of females that changed throughout time, from the old female lead animation movies in the 1990s till present; coinciding with the third and fourth wave of feminism, and their influence on the perception of adolescents in egypt ranging from (13-17) years-old, regarding gender role, especially that egypt does not participate in producing or creating the most popular animated movies with new technologies, but, it receives them from abroad adding translation or dubbing to the movies in arabic language. this topic provoked the researcher as it was observed that the new generations hold different attitudes and behaviors towards gender roles, accompanied by a rebel against the old egyptian traditions. study objectives 1) to know how the egyptian adolescents, perceive gender roles and gender stereotypes. 2) to explore if animated movies may affect adolescents’ opinions and perceptions regarding gender stereotypes. 3) to know if the egyptian adolescents believe in women’s capabilities. 4) to predict the society’s gender roles in the near future, and women statues in the egyptian society. study significance  media, with all its different genres, has huge effects on our perception and way of thinking; in a way that cultivates gender perception, especially animated movies that are now a very important genre of media; occupying top ranks in the worldwide box office. foreign animation movies hold different messages that have been sent to our audiences and our adolescents, in particular, that cannot be underestimated.  egyptian society had been criticized by being americanized and holding foreign culture different than the egyptian culture; especially young generations.  the media of the present time reflects the gender role expectations found in the american culture. since that most animated movies are not produced in egypt they only aired on the television with arabic translation or dubbing, we should focus more on those movies as the cultural background, customs and traditions are different from the egyptian culture which will lead to holding different messages by the egyptian adolescents, americanizing the egyptian culture from an early age.  egyptian children and adolescents watch foreign cartoons and are affected by it, that was emphasized by research. awad (1997) reported that the presented cartoons on egyptian tv channels were foreign animated cartoons with 97.4%, while the egyptian animation productions were only 2.95%. the foreign animated cartoons on egyptian child channels were presented in arabic language dubbing with 93%, while they were presented with their original foreign language with only 6.8%. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 98 published by scholink inc.  there weren’t any arabic or egyptian animation movies with females lead characters that were produced in the time of the study.  the arabic literature needs more research about gender roles compared to foreign literature and studies. review of literature the literature review is divided into two main sections: 1) media influence in constructing perception a) for children and adolescents b) for gender roles 2) gender roles in animated movies media influence in constructing perceptions for children and adolescents. padilla-walker (2007) stated that during adolescence age, the amount of time spent with their family is reduced and spending much more time with themselves when they watch unsupervised media content. research has stated that adolescents from the ages between 10-18 years spend around 8 hours consuming media, and tv alone takes from 3 to 4 hours (roberts, foehr, & rideout, 2005). media plays an integral role in forming the life of children (jordan, hershey, mcdivitt, & heitzler, 2006; šramová & pavelka, 2017). children learn about morality, social norms, and gender roles from different sources including media portrayals in which they receive. mass communication and mass media are significant factors by which children form their own view of the human world (šramová, 2014); in addition to the family, peers, and schools that provide interpersonal, group and institutional communication (mcquail, 2010; young, 2003). traditionally, parents, teachers, friends, and clergy have had the responsibility for the socialization of children; however, in today’s world, the mass media play an ever-increasing role in this socialization process (signorielli, 2001). media influence in constructing perceptions for gender role a lot of researches had focused on how television would influence aggressive behavior, while other researches focused on how media became a socializing agent of gender roles. ey (2016) has conducted a study about sexualized music media and adolescent’s perspective towards gender role and self-identity development. the research results posed questions about gender-power relations, which were emphasized by peterson (2010), that adolescents build acceptance of male dominance while they still at the age of developing gender role and socio-sexual identity. the consumption of movies influences the audience’s gender-based attitudes and beliefs, emphasized by matyas, (2010) who conducted a textual analysis of nine disney animation movies, stated that popular movies may include kinds of storylines which are having negative effects on the attitudes and behaviors of people in regards to gender role. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 99 published by scholink inc. gender roles in animated movies animated cartoons are the most media genre children and adolescents are exposing to, it’s the gate that opens them up to learn about a variety of subjects which indeed affect their attitudes and behaviors (schiau, plitea, gusiţă, pjekny, & iancu, 2013). children and young viewers are more capable to absorb the socializing effects presented on television, especially those shows presented on children’s television channels and animated programs because they might find difficulty in telling the difference between fantasy and reality (miller, 2003). not only that but also, children tend to resemble animated cartoon characters more frequently than their own family members (gilbert, 1998). cartoons are tools for entertainment to children and young viewers, which may include wrong messages and information despite the educative aspect of those cartoons (gökçearslan, 2010). research has proved the presence of gender stereotypes in different kinds of media; animated movies are no exception. animated movies encompass over 80% of children’s worldwide programming (götz & lemish, 2012). animated shows have fallen into portraying old gender stereotypes (banet-weiser, 2004; burguera, 2011). research has proved that females were portrayed in animated programs as passive and dependent on the male characters, and are less likely to be the lead character (baker & raney, 2007; götz & lemish, 2012), they are more likely to be part of a team than the leader (burguera, 2011; götz & lemish, 2012). studies have consistently reported that females are vastly underrepresented in children’s animated programs (baker & raney, 2007; klein & shiffman, 2009; thompson & zerbinos, 1995). male dominance was clear in almost all of the stories and a male bias was demonstrated in the main characters and titles (michael, bakar, ibrahim, veerappan, noor, heng, & yann, 2012). theoretical framework gender schema theory (gst) gender schema theory (gst) is a cognitive theory that was first created to clarify the role of gender in organizing meanings, proposed by psychologist sandra lipsitz bem in 1981. gender schema theory assumes that children get information from their social environments and the surrounding culture, which emphasis gender, gender differences, and gender roles, so children encode and process into networks of mental associations which help them to understand their world better. by doing that, they develop schema or cognitive structures that represent information about the world and themselves; which help in organizing information and guide perception, evaluation, and encoding of new information. (i.e., into feminine or masculine categories). 2. method variables of the study independent variable: gender role in animated movies dependent variable: adolescents’ perception of gender role www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 100 published by scholink inc. mediating variables: peers, cultural and religious background research questions (1) how do egyptian adolescents perceive gender role stereotypes? (2) how do egyptian adolescents perceive the differences between the heroine’s character traits from old till recent animated movies? (3) do egyptian adolescents believe that those independent female characters they perceive in american animated movies can exist in egyptian society? (4) do egyptian adolescents believe in egyptian women’s capabilities? (5) how do egyptian adolescents see the feminists or the independent women? qualitative research this study will use the focus group discussion tool that would fit perfectly to collect the data and information the researcher seeks to get to understand the adolescents’ gender role perspective. since this study focuses on the adolescence stage; focus group discussion will help in collecting all the data required to measure the gender-role perspective of the egyptian adolescents from different socio-economic levels ranging their ages from (13-17) years old. this study will use the bsri bem sex role inventory (1974), in designing the focus groups’ questions. hoffman & borders (2001), the bsri consists of 60 personality characteristics that are divided into; twenty stereotypically feminine, 20 stereotypically masculine, and 20 gender-neutral. sample the sample of the current study is a nonprobability sampling. samples were taken from the capital cairo, consisting of egyptian educated students range from 13 to 17 years old from different schools’ categories which reveal different social classes, including females and males. n=100. it’s divided into three categories; a) an international school, b) private school, and c) a national school. focus groups questions form and measurements questions of the focus groups are designed according to the variables of the study. in addition to the bsri test to measure the level of femininity and masculinity of the participants in the study. ethical considerations since this study’s participants are adolescents then, consents were approved by their parents that their children join the focus group. also, the confidentiality of the characters who speak in the focus group, like their names or any information about them will not be revealed in the study. 3. results recent animated movies that had been watched they were all updated with animation movies, as the researcher showed the animation movies’ posters in front of the students and they all watched those movies before through different means, as some of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 101 published by scholink inc. them watched those movies in the cinema and others on television. they were all updated with the final releases of the animation movies and sitcoms too. the national school participants were much updated with most animation movies more than other schools. the change in the animated movies the majority agreed that there are differences in the character of the main heroine, despite the same conditions and standard of life they might have but, mainly the female character has changed to be more independent, assertive, forceful, brave, adventurous and wants to explore the world, she doesn’t need a man to rescue her anymore and she’s not waiting for the prince charming. they all didn’t accept the idea of the prince survival kiss in snow white to give her back life and strongly criticized that concept. despite that the boys’ responses were almost the same, they agreed that there are differences between old and recent animated movies, they said: “girls now in the movies are more like fighters”. the most highlighting comment was from the national schoolboys as they said about merida in brave that “she’s most likely to be a man if she shaved her hair, because of her attitude”, in the old movies they saw; the characters are more naïve. on the other hand, in recent movies, they want to be independent to achieve something big for themselves away from romance and prince charming. these results suggest that the egyptian adolescents are updated and aware of all the new animation movie releases which weren’t expected to be that updated within all social segments. the possibilities of movies to happen in reality participants were asked about how far those animated movies would be in real life, the majority answered that it’s mostly fantasy and including superpowers, but some actions can be achieved in real life. saladino (2014) demonstrated that girls of today are turning their lives from the expected gender roles to the career motivated and adventure. golden & jacoby (2018) demonstrated that the nature of animated movies especially, the female lead animated ones, has changed as the mass media were exposing to the young audience a limited and static image for women (england et al., 2011; linn, 2009). participants were asked which is closer to reality, regarding the difference in the heroine animated movies, the majority agreed that in real life women are being responsible and independent and they are facing their own battles. housework duties and domestic work the majority of the sample has both working father and mother, and the majority also answered that their father is spending more time at work than their mother, but even the working mother is responsible for the domestic work and the father can help her in doing it. the majority agreed that women are holding more load and pressure as they do much more work compared to men. the final result that all social segments agreed upon was; women are more pressured and have much more work whether she’s working from home or not, but none of them proposed the idea that men can exchange www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 102 published by scholink inc. some of women’s duties. society’s hero the majority disagreed that the man is the only hero as they answered; the man won’t achieve anything without the woman, except for some group of private school boys answered yes the man is the hero most of the time as he is considered the financial resource in the house giving him the upper hand and responsibility for the house, also women can’t act easily outside her home. the boys’ groups mainly were convinced with the idea that men can take the responsibility of owning a house with an income and can do perfectly well in dealing with other people, while women can’t do any of that. the answers indicated how egyptian adolescents acknowledge the importance of women in society and her important role. egyptian women capabilities the girls said women can do and achieve whatever they want, and it’s not as difficult as it was before, a woman can fight for what she wants and she will get it whatever happened, as the stereotypes in the society started to change. on the other hand, boys had different opinions as they all agreed at first and said yes then they justified their answer as physically, women can’t endure what men can endure. the adolescents’ perception of egyptian women now the participants choice of pictures that represent egyptian women indicates that they see women as a working one, as the least number of the whole sample picked the woman in her home doing nothing. most of them saw women as a working member in the society, which might lead to the acceptance of the women position in the society. on the real ground; acquaintance independent women in egypt the prominent notice of this question from both genders in all groups is that whoever is speaking about an independent woman or a strong woman they knew they spoke proudly and passionately, which might lead that those persons would support other women in the future to achieve what they want. decision making is a right or a rebel for an egyptian woman the answers emphasized that woman’s decision should not affect her children and her family as she can’t neglect taking care of her children or the housework, because it would be a rebel, but if she wanted some change in her life as her career it’s totally up to her. also, boys’ groups from different social segments were welcoming women independence, as long as these women aren’t from their family. the egyptian adolescents’ view for independent women the answers of the participants showed that most of them praised and liked the strong independent woman, except a very small group who thought she hates men and she will never get married, but the majority thought independent women are brave and can handle responsibilities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 103 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion henfer, firchau, norton, and shevel (2017) indicated in their study that there is a transition in disney animated movies over time, from classic animated movies through transitional to modern films. heritage (2015) analyzed snow white who was waiting for the prince charming survival kiss was an indicator of the lack of culturally gendered language features. the little mermaid which also contains a lack of cross-gender spoken interaction it had a shift in societal views which can be observed as ariel appears to have gender-neutral fascinations, as opposed to stereotypical female interests, to be changed in frozen which differs from both snow white and the little mermaid. there are interesting differences in culturally gendered language features of males and females in comparison to both movies. that diachronic change demonstrates that modern women are more linguistically equal to men, in comparison to older animated movies. furthermore, the princess’s interests also changed, from being an expert on housework to exploring and meeting people. mulan as a princess animated movie broke the traditional gender roles in which the princess is waiting for the perfect marriage (morrison, 2014). morrison (2014) demonstrated that the older animated movies with female lead character were presenting women the main goal is finding true love and seeking for marriage only; as in tangled despite that princess rapunzel was presented as smart, resourceful, adventurous and wanting to achieve her dreams, the movie ended in romance like all other female lead characters (mulan, belle, jasmine, and ariel). this reinforces the negative idea that a woman can find her happy life only through marriage. lueke (2014) stated in her research that the princesses in animated movies throughout time reflect the women states quo in that era; as in snow white resembles the hardworking attitude in the 1930s, cinderella maintains a positive attitude for self-preservation, pocahontas advocates herself by pushing societal expectations, merida in brave refuses to conform to traditional expectations, finally, anna and elsa in frozen hold very strong personalities that don’t fear success. hine, et al. (2018), in their study where they compared disney animated movies from the 2000s till 2010s and the results. the outcome of the movies is not romantic as it used to be in older animated movies. vágnerová (2018) conducted a research where old animated movies and their remakes were analyzed; cinderella (1950) and cinderella (2015), sleeping beauty and maleficent, the beauty and the beast (1991) and (2017), to study the differences that were made in both movies. in the remakes, the heroines are seemingly empowered through their ambitions. in the old cinderella, she needs to look physically perfect to be liked by the prince and to get married, which is a message that would be read as disempowering and negative from the modern point of view. barnes (2012) proved that it’s important to understand the interpretation of children regarding gender and gender roles in animated movies to uncover the role of the gender schema in the society, also, understanding how children and young audiences interpret female roles in animated movies is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 104 published by scholink inc. necessary to induce a change in the female portrayal in media. many studies throughout the years have documented the impact of media messages in constructing children’s perception of gender roles. (frueh & mcghee, 1975; halim et al., 2013). the first research question aimed to know how egyptian adolescents perceive gender role stereotypes and the results of the study revealed that most of the sample (with different social segments and genders) agreed that the society has changed; women are more independent and are working now beside men, women are unstoppable, but the housework and childcare is still her responsibility alone without any interference from men, which is not right in their opinion, and it puts women under huge pressure and workload. women can’t dress like men or wear whatever they want because they will be harshly criticized from the society. finally, society would be incomplete without both men and women participate together in society. the second research question aimed to know how egyptian adolescents perceive the differences between the heroine’s character traits from old till recent animated movies. the results of the study revealed that the egyptian adolescents were very aware of the change in the characteristics of the female heroines of the animated movies, as they described the old heroines to be naïve and looking only for true love, survival kiss from the prince charming, despite that in the recent movies some female heroines were having a weak point and they were trying to get rid of it in the movie. the recent animated movies with female lead character are now more independent, assertive, fighter, brave, adventurous, wants to explore the world, forceful and most importantly: the story doesn’t revolve around the romantic outcome, the princess is not waiting for the prince anymore to rescue her, instead she is the rescuer. studies revealed that there is a pressure on adolescents to conform to western views, as the results suggested that participants from adolescents were negatively influenced by the stereotypical portrayal of media messages. (spurr, berry, & walker, 2013), which the current study claims that recent animated movies with more independence and powerfulness of the female lead characters influence the perception of the adolescents toward gender roles. the third research question aimed to know if the egyptian adolescents believe that those independent female characters they perceive in american animated movies can exist in the egyptian society and the results of the study revealed that the majority of the sample believed that movies can happen in reality; regarding the actions of the heroines but not the situations itself, the majority of the sample also said that they know at least one woman, they can call a strong and independent woman; most of the girls are seeing their mothers, grandmothers and elder sisters independent, achieve what they are dreaming of, holding huge responsibilities and take their own decisions alone without a man’s interference. all the participants from different genders and social segments were talking proudly on any strong woman who can do or achieve her goals. while some of the boys in the sample don’t believe in the capabilities www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 105 published by scholink inc. of girls in their same age to do what heroines in the animated movies did in the movies and if they did the society will criticize them. the fourth research question aimed to know how much do the egyptian adolescents believe in the egyptian women capabilities. the results of the study revealed that the egyptian adolescents believed that woman can do whatever she wants even if she was facing obstacles and fights at first but then she will reach her goal. society can be changed from fighting to supporting women; as in the past, women didn’t go for work, but now there are plenty of working women, also in the past women couldn’t hold weights and now women can and achieving championships in it. despite that there’s still a belief that women endure less than men; when it comes to physical activity. egyptian adolescents also compared women’s tolerance to men’s and mainly agreed that men can’t endure the domestic work aside with their job, while women can do both at the same time. egyptian adolescents of the sample believed that women can be independent, particularly if she’s single, she has more freedom than if she’s having children. they also believed that society is limiting women from doing what men can do and that society is the women’s huge obstacle and a barrier to her achievements. the fifth research question aimed to know the egyptian adolescents’ opinion and view for the feminist or the independent woman. the study revealed that egyptian adolescents’ look towards the independent woman as a responsible one, who’s brave, confident and has leadership abilities. the way they look to the strong woman as a well-educated one, inspiring and a role model, which indicates that the egyptian adolescents admire the strong woman who takes her own decisions and depend on no one except herself. regarding decision making; the sample was divided into two groups: as some of them agreed that women can have their own decision without getting back to anyone, while the other group emphasized that women should get back to a man or a family member before taking any decision; which limit from the women freedom and independence. animated movies have a high and very powerful influence on young audiences all over the world (lacroix, 2004). animated movies are suitable to be used as learning material due to the existence of very exciting characters and songs which convey important messages to the audience. (azmi, et al., 2016). since that studies have proved that media of the present time reflects the gender role expectations found in the american culture (dill & thill, 2007; kahlenberg & hein, 2010; vecchiato et al., 2014), the egyptian adolescents might think of the feminist or the strong independent women as being defined and presented in the american produced animated movies; which the study claims to be combined with the gender schema theory. future research recommendations the current study results might show the near future of the egyptian society as the adolescents are the youth of tomorrow, who shape the societal gender norms and societal beliefs; therefore, future research www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 106 published by scholink inc. may be conducted to measure the perception of egyptian youth towards gender roles, and comparing it to the current study’s results to know whether the perception has changed throughout time or not. new animated movies with new ideologies have been announced by their creators and production companies to be released, which might hold beliefs that won’t be common in our societies as some studies mention that frozen might have double meaning while the hidden meaning would be sexual, therefore it’s important to study all the new releases and the animation movies remake, as the remake is also another perspective of the movies like adding more feminine thoughts in the movie that would affect the society too. recent researches stated after a linguistic and discourse-based analysis of the cartoon sitcoms that each of the analyzed shows contains a character whose sexuality is left purposefully and creatively mysterious or ambiguous. (like stewie in family guy and roger the alien in american dad!). this research studies the perception of the egyptian adolescents in the recent era; correlating with the evolution of the female lead animation movies, regarding gender roles, and proving that animated movies might have a huge influence in changing the gender role perception, so future research recommendations for studying the perception of adolescents after few years to measure the change of the adolescents’ perception towards gender roles concerning animation movies and other sorts of media content. 5. conclusion adolescents tend to imitate and adopt the ideas presented in the media they are exposed to, especially the media in which the adolescents and children are their main audience, like animation movies, as being proved by bem (1981a) in gender schema theory. the findings of the study revealed that egyptian adolescents still hold some stereotyped thoughts about women, on the other hand, they believed in egyptian women’s capabilities. egyptian woman had already reached a place where she can be successful and hold huge responsibilities, the only obstacle that would stop her is the society with its old and stereotyped traditions. the egyptian adolescents were aware of all the changes that happened in the heroines of the animation movies, they believed that the recent heroines are closer to reality than the old ones, referring that girls are being affected by these movies, which make it easier for boys to accept the idea of changing stereotypical role of women in the egyptian society. finally, the feminists and the independent women were seen as brave, strong, responsible and a good example, regardless of some negative opinions like; she’s single and hating men, but still a minority and by spreading more feminist animation movies this minority will disappear. these results were compatible with the women’s year in egypt when more women became ministers and hold more important positions in the egyptian government. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 107 published by scholink inc. references awad, j. a. 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(1982). the representation of egyptian women in the drama series and tv program (unpublished doctoral dissertation). cairo university, egypt. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper mapping communicative relations in the news ricardo uhry1* & kati caetano1 1 university tuiuti of parana, curitiba, brazil * ricardo uhry, university tuiuti of parana, curitiba, brazil received: march 22, 2023 accepted: march 30, 2023 online published: april 10, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n2p1 abstract the article proposes a conception that starts from interactive communication, presents a contextual view, considers the mediations and the semiotic regimes of interaction, formulating an overview of the communication process from which we arrive at the map of communicative relations. the methodological approach is essayistic and uses, as a source of evidence of the applications, documentations available on the web and bibliographical references. the results highlight the relationships that are established and that can be visually formalized and located on the map of communicative relations, and it is suggested that the empirically: agency lupa, the learning network, art dreams us and pantanal besieged may be related to education, information, experimentation, and art and contribute to the revitalization of the news discourse. it is possible to make use of different possibilities and locate them visually on the map, which can contribute to face the news challenges related to de journalist crisis. keywords communication theory, mapping, relations, communicative, news, map of communicative relations 1. introduction in the context of communicative relations, we can address news, which has faced the new technological times, which trigger changes, such as the crisis of journalism, which, in christofoletti’s (2019, pp. 79-91) review, involves challenges that have triggered a disruptive crisis, mainly due to: (i) free information on the web; (ii) arrival of new non-journalist competitors (youtuber, digital influencer and other amateurs) who post information on the internet more quickly; (iii) arrival of technological platforms that became middlemen and broke the domain of news distribution; (iv) “laxing of the quality” of information because there is no verification of “content, relevance and authenticity” and because there is a waiver of “responsibility for what becomes public”; (v) “deviation from the civil service and renunciation of the social role in the communities”. and there are other issues such as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. “democratic culture, professional codes, digital future”, which are related to the news crisis reconsidered by alexander, breese, and luengo (2016), and doctor’s (2010) twelve news-economic “trends that will shape the news”, among others. related to this question, in the present paper we propose a mapping of communicative relations in the news from four empirical media experiments, which will be done from a conception of the map of communicative relations proposed in a preliminary way seeks to pass a contextual view of communication relations, presenting the theoretical references that are based on the latin american cultural matrices and the sociosemiotic from which a map of communicative relations is proposed, which allows visualization under four perspectives of analysis: (i) social, the sociocultural trajectory in which the media have developed, focusing on what is communicated and why, and presents the issue of public space and a path of media. (ii) mercadological: the integration and strategic management of communication and how it is highlighted. (iii) communicators: the question becomes who mediates, the logics of production and social control. (iv) publics: the emphasis is on who (consumers, citizens, etc.) and involves questions of reception and appropriation of communication actions (uhry, 2020). the map of communicative relations can visually highlight problems associated with the crisis of journalism and for which alternative solutions can be proposed. however, the crisis also brings opportunities and imaginative possibilities that can allow for the reinvention of the news discourse, to which the map can contribute by allowing for the visual formalization of findings. such a visualization can make communicational problems clear and visually indicate possibilities in the face of issues involving the future of news communication. our hypotheses are that the map of communicative relations can contribute to face the news challenges related to de journalist crisis. 2. method the methodological approach to the problem of the journalistic crisis is qualitative with two stages: in one of which the relational map was formulated and the previous problems were identified; in the other, hybrid, with illustrative case studies, indicative research, analysis of the news discourse and visual formalization in the dimensions from the relational map, which is mainly inspired by martín-barbero (2003), verón (1997) and landowski (2014). it is used, as sources of the empirical evidence, documentation available on the web. the challenge of the research consists in developing analytical capacities to critically evaluate the context of communicative relations in which the traditional hegemonic journalistic discourse is developed, in seeking to understand how and why news problems were formed, in glimpsing some counter-hegemonic news practices. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. 3. possibilities for a theory the starting point is the transdisciplinary approach to interactive communication, proposed by uhry (2010), which can be useful to analyze specific communication actions. on reflection, one can say that it is the proposition of an explanatory model of communication built from different perspectives and areas of knowledge. it is something that incorporates “the different models already created” (meunier & peraya, 2008, p. 25), from different areas of knowledge. these authors define this kind of theoretical conception as unifying, for “defining a simple and universal model capable of explaining all empirical forms of communication, as well as their concrete manifestations”. however, they warn that “this approach tends to circumvent the relativity and complexity of scientific theories”. an alternative would be “to insist on their great diversity, explaining the causes”. the interest of this “is to link theoretical models to human activities, describing the practical, economic, political, scientific and ideological circumstances” that led to their “elaboration and determined their problematic horizon”, which brings a drawback of “letting the relative subsist letting appear only a diversity of particular questions and circumstantial answers” that we do not know if they are relevant. which suggests that “we cannot reject one approach in favor of the other, but rather consider them simultaneously” (meunier & peraya, 2008, p. 25). on the other hand, also the report of the “international commission for the study of communication problems”, chaired by sean macbride, records that communication is a social process that must be studied in relation to each angle, not in isolation, but in an extremely wide context, because it is aware that the interrelationships are very widespread (unesco, 1980, p. 16). thus, the transdisciplinary approach to interactive communication (uhry, 2010, pp. 57-62) seems to be a valid proposal for the analysis of a particular communication situation. however, because the communication phenomenon is “vast” and has many “interrelationships”, it requires one to also seek to examine it from different angles and even from a meta position, which suggests that it could be enriched by considering “simultaneously” another form of investigation and access. another theoretical option starts from verón (1997), who proposes a scheme that allows to identify and analyze “mediatization” from four zones of relations that are established between: (i) media and non-media institutions that are related to the political system, school system and scientific institutions; (ii) media and individual actors that are related to media consumption; (iii) institutions and individual actors that relate to internal media in organizations; (iv) non-media institutions and individual actors, which is exemplified with bribes given by the company to politicians. the idea of analyzing the media from relationships that are established is interesting, but it seems that the zones chosen would not be the most appropriate, as it restricts the analysis to media, non-media institutions of society, and individual actors. what about the other actors in society? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. it is also not enough to “isolate” a specific sector of communication, but rather to consider the “interdependencies” and relationships between disciplines, within a transdisciplinary approach that considers complexity, which also involves examining the “ideological character” from the connections between “symbolic forms” and their signification in a “specific context”. the challenge of the transdisciplinary approach lies in “discovering what connects” communication, marketing, and other disciplines, to each other, and trying to understand communication even more comprehensively, from a meta position, considering ideological aspects from the analysis of fields. the model of interactive communication can thus be complemented by an analysis in an expanded perspective, which encompasses other aspects, among which are communicative relations with society. among the possibilities, we can initially highlight martín-barbero’s map of mediations (2003, pp. 11-21), in which a reflection on the communicational hegemony of the market in society is proposed, in the sense that “we need to think about the strategic place that communication has come to occupy in the configuration of new models of society”, situating it so as to not only encompass technological aspects, but mainly issues related to culture and politics. the map of mediations proposed by martín-barbero (2003, pp. 11-21) has two axes: one horizontal, diachronic, historical of long duration, between cultural matrices and industrial formats; another vertical, synchronic, between logics of production and competences of reception (consumption). according to martín-barbero (2003, pp. 16-21), the relations between cultural matrices and logics of production are mediated by different regimes of institutionality, while the relations between cultural matrices and competences of reception (consumption) are mediated by different forms of sociality. between production logics and industrial formats, technicities mediate, and between industrial formats and reception competences (consumption), rituality’s mediate. for martín-barbero (2003, pp. 16-17), regarding cultural matrices and industrial formats: the relation refers to the history of changes in the articulation between social movements and public discourses. for example, the melodrama genre will become theater, then a chapter-length serial, from there it moves to radio theater and telenovela in latin america, and to cinema in the united states. in martín-barbero’s (2003, pp. 17-18) perspective, cultural matrices and reception competencies (consumption) are mediated by diverse forms of sociality: it reveals itself as a question of ends, of constitution of meaning. generated in the weave of everyday relations that bring men together, it results in the collective modes and uses of communication, the interpellation and constitution of actors and their hegemonic or counter-hegemonic relations with power. it involves, on the part of the spectators, reading skills. martín-barbero (2003, p. 18) states that cultural matrixes and logics of production are mediated by institutionality: it becomes a question of means, production of public discourses whose hegemony is on the side of private interests. mediation of opposing interests and powers that affect the regulation of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. discourses that, on the part of the state, seek to maintain the status quo and, on the part of citizens (majorities and minorities), involve the defense of rights and recognition. it involves, on the part of the producers, strategies of anticipation. for martín-barbero (2003, pp. 18-19), production logics and industrial formats mediate technicities: it involves (i) business structure in its economic dimensions, professional ideology, and production routines; (ii) communicative competence to build publics, audiences, and consumers; (iii) technological competitiveness. and, in martín-barbero’s (2003, pp. 18-19) conception, industrial formats and reception competences (consumption) are mediated by rituals: it refers to the symbolic nexus that sustains communication, its anchoring in memory, in rhythms and forms, its scenarios of interactivity and repetition. in relation to industrial formats, they constitute grammars of action: of looking, listening, reading, which implies, on the part of the media, a certain capacity to impose rules to the games between signification and situation. seen from the perspective of reception competencies, they refer to the different social uses of the media and the multiple paths of reading. thus, the scope of the analysis can be broadened by encompassing and localizing issues such as those mentioned. martín-barbero (2010, pp. xiii-xix) registers that technological changes give rise to a new configuration, which he calls “a new communicative ecosystem” that is exposed in a new map of mediations, which he calls “communicative and cultural mutations”, also with four axes: one horizontal, migrations flows; another vertical, temporalities spatiality. the mediations between temporality and flows are given by technicity; flows and spatiality are equally mediated by rituality; while between migrations and spatiality the mediations are given by cognitiveness; and migrations and temporalities are mediated by identity. for martín-barbero (2010), temporalities highlight the experience of time, the cult of the present and the confusion of times with the issue of current simultaneity; spatiality refers to the spaces related to proximity and belonging, the communicational space woven by digital networks; mobility is related to migrations and virtual navigations and new forms of sensitivity; flows are those of information, images and digital writings that destabilize the literate and school culture (martín-barbero, 2010, pp. vii-xx). 4. discussion lopes (2014, pp. 72-73) opines that this last writing by martín-barbero (2010) is “a remarkable effort in offering clues to elucidate” the relations between media and mediations, but his map of mediations (martín-barbero, 2003) is quite rich and comprehensive, to the point that lopes (2014, p. 71) pointed out that it makes it possible to “operationalize the analysis of any social phenomenon that relates communication, culture, and politics” by articulating “producers, media, messages, receivers, and culture”. martin-barbero’s initial conception is interesting, but theoretical without empirical indications. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. the last formulation, on the other hand, seems to focus on relevant themes such as “mobility and flows”, related to the present time, an option to be considered, alongside issues such as “temporality and spatiality”. there is also a theorization in macro sociosemiotic perspective, proposed landowski (2014), which consists of four regimes of interaction and respective logics: (i) accident (risk), founded in the logic of randomness, in mythical or mathematical probability, related to discontinuity and to “making it happen”. (ii) manipulation (strategy), founded in the logic of intentionality, in consensual or decisional motivation, related to non-discontinuity and to “making want”. (iii) programming (regularity), founded on the logic of causal or symbolic regularity, related to continuity and to “making things happen”. (iv) adjustment (sensitivity), founded on the logic of perceptual or reactive sensitivity, related to non-continuity and “making feel” (adapted from landwski, 2014, p. 80). the perspective of landowski’s model refers, for example, to adjustment as the best way in which one and the other can realize each other (accomplissement, in the original), creating a rewarding interactive relationship (landowski, 2014, pp. 52-54). 5. the map of communicative relations considering all the above, in our conception (uhry, 2020), communication in society can be considered a form of social performance, in which a person acts (or not) on behalf of an organization, which is carried out through forms (and use of vehicles) of communication, with the purpose of reaching an individual, or even a large and heterogeneous extension of the population. and, in a complementary way, commercial communication develops, besides mass strategies of action, personalized forms. thus, in summary, one can draw an overview of communication relations in society that can involve the following basic aspects and relate the actors and roles: (i) who takes on the role of communicator and... (a) acts on behalf of an organization: advertiser; public relations; audiovisual television or stage producer; journalist, radio and television professional; writer or editorial producer; marketing communication professional; digital communicator, multimedia producer; institutional or organizational communicator; or (b) does not belong to an organization: alternative communicator; interlocutor, which can be any of the audiences to whom in principle the communication is directed, forming a circle of communicative relations with society, by also covering “to whom”, and others. (ii) what is communicated: the content and one or more strategies or discursive forms of establishing communication relations or social action: advertising, public relations, radio and television news communication (soap operas, movies, news, reports, music), digital via web or print, editorial and journalistic communication (books, newspapers, magazines, brochures and other printed matter), direct marketing, relationship marketing, personal selling, sales promotion, digital communication (social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. networks, applications, platforms, etc.), institutional and/or organizational communication, etc. ), institutional and/or organizational communication (internal and external), alternative communication and others (dialogue, conversation, interlocution, etc.); others. (iii) why: the objective of the action and the intended social effect: positioning and image, awakened attention, personalized contact, loyalty, consumption, flexibility, speed and low cost, information, values, entertainment, influence, seduction, persuasion, enchantment, sale, digital participation, two-way communication (feedback) and others. (iv) how: mediated, conveyed or disseminated through marketing performance (technology): radio, television, cinema, vehicles for dissemination: newspaper, magazine, book, brochures, posters, manuals, service catalogs and point of sale, mail, digital: internet, e-mail, website, blog, relationship sites/communities, smartphone, tablet, computer, external media: outdoor, busdoor, billboards, customer service channels and perception of the receiver, conversation, telephone, cell phone, meetings, interaction, interlocution, and others. (v) to whom: the focus audience of the communication action, which can be: citizen, consumer or customer who assumes himself as spectator, listener, reader, internet user, interlocutor, prescriber; intermediaries (distributor, wholesaler, retailer) or interest groups (press, governments, ngos, associations, shareholders, students and others), and channel monitors who follow the perception of receivers, interlocutors and others who can also assume themselves as communicators; and others who integrate society, with which a circle is formed with “whom” to communicate with; and others. note that at the end of each of the following enumerations there are “others”, indicating a set open to other communicators, other forms of communication, other communicative objectives, other media, other publics, other conceptions of society, other values. for example, the group of communicators mentioned above is one of the most usual references, but it is well known that the practice of communication requires versatility, multiple competencies, and it is also desirable to have a more global, panoramic, and critical vision that allows us to face the challenges that the complexity of communicative relations with society present today. reflecting on the “communication in society”, we have the conception of the “structure and function of communication”, published in 1948: 1) who? communicators focuses on what lasswell (1975) called “control analysis” in the sense of controlling communicators as to the factors that initiate and guide the communicative act; 2) what? forms of social action have some correlation with what was called “content analysis”; 3) why? social purpose is related to what was called “effect analysis”, the impact on the audience; 4) how? marketing media can be associated to “media analysis”; 5) to whom? audiences can be associated with audience analysis (lasswell, 1975). the five areas are traditionally referred to in communication studies related to the “mass communication research” perspective of functionalist bias (“function and influence”). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. by the way, the panoramic view “communication in society” (uhry, 2020) seeks to go well beyond encompassing “structure and function” and expands to a cross-cutting relational conception of communication that goes beyond watertight areas of study. in relation to the theory of communicative relations, it is understood that, because it is a conception of complex perspective, such theorization cannot, in principle, be given as definitive. it is perceived that there are modifications in the way communicators are formed and in the way they end up acting in practice. there are migrations, contaminations of several orders such as advertising in journalistic productions, and vice-versa, which breaks the logic of exclusive professions, bringing the transversal, almost circular, concept of a polyvalent communicator. and even the consumer public can assume itself as a communicator and collaborate with organizations, which is called pro consumer. from all possible movements, arises the search for attention and participation of the public, focused on data that would be the new gold of today, the convergence of media, so many are the aspects that problematize any boundaries. thus, we will continue to critically reflect on their suitability for the explanatory purpose of this work and open to all possibilities in all aspects of the model. this suggests that it is possible to rearrange the elements involved in the process so that they are not separated in specific categorizations and delimited. this is what is intended to be outlined in this article, by launching a more comprehensive look at communication to highlight the relationships of both social actors and the social performance itself and the elements involved. to this end, considering martín-barbero’s map (2003, pp. 11-21) and mainly from our overview of communication in society, which indicates the actors, forms of action and relationships, the following proposes the map of communicative relations of the different territories of communication, with two relational axes: (i) integration in a mediated way: which allows relating the social aspect (what and why?) with the changes undergone towards the predominance of the mercadological (how?), this more from the perspective of communication managers, which involves integrated communication management and the adaptation of cultural and industrial formats to market conveniences. (ii) mediation in order to integrate: it relates social actors and analyzes the production logics of communicators (who?) and the reception competencies of publics (to whom?). the relational axes refer to the mediation systems being models of integration in the meeting of the axes “integration in order to mediate” and “mediation in order to integrate” and that, with the four perspectives, make up the map of communicative relations. so exactly in the central quadrant of the map of communicative relations, where the relational axes, which indicate the actions of integrating and mediating intersect, is where we locate the macro environmental forces “political-legal, economic (and technological), cultural” (wright, kroll, parnel, 2000, pp. 47-59), concepts of administration, to which we add the symbolic dimension, related to tacit knowledge (polany, 1997) and tékhné (art); and that has some similarity—and is complemented—with parsons’ social system (sociology), synthesized www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. and adapted from habermas (2003, pp. 334-442): political (norms, purposes), economic (resources), culture (values), and personality (symbolic); which we can further propose to relate to landowski’s (2014) logics and regimes of semiotic interaction: regularity (programming), intentionality (manipulation), randomness (accident), and sensibility (adjustment), as follows: political and legal (norms, purposes), which involves the subsystem of integration (norms) and achievement of ends (purposes) and can be related to the logic of regularity and the interaction regime of programming. economic, which encompasses the adaptation (technological means) and behavior (resources) subsystems and can be related to the randomness logic and the risk interaction regime. cultural, which encompasses the system of maintaining cultural patterns and structures (values) and can be related to the logic of intentionality and the interaction regime of manipulation. symbolic, which involves “a subsystem of personality”, life symbolically structured to achieve ends, perform roles, which is related to tacit knowledge (polanyi, 1997) and technique (art) and which can be related to the logic of sensibility and the interaction regime of adjustment. in such a way, seeking to locate the communicative relations, we dare to propose theorization from the perspectives of analysis synthesized in figure 1, in which the arrows indicate communicative relations in all directions (and suggest feedback) and compose the mapping of communicative relations that are established in communication in society, in the form of a map indicating the two relational axes (mediate and integrate) with counterflows in the opposite direction (counter hegemonic), the connections, interfaces, articulations and confrontations between social actors, sociological categories, macro-environmental forces, disciplines, specialties, ways of communicating, and other possible connections that suggest complexity. it is a complex thing that happens through the communicational transversality among dimensions, perspectives, logics, and social actors, suggesting that rigid boundaries are eliminated and there is continuous communicational communication and feedback in all directions. the relational model is not intended to be fixed, immutable, but, on the contrary, each perspective or sector or term may be communicating with others, as in a flow in which there is intermingling and, at times, perspectives may get confused. regarding transversality, the model indicates the flow integrating the social to the mercadological, but there may be a communicational counterflow, that is, a counter-hegemonic flow, in the opposite direction of the mercadological, to reaffirm socio-cultural values, instead of mercadological consumerism. also, from the publics there can be a counterflow against mediate in order to integrate, inverting the direction, with the public assuming itself as an alternative communicator and inverting the sense of integrating to assume a responsible citizen posture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. with this preliminary theorization, which is intended to be flexible, we will now examine communication in society from the following perspectives of analysis: figure 1. map of communicative relations source: uhry (2020, p. 93). (i) social: focus on what is acted in the social (strategy or form) and why, objective, or social effect to be communicated, in which, in its axis in the direction of the mercadological perspective (cultural types and products), is related to the adequacy of cultural formats to commercial conveniences, that is, the industrialization of culture for the purposes of consumption of the publics and the path of communication. and, from the social to the publics, it involves the cultural macro-environmental aspects and values, which are connected to maintaining cultural structures and patterns and is related to intentional logic and manipulative interactive relationships. and from social to communicators involves the political-legal aspects and the integrative subsystem, of norms and purpose, and is related to the logic of regularity and interactive programming relations. (ii) communicators: who produces the communication, the communicative competencies, the social control, the professional ideologies, and productive routines, and is related to the publics, which are citizens, consumers, and others. and, from communicators in its axis in the social sense, it considers political-legal macro-environmental forces and the norms (laws) and purposes that have a connection with integration and involves the logic of regularity and programming relations. from communicators to market involves the economic dimension and resources and can be related to the logic of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. randomness and interactive risk relations. (iii) publics: for whom? consumers and/or citizens and others and involves reception issues and, in the direction to the mercadological perspective, involves technological macro-environmental aspects, which are related to the function of obtaining ends and to the personality, symbolic, imaginary subsystem, and involves the logic of sensibility and the interactive relations of adjustment. and from the publics towards the social, it involves cultural aspects and values and can be related to the logic of intentionality and the interaction regime of manipulation. (iv) mercadological: as, which involves the strategic management of integrated communication, the economic macro-environmental forces and, towards the communicators axis, it is related to the economic forces, the resources and involves the logic of randomness and the interactive relations of risk. and the mercadological has connection with the perspective of the publics and the technologies of the imaginary and can be related to the logic of sensitivity and the interactive relations of adjustment. 6. mapping communicative relations in the news from the above, summarizing, the starting point of this conception was the transdisciplinary approach of interactive communication (uhry, 2010), the map of mediations (martín-barbero, 2003), the mediatization scheme (verón, 1997), the semiotic regimes of interaction (landowski’s, 2014) and the overview of communication in society from which we propose the map of communicative relations. this map permit to formalize visual, to analyze, locate and go through the different territories of communication, proposing to examine the social, mercadological, communicators and publics perspectives and other issues involved, in a critical way, conceptualization that continues to be improved. thinking of advancing with respect to this conception, we seek some empirical examples that can be considered possibilities of application. in such a way, if, on one hand, we can locate problematic issues on the map of communicative relations, and propose alternatives, on the other hand, seeking to go beyond the simple location of problems, there are experimental possibilities of application of theorization and that make it possible to establish correlation with education, information, experimentation and art, for example, and can contribute to a future construction for communication, by the formation of critical readers and by educational and artistic experimentation. the empirical examples of communicational possibilities related to educational, informative, experimental, and artistic actions are the following, indicating communicative relations: (i) the agency lupa (2021), which was awarded in the sigma awards 2021 and has a technological application called “at the epicenter”, which informs about what would happen if covid was located in its neighborhood, in number of dead or infected, which is available on the web and was inserted in several brazilian media, including in a north american one: “the washington post”, with the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. denomination “at the epicenter”. here the recognition of the “sigma” award was given for the use of technologies called “data journalism”, with informative purpose, which can be considered as a counter-hegemonic posture for being against the data exploitation that has been done by the giant platforms (big five). besides that, lupa acts as a counter informative communicational agency by teaching about how to avoid false news through the newsletter “lens—extending the fight against misinformation”, sent by e-mail, which also characterizes informative communicational relationship that contributes to the formation of conscious and critical citizens. analyzing the project “at the epicenter”, we can see that it is a news practice aimed at clarifying facts related to misinformation about the covid-19 pandemic coming mainly from the presidency of the brazilian government, which provides a public service of great relevance, which is why it deserved two more news awards icfj knight awards 2021 and wan-ifra digital media world 2021. as for the possible complex relationships that are established, the individuals who make up the collective of social actors “communicators” of lupa agency may establish an educational relationship with the individuals who make up the collective of social actors “public” by spreading through the web services and applications that are available in the “social” and also in the consumer market “mercadological” of certain societies (brazilian and united states of america). the individuals that make up the collective of “communicators” social actors have legal support, fruit of the social relationship that they maintain with the governments and that authorize them to unleash a mediated relationship of communication aiming to reach the individuals who make up the collective of social actors “public” to spread new values (informative, clarifying and educational), trying to persuade them, under the “social” perspective, so that we become aware of the precautions in the pandemic, and be careful with the false news, seeking that individuals who make up the collective of social actors “social”, even integrating the “mercadological”, are aware of possible manipulations and the need for responsibilities, as to health practices, characterizing the “regime of interaction manipulation”, based on regularity, in “making people want” (landowski, 2014, p. 80). (ii) the learning network of the new york times (2021) created mentor texts, with the goal of teaching the writing that is practiced in the times, demystifying for students the creative techniques that journalists used to delight, offering exercises to encourage students to try these same techniques in their own productions, which involves, for example, learning how to reflect on a personal experience, how to paraphrase an investigation, how to explain the importance of a theme, and how to include sensitive details when creating an argument. there is evidence of educational action and, at the same time, the practice of experimentation, which involves the times’ social responsibility. analyzing “the learning network” project, we can see that it is an educational practice focused on the production of news texts, which we suggest can be related to the development of writing skills, a practice that constitutes a relevant public service. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. as for the possible complex relationships that are established, the individuals who make up the collective of social actors “communicators” of the times maintain a commercial relationship with individuals who make up the collective of social actors “public”, specifically young reader consumers, and advertise “the learning network” services, made available to the young consumer market of the times in a particular society (united states of america), since the “communicators” have legal support, as a result of the social relationship they have with governments and that authorize them to trigger a mediated communication relationship aiming to reach the “public” to disseminate writing lessons under mentoring, trying to persuade them to participate in the experience situated in the “social” perspective, so that we may experience and develop writing skills, which, in essence, involves a commercial purpose proposed by the individuals that make up the collective of social actors of the “marketing” of the times, and which, in essence, is an implicit form of commercial relationship, so that young readers come to integrate (commercial relationship) with the readers of the newspaper, and the young individuals who make up the collective of social actors “social” can integrate into the collective of social actors of the “mercadological” as consumers of the times, which can be related to the “regime of interaction adjustment” because it is based on sensitivity, on “making feel” (landowski, 2014, p. 80). (iii) “art dreams us” consists of a website and a book by carlos netto (2021), in which is proposed the “music as revelation and inspiration of the being” and can be considered a relationship between large format journalism and art, artistic communication, by having an intentional educational function of formation of listeners and readers, from the hearing of classical music and reading texts made available both on the website and in printed book, in addition to the indication on the website of concerts and the possibility of interaction with readers and listeners. here there is something of the spirituality value, related to art, that can underlie the communication relations, besides being able to be related to the “regime of interaction manipulation“ based on intentionality, on “making it happen” (landowski, 2014, p. 8). analyzing the “art dreams us” project, we can see that it is an educational practice and the development of artistic perceptions focused on the development of artistic values, which we suggest can be related to the development of artistic competence, a practice that constitutes a relevant public service. as for the possible complex relationships that are established in this empirical example, the individual carlos netto who makes up the collective of social actors “social” can establish a commercial relationship with individuals who make up the collective of social actors “communicators” and request the publication of a book and the creation of a website, which are intentionally made available to the consumer market of a particular (brazilian) society. the “communicators” have legal support, the fruit of the social relationship that they maintain with the government, and that authorizes them to unleash a mediated relation of communication aiming to reach the individuals that compose the collective of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. social actors “public” to divulge “art dreams us” in print and on the web, from the initial request to the “mercadological”, trying to persuade the individuals that compose the collective of social actors “public” situated in the “social” perspective so that we may participate in a commercial relation with the “mercadological” and that we relate artistically and intellectually. that happens in a mediated way in the consumer market, becoming the “citizens” integrated to the “mercadological” via web or through the acquisition of the book. (iv) “pantanal besieged” by shallow water labyrinth, from the newspaper folha de s. paulo, is a photographic report (maisonnave & almeida, 2021) about the “agony of the taquari river [that] transforms the pantanal into a labyrinth of shallow waters”, which combines texts by fabiano maisonnave with color photos by lalo de almeida, which give an artistic tone to the story, besides infographics that have an educational function and are based on several scientific sources. it is a chapter of a folha series focusing on the environment, related to the value ecology, which has an educational and awareness-raising function, for the formation of readers and clarification about ecology. by analyzing the “pantanal besieged” project we can see that it is an educational practice and the development of perceptions about the environment, which we suggest can be related to the development of ecological competence, a practice that constitutes a relevant public service. as for the possible complex relationships that are established, the individuals who make up the collective of social actors “communicators” of folha maintain a commercial relationship with individuals who make up the collective of social actors “public”, and disseminate the series with an ecological environmentalist bias, made available to the consumer market in a given society (brazilian), since the “communicators” have legal support, the result of the social relationship they have with the governments and that authorize them to trigger a mediated relationship of communication aiming at reaching the “public” to disclose the “mathematical probability” of an ecological accident due to the neglect of the pantanal wetlands, trying to persuade them to become aware of the situation, from the “social” perspective, so that we can “make happen” actions of attention to nature. which, in essence, involves commercial purpose, proposed by the individuals that make up the collective of social actors of the “mercadological” of folha’s. which, in essence, is an implicit form of commercial relationship, so that readers aware or conscious of the possible environmental accident come to integrate (commercial relationship) to the newspaper’s readers, and the individuals that make up the “social” social actor collective may integrate to the “mercadological” social actor collective as folha’s consumers, which can be related to the “risk interaction regime” (landowski, 2014, p. 8) based on randomness, which has ecology as a value and is related to the possible discontinuity of nature preservation actions, a typical issue of brazilian society. thus, in a synthetic way, figure 2 presents some relations that can be located the map of communicative relations: (i) at the epicenter (agency lupa) with informative standards; (ii) the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. learning network (the new york times) with experimental technologies; (iii) art dreams us with artistic values; (iv) pantanal besieged (folha de s. paulo) with educational resources, which will be further explained below. from the exposed, synthetically the empirical examples allow relation between: (i) communication and information, in the case of at the epicenter (agency lupa), with humanist values, with use of informative standards; (ii) communication and experimentation, in the case of the learning network, of the new york times, with spiritualist values with use of experimental technologies; (iii) communication and art, in the case of art drems us (carlos netto), with spiritualist values, with use of artistic-cultural values; (iv) communication and education, in the case of pantanal besieged (folha de s. paulo), with ecological values, using educational resources. figure 2. map of the communicative relations in news source: the authors (2023). all the empirical cases can be considered experimental possibilities of communicative relations, which were presented in the context of the media, and which suggest possibilities of going beyond enumerating communication problems and proposing solutions. thus, it was possible to visually apply the map of communicative relations and suggest complex relations between journalism and education, information, experimentation, and art, which can be considered possibilities to go beyond, constituting alternatives for the construction of the communication and news of the future. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. 7. final considerations finally, at the same time that there is a crisis in communication and the news, it is clear that there are opportunities for reinvention: to innovate journalistically in the digital medium so that the web becomes a public space that allows citizen communication; to contribute to improving the experience of both communicators and the enjoyment of interlocutors, among other journalistic experiences referred to, such as those involving education, information, experimentation, and the arts. from what is suggested that the visual mapping of communication relations can allow visualizing different possibilities of communicational actions with different ways to face the challenges in the construction of the news and the communication of the future. in a contextual perspective, we proposes a preliminary map of communicative relations in the form of axes to envision communicative relationships: mediation that goes from communicators to audiences and integration of the social to the market, which involve aspects and dimensions indicate problems such as: norms and purposes (political-legal) which are related to the problem of misinformation; resources (economic) that can be associated with sensationalism; values (cultural) related to consumerism; and imaginary (symbolic) associated to negativism, for example. the results highlight the communicational relationships that are established and that can be visually formalized and located on the map of communicative relationships, and it is suggested that the empirically: agency lupa, the learning network, art dreams us and pantanal besieged may be related to education, information, experimentation, and art and contribute to the revitalization of the news discourse. it is possible to make use of different possibilities and locate them visually on the map of communicative relations, which can contribute to face the news challenges related to de journalist crisis. acknowledgement the ph.d. candidate ricardo uhry has a scholarship from coordenação de aperfeiçoamento de pessoal de nìvel superior (capes) and is supervised by professor ph.d. kati caetano, whom he thanks. both authors are grateful for the comments of professors of the work group (gt in portuguese) theories of communication of the 45th brazilian congress of communication sciences in joão pessoa (brazil) in that was presented this research orally for the first time in 2022. references agência lupa. (2022). at the epicenter. retrieved from https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/lupa/epicentro/ alexander, j. f., breese, e. b., & luengo, m. (2016). the crisis of journalism reconsidered. cambridge university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. christofoletti, r. (2019). a crise do jornalismo tem solução? (pp. 79-91). barueri: estação das letras e cores. doctor, k. (2010). newsonomics: twelve new trends that will shape the news you get. st. martin’s press. habermas, j. (2003). teoría de la acción comunicativa. vol. ii: crítica de la razón funcionalista. madrid: taurus. landowski, e. (2014). interações arriscadas. são paulo: estação das letras e cores, centro de pesquisas sociossemióticas. lasswell, h. d. (1975). a estrutura e função da comunicação na sociedade. in cohn, g. comunicação e indústria cultural. são paulo: nacional (pp. 105-117). lopes, m. i. v. 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(2000). administração estratégica: conceitos. são paulo: atlas. figure 2. map of the communicative relations in news communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper change your diet, cure your illness: the content and consequences of chronic illness food blogs gabrielle g. gonzales1* 1 university of california santa barbara, santa barbara, united states * gabrielle g. gonzales, university of california santa barbara, santa barbara, united states received: august 4, 2020 accepted: august 20, 2020 online published: september 13, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n4p1 abstract this year, the world health organization expects chronic disease to account for 75 percent of all deaths worldwide. the internet is an increasingly popular source of health information for those suffering from chronic illness. online blogs, numbered at 152 million have become one of the most popular forms of web content. specifically, healthy food blogs have emerged, enabling experts and non-experts alike to dispense health and diet information to large numbers of people. however, blogging in the social sciences remains an understudied phenomenon. this project studies the messaging of 65 popular chronic illness healthy food blogs and the potential consequences of the messages including the role of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. i find that two narratives persist on the blogs—the failure of western medicine to heal illness and the benefits of altering diet. these narratives result in empowerment through individual agency and community building for the bloggers. the messages on the blogs are also endangering in their individualization of health, side-stepping structural explanations for health. this research demonstrates chronic illness food blogs as sites for examining the dual effect of self-empowerment through health knowledge and the impact of surveillance and policing of their own and others’ bodies. keywords healthism, illness, food, social media, agency, gender 1. introduction as chronic illness is on the rise worldwide, experts and non-experts alike have stepped in to solve the health issues of millions. besides medical doctors as a source for health information, the internet is now one of the most popular ways that people find information about health issues. in fact, 8 in 10 americans turn to the internet for health information (pew, 2011). a unique site to examine the dissemination of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. health information on the internet is through the healthy food blogs of women suffering from chronic illnesses. women healthy food bloggers and the experiences they record in their online blogs illustrate the struggle to become well, as a woman, in today’s society and are writing en masse on the internet about how to cure, heal, and manage illness and health through food and diet. they are influential through the sphere of social media, especially instagram. instagram accounts connected to healthy food blogs have upwards of one million followers. many of these bloggers go on to publish cookbooks and make a name for themselves in the world of food and health (technorati, 2014). food blogs are unique in their ability to allow individuals to be cited as experts and are relatively free of gatekeeping (meyers, 2012; ritzer& jurgenson, 2010). despite their enormous popularity, there has been little research done on food blogs across disciplines (rodney et al., 2017; dejmanee, 2015). with the rise in popularity of social media outlets like instagram, facebook, snapchat, and twitter these blogs have gained immense popularity as sources of information on health, wellness, and diet. food blogs and concurrent messages about health and food are significant because of their sociological and broader significance. they are a publicly popular yet academically understudied phenomena. they are potentially influential as they attract hundreds of thousands of followers who buy the bloggers’ cookbooks, like their posts and comment on their instagram pages (johnston et al., 2013; trivedi-grenier, 2008). an exploration of health and wellness food blogs is a rich site to explore attitudes about health and diet in relation to food and morality. the research question addressed in this paper is: what cultural and moral frames about health and food emerge in chronic illness healthy food blogs? for this article, i examine frames from chronic illness focused healthy food blogs two narratives persist on the blogs—the failure of western medicine to heal the women and the benefits of altering diet and lifestyle. these narratives result in empowerment through individual agency and community building for the bloggers. simultaneously, the messages on the blogs are endangering in the tendency individualize health, drawing upon healthism and side-stepping structural explanations for health. this research demonstrates chronic illness food blogs as sites for examining the dual effect of self-empowerment through health knowledge and the impact of surveillance and policing of their own and others’ bodies, especially bodies that are viewed as unacceptable in today’s society. chronic illness and western medicine chronic illness is a major leading cause of death. chronic illness or disease (note 1) includes diabetes, obesity, cancer, high blood pressure or any other condition that “lasts a year or more and require ongoing medical attention and/or limit activities of daily living” (warshaw, 2006). the world health organization estimates that three quarters of all deaths will be the result of chronic disease in 2020 (who). the health industry, fitness industry, health and food corporations, pharmaceutical companies, western medicine, and the government are attempting to address these perceived problems and all make up the “domain” (figert, 1995) of chronic illness. western medical doctors are often those who patients www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. suffering from chronic illness come face to face with as a first line of defense in combatting their illness. however, many chronic conditions cannot be solved by traditional western medical approaches and/or little research has yet been performed on the many chronic illnesses that exist. an alternative approach taking hold is the belief by many that food and diet are a large part of the solution to a variety of chronic illnesses. this is especially true in the lives of food bloggers, when conventional western medicine may fail to address and cure these illnesses. healthy food bloggers suffering from illnesses and broader health concerns are writing en masse on the internet about how to cure, heal, and manage illness and health through food and diet, reflecting a larger population also suffering from similar conditions. these food bloggers are also lay experts (epstein 1995) whose personal, individual knowledge related to their own health journeys supersedes western medical advice. cairns and johnston (2015), in their research on gendered messages about food and body, claim that expert knowledge is essential to healthy eating discourses in the united states. while i agree, i also bring light to how non-expert, or lay knowledge is also essential to healthy eating discourse. therefore, this project contributes knowledge on how lay people become experts in specialized fields outside of traditional expert knowledge. healthism and medicalization the current political and economic context of neoliberalism has fostered an individualized approach to health labeled “healthism” (crawford, 1980). healthism focuses on individual responsibility and moral imperatives, labeling certain foods as good and bad and ultimately certain bodies as good (thin, white) and bad (fat, of color). the underlying belief of healthism is that good health will lead to happiness (contois, 2015; bacon, 2015). in many ways, healthism parallels religion in the belief that following a certain set of rules or mandates will lead to salvation/happiness. cairns and johnston look at what they call the “do-diet”, a modern, gendered formation of healthy eating. they assert that the do-diet allows women to feel empowered in choosing to eat healthy in today’s neoliberal world. women face the challenge of expressing agency through consumer choice while also constraining themselves through disciplining the body through diet. both cairn’s and johnston’s sample and my own demonstrate alignment with the individualization of health, risk avoidance, and health as a moral duty (healthism). my sample is unique in that the chronic illness healthy food bloggers are a population who have not successfully avoided risk and are plagued by health problems as opposed to existing in a state of peak health. my research helps answer the broader sociological question of how individuals with chronic illness negotiate their identities in a context of healthism and more broadly, how any individual contends with the mandates of healthy eating in today’s neoliberal context. food blogs, gender, and self help in the united states, self-help literature has been popular for decades among the masses, traditionally written by experts in the field and aimed to solve people’s problems on an individual level. today, blogs www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. have become a new avenue of self-help information written by everyday people. the purpose of self-help books is to provide people with individual solutions to their problems. self-help literature throughout history reflects larger societal and cultural understandings of the time related to the concepts of self and self-identity (mcgee, 2005; merce mur effing, 2009). for example, mcgee (2005) discusses the need for people today to maintain marriageability and employability in today’s social and political environment of insecurity and the resulting self-help literature that surfaced to advise people in securing employment and marriage (12). the themes of self-help literature related to healthy food blogs include the focus on individual transformation and the creation of the self. blogs are contemporary representations of individual perspectives situated within a broader context and therefore provide valuable information about how lived experiences, however self-censored, are reflected within health discourse. these social media platforms serve as interactive public diaries. as j. rak, an academic in the field of english and film studies, writes that, “blogging [...] is about the act of writing one’s self into existence for others to read and comment upon” (rak, 2005, p. 176). because of this, blogs are the perfect site to examine how individuals are discussing their “selves” in connection to food and health and a public conversation around these posts. the existing previous research on food blogs in the social sciences looks at their gendered content (mcgaughey, 2010; noren, 2011). women dominate the blogosphere as both producers of food blogs and consumers (cairns & johnston, 2015; matchar, 2013; parsons, 2015). for this reason, scholars have approached food blogs from gendered and feminist perspectives (rodney, cappeliz, oleschuk, & johnston, 2017) academics have also researched how blogs are representative of disordered eating behaviors (boepple & thompson, 2014; lynch, 2010). my research extends the analysis of self-help into the internet and more specifically, blogosphere, demonstrating how self-help alters and adapts to changes in technology. 2. method this paper examines the messages and framing of popular) chronic illness healthy food blogs (n=63)—defined by the presence of an illness, disease, or health condition negatively affecting the life of the blogger. data for this project are collected from two main sources—personal health and wellness food blogs and personal instagram accounts linked to these blogs. in order to determine which blogs qualified for consideration, a google search of “healthy food blogs” was conducted as a way of purposive homogenous sampling for those who identify as healthy food bloggers (kemper, stringfield, teddlie, 2003). this approach was used by lynch (2010), a public health scholar who researched perceptions of food and exercise in a community of food bloggers. i used this approach to assemble a list of 200 healthy food blogs. first i performed a google search of “healthy food blogs”. i clicked on every link that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. appeared. usually, the results of the search yielded links to sites of lists of healthy food blogs that had been created by an outside source. i recorded the name of each of the blogs that showed up on each of the links. i did this until i reached a sample of 200+ blogs. next, i went to each blog site’s “about” page. with the exception of one or two blogs, all blogs have “about” or “faq” pages. in order to be included in this research project, the blog author needed to mention any of these key words: “healthy”, “wholesome”, “whole foods”, “wellness”, “clean eating”, “food as medicine” and/or make a connection between food and health. these words denote, from the blogger’s perspective, a particular perspective and explicitly state the importance of the connection between food and health. if the blog’s “about” page connected food and health the next step was to go to their instagram profiles. once i reached 200 blogs i went through each blog to collect data on these variables: gender of blogger, age range of blogger, nationality, race/ethnicity, geographic location, start date of blog, level of expertise in food and health (if any), type of diet or food preference, description of health journey (if any). for about ¼ of the blogs, this was relatively easy information to find and figure out. the gender was easy to identify through traditional gender markers such as dress, makeup, and identification as a mom. i determined the relative age range of the blogger through their reference to their age as a “20-something” or “30-something”. if they did not explicitly mention age, i used pictures that they provided of themselves on the blog and the ages of their children (if mentioned) to estimate many of the women bloggers to be in their 30s. statistically, data has also shown (meyers, 2012) that most bloggers are women in their 30s. i determined geographic location usually by the explicit mention of where the blogger lived in their about page. if they did not provide this information, i went to their instagram page. some bloggers’ instagram profile pages provide location information. if this information was absent i scrolled through the profile’s instagram feed to look for any location tags. location tags are available when posting on instagram to identify your location. in terms of nationality, i used geographic location to clue me in to their nationality. i assumed the blogger was american if they lived in the united states, appeared white (the presence of light skin color), and did not mention being of another nationality, race, or ethnicity. for those bloggers who were not american, most of them discussed this in their “about” pages. they might say “i’m a melbourne based food blogger, born and raised here” or “i’m one of the uk’s top food bloggers”, for example. i assumed the blogger was white if they had light/pale white skin unless they mentioned being mixed race or an ethnic last name. one white appearing woman mentioned that she kept her maiden name “garcia” when she married because she was proud of her latino heritage on her father’s side. i then categorized her as white/mixed ethnicity. if the blogger had dark skin and was american and lived in the united states and did not mention their race/ethnicity i categorized them as black/african american in terms of race and ethnicity. bloggers with indian background, middle east background, or asian background usually identified themselves as such. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. i recorded level of expertise if the blogger mentioned having education or expertise in the area of food, medicine, or nutrition. i assumed they had no expertise if they did not mention. to determine the start dates of the blogs i used a variety of techniques if it was not made immediately visible in the about section through the blogger saying something like “i’ve been blogging since 2010”. because the layouts of blogs are all different i could only employ some techniques successfully on some blogs. on a simple blog layout, i was able to scroll to the bottom of the page where there was located a horizontal bar of numbers with arrows on either side. i was able to go the last page of posts and click on the very first post. the date was usually recorded at the top of the post and i was able to determine the date of the first blog post. chosen blogs posts and instagram posts (including image, caption, and comments) were coded using a grounded theory approach that combines deductive and inductive methods also known as abduction. the starting place for developing codes come from the initial research questions—informed by previous research and literature on this topic (strauss & corbin, 1990). the data are analyzed in relation to the research questions but theory is constructed from the data itself. the blogs posts and instagram posts were uploaded into a data analysis software called maxqda. through close reading of these posts, initial open coding took place, a process that allows for the description and categorization of portions of the blogs and instagram posts based on their content. this entails identifying common words and themes and attaching a code to them and then writing initial memos about the data. then another round of selective or “focused” coding occurred, which continued to identify important themes while eliminating others that no longer seem relevant. a codebook of relevant codes was created listing the codes and specific descriptions of the codes including examples and criteria for inclusion. then focused coding took place, helping to refine the conceptual categories through the writing of advanced memos, turning codes into themes and concepts (charmaz, 2006). when data saturation was reached, or no new data emerged the themes solidified and i wrote further memos about the data leading to potential answers to the research questions and further hypotheses (bengtson, endacott, kang, gonzales, & silverstein, 2017; kang et al., 2019). 3. result almost every chronic illness healthy food blogger engages with two narratives related to their healthy journey: the benefits of altering diet and lifestyle and the failure of traditional medicine to address their health concerns. in this section i document how these women food bloggers discuss these two narratives. i highlight the idea put forth by the bloggers that eating “real food” rather than engaging in modern medicine, is the path to a happier and healthier life, as well as the critical role of individual agency. in fact, it is the failure of western medicine that is the catalyst for the women to take their health into their own hands, utilizing their agency as individuals in a neoliberal world. my research positions these (mostly) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. white women food bloggers as subjects who both reinforce harmful individualizing ideology related to healthism while at the same time resist the imperatives of healthism and medicalization. they are complex subjects who exist at the intersection of race and class privilege while experiencing conflict with medical experts and the medical industry at large. the failure of western medicine a major theme from the blogs is the failure of traditional western medicine to address the women’s health issues. from diagnosis to treatment, western medicine seems to fail these women at every step. bloggers point to this failure as the reason for why they took their health into their own hands or took “control of their health” as many bloggers say. bloggers experience misdiagnosis, a lack of resolution for their health problems, and feel they are overprescribed pharmaceuticals, none of which get to the root cause of their chronic illness. in terms of misdiagnosis and lack of resolution for their illness, bloggers say: “doctors were useless at figuring out what was wrong. spending almost 7 years going from specialist to specialist with no resolution. not once was the diet or food allergies discussed.” “after multiple tests and visits to doctors i was still left with no concrete solutions or remedies for my restless nights of agonizing pain.” “i went to numerous doctors, who just didn’t have a clue what was going on with me. i became agitated and stopped seeking medical help because quite frankly i was frustrated!” these bloggers demonstrate the time spent, the multiple doctors consulted, with no real results or relief from chronic ailments. they mention that diet was never mentioned and that as a result of the lack of resolution, they became frustrated and remained in pain. earthy andy paints a vivid picture of her ailments and what it was like to live and suffer on a daily basis, thousands of dollars have been spent on specialists and doctors, medications, and yet never have i achieved much of anything other than a short fix. the cycle of my problems always came back or did not leave at all. this included a long list of chronic stomach pains and digestive issues, celiac disease, fatigue, asthma, allergies, brain fog, leaky gut syndrome, ibs, mood swings, irregular menstrual cycles, candida overgrowth, hypothyroidism, and skin problems. bloggers mention their doctors prescribing them medications and the bloggers’ refusal to treat their illnesses with these pharmaceuticals. for example, “after diagnosis, i saw conventional and unconventional doctors for years, each of them throwing prescription medications and bio-identical hormones at me, but i knew that wasn't the path i wanted to follow.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. from another food blogger, “after two years of struggle my neurologist suggested adding yet another daily medication to my prescription regimen—a treatment plan that wasn’t working anyway. i kindly rejected her suggestion and drove home thinking, “there must be another way.” pharmaceuticals often failed to get to the root cause of the health problems or address the health problems in a useful way. one of the most popular bloggers in my data (deliciously ella at 1.4 million instagram followers) says,” i was prescribed a cocktail of medication, but unfortunately they had limited success in managing the condition and after about a year i hit rock bottom, both physically and mentally. at this point, i started looking into other ways of managing the condition and began researching diet and lifestyle.” as is evident in deliciously ella’s quote, the role of individual agency is critical in healing and finding solutions outside of western medicine. she points out that she began to educate herself on diet and lifestyle. many bloggers have the same realization. there is a procession of events that occurs in most of the bloggers’ health journeys. first is the failure of western medicine and pharmaceuticals, then is the realization that something outside of the advice of western medicine must be done in order to heal. this translates into women educating themselves and taking their health into their own hands. “in this discovery and quest for natural healing, i realized that if i wanted to heal, i would need to be the key player in my wellness. even doctors with the best intentions could not care for me on a molecular level, only i could do that.” the method of taking health into their own hands, or this “other way”/alternate solution is changing their diet and realizing the power of whole foods and a healthier diet, “at the age of 12, i was taking 96 pills a week. not so much your ideal childhood. unfortunately, back then i had no idea that the food i was consuming was literally killing me. my doctors never mentioned diet to me, so it wasn’t important, right? i was passed around from doctor to doctor, and unfortunately the most they could offer me were antibiotics, which basically worked like a short-term band-aid.” once again, the solution is in eating differently. as this blogger writes, “after traditional medicine failed to get to the root cause and help me with migraines, autoimmune disease and more health challenges, i turned to whole foods, mindfulness, gratitude practice, natural remedies, self-care, acupuncture and chinese medicine for healing and overall wellness.” earthy andy drives this point home in one of the last sentences on her about page as does danielle walker of against all grain, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. the best thing i ever did for myself was to take the advice, that i should take my health into my own hands and “become an expert on you”. after a few years of suffering, multiple hospitalizations, and doctors telling me that what i ate wasn't a factor in my disease, i decided to take matters into my own hands and drastically change my diet. the failure of western medicine forced these women to find alternate solutions to their health problems. the following section continues with the themes of individual agency and benefits of changing diet and lifestyle as solutions to the failure of western medicine. the benefits of healthy eating after modern westernized medicine fails to address the women’s health problems, the women take their healthy into their own hands. they do this through educating themselves on alternate forms of healthcare and alter their diet and lifestyle leading to relief from chronic illness. it is evident from the blogs that these changes result in empowerment, health, and happiness for the bloggers, freeing them from lives previously spent ill. bloggers note a critical point in their journey where they realize that changing their diet will change their lives. for example, one food blogger writes in her “about” section: instead of feeling better after my diagnosis, i continued to suffer many months of deteriorating health until i made the transition to the autoimmune protocol, slowly reversing vitamin and mineral deficiencies and greatly improving my health. she makes it clear that it wasn’t until she changed her diet and lifestyle through the “autoimmune protocol” that she started to feel better. another woman points to real food as a way that her and her family began to heal, “through good, natural, real food my family has overcome hashimoto’s disease, chronic migraines, ibs, severe asthma and eczema.” another blogger says: “in the midst of dealing with a ton of health conditions, i realized i could help heal myself by eating real food, instead of the processed junk that makes people sick.” and: “basically, i detoxed my life, one simple step at a time, and the change was profound. it literally changed my entire life. yes, you read that right. toxins were the trigger to it all, and living a life less toxic is what i needed to do to truly heal.” (bold type from blogger) pervasive throughout my body of data is the role of the individual blogger as agent with the power to change their diet. the use of “i” statements throughout the blogs is striking. this agency to eat “real food” or less toxic food is the key in healing, connecting the ability of the individual person to change their diet. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. bloggers point out that not only are they healed but they are happier and overall healthier as a result of changing their diet. an example of this from a blogger states, “i can happily report that since i changed my diet i have been free of all stomach pain. my knees & shoulders feel great, and are no longer inflamed. i now can be in the water surfing for hours without any pain. i was able to free my body from all the inflammation and today i am healthier and happier than ever before.” another writes, “i began by cutting out the foods that i believed were causing me discomfort–> gluten, meat, dairy products, processed sugar and processed foods. i started incorporating more fibre from fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and gluten free whole grains. by making these changes to my diet and adjusting my lifestyle i noticed myself feeling more energised, happy and healthy.” and, “i know, i know in my bones that real food is the key to health, and a healthy, thriving life is the key to happiness.” not only will real food heal but it will make you a happier, healthier person. the link between health and happiness is made over and over again throughout the blogs. the connection between health and happiness is striking and is reminiscent of religion and the promise of salvation. the relationship between health and happiness is also well documented in research on advertising, demonstrating that in order to sell products to consumers, corporations inspire buying through appeals to happiness. similarly, these women food bloggers are “selling” their approaches to diet through happiness. the two narratives presented above: the failure of western medicine and the benefits of changing diet and lifestyle illustrate a tension between what i term empowerment and endangerment. a focus on individual behavior and responsibility is a source of empowerment for the bloggers who find freedom in making their own decisions and choices about their health. empowerment is also found in creating community and helping others in similar situations. at the same time, an individualized approach to health (as opposed to a structural approach) reinforces ideas that are harmful to disadvantaged populations without the privilege or access to take control of their health in the same way (for example, access to certain foods and grocery stores). consequences of these narratives include the endangerment of the audience and the broader population. the individualizing of social problems ignores structural and institutional mechanisms for health issues and inequalities and potentially misinforms audiences on health issues. empowerment the women bloggers frame individual agency through a lens of empowerment. they push back on modern medicine and resist medicalization by western doctors, asserting alternative routes to health. they take on the task of fixing their health problems themselves in order to help others in a similar www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. situation, fostering community around their illnesses, providing accessible information, and empowering others in similar situation. this is often made clear in the mission statements of the blogs. for example, “here at the castaway kitchen, our mission is to spread the word that food does heal. that you can embrace the dietary and lifestyle changes that will change your life.” there is an effort made to relate to those out there in the world suffering from similar symptoms and illnesses. in this way, not only are the bloggers empowering themselves, they are attempting to help others create community among those with similar issues. deliciously organic writes, “chronic disease and health issues can leave you feeling helpless. with all of the conflicting advice about food and health, you need solid advice. you need someone who understands. my goal here at deliciously organic is to give you sound advice, vibrant recipes that your whole family will love and help you walk down the path towards better health another woman says, “i am now living my best life through food freedom and i am so excited to encourage and support others who may be fighting the same battles. a few years ago, if you were to tell me that i’d one day be free from my mystery food allergies, energy deficits, and thyroid problems, i would have thought you were crazy. but i’m here to tell you, that there is hope! there is hope that you can turn your health struggles into a health success story.” the message and goal to help others who are suffering is clear in deliciously ella’s about page. she says, we knew we wanted to bring what we were doing to a wider audience though, as we wanted make delicious plant-based food even more accessible. so shortly after opening the deli, we set about starting the larger, and most effective way of reaching the most people possible, which was to launch our food products business. we’re only getting started on our journey, but our core purpose has remained the same from when i wrote my first recipe, which is to share the joys and benefits of plant based living. it gave me my life and health back, and between us we can help millions of others too. nutrition stripped also discusses accessibility, we believe people should have access to the education they need to support their health in order to make small changes at a time—an ambitious goal, but one that’s a priority for us. while we’re a health and nutrition company and yes, a business, one that sells products, we’re also a company that shares our educational work and content largely for free. the empowerment felt by these women is similar to what is described by alondra nelson (2011) in her discussion of the people’s free health clinics of the black panther party in the 1970s. she looks at the concept of “self-health” in the clinics and writes, “self-health was an important and transformative practice among feminist health radicals. ‘know your body, know thyself’ armour remembered. ‘had i not been doing {self-examination], i might not even be here today’” (89). the pfhc were a structural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. challenge to medicalization while the food bloggers challenge the medical establishment on an individualized level. however, both foster community and in this way, are collective. as part of a larger collective, white women food bloggers are part of a community struggle to alter and change western medical knowledge structures, provide accessible information, and help others in similar situations. although the context of white women chronic illness healthy food bloggers and women of color in the people’s free health clinics is vastly different, there is a parallel between the resulting empowerment felt for both groups of women by taking their health into their own hands. however, the white women food bloggers focus on individualized approaches to self-health as opposed to the institutional and structural perspective adopted by the black panther party. empowerment is also found by these women through resisting medicalization. women activists and organizers in figert’s (1995) research resisted medicalization by a variety of interest groups involved in the domain of llpdd and pms as psychiatric disorders. the women with chronic illnesses in my sample (contested illness) are also resisting medicalization, or rather, their contested illnesses themselves cannot be medicalized. when offered medications, these women refuse medication in favor of taking control into their own hands and out of the hands of modern medicine and doctors. these chronic contested illnesses are yet to be medicalized in a traditional sense or cannot be medicalized because there is not medical research demonstrating the origin of these chronic illnesses and thus a treatment for them. a result of this issue in the lives of these women bloggers forcing women to have to advocate for themselves in the face of medical authority. the two main narratives of the blogs—the failure of western medicine and the impact of altering diet and lifestyle result in empowerment for the food bloggers. they are empowered as agents in control of their own health, finding solutions where western medicine could not. they also foster community and aim to provide accessible education and information for their audiences. endangerment while the women food bloggers use their individual agency to feel empowered and foster community, the messages about food and lifestyle proposed by the food bloggers are not only empowering but also endangering. the bloggers potentially endanger audiences on three levels: by individualizing social problems, through a dogmatic policing of diet and lifestyle, and giving out possible misinformation. a source of endangerment is that the information on the blogs leads audiences to rely on individual level explanations and solutions for their health problems, sidestepping institutional and structural forces that shape health outcomes. numerous quotes from “about” pages reveal messages such as this from well nourished, “change begins with you as an individual but ultimately shapes your family, shapes your world. i believe that without good health there’s not much else.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. traditional neoliberal focuses on causes of health is largely individualized, “the focus on proximate risk factors, potentially controllable at the individual level, resonates with the values and belief systems of western culture that emphasize both the ability of the individual to control his or her personal fate and the importance of doing so (becker, 1993)”. this approach is particularly seductive for a variety of interest groups, including white women food bloggers because it targets certain core values of american society. in addition, white women food bloggers possess the resources to achieve levels of health through individual intervention. much of the food bloggers’ messages line up with ideas connected to healthism which places responsibility on the individuals turning food choices into moral imperatives (connolly & prothero, 2008; cairns et al., 2013; moore, 2010). healthism does not challenge inequality on a structural level, individualizing the perceived problem. the belief that an individualized approach to health will solve health problems is misleading and endangering. in addition, the messages on these food blogs are somewhat dogmatic and result in potential policing of others’ lifestyles. there is a general lack of acknowledgment in the blogs that different populations have different and unequal access to healthy foods and services. in foucault’s concept of “governmentality” (1991) individuals engage in self-surveillance and self-governance despite explicit or overt coercion. by regulating themselves through diet and lifestyle changes, these bloggers are to some extent engaging in self surveillance while also surveilling the lifestyle practices of outsiders. the assumption that lifestyles are solely dependent upon individual choices as opposed to lifestyles as a result of institutional structures leads to the blame of populations that do not fall in line with acceptable ideas of health. this is especially apparent in populations whose bodies do not fit into the mold of what an acceptable woman’s body looks like in today’s society—white and thin. for example, within the context of the current “obesity epidemic”, bodies (especially fat bodies) face continued surveillance in the name of public health. also, the bloggers guide audiences to question the medical establishment that could potentially be helpful depending on what illness they may be suffering from. for example, in the case of diabetes, if an audience member with diabetes refuses to see a doctor based upon the advice of a food blogger, their medical concerns will go unaddressed and may worsen. as most of these food bloggers are not medical experts with years of training, it is possible that their personal experiences with diet and lifestyle may not be right for everyone and in fact can be harmful, especially if the information provided by the blogger is incorrect. the empowerment of chronic illness food blogging is balanced out by the potential endangerment from the messages on these blogs. food bloggers tend to individualize health, leading to the belief that everyone is responsible and in control of their own health, ignoring structural and institutional forces that shape the lifestyles of individuals. this can lead to surveillance and policing of their own and others’ bodies, especially bodies that are viewed as unacceptable in today’s society. and finally, misinformation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. about health that is transmitted through the blogs to large audiences is dangerous to those from treatable ailments. table 1. descriptive variables of blogs (n=63) # of followers (in thousands) nationality gender race eat beautiful 10.5 usa woman white the curious coconut 12.4 usa woman white real food with dana yum universe low fodmap inspiration salted plains grassfed salsa the healthy hunter clean eating kitchen she likes food rubies and radishes living healthy with chocolate meghan telpner feed me phoebe ascension kitchen the roasted root well nourished healthy little vittles thank heavens jessica in the 12.5 12.7 13 15 15.5 16.2 19.4 19.4 22.8 23.4 23.6 23.9 26.4 26.7 27.6 27.6 27.8 30.8 usa usa uk usa usa aus usa usa usa br can usa nz usa aus usa nor usa woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white black www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. kitchen deliciously organic veggie balance clean eating goddess with food and love the garden grazer life of goodness unbound wellness sprinkle of green recipes to nourish root and revel real simple good zen belly supercharged food gluten free cuppatea my darling lemon thyme downshiftology cotter crunch predominantly paleo every last bite the blender girl castaway kitchen healthy little peach dolly and 31.5 32.9 33.4 39 40.6 41.4 41.8 45.4 46 49.2 51 53.8 60.2 61.8 68.4 71.9 74.4 82.8 83.2 88.2 95 97.2 104 usa usa can usa usa aus usa uk usa usa usa usa aus uk nz usa usa usa can aus cub usa usa woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white unknown latina white white www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. oatmeal fed and fit living loving paleo simply quinoa clean food dirty city autoimmune wellness lexi’s clean kitchen mariam mind body health the vegan 8 the paleo mom the plant riot keto dietapp inspiralized kris karr madeline shaw low carb yum lil sipper nutrition stripped against all grain earthy andy deliciously ella 107 108 108 117 121 132 133 140 148 156 171 201 225 278 292 320 332 392 1.1 million 1.4 million usa usa usa usa usa usa usa usa usa aus eur usa usa uk usa usa usa usa usa uk woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman woman white/latina white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white 4. discussion the reach and influence of social media outlets like blogs and instagram have greatly expanded in recent years. at the same time, so have the rates of chronic disease. chronic illness food bloggers bridge these two worlds. this article demonstrates the role of women chronic illness food bloggers in providing audiences with information about health, diet, and lifestyle. there are two consistent narratives appearing throughout the 65 blogs—the benefits of healthy eating and the failure of western medicine. the failure of western medicine to address these women’s health issues propels them to find alternate routes of healing. the main route they find is through changing their diets, which not only www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. heals them but also allows them to find happiness. the two narratives on the blogs create both empowerment and endangerment. empowerment is created through questioning the medical establishment, resisting medicalization, and creating community among other bloggers and audiences who face similar challenges. endangerment results from individualization of health issues leading to the belief that each and every person is entirely in control of their own health and well-being. this is dangerous because it fails to acknowledge structural explanations for health differentials. the narratives of the blogs are also endangering because they result in the policing and surveillance of health behaviors. and lastly, endangering because of the possible misinformation on these blogs and the advice directing away from western medical practitioners with the potential to solve certain health ailments. references bacon, h. 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(2006). introduction: advances and challenges in care of older people with chronic illness. generations, 30(3), 5-10. note note 1. chronic disease and chronic illness will be used interchangeable in this article (bernell and howard 2016). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper “promising” and “inaction” in the evaluation of academic journals: thoughts on the construction of academic credibility value chen yuan1* 1 the editorial department of the distance education journal, zhejiang open university, zhejiang provience, hangzhou 310012, zhejiang, china * chen yuan, chy0501@126.com received: may 6, 2023 accepted: june 3, 2023 online published: june 8, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n3p1 abstract comparatively speaking, academic credibility has dual tension at system and the value level, which cannot be replaced by academic administrative power. academic evaluation and academic research are integrated and inseparable, and the process of academic journal evaluation and its own development cannot be separated from the participation of academic community. at present, it is urgent to build academic credibility based on academic spontaneous order at the boundary between administrative power and academic power, and strengthen the maintenance of credibility by scientific rigid system norms, so as to form consistent action and self-discipline of academic community and constantly improve academic ecology. keywords academic governance, academic credibility, academic journals, academic evaluation, evaluation of academic journals introduction academic journals, as the exchange and the display platform of academic research, have the function of spreading academic information to readers, and are also an important part of academic evaluation system. since 1960s, quantitative evaluation has been introduced into academic journals, resulting in the concept of core journals, which defines journals with more citations as important journals with higher quality. in 1993, nanjing university linked sci evaluation index with scientific research evaluation, and formed an academic journal evaluation system by verifying the evaluation of academic papers by journals through www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. the literature quantification. then, in scientific research evaluation, the academic value of the papers published by journals was determined according to the influential power of journals (feng, 2016). as a result, the evaluation of academic journals has become increasingly fierce, and a variety of journal evaluation systems have been formed based on bibliolatrous statistics. linking academic journal evaluation with scientific research evaluation saves the evaluation link and repeated operation of scientific research management to a certain extent, but it confuses the fundamental purpose of academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation. at first, the evaluation of academic journals are to provide readers with the basis for screening effective journals, to quickly select journals suitable for authors, and to publish papers efficiently; providing reliable reference for libraries to subscribe to periodicals and saving costs is also a kind of introspection of periodical industry’s own development, not to solve the problem of scientific research evaluation. over-evaluation or regarding journal evaluation as scientific research evaluation goes beyond the scope of academic journals and goes against the initial intention of academic journalsevaluation, which leads to the alienation of academic journal evaluation function. second, the performance of alienation of academic journal evaluation 1) the relationship between academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation have common categories, but they cannot belong to each other. the existing evaluation of academic journals considers the academic power and communication power of academic papers published in academic journals through various evaluation indicators, so as to evaluate the discipline influence and academic influence of academic journals. the existing evaluation of academic journals does not include the evaluation of normative standards such as editing and proofreading and management and operation ability in the industry. the main object of evaluation is academic papers published in academic journals. it is an important index to measure the professional level and academic influence of academic journals. academic evaluation is the purest, evaluating all kinds of academic works that reflect the academic content and academic value of researchers. the core of academic evaluation is works, including papers, works, topics, teaching materials, patents etc. different academic works should have their own evaluation measures and standards. scientific research evaluation is an activity that scientific research administrative departments carry out the value judgment on academic achievements, personnel and institutions according to definite purposes and standards and adopting certain theories and methods. scientific research evaluation is based on administrative management system and aims at administrative functions, which involves more complexity. at present, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. in scientific research management, it is usually a simple operation to equate academic journal evaluation with academic evaluation, and then interweave academic evaluation with scientific research evaluation. academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation are three evaluation methods based on different goals, among which there are their own non-standard and individual references, while the unusual modal references have their own performance evaluations to describe and analyze (yang, 2018), academic value evaluation is the common point of the three, but the three cannot be simplified. it can be seen that the current alienation phenomenon is not so much the alienation of periodical evaluation as the alienation of academic evaluation and diverse scientific research administrative management systems, which reflects the academic governance problems. 2) the alienation of academic journal evaluation at present, the evaluation of academic journals has become a baton of scientific research evaluation, and its evaluation criteria have led to the distribution and organization of various scientific research resources, affected the choice of various guiding work policies, and accordingly formed the academic discourse power. this is of positive significance for concentrating superior academic resources and improving the efficiency of scientific research evaluation, but it also shows numerous academic chaos. (a) a large number of manuscripts are invested in “highly evaluated journals”, while ordinary journals lack high-quality manuscripts, resulting in waste of academic resources and forming the so-called “matthew effect”; (b) the publishing effect is better than the academic effect. academic journals pursue academic hotspots, and those hot and highly concerned topics become papers that is competing to be published, while some unpopular juexue are neglected. some academic journals do not hesitate to set up sections across fields in order to win attention, resulting in improper publication of academic journals; (c) the evaluation of academic journals becomes more and more fierce, which leads to the development of academic journals relying heavily on the academic influence and popularity brought by the evaluation of journals, pursuing the academic interests of quantitative indicators of journal impact factors unilaterally, ignoring their own academic responsibilities, forming passive dependence under the evaluation. it leads to the homogenization development of periodical style, and then causes the lack of its own characteristics, and its own discipline characteristics and the purpose characteristics of running journals is not obvious; (d) academic utilitarianism prevails, and academic journal evaluation has become an important indicator in the promotion of professional titles, awards and evaluation, which makes “operability” introduced into the academic evaluation system, and academic public trust and academic value are constantly challenged. some researchers do not hesitate to commit academic misconduct such as data fraud, human manuscripts, and even spending money on papers and other academic misconduct, and even form related industries against academic fraud, thus causing a serious crisis of academic public trust value. it can be seen that the alienation of academic journal evaluation distorts the significance and initial intention of running a journal, and when non-academic factors become dominant in academic research, it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. will become an alienation force that restricts researchers and journal practitioners, and promote researchers’ academic research behavior not to realize personal value and social value, which will lead to the variation of academic spirit and the crisis of academic anomie. third, the limitations of academic journal evaluation 1) fuzziness in the evaluation of academic journals (a) there are many subjects in evaluation, such as peking university, nanjing university, wuhan university, china institute of science and technology information, chinese academy of sciences, chinese academy of sociacademic journalal sciences, cnki etc. the third-party academic journal evaluation subjects composed of universities, information research institutes and journal database publishers have successively carried out a series of academic journal evaluation work (yang, 2015). therefore, according to different starting points, purposes and standards of grading, the types, titles and evaluation standards of various academic journals have been produced. many “politics” have affected the fuzziness of core concepts, which is only relative and referential for scientific research evaluation. (b) with the intersection and integration of disciplines, academic journals, as an important carrier for publishing advanced academic research results, do not make strict structural classification according to the classification table of periodicals in china library book classification, which leads to duplication and flaws. the columns of academic journals are widened, and interdisciplinary manuscript collection and over-range publication have become the norm, resulting in fuzziness in the disciplinary orientation of academic journals and their papers. (c) the research population base of different disciplines will also affect the reading volume and citation volume of papers in this field, which will affect the evaluation indexes of academic journals, such as journal citation frequency, average citation rate, the reaction rate, journal citation rate, journal citation half-life, number of papers by international authors, web download volume etc. the academic flow between different disciplines is quite different, which shows that part of the communication power originates from disciplines, not journals, and how to compare academic journals between different disciplines is a vague definition. (d) with the development of academic journals database, academic journals as a whole academic unit are gradually being weakened. from the perspective of academic evaluation, the granularity of academic factors is correspondingly refined to a single article, which causes the ambiguity of the overall evaluation of academic journals. to sum up, the evaluation of academic journals is a quantitative technical evaluation, and its basic boundaries and norms are still uncertain, which determines the fuzziness of its understanding itself, and it is difficult to make a very accurate overall evaluation of the quality of academic journals with completely quantitative data. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. 2) communication or innovation with the data dissemination power of journals far exceeding the dissemination power of paper media, under this background, various indicators of bibliomaniacal, such as citation frequency, the impact factor, average citation rate, the reaction rate, other citation rate, citation half-life of journals, number of papers by international authors, web downloads and other evaluation indicators, are based on dissemination power to explain the development law and growth trend of academic journals for quantitative analysis, revealing the distribution law of subject literature quantity in academic journals (chen, 2014). based solely on bibliography, the data obtained by the influence evaluation indicators such as citation indicators and the inclusion situation more reflect the communication power and attention of academic works, while weakening the analysis of academic factors such as academic quality and academic innovation. although the academic influence of journals will drive the dissemination of published articles, and the dissemination of articles will also reflect the innovation of articles, the internal mechanism between evaluation indicators is not clear. the fundamental goal of academic journal evaluation is to balance the academic quality of each academic journals, and only when it is truly based on the academic quality of academic journals can it have evaluation significance. based on the professional, academic and innovative characteristics of academic journals, it is difficult to present all quality dimensions comprehensively, truly and accurately through quantitative evaluation based on bibliography. it is especially necessary to introduce peer review based on research groups and evaluation based on the expert perception. the qualitative evaluation factors in the evaluation of academic journals need to shape the value system of academic public trust, such as open and transparent academic rules, professional ethics and public academic order. to sum up, the evaluation system of academic journals is a complex and pluralistic system, which needs to be developed, and is still in the process of gradual revision, gradual enrichment and perfection of several iterative accumulations. fourth, the construction of academic credibility value system at present, the evaluation of academic journals is getting worse and worse, with multiple systems and various indicators, but it cannot solve the alienation of academic journal evaluation and various chaos in academic evaluation. the reason is that the evaluation of academic journals, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation can not be reduced, and the evaluation of academic journals is a quantitative and technical evaluation, not a substantive evaluation. when the evaluation of academic journals is accepted by the administrative power department, the evaluation of academic journals changes from academic behavior to administrative power above academic research. however, relying too much on evaluation and replacing management with evaluation can not solve the original problems in scientific research activities and academic research, but will lead to confusion of academic value system. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. the subject of scientific research evaluation takes academic journal evaluation as a baton, which will form the distribution and organization of various scientific research resources, affect the choice of various guiding work policies, and correspondingly form a public academic discourse right (jing & lu, 2017). this kind of power needs not only rigid institutional norms, but also academic public trust supervision based on academic community. the modern academic system formed since the may fourth movement is an institutionalized academic system, but it lacks hierarchical evaluation system, rigid system norms and value-based public trust supervision in its implementation. therefore, it is urgent to build an academic governance system with academic value system as the core, academic public trust as the credit and system as the guarantee from three levels of evaluation, system and value. starting from scientific academic evaluation and according to the academic credibility system formed by the evaluation system, the value system and administrative system, an academic communication environment with academic credibility should be established. in order to resist the spiritual variation and academic crisis caused by the lack of credibility and authority. 1) classified and hierarchical evaluation system on the basis of perfecting evaluation, academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation should return to their respective places, and a set of more systematic and meticulous system design and thinking should be established. academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation are independent evaluation systems, and academic nature is a common factor among them. in the construction of evaluation indicators of the three, it is necessary to clarify the different evaluation purposes, methods, standards, applicable scope, limitations and other factors, so as to establish interoperable academic factors among the three in the form of core concepts and modularizaion, classify academic evaluation, journal evaluation and scientific research evaluation, and establish a more professional and refined hierarchical classification evaluation system. (a) in the evaluation of academic journals, the evaluation method of subdividing disciplines and fields should be adopted. academic research involves a wide range of fields, with a large degree of professional differentiation, and different fields and disciplines uphold different research standards. therefore, in the evaluation of academic journals, it is necessary to strictly distinguish the nature of disciplines to which journals belong, set different evaluation indexes and weight systems according to the major categories of disciplines, and obtain corresponding evaluation indexes. ye jiyuan put forward personalized characteristic indicators for academic journals of different disciplines and types, including: the principle of times, functionality, utility, review and factual evidence, and the principle of application of new technologies (ye, 2021). hu xiaoyang believes that the evaluation of academic journals should adhere to the quality evaluation of published content as the basic evaluation, and the evaluation of the influence, service capacity, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. contribution evaluation of journal platform as the value-added evaluation, in order to achieve the integrated development of basic evaluation and value-added evaluation (hu, 2022). (b) there are great differences in research objects, methods, cycles and results in various fields of academic evaluation and research. the standards for various academic works should be independent, objective, clear, unified and interpretable. academic, evaluation and academic research are academic communities that go in opposite directions, and feedback and cooperation within the academic community should be strengthened. through academic evaluation, the academic factors and evaluation norms that can be shed among academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation are formulated and established. constantly optimize the effective application of evaluation tools and evaluation techniques in academic evaluation. (c) in scientific research evaluation, from the orderly operation of scientific research management objectives, the indicators based on scientific research evaluation can achieve a clear understanding of scientific research evaluation according to the needs of evaluation subjects, formulate a fair and transparent evaluation work plan, comprehensively consider the academic contribution of academic works themselves, and pay more attention to the scientific application and transformation of evaluation results. from multiple perspectives, multiple index systems and multi-source data, the quality evaluation, effect evaluation and contribution evaluation of the entire life cycle of researchers are obtained through dynamic tracking evaluation. completely consider the specific citation situation of the paper after publication, objectively balance the research influence of the paper on this research field, the influential papers and their citation situation, as well as the research direction, scientific problems and application results after citation, and then refer to some values in academic journal evaluation, combined with peer review and expert certification, and obtain the evaluation results. 2) value-based public trust supervision academic credibility is a kind of values and spirit for academic community, which is the adherence of academic groups to the core values of research in academic research, and also the social rules and the action environment on which they depend for survival. it is a credit system for researchers, and then forms a code of conduct with professional ethics, and chooses behavior consciously, voluntarily and independently. as far as academic journals are concerned, it represents the ability of learning to gain support and trust from peers and the public, the result of persuading their peers under the same public mechanism, and the quality and influence of academic achievements published by academic journals. as far as the evaluation of academic journals is concerned, it plays a role in providing value support and value evaluation for the evaluation system of academic journals. academic credibility has the dual tension of degree and value, which originates from endogenous, and plays the role of providing value support and the value judgment for the system and restraining individual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. behavior as an individual’s conscious, voluntary and independent choice, which cannot be replaced by academic administrative power. on the one hand, based on the same public mechanism, the public trust results supported and trusted by the academic community can often be trusted by the public, thus realizing the social synergy of academic judgment and evaluation. on the other hand, entering the academic public domain and the operational level of policy system with academic public trust as the core can assist or even replace the administrative system to a certain extent, and play a substantial role in regulating social relations.thirdly, the boundary between administrative power and academic power forms the middle zone of academic credibility of academic spontaneous order with academic self-discipline, which makes both administrative power and academic power subject to the supervision of academic public trust, and restricts each other from non-academic factors in academic research to become the mainstream. specifically, it is feasible to strengthen the credibility construction from the following aspects: (a) increase the credibility of the system. constantly improve the academic evaluation system procedurally, establish perfect standards for peer review expert certification, review process record, review the quantity identification and review quality evaluation, optimize the review process, and establish review supervision and reward and punishment system. improve the one-vote veto system and lifelong tracing system in relevant laws and regulations, on-the-job evaluation, the project declaration and awards. (b) establish standardization credibility. establish the compilation standard of academic papers, conform to the international, unique and lifelong digital resource identifier doi (digital object identifier), and establish the identification, tracking and recording of all kinds of information and the whole process of academic papers, academic journals and researchers related to academic achievements, so as to ensure that papers can be traced back, authors can be identified and responsibilities can be positioned. (c) enhance the participation of academic community. academic community is the main force of academic research, which encourages the value creation of academic community in the research process, so as to enhance the deep understanding and self-purification of academic connotation of academic community. cultivate academic organizations, guide the ecological development of academic publishing and evaluation, and constantly promote the improvement of academic governance system and governance capacity. (d) enhance the credibility of technology. establish a nationwide networked academic integrity database based on the storage and certification of academic achievements, and implement digital management of academic integrity. (e) enhance the value shaping of academic research. professional ethics, such as academic ethics and academic norms, run through the whole life cycle of researchers’ vocational education, constantly generate the sense of honor and mission of academic community, pay attention to the leading role of authoritative scholars in academic connotation value, and radiate the formation of individual values. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. concluding remarks at present, while pursuing the same frequency development of academic journal evaluation and international academic, we must consider the implementation significance of its localization and make self-innovation suitable for the national conditions. the value system of academic credibility includes the ecological system of spontaneous order of various academic elements such as academic journals. for the current mobile and diversified academic development, only by clearing the source, systematically and holistically solving the problem of academic evaluation transformation from scientific standards, core values and rigid systems, repairing academic public trust, and returning academic journal evaluation, academic evaluation and scientific research evaluation to academic value can we promote the ecological and sustainable development of academic journals and academic journal evaluation in the new era. fund project: 2021 editorial program of the national association for the study of liberal arts journals in higher education institutions “the development path of academic media in the intelligent era: the reconstruction of knowledge production chain” (py2021029). the 2020 scientific research project of zhejiang periodical association and university periodical branch of zhejiang higher education association, “research on the reconstruction of academic periodical credibility from the perspective of all media” (projectno.: zgxb202001); zhejiang open university “312 talent training project” training project. references feng, s. s. (2016). clarifying the relationship between evaluation related concepts. china social science journal, 1. yang, j. q. (2018). experimental study on the evaluation and academic evaluation functions of csci journals. macau polytechnic daily, 4, 559-565. yang, y. (2015). comparative study on the evaluation system of core journals in china. kaifeng: henan university. chen, j. q. (2014). alienation and restoration in the evaluation of academic journals [eb/ol]. retrieved may 7, 2014, from http://news.cnhubei.com/xw/wh/201405/t2930212.shtml jing, l. b, & lu, w. h. (2017). reconstructing the journal evaluation system. china social science journal, 1. ye, j. y. (2021). the construction and improvement of the academic “full evaluation” system and the academic evaluation system of philosophy and social sciences with chinese characteristics. social observation, 7, 4-6. hu, x. y. (2022). exploring the road to high quality development of academic journal evaluation [eb/ol]. retrieved november 15, 2022, from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1749546808489780533&wfr=spider&for=pc communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 20 original paper midnight express as a product of hollywood orientalism goksu gigi akkan1* 1 blanquerna universitat ramon llull, barcelona, spain * goksu gigi akkan, blanquerna universitat ramon llull, barcelona, spain received: february 6, 2018 accepted: march 1, 2018 online published: april 19, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p20 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p20 abstract the concept of orientalism has been a forthcoming issue in film studies, be it the (mis)representation of minority groups in hollywood, or white-washing people of color characters in remakes of films from “the orient”, or through a complete omission of representation of these characters. ideology is a great aspect in shaping the views of the masses, and as they become more embedded in cultural devices such as films, the more soft power they deploy and the more problematic they become. in foucauldian terms, knowledge about the orient is produced through films made by the occident, and thanks to their infinite capital and wide distribution networks, the west, particularly america, is far more successful in retaining a cross-cultural dominance through this power/knowledge structure. this paper aims to deconstruct the motives behind oliver stone & alan parker’s 1978 film midnight express, in terms of putting turkey and turkish people in the oriental position and putting western and white characters in the occidental epistemological positions. some questions this paper tackles include “how does orientalism work in the context of film studies? does the gaze grant a monolithic and unidirectional look at the orient instead of the occident?” keywords film studies, edward said, orientalism, occidentalism, representation “orientalist discourse was neither monolithic nor unidirectional, but much more complex and heterogeneous” (sinha, 1995, p. 19). by arguing that orientalism is not just a product of the west, but a construct that affects both the east and the west equally, mrinalini sinha offers an alternative to edward said’s take on post-colonial theory. although what sinha argues can be applicable to some cases such as specific political discourses, in the entertainment industry, all products regarding “the east” are almost always exclusively both monolithic and unidirectional. this is why i will take the film midnight express (1978) as a case study to elaborate on how hollywood seeks to replicate representations of the orient as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 21 published by scholink inc. degenerate and incapable compared to the west. by depicting the turks in midnight express as evil, masochistic and ignorant, the film rationalizes the western characters as good-natured, clever people, who just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. as a result, the dichotomization of turkey as “the other” inferior counterpart of the western civilization is just another banal repackaging of “the idea of the orient” by hollywood, which serves to preserve the west’s global cultural hegemony established through the entertainment industry. to solidify my thesis, first the idea of orientalism according to edward said will be discussed. this will give the reader a sense of how the occident (western civilizations) tries to define the orient (eastern civilizations) in order to protect its hegemony. secondly, i will elaborate on how said’s idea of orientalism operates within films made by the west, in which they maintain and reinforce these stereotypes about the east through a power/knowledge relationship. while doing this, i will be referring to my case study midnight express in order to illustrate said’s ideas with examples. following this, i will try to acknowledge who or what legitimizes orientalist films, which are overtly reminiscent of each other that aid the west’s cultural hegemony. how some critics approach such repackaged stereotypes will also be touched on. before we move on to analyze how hollywood studios exaggerate the differences between the east and the west to accumulate capital and spread western ideology, first we must look at why edward said’s, instead of sinha’s, version of orientalism, is more useful to study cultural products made by the west. in an attempt to identify how western thought shaped the discourse outside of the occident, said argues: “the imaginative examination of things oriental was based more or less exclusively upon a sovereign western consciousness out of whose unchallenged centrality an oriental world emerged, first according to general ideas about who or what was an oriental, then according to a detailed logic governed not simply by empirical reality but by a battery of desires, repressions, investments, and projections” (said, 1979, p. 8). the storyline of midnight express replicates exactly what said emphasizes in terms of constructing the orient, and combines it with the idea of “the western gaze’ in cinema. it is this gaze that “reduces the non-european to the not-yet being of underdevelopment; lacking presence and agency” (venn, 2000, p. 148). as a result, the protagonist of the allegedly based on a “true story” film is an american called billy hayes, who is trapped in a jail in istanbul in the early 1970s for trying to smuggle drugs back into the united states. he is depicted not as a guilty immoral drug trafficker, but as an unfortunate young white male who is stuck in the “middle of nowhere”, because he is in the “mystical” and “unreliable” east. the white, american man of european origins, is thus the only vantage point of the film. the story is told from his point of view, with the cinematic lens that films the whole experience symbolically becoming billy’s own eyes. on a broader level, billy’s perception becomes the western “gaze” that venn underlines. in this regard, encounters are never evaluated from the oriental or turkish www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 22 published by scholink inc. side, which eschews the east’s presence and agency as a legitimate form of existence. this precisely debunks sinha’s argument about orientalist discourse affecting both the east and the west in a heterogeneous way, because the oriental subjects are never given a chance in the first place to express themselves. however, although the film opens with the lines “these events were based on a true story starting on october 6, 1970”, in a recent interview even billy hayes himself has accepted the fact that the screenwriter oliver stone and director alan parker had “made up a great chunk of it because of cinematic reasons” (marnell, 2010). in fact, hayes admits to the fact that he never was sexually abused as depicted in the film, and the beatings were not as violent. additionally, in contrast to the ending of the film, hayes admits that he never killed the sadistic head guard, but another inmate outside the prison shot him once he was released. at the end of the interview, hayes comes to terms with the reality that the stereotypes in midnight express have casted on turkey’s reputation: “it creates an overall impression that turkey is this terrible place and turks are terrible people. which is not valid or true, both to my own experience and to reality” (marnell, 2010). it is arguable whether he says he likes turkey because he wants to make peace with this nation, but in any regard he still acknowledges the fact that oliver stone and alan parker had added scenes of no solid accountable background. he names “cinematic reasons” as being the source of distortions, however i think it is evident that these scenes are added in order to submit turkey, as a part of the east, into the grand narrative of the orient, which is inferior, untimely, and passive compared to the west. thus, “based on a true story” tagline is used as an effective marketing technique for the film, even though most of the script is not based on the autobiographical account of hayes. therefore, parker and stone are projecting a myth about turkey through the medium of cinema with the help of unscientific imprecision about this foreign country, and circumstances of interpretations of encounters (said, 1997, p. 163) with eastern subjects that fill the plot with banal stereotypes. said also stresses that “while the west was modern, civilized, and progressive, the orient remained, at least from a western perspective, a static and backward society” (said, 1979, p. 3). in this sense, midnight express seeks only to represent the oriental identity as inferior and incompatible to the west, without giving the orient a chance to express its individuality. cinematically, this degradation is achieved through the music and lightening, as well as casting and costume choices. the opening scene of the film is depicting the sunrise over topkapi, the historic peninsula of istanbul, with the prayer voice hailing from the minarets of the mosques, and a lazy, yellow light, that immediately directs the audience to feel that the context is middle eastern. this peculiar yellow light and oriental music is reused in many other scenes of the film to come, in order to underline the “strangeness” of the setting. additionally, prison guards, who, with their exaggerated turkish accents, are depicted as evil people who don’t miss out on a chance of verbally and physically abusing the inmates for no apparent reason. alongside with the barbarian traits of the fellow turkish cellmates, who love to snitch on the foreign www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 23 published by scholink inc. inmates just to sadistically watch them getting beat, collectively the turkish characters are depicted as “backwards and uncivilized” through the casting choices. on another note, although the film is set in the 1970’s, the turks are still seen wearing fez caps and ridiculous ottoman outfits from the 19th century, which again highlights how “oriental” turkey is, even though that fashion was abandoned more than a hundred years ago. thus, representation of the turks in this film is in perfect resonance with what said offers about eastern stereotypes, since they are continually projected as ignorant and dirty people with no solid historicity. in contrast to the barbarian, inhumane and passive turks, billy and his other foreign cellmates are busy making plans to “catch the midnight express”, which is a term used to describe an attempt to escape. this is another cliché reinforced by hollywood in such movies as the mummy and indiana jones as well, where the western protagonist is trying to “solve the mystery” of the static east by using maps and other devices to get around mazes and pyramids, or in this case, an old sketch of sewer tunnels to run away. as albert memmi advocates, this stereotype also exemplifies the “active agent” role of the western man, in which the protagonist is the conqueror and the colonizer ready to take over the treasures of the passive east, which is in billy’s case, his own freedom (memmi, 2003, p. 172). these stereotypes are so casually reproduced that as a result, they lead to a dichotomizing process vis-à-vis to the western gaze and audience in which the west is “us”, and the east is “them”. in this dichotomy, the east and the west are differentiated in terms of being incompatible civilizations, where the west has the upper hand. moreover, in this dichotomizing process, hollywood in general is influenced by potent racial and cultural stereotypes that seek to represent the oriental way of being as “as decadent and inferior… tends to dismiss muslim aspirations for self-determination as politically primitive, economically suspect, and ideologically absurd” (little, 2008, p. 11). to exemplify, in midnight express, billy’s foreign friends in jail mention this “ideological absurdity” quite explicitly while talking about his prison sentence: “this ain’t the good old usa. this is turkey, man. it’s an accident if you are innocent!” which suggests that even though drug smuggling is pretty much a crime in almost every country around the world, because the white protagonist is likeable and identifiable to the western gaze, it is unlawful and unfair for the turks to sentence him to prison. on the other hand, the western values and beliefs are attributed to such qualities as being rational, fair, and as the core aspect of christianity, merciful. billy’s monologue in court when he finds out that he is sentenced to 30 years is such a typical display of the “fair and just western ideology”, in which the white subject rationally questions the value system of what is not his own culture. he cries: “concept of a society is based on that mercy, fair-play sense of justice, but it’s a ton of shit to you. for a nation of pigs, it’s funny because you don’t eat them!” here, billy does not only act the part as the “rational” conscience of the colonizer, but also as a white subject driven by banal stereotypes of islam, such as not eating pigs, who is “witty” enough to make ironic jokes about it. the fact that he is “witty” and able to make fun of this cultural aspect further elevates his position in the western audience’s eye as a white www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 24 published by scholink inc. character with whom they could identify with if they were to be in the same situation instead of the evil turks. through this western gaze, that is “rational” and “normal”, the audience feels safe in regard to the turkish subject, because the west is “powerful” enough to question and decide what is right or wrong in this foreign civilization. through this power structure, orientalism operates as a cinematic optic legitimized by the western gaze in films like midnight express, because it is “an accepted grid for filtering through the orient into western consciousness” (said, 1979, p. 6). although billy is physically “victimized” by the evil turks, the power of the white subject comes from his mentality and ability “to be rational”, which is historically affiliated with the west (kennedy & danks, 2001). as a result, since they are viewing turkey from an orientalist lens of the director alan parker, the audience is most likely to adopt these negative stereotypes and affiliations with turkey. due to the economic dominance hollywood holds over other national film capitals, american values, expectations, norms, or in althusserian terms, ideology, is enforced upon anybody who is subjected to orientalist films such as midnight express. in foucauldian terms, knowledge about the orient is produced through films made by the occident, and thanks to their infinite capital and wide distribution networks, the west, particularly america, is far more successful in retaining a cross-cultural dominance through this power/knowledge structure (little, 2008, p. 310). although he does not directly mention foucault, said also acknowledges the importance of power relations in orientalist discourse: “unbroken arc of knowledge and power connects the european or western statesman and the western orientalists” (said, 1979, p. 104), which brings us to the question of the legitimizing forces of such orientalist films as producing “true” knowledge about the east. the academy awards is seen as the authority in selecting the best motion pictures of the year, and the films that are lucky enough to get an oscar are almost always huge box office successes. midnight express is no exception to this, with two wins in the year 1979, as well as an astonishing six wins in golden globes that same year, including the best picture award. anthony appiah identifies orientalist directors such as alan parker as a part of a “comprador intelligentsia”, who are constituted “of relatively small, western style, western-trained, group of writers and thinkers, who mediate the trade in cultural commodities of world capitalism at the periphery” (appiah, 1992, p. 5). thus, to combine appiah with said’s argument about the “inbroken arc of knowledge and power”, the western statesmen institutionalize the film industry in such a way that by crowning orientalist directors like alan parker with awards, the west legitimizes its source of hegemony, and engrains it within the western culture, thanks to extensive press and coverage these events accumulate. as a result of this legitimization process, the viewer is highly likely to regard orientalist films such as midnight express as true representations of the east, and take how turkey is projected in the film as granted, which is exactly where the hegemonic power of the west is most succinct. these stereotypes are so recycled and reused that the western audience does not even question them anymore, but just www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 25 published by scholink inc. accept images of the east as depicted on silver screen as truth. thus, what lewis offers about the operational distinctiveness of stereotyping the east is verified: “it is the hegemonic ability of orientalist discourse to retain the upper hand even whilst it accepts and incorporates challenges that accounts for its longevity” (lewis, 1996, p. 20). potentially, to take such representations of middle east as granted could be dangerous in the sense that it can feed feelings of xenophobia and intolerance against foreign people among the people of the west. on the other hand, as a response to the global achievement of the film, several critics recognized the monolithic gaze evident in midnight express and how problematic such projections can be. mary lee settle states that “the turks i saw in lawrence of arabia and midnight express were like cartoon caricatures” (settle 1991, p. 8). in this sense, she verifies that this western gaze directed at turks is common in hollywood, and equally ridiculous. in resonance with her, david robinson observes midnight express as being a “more violent, as a national hate-film than anything i can remember— a cultural form that narrows horizons, confirming the audience’s meanest fears and prejudices and resentments” (wakeman, 1988, p. 741). his insight verifies what said had to say about the western consciousness, which can only project and imagine investments about the east, which can lead on to more serious problems such as racism or xenophobia. however, what famed film critic pauline kael has to note just hits the orientalist spot of both oliver stone and alan parker. she writes: “this story could have happened in almost any country, but if billy hayes had planned to be arrested to get the maximum commercial benefit from it, where else could he get the advantages of a turkish jail? who wants to defend turks? they don’t even constitute enough of a movie market for columbia pictures to be concerned about how they are represented” (kael, 1980, p. 499). due to its oriental position, that is, as little argues, politically primitive and economically suspect, turkey is not even seen “worthy enough” to be worried about its representation in such orientalist films. as a result, turkishness is used as a stepping-stone to accumulate capital and reinforce eastern stereotypes in order to preserve western hegemony by the way of “entertaining” people around the world. to sum up, midnight express is just another hollywood product that’s main aim is to display an oriental civilization as monolithically different from the occident. the clearly orientalist storyline is justified by offering that it is “based on a true story”, even though many events are imagined by the screenwriter to make the film more dramatic. additionally, the awards the film had acquired repute the film as a rightful account of turkey, which has destroyed the country’s reputation back in the 1970s, and can still act as a source of “true knowledge” about the country since its depiction is legitimized by western institutions that help to maintain their cultural hegemony. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 26 published by scholink inc. references appiah, a. (1993). in my father’s house: africa in the philosophy of culture. oxford: oxford university press. kael, p. (1980). when the lights go down. new york: hall rinehart and winston. kennedy, p., & catherine, d. (2001). globalization and national identities: crisis or opportunity? palgrave macmillan press. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333985458 lewis, r. (1996). gendering orientalism: race, femininity and representation. london: routlegde. little, d. (2008). american orientalism: the united states and the middle east since 1945. raleigh: unc press books. marnell, b. (2010). billy hayes reveals the real midnight express. retrieved from http://www.craveonline.com/tv/interviews/137370-billy-hayes-reveals-the-real-midnight-express memmi, a. (2003). the colonizer and the colonized. earthscan press. wakeman, j. (ed.) (1988). world film directors, ii. new york: the h.w wilson co. said, e. (1979). orientalism. new york: vintage books . said, e. (1997). covering islam: how the media and the experts determine how we see the rest of the world. new york: random house. settle, m. l. (1991). turkish reflections. new york: prentice hall press. sinha, m. (1995). colonial masculinity: the manly englishman and the effeminate bengali in the late nineteenth century. manchester: manchester university press. varisco, d. m. (2007). reading orientalism: the said and the unsaid. seattle: university of washington press. venn, c. (2000). occidentalism: modernity and subjectivity. london: sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446217436 https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333985458 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446217436 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 61 original paper customising intimate fantasies: self narratives and subjectivity practice in china’s mengnv community airong liu 1* 1 faculty of humanities and arts, macau university of science and technology, macau, china * airong liu, faculty of humanities and arts, macau university of science and technology, macau, china received: may 10, 2025 accepted: march 25, 2025 online published: june 3, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n1p61 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n1p61 abstract this study examines china’s mengnv community, exploring their self-empowering cultural practice of customising intimate fantasies through creative writing and its cultural implications. combining feminist literary criticism and reader-response theory, the research employed focus group interviews and textual narrative analysis to reveal how these young girls transitioning from late adolescence to emerging adulthood negotiate selfhood through reimagining intimacy. findings show that the mengnv community engages in self-empowerment by reconstructing the erotic power structure and fostering non-erotic female alliances. unlike passive consumers of traditional romance novels, they actively produce and spread texts on digital platforms, transforming fantasy into embodied narrative action and contemplating the self and the other in the exploration of eros.. however, contradictions persist: some texts reproduce the pseudo-subjectivity of mary sue logic and foster self-alienation through “low perceived deservingness” internalisation, and their “anti-shared ownership” (tongdanjufou/tongjiajufou) practices reflect how privatisation of emotions undermines collective action. the study argues that while the limitations exist, mengnv practices have demonstrated marginalised young girls’ capacity to carve out resistant spaces through micro-narratives. keywords mengnv, fantasy, subjectivity, emerging adulthood, female alliance 1. introduction this article focuses on china’s mengnv (literally ―dreaming girl‖) phenomenon, a subcultural practice among young females who construct elaborate fantasies through self-created narratives, artworks, and videos. it originated from japan’s ―yumejoshi‖, referring to young girls who would construct romantic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 62 published by scholink inc. narratives between a fictional character in a pre-existing popular work and themselves or an original character of their own making by producing textual or visual fanworks (pixiv encyclopedia, 2025). as hinerma (1992) has noted, ―part of what it means to be a fan for some people in some places clearly involves fantasy-work‖. however, mengnv groups would distinguish themselves from general fans through an obligatory creative dimension: to qualify as mengnv, one must actively produce or substantially contribute to creative work centred on their fantasies with themselves (or their original character) as the main characters. while earlier scholarship framed female fantasy as escapism from patriarchal domesticity and substitutive satisfaction for emotional emptiness (radway, 1984; hinerma, 1992), this study posits that mengnv practices transcend compensatory satisfaction of emotional needs, instead functioning as a dynamic arena for subjectivity negotiation. transplanted into the chinese context, the term ―yumejoshi‖ has undergone semantic expansion through localised reading and creative practices, evolving into ―mengnv‖, while the mengnv community has redefined itself within china’s socio-digital landscape. contemporary chinese mengnv groups no longer restrict themselves to heteronormative romantic fantasies; their creative scope now encompasses homosexual romantic narratives, as well as non-romantic relational modes—familial bonds, friendships, and ambiguous intimacies (moegirlpedia, 2024). concurrently, their objects of fantasy (termed ―mengjue‖) have diversified beyond fictional characters from literature and media to include virtual game avatars, live-action film/tv personae, and real-life celebrities from the entertainment and sports industries. illouz (2007) argued that as economic rationality permeated emotional life, emotions also simultaneously obscured economic reality, and authentic human emotions became enmeshed with consumer products, ultimately merging with them to form commodified entities—to the point where the distinction between genuine feeling and artificially manufactured sentiment becomes irrecoverably blurred. ―emotional emptiness‖ has been more than a condition but a commodified label, which has also reduced mengnv in the public imagination to either quasi-adults who ―date‖ through fantasies or delulu fangirls incapable of distinguishing reality from imagination. however, this article reveals that being a mengnv carries more complex significance for the young chinese females involved. while rejecting the imposed real-life intimacy, they keep thinking about the significance of the present intimate relationship for them and explore the possibility of stepping out of this framework. while trying to resist the positions assigned to them by the existing cultural industry, they navigate the unknown ocean of identities and emotions in adolescence and emerging adulthood. lindtner and dahl (2020) suggested that according to psychoanalytic theory, fantasy often stems from suppressed desires, expressing one’s longing for an identity with integration, wholeness and unity. during late adolescence and emerging adulthood, young women would engage in particularly intense explorations of their social roles, life possibilities, and the meaning of emotions in their lives www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 63 published by scholink inc. (schechter, herbstman, ronningstam, & goldblatt, 2018). amidst the profound uncertainties that characterise this liminal life stage, mengnv groups have engaged in fantasy production as a means of exploratory self-expression and a generative practice through which they map out alternative cognitive and behavioural possibilities for themselves. consequently, unlike the smithton female readers in radway’s (1984) 1970s-1980s study of romance readership, china’s mengnv groups have occupied a distinctly different life stage, for whom thinking about the self may be a more central issue rather than the emotional void resulting from providing care and emotional nourishment for the family. diverging from some of the prior fan culture studies that examined female fans’ obsession with male idols (ehrenreich, hess, & jacobs, 1992) or their emulation of female celebrities as role models (stacey, 1994), chinese mengnv groups have begun positioning female stars or fictional female characters as the objects of their romantic (or ambiguous) fantasies—while many still self-identify as ―heterosexual‖. this article would also explore what underlying psychological complexes and exploratory attempts, such as fantasies, might reveal. as these young women began to fantasise about kinship or friendship with celebrities and virtual characters, it is worthy of interrogating whether these emerging fantasy paradigms still fundamentally stem from ―emotional emptiness‖—merely representing old wine in new bottles—or whether they signify more substantive transformations in affective structures and identity negotiations. the research questions are thus as follows: what are the differences between what chinese young girls have thought, desired and gained when they are trying to be a mengnv, compared with the smithton female readers in radway’s research? thorne (2004) argued that japanese females’ production and consumption of yaoi works, while questioning present gender norms, have not collectively evolved into organised feminist movements. the second research question thus focuses on whether contemporary mengnv practices demonstrate meaningful divergence from the historical patterns: to what extent has the mengnv community succeeded in achieving collective action? the creation of mengnv includes various forms, from fiction, illustrations, and comics to videos. in china, the primary form involves publishing mengnv fiction publicly or semi-publicly on online platforms, with most works typically under 100,000 chinese characters. the online publication of mengnv fiction not only generates income for a minor portion of professional writers but, more significantly, also provides young girls with an accessible and relatively unrestricted means of self-expression. this study focuses on mengnv fiction and writers and readers of such works. typically, when composing mengnv fiction, the author’s primary intended readers are either herself or the small groups she represents. consequently, these individuals simultaneously occupy the roles of author and target reader for their own works while also serving as readers of other mengnv fiction when not engaged in creation. hence, the research employed a dual analytical framework combining reader-response theory and feminist literary criticism. through focus group interviews coupled with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 64 published by scholink inc. narrative analysis of mengnv fiction, the study tracked mengnvs’ self-cognition and examined the interplay between observed behaviour and textual representations to uncover the complexities underlying chinese mengnv communities’ customised fantasy practices. 2. fantasy and women’s emotional labour lacan’s mirror stage concept posits that pre-oedipal children construct self-cognition by mistaking their mirror image, perceiving the external world as an extension of the self (evans, 2003). when the separation between the child and the mother tends to be complete, it marks the child’s entry into the symbolic order, where the child becomes aware of the presence and absence of jouissance. at this juncture, drives transform into desires, and the ego becomes shaped by language and family structures, while the unconscious emerges as the repository of repressed desires (žižek, 1991). lacan (1977) called this mechanism of prohibition, which enforces the split, the ―law of the father‖. however, this primordial yearning for wholeness will persist and be reproduced through fantasy, expressing the pursuit of fullness and the desire to eliminate disturbing absences. thus, fantasy is born from the tension between unconscious desires and the ―law of the father‖, constituting a temporary resolution to the suspended subjectivity. however, this experience manifests through fundamentally divergent trajectories of expression within gendered social structures. modern society cannot sustain its operations through rationality alone; it systematically designates women as bearers of emotional labour, tasked with perpetually restoring the workforce depleted by rational systems within domestic spheres, producing new generations of labour and caring for those discarded by societal mechanisms (hegel, 1991). radway (1984) revealed that women who take care of their families develop a persistent sense of ―emotional depletion‖ due to the absence of affective recuperation mechanisms, thereby yearning for the nurturance associated initially with their primary caregiver (the mother). during the oedipal phase, though women seek independence through identification with the father, due to the enduring pre-oedipal bond with the mother, a psychological duality is formed: the simultaneous pursuit of patriarchal symbolic autonomy and longing for maternal care (chodorow, 1978). contemporary sociocultural norms asymmetrically and systematically suppress men’s capacity to express tender caregiving qualities (johnson, 1997). consequently, women turned to substitutive fulfilment, with motherhood emerging as a significant pathway—where identifying with the child allows fantasies of returning to a state of complete satisfaction (hummer, 2024). as women still crave adult partners’ complete devotion, romance novels provide temporary emotional compensation through escapist reading, yet offer only transient relief before reality reasserts itself. penley (1992) pointed out that reducing female subjectivity to an eternal regression to maternal nurturing essentially obscures the complex interplay between social discipline and psychological mechanisms in the construction of female identity. particularly since the late 20th century, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 65 published by scholink inc. increasing delay in the young population’s assumption of adult responsibilities has led to a persistent disjunction between biological maturity and social roles, giving rise to a new life stage termed ―emerging adulthood‖ (arnett, 2000). for females from late adolescence to emerging adulthood, their understanding of self and intimate relationships often exhibits dynamism: on the one hand, they still rely on emotional support from their families, maintaining a childlike need for protection; on the other hand, the postponement of societal expectations allows them to explore more autonomous models of intimate relationships rather than immediately entering into traditional marriage and maternal roles. however, this mechanism manifests unique tensions within the sociocultural context of china. 3. confucian order, emerging adulthood, and the expression of affect data reveals a steady increase in marriage ages among chinese citizens, with the proportion of 20-24-year-olds registering marriages dropping significantly from 2005 to 2016 (wang, 2018). zhong and arnett (2014), through interviews with chinese migrant female workers, identified a culturally distinct conception of adulthood: chinese women primarily define adulthood by taking on family responsibilities (e.g., supporting parents and securing stable jobs) rather than by western standards like reaching a certain age or living independently. due to the expansion of higher education and accelerated urbanisation, the prolonged duration of young chinese females’ education and career preparation has objectively delayed their transition into familial responsibilities (liu, 2016). yet, confucian notions of benevolence (―ren‖) presuppose a patriarchal family structure in which fathers and other male members occupying higher generational seniority in the kinship hierarchy enjoy greater status than mothers, female members, and other junior members of lower generational standing (kim & li, 2017). some families may explicitly practice son preference. a quantitative study by liu, guo, su and ren (2023) revealed that parents’ preference for sons over daughters in one’s childhood was positively related to the happiness of male adults but negatively for female adults, with childhood education opportunities and childhood health resources playing as a mediating effect. furthermore, during the chinese compulsory education stage, the so-called ―zaolian‖ (adolescent puppy love) is institutionally prohibited. shi’s (2016) discourse analysis of academic papers on adolescent relationships (1979–2015) demonstrated that while definitions of ―zaolian‖ varied, the consensus deemed any romantic involvement among underage students to be categorically discouraged. mirroring this, comparative research showed that chinese adolescents, especially girls, showed lower romantic involvement and fewer intimate relationships than their canadian peers (li, connolly, jiang, pepler, & craig, 2010). young females may be temporarily exempt from external emotional labour, with their affective needs partially met through familial structures. yet their subordinate position within these same hierarchies, combined with cultural repression of intimacy, creates a paradoxical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 66 published by scholink inc. psychological tension: their emotional fulfilment remains simultaneously enabled and constrained by the very system that sustains it. cultural consumption can provide substitutive emotional fulfilment for young girls. however, popular culture offers scarce and homogeneous female roles for self-projection. for instance, while star trek featured supporting female characters like communication officer janice rand, nurse chapel, and lieutenant uhura, these 23rd-century women remained confined to sitting behind switchboards, assisting doctors, or serving coffee to men (penley, 1992). some female creators attempt to incorporate female perspectives with fanfiction or infuse the ―female gaze‖ into male character interactions, such as writing slash fiction. as ueno (1998) argued, boys’ love in shoujo manga functions as a safety device that allows girls to manipulate the dangerous thing called ―sex‖ from a distance removed from their own bodies. in pre-ming-qing china, women remained marginalised in literary spheres. however, the socioeconomic transformations in jiangnan during the late qing dynasty, coupled with the flourishing of talented women’s culture, enabled gentry women to engage in self-expression through tanci (a kind of rhythmic literature, narrating and singing accompanied by musical instruments) creation (xu, 2017). their works frequently had autobiographical undertones, crafted independent female personas, and challenged conventional matrimonial norms while celebrating feminine camaraderie (li, 2024). this distinctive creative practice constituted an early cultural strategy for female subjectivity construction within confucian structures. since the mid-20th century, affect has been industrially produced as an economic commodity (illouz, 2007). yet from a historical-cultural perspective, the emergence of the mengnv phenomenon may transcend the mere co-construction of emotional commodities and ―authentic‖ feelings. it represents young women’s conscious efforts to diversify feminine narratives within cultural production. crucially, further research could examine whether such practices differ substantively from other forms of female creation and whether becoming a mengnv or engaging in mengnv fiction constitutes merely an identity-affirming consumption process or possesses latent critical potential. there remains limited scholarly literature directly addressing mengnv culture and its counterparts in other cultures. korean-american writer esther li’s 2023 debut novel y/n is the first published work to explicitly depict a fangirl channelling her unexpressed desires into writing y/n fanfiction (note 1). wang (2024) employed literary theory to examine mengnv fiction’s immersive narrative frameworks and the collaborative processes of creating romantic, liberated, and diverse textual worlds. mcrobbie (1991) noted that some feminist studies risk underestimating the power and capacity of ―ordinary‖ women and girls, who inhabit distinct cultural-political spaces shaped by age, class, race, and culture and unconsciously wage their own struggles as women. for mengnv studies, excluding the community would constitute a fundamental methodological flaw. therefore, this research engages directly with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 67 published by scholink inc. mengnv participants to explore how young women experience and interpret their participation in this culture. 4. methodology conducted between july 2024 and february 2025, this study employed two research methods. the focus group interviews were designed to uncover the complex emotional and cultural dynamics within the mengnv community, while the textual narrative analysis aimed to identify core narrative patterns across various mengnv fiction types and compare differences between participants’ recommended and non-recommended texts. they enable a comprehensive understanding of mengnv reading and creative practices and the underlying motivations and sociocultural implications. 4.1focus group interviews a recurring theme in focus group studies is their capacity to amplify marginalised voices. as nichols-casebolt and spakes (1995) argued, applying this method to feminist research could be better for listening to diverse voices and fostering an interactive atmosphere. when studying marginalised groups, the potential divergence between researchers’ and participants’ viewpoints makes intra-group dialogue particularly valuable, and the cultural nuances emerging from participants’ interactions often reveal deeper insights than researcher-led inquiries (morgan, 1996). the focus group could function as a foundational participatory research tool. given the vast geographical distribution and substantial population size of china’s mengnv community, using focus groups enabled the researcher to approach a wide range of participants. moreover, the complex motivations underlying mengnv’s emotions and behaviours could be effectively unpacked through intra-group dialogues. semi-structured interviews were conducted, blending predetermined questions with exploratory questions to balance standardisation and naturally emerging data. as the moderator, the researcher alternated between active facilitation during structured phases to ensure equal discussion and minimal intervention in open-ended discussions to optimise participant autonomy. when grouping interviewees, factors such as age and preferred mengjue type (real-life celebrities versus fictional characters) could significantly influence participants’ perceptions and experiences regarding mengnv fiction consumption and production. grouping participants based on similar age ranges and mengjue preferences could make the focus centre on the core questions and facilitate mutual understanding and active interactions among members. however, this grouping strategy required careful navigation of two culture-specific phenomena: tongdanjufou (同担拒否 in japanese fandom contexts), which means denoting an aversion to interacting with fellow fans who share the same object of admiration (typically celebrities or idols), and tongjiajufou (同嫁拒否 in japanese fandom contexts), which specifically describes mengnv’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 68 published by scholink inc. psychological resistance to acknowledging other mengnv’s claims of ―marital relationships‖ or ―spousal rights‖ over the same mengjue (moegirlpedia, 2024). consequently, while maintaining homogeneity in broader mengjue categories, the study avoided grouping participants who favoured exactly the same mengjue within the same group to ensure all members remained psychologically comfortable and verbally engaged throughout the sessions. to avoid platform-specific bias, this study recruited participants through three mengnv-frequented social media platforms—weibo, xiaohongshu, and douban. purposeful sampling ensured demographic diversity while maintaining intra-group homogeneity in age and mengjue preferences. specifically, this study involved 30 participants. to optimise discussion depth, they were divided into seven groups of ≤5 members each and those groups were described in further detail in table 1. when addressing a specific participant, a stratified coding system was implemented: two-digit intra-group identifiers (e.g., 01, 02) combined with group prefixes (g1-g7) formed standardised ―gx-xx‖ codes (e.g., g1-01). table 1. focus group composition group partici pants(n) creative experience reading experience primarily focused mengjue (past 3 months) age range 1 4 yes yes k-pop & j-pop male idols 17, 18, 20, 22 2 5 yes yes chinese male celebrities 16, 18, 20, 22, 25 3 4 yes yes male fictional characters 16, 19, 20, 21 4 5 yes yes female celebrities 20-23, 25 5 3 yes yes female fictional characters 17, 18, 21 6 5 no yes male celebrities/fictional characters 19, 20, 22, 23, 24 7 4 no yes female celebrities/fictional characters 20, 22, 23, 25 the focus group interviews were conducted via online meetings, with each session averaging two hours in duration. mandarin was used as the language of communication throughout all interviews. every session was audio-recorded after obtaining explicit consent from all participants. the structured part of the interview questions covered: (1) demographic information, (2) reading histories, habits, and preferences, (3) knowledge and evaluation of mengnv and mengnv fiction, and (4) external and self-perceptions (see appendix 1). all audio recordings were transcribed and translated into english to facilitate later thematic analysis, which was conducted using nvivo. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 69 published by scholink inc. 4.2 text narrative analysis this study prioritised participants’ own experiences and perspectives. yet, as sperber (1993) has noted, ―an interpretation is a representation of a representation‖. when trying to convey native viewpoints accurately, the researchers inevitably construct the interviewees’ interpretations through their own perspectives. furthermore, when examining text-related behaviours, attention to the texts and the participants’ interpretations of those texts serves as a crucial perspective, offering alternative critical insights into the participants’ thinking processes. consequently, this study incorporated textual analysis of mengnv fiction as a supplementary method. for the textual analysis sample collection, the selection process began with participants’ responses to two open-ended questions: ―could you describe your favourite/the least favourite mengnv fiction and why you like/dislike it?‖ the researcher thoroughly read all recommended texts, ultimately selecting seven representative pieces suitable for analysis. since most recommended works depicted heterosexual romantic relationships, to enhance sample diversity, the researcher supplemented the collection with three additional popular or highly rated texts from platforms identified by participants as their ―most frequently used websites/apps‖ (ao3, asianfanfics, and xiaohongshu). the three texts featured homosexual romantic relationships, platonic friendships, and familial bonds, respectively. the selected texts include: 草莓香烟 (strawberry cigarettes) (depicting heterosexual romance with a k-pop male idol, featuring both he and be endings, published on asianfanfics); 【金珉奎*我】 mysophobia (heterosexual romance with a k-pop male idol, he, on ao3); 池袋西口 (ikebukuro west exit) (heterosexual romance with a k-pop male idol, open ending, asianfanfics); 嫁给袁朗 (marrying yuan lang) (heterosexual romance with a chinese tv drama male character, he, qidian chinese network—noted as an early proto-mengnv fiction by interviewees); 翔我 王牌冤家 (xiang×me: frenemies) (heterosexual romance with a chinese male celebrity, he, lofter); 成为陈都灵，是我少女 时期的一种英雄主义 (becoming chen duling: my adolescent heroism) (ambiguous adolescent feelings toward a chinese female celebrity, nonlinear narrative, xiaohongshu); 我这辈子最擅长的事 情是嫉妒文淇 (my greatest talent is envying wen qi) (homosexual romance with a chinese female celebrity, nonlinear narrative, xiaohongshu); 獾獾的有求必应屋里没有蛇 (the badger’s room of requirement has no snakes) (homosexual romance with a k-pop female idol, he, weibo); 那时候我 和她们一起在电子厂打工 (when we worked together at the electronics factory) (friendship narrative with k-pop female idols, nonlinear narrative, xiaohongshu); and 刘西蒙是个好爸爸 (liu ximeng is a good father) (familial bonds with a chinese male celebrity, he, ao3). in the course of this analysis, certain texts recommended by readers but not selected for narrative analysis—including 换乘要在夏令时 (transfer during daylight saving time), 过把瘾就死 (live fast, die young), and 坏苹果 (bad apple), and so on—may also be referenced in part to examine whether key narrative patterns identified in the primary sample similarly emerge in comparable works. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 70 published by scholink inc. the researcher read mengnv fiction marked as the least favourite by participants and then chose to focus on texts disliked by participants because of their ideological frameworks, thematic premises, or structural logic rather than technical deficiencies in writing. eight texts were selected based on participants’ substantive objections to their core messaging, with titles withheld to avoid undue criticism of specific works. several customised mengnv texts commissioned by certain participants were also excluded from analysis due to their non-public status and methodological incongruity with studying communally consumed narratives. this approach prioritised texts operating within shared fandom economies while maintaining analytical rigour through selective corpus construction. the process of text analysis synthesised narrative and thematic analysis to examine the particularities of individual storytelling and recurrent patterns across texts. this dual perspective enabled the simultaneous interrogation of unique narrative architectures and broader cultural schemata manifest within the dataset (mcallum, fox, simpson, & unson, 2019). for instance, based on the analysis of the cross-text common features, stories in most of the participants’ favourite romantic mengnv texts might open directly with or frame the narrative around the first encounter. in contrast, the least favourite texts often obscured this scene and merely briefly introduce it as a background. additionally, the study examined differences among the narrative languages and styles of different texts. participants’ favourite romantic mengnv texts (both heterosexual and homosexual) predominantly adopted a lyrical, prose-like style, emphasising atmosphere, fluid pacing, and poetic resonance, while the least favourite romantic mengnv texts lacked such lyricism. 5. explorations of self-subjectivity during transitional growth periods the concept of ―emerging adulthood‖ proposed by arnett (2000) specifically refers to a newly identified life stage between the ages of 18 and 29. while women in late adolescence (aged 15-19; benasich & ribary, 2018) share core traits with those in emerging adulthood: active identity exploration and focused self-development. while still constrained by external authorities, the former begins to break from dependency to form independent cognition, whereas the latter gains greater autonomy through partial or complete detachment from parental control. this similarity suggests that as a common behaviour in transitional growth periods, self-exploration runs through individuals’ dynamic progression from adolescence to adult roles. however, the complex interplay between individuation and traditional family ethics creates contradictory dynamics in chinese women’s self-reflection and emotional exploration during these transitional phases. participant g1-02 explained that she initially turned to mengnv fiction due to disillusionment with real-life men. she expressed a genuine longing for love, hoping to ―find someone who can actually get women, is gentle, caring, and handsome‖ and to fall deeply in love. however, she swore that ―that kinda guy doesn’t even exist in real life‖. in contrast, her favourite male idol effortlessly embodied the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 71 published by scholink inc. masculine traits she adored. she admitted that this idol only revealed himself through stage performances and a handful of variety shows, but she could still feel his unique charm and believed he was utterly different from the men around her, treating her only in ways she preferred. the whole group was nodding along, especially g1-04, who kept going, ―mhm! same!‖. while g1-02 asserted that no man in ―reality‖ could meet her ideals, she simultaneously located a male idol in that same ―reality‖ who fulfilled her fantasies of ideal masculinity. hinerma (1992) noted that elvis fans viewed him as embodying ―represented a perfected realm, a world beyond the one that forbids or restricts the full expression of desire‖. this real-life male idol was also endowed with a divine aura, making him seem to transcend the ordinary world. the moderator revisited this theme in the other groups with mengnv whose mengjue objects were real-life celebrities, asking: ―do you think they (the mengjue) genuinely possess these ideal masculine/feminine traits?‖ g2-01 pointed out that it might indeed be their ―gazing from afar‖ that endowed these idols with such distinctive charm and said: meeting him in real life could shatter my illusions. like when i first got into him during my first year, i was so obsessed. i had enough money from my parents, and it was my first time being away from home with no one to nag me… so i just kept flying around the country to catch his live shows. during the honeymoon phase, everything he did was just perfect for me. but after that wore off, i went through this really rough patch where i even started dreading seeing him. i was scared he’d change or turn out different from what i imagined. i don’t know. does anyone else feel that way? g2-05 disapproved of this view: ―then you only love your imagined version of him... you should love him as he truly is. it was his authentic charm that captivated us initially‖. however, she mentioned her experience when her mother pressured her to date since college and arranged matchmaking meetings shortly after she turned 20. she became a mengnv during university, idolising a male singer, but began writing mengnv fiction as matchmaking intensified. she said, when i write about him, i write about us strolling under cherry blossoms in spring... about him rushing home right after work just to stay with me...i know he’s this super wild guy. but i swear he’d 100% chill with me doing those quiet little things, too. that’s what love is—just being there for each other, no matter what. she provided some very precise scenarios, which she truly recognised as being with a loved one rather than rushing into a motherlike traditional marriage. however, the charm of the mengjue that emerged in these specific scenarios might merely be her imagination, and it served her needs for an ideal partner and an ideal love. it can be concluded that while mengnvs’ initial obsessions with celebrities are rooted in these celebrities’ external appeal, they fundamentally serve as a fantasy practice oriented toward the idealised needs of oneself, demonstrating a marked subjective turn where individuals reframe intimacy as a site for self-exploration and empowerment. kristeva (1987) contemplated love as a psychic force shaping www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 72 published by scholink inc. subjectivity and noted: ―love is the time and space in which ―i‖ assumes the right to be extraordinary. sovereign, yet not individual. divisible, lost, annihilated; but also, and through imaginary fusion with the loved one, equal to the infinite space of superhuman psychism. paranoid? i am in love, at the zenith of subjectivity‖. unlike the passive consumption of romance novels, mengnv fiction writing temporarily suspends real-world power imbalances in relationships through mastering the power of narrative while placing the needs related to oneself in the first place. even when reading mengnv fiction, their engagement diverges fundamentally from mainstream romance readership. in responses to ―least favourite tropes in mengnv fiction‖, ―reducing readers‖ ability of self-insertion identification’ was mentioned 8 times and ―the destruction of the ideal character setting of mengjue‖ received 15 mentions. these views reveal a stringent self-referentiality in fantasy consumption, and the core lies in maintaining the functional integrity of fantasies as projection apparatuses for subjective desires. fantasy has become the experimental field for mengnv to explore the desires of subjectivity. in the mengnv fiction 池袋西口 (ikebukuro west exit), the characterisation of hamada asahi (asa) dismantles the stereotypical ―strong protector‖ image of traditional masculinity. the narrative repeatedly depicts moments of his physiological and emotional vulnerability—sudden intimacy after hair bleaching, feigned composure while sweating from spicy food, curling up at the doorstep on a rainy night—pulling the male body down from its ―untouchable‖ pedestal while deconstructing and reassembling masculinity. furthermore, asa is often positioned as the object of gaze in intimate dynamics—described as ―a dishevelled kitten‖ or ―a stray puppy adopted from a pet café‖—subverting the traditional power structure where men dominate as desiring subjects. meanwhile, the female protagonist asserts herself as the desiring subject, consistently controlling relational tempos—initiating intimacy, deciding separations, and evading commitments. this female-authored novel is saturated with distinctly feminine ambiguous expressions of eroticism, which leads to the unveiling of love’s potential of becoming ―the zenith of subjectivity‖. what merits special attention is that mengnv groups express their desire through ambiguous scenarios rather than straightforward pornographic representations. in the investigation of ―least favourite tropes‖, the basic category ―excessive and groundless pornographic content‖ received five critiques. interviewee g3-02 critiqued some mengnv fiction as having ―sex scenes for the sake of titillation, lack of character depth or narrative coherence‖. it aligned with radway’s (1984) findings, where female readers evaluated romantic novels’ emotional intimacy over explicit sexual depiction and valued affective bonds rooted in mutual admiration over visually imagined erotic encounters. where the mengnv community fundamentally diverges from the consensus with radway is in its distinct antipathy toward ―pregnancy‖ tropes, a subcategory mentioned four times. g6-05 explained her aversion: ―why must escapist fantasies replicate real-life marital and reproductive pressures?‖ and g1-01 said: ―the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 73 published by scholink inc. moment the male lead (i don’t admit this is my mengjue) says, ―let’s have a baby, i stop reading‖. and only one work among the recommended mengnv fiction incorporates pregnancy narratives. according to their descriptions, as biological events, the pregnancy and childbirth plots imply uncontrollable body transformations and potentially shift the stories’ focus from the ―self‖ to the ―maternal‖ role, thus undermining the authorial dominance over the fantasy. however, some texts still duplicate the pseudo-subjectivity contradictions in the traditional romantic novels studied by radway. first, some mengnv fiction adheres to mary sue’s logic, with female protagonists achieving seemingly high status through being desired by multiple high-status men. yet these female characters, as objects of desire, are still symbolic rewards of power competition among men, which coincides with the ―male homosocial desire‖ (sedgwick, 1985). such mechanisms conflate desirability with domination. second, such texts risk fueling post-consumerist self-alienation. as interviewee g1-04 confessed: ―i often feel unworthy of him because i’ve sacrificed nothing—not attending fan meetings, not gifting luxuries. how can i claim to love him without such proofs?‖ mengnv practices, designed to enhance the perception of subjectivity, may engender new forms of low perceived deservingness, trapping women in cyclical oscillations between fantastic transgression and real-world frustration. 6. female alliances beyond libido the interview data reveals that fantasies and obsessions with female celebrities/characters manifest not only among queer-identified mengnv (lesbian/bisexual) but also among self-proclaimed heterosexual practitioners. even when such fantasies carry romantic undertones, heterosexual mengnv rigorously reaffirm their ―straight‖ identity. interviewee g4-01 described her ambiguous affective bonds with female celebrities as transcending conventional romantic love, friendship, or kinship categories. this supplementary account amplifies the epistemological illegibility of such intimacies under patriarchal regimes that categorise emotions as either ―platonic or erotic‖. however, there are a large number of intimate experiences that are difficult to classify into this binary framework in participants’ minds. as vicinus (2004) pointed out when analysing linton’s works, ―the central paradox of linton’s writing was her inability, or unwillingness, to imagine an asexual friendship between women‖. consequently, romantic narratives are appropriated as symbolic vehicles for articulating non-erotic female alliances complex. illouz (1997) contended that capitalism colludes with mass media to enshrine romantic love as the gold standard of emotional intensity. when women attempt to express admiration for female idols, the hegemony of romantic rhetoric monopolises the discursive representation of ―profound emotions’ owing to the absence of socially legitimised alternative narratives. in the mengnv fiction text 我这辈子最擅长的事情是嫉妒文淇 (my greatest talent is envying wen qi) recommended by participants, ―i‖ constantly expressed my ―jealousy‖ and imitation of an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 74 published by scholink inc. accomplished female peer during adolescence. this emotion made ―me‖ always pay attention to her. eventually, upon reuniting with her after growing up, ―i‖ finally realised that behind this feeling lies a complex, ambiguous, and ineffable love. here, the very unspeakability of ambiguous desire constitutes resistance to what butler (1990) termed the ―violence of the heteronormative matrix‖. this ―aphasia‖ state paradoxically operates as a certification mark of the alliance complex. by anchoring desire in the peer’s intellectual excellence rather than physical body beauty, this text ultimately constructs a matrilineal chain rooted in intellectual recognition. analysis of queer-identified participants’ narratives reveals their shared conviction that mengnv’s devotion to female mengjue is not merely a mimetic reproduction of heteronormative relationships but rather a fundamental reconfiguration of the very modalities through which female intimacy is understood. as interviewee g04-05 observed: those works centred on female idols are decidedly more grounded—they depict the intertwining of souls and resonance between minds. writers of female idol mengnv fiction exhibit a particular affinity for themes like the growing pains of east asian females, where the subtle, often ineffable complexities of female relationships are meticulously deconstructed. these relationships are multifaceted: childhood friends turned lovers, deskmates in a chinese high school, stepsisters or stepmothers. the intricate dynamics of east asian femininity are rendered with visceral, even bleakly poetic intensity. g07-03 further analysed the reason why mengnv fiction fantasising about women is fundamentally distinct: ―because women already embody an innate beauty that requires no digging... we share the same gender, occupy analogous social positions within our cultural framework, and thus possess a natural intimacy that fosters mutual understanding‖. at the topological level of the flow of desire, same-gender-oriented mengnv fiction enacts a gender transposition of the core elements within male homosocial desire put forward by sedgwick (1985). in these female-authored narratives, no symbolic intermediary of another gender is required, and women spontaneously construct direct circuits of desire between one another grounded in shared lived experiences and cultural positioning, which enables them to become the subject and object of desire simultaneously. on the level of the female body, same-gender-oriented mengnv writing does not constitute avoidance of sexuality but rather an exploration of alternative corporeal narratives, one that refuses to fragment the female body into isolated ―sexy zones‖. it cultivates a metaphor of growing pains: shared experiences of menarche, upgrowth anxieties, or weakness become hidden bonds between female lives. such shared bodily memory functions as an alliance cypher, resisting the symbolic dissection of women’s corporeality. significantly, participants’ emphasis on an ―east asian‖ context reveals how these practices constitute situated responses to region-specific gender conditions. within confucian norms that rigidly enforce gender segregation, female homosocial intimacy occupies an ambivalent survival space, which can be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 75 published by scholink inc. tolerated as ―boudoir camaraderie‖ and can also be vulnerable to accusations of ―transgression‖. the recurrent relational tropes in mengnv fiction—childhood sweethearts, sisters, stepmothers—represent tactical appropriations of culturally sanctioned roles to facilitate affective experimentation. 7. intimacy and exclusion in mengnv communities radway’s (1984) research revealed how women in smithton constructed an alternative female community through romance novel reading—one that provided crucial emotional sustenance, though not as tightly-knit as local physical groups. similarly, mengnvs forge expansive, fluid online communities via internet-based reading and creative practices, offering significant affective support at some random moment. participant g6-01 disclosed that last year her post attracted numerous fans who adore the same idol as her. she reported crying for days after discovering that these fans purchased more star-related products and regularly attended their mengjue’s fan meetings, and that she did not seem to deserve to be the idol’s mengnv. when she subsequently shared this renewed sadness in a new post, over a hundred comments poured in from other mengnvs with different mengjues. one particularly impactful response stated: the key is replacing a worshipper’s perspective with a creator mentality. psychologically reframe ―i fantasise about xxx loving me‖ into ―i’m architecting a universe where xxx and i coexist in love‖. they are perfect just because we imagine them to be. there is no such thing as deserving or not. they exist because of us. mengnv community in virtual spaces forge a form of quasi-kinship that effectively establishes an alternative female emotional support network operating outside the real-life discipline. while the community is fluid—with participants often interacting anonymously and without fixed connections—the shared emotional experiences and mutual validation among mengnvs cultivate an informal yet intimate affective collective. however, the phenomena of tongdanjufou and tongjiajufou—manifesting as resistance to a character setting shared by multiple people, hostile critiques of other mengnv’s creative works, and the enforcement of exclusive discursive norms—reveal an existing mutual exclusion. these behaviours stem from a possessive demand for exclusive emotional ownership of characters, where individuals reinforce the uniqueness of their own fantasy relationships by invalidating others’ narratives. thus, tongdanjufou/tongjiajufou essentially constitutes a form of boundary work. some participants self-reported marked hostility toward fellow fans encountered on social media. the antagonism surfaces more overtly on social media like xiaohongshu, as seen in a viral text picture declaring: ―those who fantasise about marrying my mengjue and even resort to divination to ―verify‖ his love are such clowns... how could their cold, transactional delusions compare to the real bond www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 76 published by scholink inc. between me and my mengjue...‖ this rhetoric exposes the discursive violence inherent in struggles over fantasy ownership. illouz (2007) argued that emotional capitalism fosters a cultural tendency to treat personal feelings as unquestionable ―truth‖, where the emotional experience becomes the ultimate criterion of legitimacy. if feeling equals reality, then each individual’s affective experience constitutes an isolated ―reality bubble‖ impervious to external intervention. the privatisation of emotion exacerbates relational alienation since emotions, whether collectively triggered or not, are experienced and responded to only within the interiority of the individual psyche. what emerges is that human relationships degenerate into battles over emotional sovereignty rather than collaborative meaning-making. mengnvs’ subjectivity-forging through fantasy labour may unwittingly internalise the individualising logics of emotional capitalism, trapping in a more subtle mode of self-exploitation that masquerades as empowerment. 8. conclusion this study systematically examines the cultural practices of china’s mengnv community, revealing their complex implications for young women’s self-empowerment and gender politics. employing feminist literary criticism and reader-response theory alongside dual methodologies—focus group interviews and textual narrative analysis—it investigates how mengnv engage in subjectivity exploration through customised intimate fantasies. key findings demonstrate that during the late adolescence to emerging adulthood transition, the mengnv community utilises social media to subvert traditional intimacy scripts, converting fantasy into embodied narrative praxis, making intimacy a field for self-discovery, and expanding beyond heteronormative romance to explore non-heterosexual orientation romantic, friendship, and kinship relations. their paradigm reconfigures power dynamics in the structure of desire while symbolically constructing non-erotic female alliances. despite its significant critical potential, mengnv culture embodies structural contradictions in its resistive practices. while some texts deconstruct traditional gender scripts, they simultaneously replicate the pseudo-subjectivity trap like mary sue narratives. when women attempt to reconfigure intimacy through fantasy, they may carve out new subject positions yet risk re-embedding traditional gender hierarchies. thus, feminist subjectivity-building must critique the content of fantasies and their consumerist logic rather than focusing solely on surface-level narrative revisions. within the mengnv culture, the synergetic mechanisms of emotional capitalism persistently loom: platform algorithms privileging attention capital may suppress imaginative diversity, while the reproduction of ―low perceived deservingness‖ exposes the paradox of fantasy liberation coexisting with reality disempowerment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 77 published by scholink inc. moreover, while mengnv constructs quasi-kinship networks on social platforms, practices like tongdanjufou enact social exclusion, undermining collective solidarity. to form female homosocial alliances, a new affective grammar transcending romance paradigms is required. subject to further exploration, clough and halley’s (2007) ―affective turn‖ could be used to liberate emotions from identity and cultivate a more dynamic female intimacy discourse. this study opens space for an innovative rethinking of feminist subculture research. the notion of emerging adulthood offers a novel lens to examine young women’s negotiations in transitional periods, particularly how self-thinking strategies during delayed family obligations interact with traditional cultural tensions. meanwhile, feminist studies in east asian contexts should reckon with the ambiguity of emotions within confucian frameworks. the mengnv phenomenon demonstrates that even within hyper-commodified affective economies, women carve out resistant spaces through micro-narrative practices. these findings suggest adopting more inclusive theoretical frameworks that recognise the subversive potential latent in marginalised cultural praxis. references arnett, j. j. 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(2019). a comparative tale of two methods: how thematic and narrative analyses author the data story differently. communication research and practice, 5(4), 358-375. https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2019.1677068 mcrobbie, a. (1991). feminism and youth culture: from “jackie” to “just seventeen”. london: the macmillan press ltd. moegirlpedia. (2024). 夢女. retrieved april 15, 2025, from moegirl. tw website: http://zh.moegirl.tw/ morgan, d. l. (1996). focus groups. annual review of sociology, 22(1), 129-152. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.22.1.129 nichols-casebol, a., & spakes, p. (1995). policy research and the voices of women. social work research, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/swr/19.1.49 clough, p. t., & halley, j. o. (2007). the affective turn: theorizing the social. durham: duke university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 79 published by scholink inc. penley, c. (1992). feminism, psychoanalysis, and the study of popular culture. in l. grossberg, c. nelson, & p. a. treichler (eds.), cultural studies (pp. 479-494). new york: routledge. pixiv encyclopedia. (2025). 夢 女 子 . retrieved april 15, 2025, from https://dic.pixiv.net/a/%e5%a4%a2%e5%a5%b3%e5%ad%90 radway, j. a. (1984). reading the romance: women, patriarchy, and popular literature. chapel hill: the university of north carolina press. schechter, m., herbstman, b., ronningstam, e., & goldblatt, m. j. (2018). emerging adults, identity development, and suicidality: implications for psychoanalytic psychotherapy. the psychoanalytic study of the child, 71(1), 20-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/00797308.2017.1415596 sedgwick, e. k. (1985). between men: english literature and male homosocial desire. new york: columbia university press. shi, y. n. (2016). a discourse analysis of ―puppy love‖: 1979-2015. china youth study, (9), 44-49. https://doi.org/10.19633/j.cnki.11-2579/d.2016.09.006 sperber, d. (1993). interpreting and explaining cultural representations. in g. pálsson (ed.), beyond boundaries: understanding, translation and anthropological discourse (pp. 162-183). london: routledge. stacey, j. (1994). star gazing: hollywood cinema and female spectatorship. london: routledge. thorn, m. (2004). girls and women getting out of hand: the pleasure and politics of japan’s amateur comics community. in w. w. kelly (ed.), fanning the flames: fans and consumer culture in contemporary japan (pp. 169-187). albany: state university of new york press. ueno, c. (1997). hatsujō sōchi: erosu no shinario (apparatus of arousal: scenarios of eros). tokyo: chikuma shobō. vicinus, m. (2004). intimate friends: women who loved women, 1778-1928. chicago: university of chicago press. wang, l. y. (2024). exploring the phenomenon of ―mengnv literature‖ in fan fiction creation. journal of inner mongolia university of finance and economics, 22(1), 148-152. https://doi.org/10.13895/j.cnki.jimufe.2024.01.027 wang, n. (2018). ―emerging adulthood‖: a new paradigm in youth studies. youth exploration, (1), 51-61. https://doi.org/10.13583/j.cnki.issn1004-3780.2018.01.004 xu, x. f. (2017). on fictions by women writers from the qing dynasty jiangnan regional cultural perspective. journal of zhejiang normal university (social sciences), 42(4), 51-58. retrieved from https://chn.oversea.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbcode=cjfd&dbname=cjfdlast2017& filename=zsdb201704007&uniplatform=oversea&v=_lzg185y6jfp8-idy31epwkxcyr9_4 r_8ckektgvlpto4xx5kcfgj6cjx62abfhc www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 80 published by scholink inc. zhong, j., & arnett, j. j. (2014). conceptions of adulthood among migrant women workers in china. international journal of behavioral development, 38(3), 255-265. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025413515133 žižek, s. (1991). looking awry: an introduction to jacques lacan through popular culture. cambridge, massachusets and london: mit press. notes note 1. in y/n fanfiction, readers insert [your/name] and play out an intimate relationship with unattainable celebrities (cyber definitions, 2022). appendix 1 structured interview outline i. demographic information  age  marital status  occupation  education level  sexual orientations  duration of being a mengnv  duration and frequency of reading mengnv fiction ii. reading history, habits, and preferences 1. when did you start reading mengnv fiction? what was the trigger? (a specific person/character?) do you remember the content? 2. have you always focused on one person/character? whose mengnv fiction do you currently read? what makes them special to you? why did you start reading mengnv fiction about them? 3. what kinds of mengnv fiction tropes do you usually enjoy? what kinds do you dislike? 4. how do you allocate time between reading mengnv fiction and other genres (e.g., original novels, fanfiction)? 5. where do you access mengnv fiction? 6. do you discuss or recommend mengnv fiction with/to fellow fans? do you read comments on social media after finishing a story? have you commissioned personalised mengnv fiction? what are your thoughts on tongdanjufou (同担拒否) or tongjiajufou (同嫁拒否)? iii. knowledge and evaluation of mengnv and mengnv fiction 1. do you consider being a mengnv an important part of your identity? do you label yourself as a mengnv on social media? 2. (for those focused on fictional characters) how do mengnv fiction and other fiction/fanworks differ? why is mengnv fiction uniquely meaningful to you? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 81 published by scholink inc. 3. (for those focused on real-life celebrities) do you see yourself as engaging in typical ―fandom‖ behaviour? is mengnv culture part of idol fandom? would you call yourself a ―girlfriend fan‖? 4. (for creators) what are the benefits and drawbacks of writing mengnv fiction? 5. what makes a mengnv fiction ―perfect‖? what elements make a story flawed or even a ―red flag‖? could you describe your favourite/least favourite mengnv fiction and why you love/dislike it? 6. how strongly do you immerse yourself when reading? is self-immersion a key factor in your enjoyment? is it a quality benchmark? can you give examples? (for creators) do you consider readers’ immersion when writing? 7. what matters most in mengnv fiction—the accuracy of the character’s portrayal, the plot development, or the relationship dynamics between the character and ―you‖? iv. external and self-perceptions 1. how do others (other fans, friends, family, etc.) view your mengnv identity? have you faced negative reactions? 2. as a mengnv, have you experienced an encouraging ―real-life‖ moment? conversely, was there a time you considered quitting, either as a mengnv or for a specific character? 3. what does reading mengnv fiction mean to you? has it positively or negatively impacted your personal growth, daily life, or social interactions? 4. is there anything else you’d like to share about your experiences, opinions, or stories as a mengnv? communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 47 original paper the mystification and demystification of shared information on covid-19 across cyber mediated news networks: a sociological approach to solutions for vulnerable populations prof. dr. emmanuel k. ngwainmbi1* 1 department of communication studies, university of north carolina, charlotte, north carolina, usa * prof. dr. emmanuel k. ngwainmbi, department of communication studies, university of north carolina, charlotte, north carolina, usa received: june 4, 2020 accepted: june 14, 2020 online published: june 19, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n3p47 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n3p47 abstract the coronavirus (covid-19) hit the news headlines as a pandemic bound to affect millions of people around the world, and news media took responsibility to warn people, country heads, businesses, and private and non-governmental institutions about the virus. however, stories swirling on social media platforms about the origin and nature of covid-19 as well as questionable reporting by established news networks have left the public questioning the integrity of the real causes of the virus, how it spreads and whether treatment standards equate the hoopla about the genesis of the “pandemic.” this paper reviews narratives about the mystification and demystification of covid-19. it departs from the premise that the media frames ways in which people consume and use news. the paper then suggests how policymakers should handle newsflows on covid-19, how consumers should screen news, and how journalists should report covid-19 ethically. keywords coronavirus, covid-19, demystification, fake news, policymakers, media framing, social media, cable news, poor 1. background social media networks are adept at sharing large volumes of data to known and unknown groups about news in their locale and elsewhere, without recourse to their immediate or long term impact on recipients. audiences, (henceforth used interchangeably here as “consumers” or “users”) typically do not bother to check the authenticity of the news or its source. news consumers are not only social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 48 published by scholink inc. media users; they include billions of people around the world who own or have access to one or more media gadgets. but the new envoys (social media gadgets)—and their master—social media companies are bearing the brunt of criticism from consumers who want facts and useful information to help them make informed decisions. users distrust social media companies and cybercriminals, citing facebook, twitter, and other forms of platforms as contributing to their lack of trust. a survey of online users conducted globally in 2019 by the global survey on internet security and trust shows global distrust of social media information. the center for international governance innovation, a global research think-tank in a study published june 10, 2019, revealed that 89% of people in canada, 88% in nigeria, 83% in australia, 63% in hong kong, 64% in korea, and 88% in north america who distrust the internet cited social media as responsible for their distrust (www.cigionline.org/internet/05/30/2020). information shared on social media platforms has consequences on the economic, political, and diplomatic futures of nations. governments also explore ways of utilizing digital media to pursue their foreign policies because such media can indeed offer opportunities and challenges for strategic operations. countries with advanced digital technology use public diplomacy to understand cultures, attitudes, and behavior, build and manage relationships; and influence thoughts and mobilize actions to advance their interests and values (melissen, 2013, p. 436). that statement is at the epicenter of subsequent discussions in this paper as it navigates the nuances of nations feeding their people with life-threatening information through social media platforms and cable media networks. decision-makers in countries know how best to use digital technology to promote their national and transnational agendas. nevertheless, it is troublesome to postulate that social media networks—news and information sharing channels—are uniquely responsible for how we should treat data recipients. network users also share data to bring valuable and entertaining content to others, to (1) inform others of products and services people care about that can potentially change opinions or encourage action; (2) enlighten others about our personality; develop our relationships by staying in touch with them; (3) share information to allow others feel important and get more involved in our community and the world; (4) or advance causes we think they also care about. that sense of belonging is what makes us human. as part of our humanity, we invariably nurse a desire to belong to a small group or community or operate in intangible or ultra-terrestrial space. based on that framework, we examine how information about the corona virus (covid-19) has been managed in the media. 2. theoretical frameworks for this paper, we apply the issue agenda-setting and media framing theories that describe how audiences get to see or hear information with novel ideas about the way the world works, why they face difficulties, and the mechanisms available for solving challenges. framing is when data is highlighted to be noticed as the most important. framing is used in many ways to assess how media content frames www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 49 published by scholink inc. events and objects (dorman and krasnow, 2014). framing describes the practice of thinking about news items and stories within a familiar context. ‘framing’ focuses on public issues at hand rather than on a particular topic. it has been used to explore newspaper coverage, how good the articles were, and whether or not solutions were there surrounding the issue (gordon et al., 2010). typically, news discourse involving public policy is carefully constructed because public figures and interest groups take a proactive approach to 'frame' their views of the issue. for dorfman and krasnow (2014), framing is the process of reconciling new information with a dose of prior understanding. this means that people consciously or unconsciously weigh further information against well-formed ideas that have been reinforced in their thinking over time. this paper follows the socio-cognitive process of news and information management wherein three agents—the news source, media, and audience members—play the same roles and enjoy the same outcomes. the basis of the framing theory is that the media focuses attention on specific events and then places them in a general context. this paper grows from the underlying issue agenda-setting theory, which speaks to the media’s attempts to influence audiences and establish a hierarchy of news and information prevalence to such audiences. in that same framework, we contend that sociological thought processes help us to explain and predict the social world. sociologists have identified two types of functions: manifest and latent. the functionalist perspective emphasizes how parts of a society are structured to maintain its stability. sociologists agree that a process may disrupt a social system or lead to a decrease in instability in any community. to understand how information is received and perceived around the world or consider plans to use information that can help the population succeed, we have to invoke the uses of gratifications and issues agenda perspectives and how the media frames messages to convince us. our locus for using those principles is premised on the fact that people do not typically react to a phenomenon in a vacuum; instead, they act based on what they know, meaning that information can provoke emotions. in this study, we define vulnerable populations as poor persons and groups living in densely populated regions with limited access to social media gadgets and low capacity to assess news and information or differentiate fake messages from accurate messages. vulnerable groups include people who depend on their government to get access to resources. this paper also grows from the stance that misinformation has a powerful effect both on the receiver(s), the generators of fake news, and the established/professional news media agencies. the challenge of fake news has emerged as a new caveat to measure credibility and trust in journalism as a profession. studies show that journalists and professional news agencies are increasingly struggling to compete with social media networks in serving their audiences with the product—news. cable news networks and social media groups around the world are locked in a perennial battle to reach more people, keep www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 50 published by scholink inc. and feed them with news about happenings in the locale, and around the world. so, television journalists source and receive news from sources with ulterior motives, aware that specific sources give information for their benefits; for example, during political competitions, rival candidates and their supporters want to slant the news to settle political scores. others give unverifiable information for economic benefits where competing businesses seek advantages over their competitors to sway perceptions of customers. editors and reporters on television stations face a myriad of challenges in spotting fake news (ngwainmbi, 2019). established cable television and radio news networks have lost viewers to competing media channels because they lack authoritative contacts to confirm the authenticity of the news. mutagen, nyambuga, and mate (2020) have found that television stations trusted as new gatherers in specific locations also become a challenge when they develop the urge to make quick and more cash. 3. analyses 3.1 the psychology of creating, managing, and vitalizing fake news fake news is frequently well-orchestrated and timely, making it appeal to preconceived thoughts and ideas in the minds of the target consumers. this practice is equally a challenge to news teams, particularly the editors waging war against fake news. when a false story camouflages real news, it becomes a virus; therefore, spotting it is made more difficult. by the same token, when unmonitored activities on social media platforms undermine fact-based reporting, we must expect researchers to respond. moreover, depending on a country's media laws, there may be legal consequences for established news networks that disseminate fake news while competing with other news networks for higher ratings. looking at it from the gatekeeper stance that conceptualized this study, we acknowledge that editors spot fake news at the filter gates of all news. news sharing is a psychological gem in that people are naturally more interested in spreading rumors and dangerous information than receiving good news, unless such news is of some benefit to the receivers. psychologists inform us that determined people start rumors to feel superior to the receiver, get attention, or take control of the receiving group. people feel better about themselves if others feel worse. if someone knows something others do not know, he/she becomes the center of attention, although constant rumor-mongering may ruin one's reputation. people who want to be in control are adept at spreading rumors. typically, people who believe they are more popular or have accomplished within their community tend to spread rumors (false news). those with social media tools are more likely to forward fake news because they feel they would be appreciated or acknowledged by recipients. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 51 published by scholink inc. rumor consumers feel a desire to belong—the pressure to do the same when everybody else in the group is gossiping. people may also spread rumors when bored and need excitement. rumor mongering, the synonym for 'fake news' has become the desired means of getting informed. in the context of morale and national safety, rumor can cause needless alarm, raise extravagant hopes, or unpleasant consequences, as allport and postman (1947) found in the study of the american society during the second world war ii. fake news is a fast-growing trend in the 21st century in almost all aspects of life. it continues to distort people’s beliefs even after it has been debunked. a 2017 study published in the journal intelligence suggests that some people may have an especially difficult time rejecting misinformation. as matugi, nyamboga, and matu found in a study (2020), the population in kenya has also been a victim of fake news with misinformation on politics, political leaders, judiciary, and universities often broadcast of television as real news. consequently, some television stations in that country have been sued for disseminating fake news. in a rush to scoop stories on tv as breaking news ahead of their competitor, such media are guilty of spreading false claims, a practice that contradicts the normative principles of journalism and mass communication. this is troublesome because repeating a false claim increases its believability and subsequently makes a claim appear to be truthful, just as a pathological liar believes that by always telling lies and to a willing listener, he starts thinking he is trustworthy. the key message here is that our longevity and consistency in receiving information shape our worldview; the longer we consume information in the same style and format, our vulnerability becomes predictable. through education, people may develop meta-cognitive skills—strategies for monitoring and regulating one's thinking—that can be used to combat the effects of misinformation. there exists a connection between cognitive ability and our vulnerability to fake news. among adulthoods, for example, this ability declines considerably with advancing age, suggesting that older adults are more susceptible to misinformation (hambrick & marquardt, 2018). princeton university and the new york university’s social media and political participation lab researchers claim that people aged 65 and older are four times more likely to share fake news on popular social media platforms than younger people. u.s. news staff writer, alexa lardieri on january 9, 2019, reported that older people were not only more susceptible to fake news, but they also shared fake news stories during the 2016 u.s. presidential election. to further understand why fake news goes viral online, we should assess the connections between the sender's intentions and how we perceive the receiver's intentions. news spreads through secondary sources, what is known as the two-step flow style. social media consumers typically get their news from public figures, political activists, and opinion leaders who pick information from the mass media or create their own. the two-step flow style reminds us that we, the wider population get information from opinion leaders who interpret information and add original media content. so, persons with no www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 52 published by scholink inc. direct access to news technology are most likely to rely on the interpretations of news shared by opinion leaders than getting news firsthand. this can be dangerous because opinion leaders and firsthand news receivers may not/do not necessarily have full knowledge of the story, that is, its origin and its components. some “news accessors” do not have the intellectual acumen to package and deliver key news components with consistency as trained journalists. that is common practice with social media users who play the dubious role of opinion leader and news-setter and distribute it based on how they think the receiver would value it. to summarize, the way information is packaged and shared, and the sourcing of the information determine its news value. to that end, we discuss next the sociology of news and information and how news spreads. 3.2 sociology of news and information and how news spreads information is the tree from which news grows and yields fruits. the news media, by default, is the fertilizer because it gives the population news and information to meet needs. these include enlightening oneself, entertaining, instructing, understanding the world, making informed decisions, or rethatching emotions. news, by definition, is something that is newly received; it is noteworthy information about important events. if individuals were to pick an important event, each piece of information would be remarkable and such individuals would convince everyone else to believe the information is newsworthy. however, that is impossible because the individual must have resources to identify and collect information and make it newsworthy to everyone else. what is possible is that resourceful parties pick information that can be delivered as news. they do so to get fulfillment. conversely, the absence of knowledge does not create the curiosity to know. fazio et al. (2015) have aptly stated that knowledge neglect, or the failure to apply stored knowledge appropriately, occurs in tasks other than those involving judgment of truth. by the same logic, the knowledge that flows in one direction can easily influence one's decision, even if he/she already possesses stored knowledge. that view is supported by a 2015 study published in the journal of experimental psychology, where lisa fazio and her colleagues found that people rarely engage in source monitoring when evaluating information from their knowledge bank. when people get information, they look for ingredients like truth, the illusion of reality, stored knowledge neglected, among others. in short, information breeds curiosity. the normative meaning of the term, “curious” explains why news of any kind, including covid-19, can kindle feelings of fear and awe, no matter what its existing linguistic, historical, socio-ethnic, religious, educational, political or socio-economic origin. for the adjective “curious,” culled from the root latin term, “curiosus” synonymous to “eagerly inquiring,” “diligent,” “careful,” “meddling” speaks to an innate desire to teach knowledge. even in medieval french culture, specifically, the 14th century, the term “curios” (among the british, “curious”) meant 'inquisitive,” “odd,” “strange,” which makes you anxious. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 53 published by scholink inc. consequently, anything one doesn't know is 'news' because it makes one curious, anxious. the sourcing of things new is guided by four factors--the social currency of the message, its value, ability to understand the mental state, of oneself and others (mentalizing), and intention. if the message carrier believes the message has value, the carrier then takes into account the needs of the receiver. our senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, and assess—are always ready to manage messages we receive. we are, inherently, curious to know what is happening around us to satisfy our desire to be included. the more one values an idea he/she is more likely to share it. thus, we can predict which messages will go viral and which ones will not, based on how we process the value of the words we share and how we perceive the receiver's potential reactions to our message. srini pillay, neurobusiness group ceo, has advanced that two circuits operate in the sender's brain: the “reward” circuit, which registers the value of the message to the sender, and the “mentalizing” circuit, which activates when the sender sees things from the person who receives the message. let us not be preposterous here, for the receiver executes curiosity differently. our perceptual curiosity—feelings—can differ when we see something that surprises us, puzzles us, or does not match up with something we thought we knew. perceptual curiosity may vary from our natural desire to learn—what neuroscience calls “epistemological curiosity.” even the romanian-born internationally recognized israeli-american astrophysicist mario livio (2017) has professed that we allow ourselves to learn everything to cope with our environment and make fewer mistakes as young learners. our curiosity diminishes as we learn more of the same thing or get older learning it. tied to such telescope space science is the fundamental logic behind people’s choice to share or receive factual and fake news through the media. networks can also use it to promote their agenda within the community. in the next segment, we attempt to diffuse what prompts people to create and distribute fake news and information to recipients they know and people they do not know. 3.3 how covid-19 became news news is generated by persons with trained eyes, ears, and brains to find and deliver information differently. they pick an event among others occurring in the community. they write about it on their platform, interview people about the event, report information to readers and viewers they believe might be interested in it, and monitor people who have exhibited an interest in the event. if that procedure is not followed, we may consider the event to be a cluster of information, not news. monitoring is done to determine the extent of the audience's interest in the news. to know why covid-19 became news, and why there is so much mystery, panic, and special attention around covid-19, we need to understand what the virus is, and how it was presented to consumers as news, not information. reports produced by health experts show that people with covid-19 (coronavirus) symptoms may have a persistent cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, fever, chills, muscle www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 54 published by scholink inc. pain, sore throat, or loss of taste and smell. symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. if it is not treated promptly, the patient may become sick, have antibodies that fight the disease, or die. based on that information, coronavirus symptoms are similar to those detected in flu patients. literature recorded so far has elevated information about the coronavirus to the level of news. here are some reasons why the coronavirus is newsworthy. chinese authorities reported the first case of coronavirus disease 2019 on november 17, 2019. according to the guardian newspaper (november 17, 2019), unpublished data with the chinese government showed that the disease had been detected weeks before the media and chinese authorities announced the emergency. the south china morning post reported that chinese authorities had identified at least 266 people who contracted the virus and came under medical surveillance the most powerful news agencies around the world simultaneously reported the rapid spread of coronavirus around the world, and various social media networks redistributed the reports in mid-january 2020. coronavirus became big news after information about its origin, and its potentials had been shrouded in secrecy, creating a vacuum of knowledge and fantasies in social media networks and the cable news media all over the world. after chinese journalist, chen qiushi, published an article in the washington post, february 9, 2020, offering chilling glimpses of patients' conditions in hospitals in wuhan, china, the zone identified for the first cases, the chinese government adept at censoring the press in china arrested the journalist. the event coincided with cruise ships arriving the italian, spanish, and u.s. shores with infected patients. next was the rising death tolls in italy, spain, and the u.s. then, new york times reported that the government of wuhan, china, had confirmed that health authorities were treating dozens of cases after researchers identified a “new virus” that had infected dozens in asia. another new york times article published january 11, 2020, announced the first known death from the coronavirus in china. the same newspaper on january 20 reported that u.s., japan, south korea, thailand, and other countries had confirmed cases. on january 30, 2020, the director of the world health organization declared a global health emergency, and the u.s. state department warned u.s. travelers to avoid going to china. the trump administration closed its borders to travelers from china on january 31. on february 11, the virus was officially named covid-19, and 24 countries had infected people. this was followed by 443 quarantined passengers released from diamond princess cruise ship, followed on february 23, by a significant surge in infected cases in italy and infection hikes in europe and the u.s. those reports were invariably broadcast by the associated press, reuters, agence france presse, and united press international. independent news agencies around the world also picked up the story and disseminated versions in major world languages like swahili, portuguese, german, mandarin, hindustani, arabic, russian, malay, and bengali. the story about how, why, and where the virus was spreading had been shared in more than 190 languages in millions of network groups, giving it high relevance as the biggest story on mainstream media around the world. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 55 published by scholink inc. those activities equally brought the spotlight on the story, prompting world-renowned journalists wolf blitzer, christiane amanpour, rachel maddow, and teams of reporters worldwide to report on the origin and spread of the virus. on may 30, 2020, the new york times reported the arrest of chen by chinese authorities and the death of the chinese whistleblower doctor, li wenliang, who tried to warn the public about coronavirus, following conflicting reports about his condition on state media. the report incited the press to probe reasons for the happenings. the secrecy around those events raised media interest in the story as reporters went to wuhan to expand coverage of the incidents. country leaders then joined the media to make the public more aware of the pandemic. the trump administration and its team of health experts started daily press conferences about the pandemic and related government measures, carried by major news networks. news consumers tweeted and retweeted rumors about root causes of the pandemic, treatments, infection rates, and death tolls, giving more attention than other broadcasts. the messages were redistributed at least twice from february through june 2020 in networked groups as cable news television stations provided lengthy daily coverage of stories about the pandemic. 3.4 public opinions in support and denial of the mystery behind the pandemic stories about the political history, existence, and spread of coronavirus can be traced in growing literature published in refereed science journals, media broadcasts, blogs, and online postings from real medical professionals informed reporters, opinion leaders, government leaders, unverified sources and religious bodies. a u.s. senator complained in a fox news program broadcast in may 2020 that the pandemic started in a chinese lab in wuhan, leading to a cultural politics war. public relations and advocacy wars have been flaring among religious and non-religious bodies determined to shape world opinion on whether to authenticate the virus as a threat to human life or the manipulation of the world population for socio-economic benefits. for example, a group of senior conservative catholic clergy described covid-19 as a pretext for governments to deprive people of their freedom and track their movements. similarly, the right-wing populist combative rhetoric considers global efforts to contain the pandemic as a pretext to erase christian civilization and create a hate-filled technocratic tyranny. the fact that german bishops dismiss the clergy's widely disseminated complaint as a conspiracy theory in a press release published in the catholic news service (kna), may 12, 2020, reminds us that facts about the virus are more necessary than conspiracies and theories. whatever the media platforms, faith-based institutions have used to present their impressions of the sociopolitical and economic impact of the virus on human communities, those persons serving on the frontlines of the pandemic such as bus drivers, lab technicians, and hospital personnel have shared experiences we must not ignore. autopsy reports, lab tests, and other serological experiments show a direct link between covid-19 infection rates and race-based socially induced health conditions such as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 56 published by scholink inc. diabetes, high blood pressure, leukemia, heart conditions, older people, and high death rates. in particular, a nurse practitioner treating patients in california analyzed the causes of their death as follows: “the government and the church may reopen when they want. they can come up with conspiracies as they choose, but one thing i know is that corona is real, there is no proven treatment for it, no vaccine yet and the only thing i can do is wash my hands, wear a mask and limit the frequency of interacting with big groups of people. i say, let them open churches, schools, and businesses. was it a hoax when 700+ coffins were churches in italy every day, and all those people dying in n.y. city and elsewhere pretended to die? i hope the people who are making all those declarations never have to die of covid-19” (personal whatsapp interview, may 23, 2020). there is extensive evidence that the virus emerged from animals and transmitted to people. research conducted by national and international agencies in state-sponsored labs and labs funded by big donors operating under the pretext of serving university research centers continues to publish reports about diagnostic techniques, transmission methods, and criteria for identifying people at high risk of contracting the virus. the center for disease control, the johns hopkins university, babraham institute, and the university of cambridge, england, together have repeatedly encouraged people to wear face masks in public and wash hands to reduce infection rates. 3.5 how social media is reshaping news about covid-19 scientists and established cable news networks have debunked most stories circulating on social media networks about covid-19 as conspiracy theories. we know that a conspiracy theory is when powerful groups, often in political motivation, push forward an explanation for the existence of an event or a situation when other examples are more probable. in the turbulence of news about coronavirus pandemic, it might be challenging to differentiate a scam or rumor from vital information. social media’s primary advantage over the traditional news network is its ability to make news a social entity. social media groups make it increasingly difficult for established cable networks to provide up-to-date news and information to their respective audiences partly because cyber communities are more aggressive in producing and disseminating news than established news organs. news organs take time to fact check, verify sources, and edit news before broadcasting it. at the same time, social media users simply write and share stories they feel others might be interested in reading. this leads to misinformation. to better understand why there is too much misinformation on social media about the coronavirus, we need to know how cognitive science explains human interaction. john cook and stephan lewandowsky, authors of the conspiracy handbook, have argued that conspiracy theories erode public trust in government and medical institutions upon which the public itself depends on accurate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 57 published by scholink inc. information. cook and lewandowsky (2020, p. 3) posit that conspiracy theories are not supported by evidence that can withstand scrutiny, but this does not stop them from blossoming. instead of going to a neighbor with thoughts on a topic published in the newspaper, social media users instead join forums and discuss breaking news. since january 2020, the french news agency, (agence france presse,) which reaches 168 countries; the associated press, which reaches 106 countries; reuters, which has over 750 television broadcasts in 115 countries; and united press international that reaches 92 countries with a spanish version for latin america have delivered the majority of breaking news about the virus. overall, the news, coronavirus, has transformed how we think, work, entertain ourselves, or treat our friends and families. 3.6 facts and fiction about covid-19 due to widespread interest in the pandemic perpetuated by social media networks, country leaders, and cable news media, people have been inundated with unconfirmed reports. people appear more confused today than when the news about the virus was first released because they do not know which source has provided accurate information. as of june 2, 2020, there were 6.6 million confirmed cases of covid-19 infection; 371,000 deaths and 216 countries, areas, or territories with cases. among those, the u.s., whose population is 331 million, had over 1.8 million confirmed cases, the highest in the world, followed by brazil with half a million. the countries with the highest cases and limited recovery rates were based in the western world (see table 1). table 1. countries most affected by covid-19 in early 2020 location confirmed recovered deaths united states 1.85m +16,070 412k 107k +478 brazil 531k +11,598 241k 30,079 +623 russia 424k +9,035 187k 5,037 +162 united kingdom 276k +1,570 39,045 +0 spain 240k 150k 27,127 source: wikipedia. retrieved june 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 58 published by scholink inc. from a regional perspective, the virus seems to have devastating consequences, as well as seen below. table 2. statistics by region, may 12, 2020 regions infection cases deaths (4 261) africa 46 829 cases (2 296) 1 449 deaths (34) americas 1 743 717 cases (41 266) 104 549 deaths (2 675) eastern mediterranean 274 027 cases (8 863) 9 138 deaths (125) europe 1 755 790 cases (24 184) 157 880 deaths (1 277) south-east asia 105 901 cases (5 020) 3 597 deaths (116) western pacific 161 872 cases (962) 6 527 deaths (34) source: world health organization. may 12, 2020 given the current world population of 7.6 billion people, the pandemic has been spreading at a faster rate beyond the estimates provided by the us-based center for disease control (cdc). the respected health organization had predicted 1.4 million would be infected with 100,000 deaths in the u.s. by june 1, 2020, giving optimists and conspiracy theorists room to criticize efforts to slow the disease. still, for economists, the virus is spreading at a frenetic pace, and the numbers can easily quadruple by 2021 and cause a recession worldwide if an effective vaccine is not found. since the world health organization and the columbia university school of public health scientists announced that covid-19 was a global pandemic in january 2020, social media platforms have filled 80% of their content with versions of the disease. clinical studies with first infections in wuhan, china, and reports from predict, a u.s. funded global program investigating the virus in animals, as well as cable news media coverage, appear to have negatively influenced public opinion about the cause and nature of the illness. we wonder whether social media networks can compete with cable news media in sharing coronavirus messages. more curiously, it would be more challenging to determine whether cable news agencies, scientists, or social media that is creating a frenzy, prejudice, or rumor about the covid-19 that can jeopardize global collaboration to reduce the spread of the virus and find a cure successfully. to complicate matters, the world health governing body, who, reportedly ignited the controversy over the source of the pandemic and the way countries were managed it when the trump administration announced the who hierarchy had been slow in warning the world of the severity of covid-19 and threatened to suspend funding the who. that announcement fueled rumors that the global health watchdog, heavily funded by china and other countries, was protecting chinese interest. the u.s. president, fox news, and a u.s. senator in april 2020, equally threatened economic sanctions against china, accusing the country of creating the virus and destroying the world's economy. those www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 59 published by scholink inc. allegations led 27 public health scientists in the u.s. and around the globe to present scientific evidence to questionable online information distributors in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals in china. charles calisher, dennis carroll, et al. (feb. 2020) also debunked the onslaught of social media news flows and showed their solidarity with health professionals and scientists in china by referring to clinical studies completed by other scientists on the coronavirus. undoubtedly, public debates on paid cable and social media platforms about the origins and reasons for the rapid spread of the virus have piqued people's curiosity and prompted more people than usual to seek and share news and rumors about the virus on a massive scale. never before has the world community come together to help each other defeat the virus by sharing advice on remedies. 3.7 how media influences public behavior on covid-19 to know how the media frames public opinion on covid-19, we go back to 2009 when swine flu or h1n1, was recorded as one of the worst global pandemics. when swine flu or h1n1 became a pandemic, the media played a significant role in creating a lasting impression. according to holland, k., sweet, m., blood, r., and fogarty, a. (2014), media outlets across australia were reporting data based on what they could find and understand. viewers used updates from media reports to create more panic in the community. the world health organization did not verify the information the media was passing along. in terms of the coronavirus, ignorant people deprived of accurate information are susceptible to various forms of suffering. this is the case with minority groups experiencing economic hardship. in the united kingdom, for example, 95% of the people infected or dying from the virus are ethnic minorities. according to the reuters news agency, minorities who work in healthcare and other sectors are most exposed to the virus. the public health journal in the united kingdom affirms that ethnic minority groups are most affected because of their living standard. they have low incomes and large families living in compact areas; are obliged to work under high-risk conditions to support their families. other vulnerable people in the uk and the us are blacks and the hispanic workforce in big cities and construction workers. in the next segment, we attempt to show how the media controls public discourse on the coronavirus, literarily making people to operate in a “new normal” environment. 3.8 covid-19 and the “new normal” lifestyle coronavirus has transformed how primary care physicians handle patient visits. when the world health organization, february 2020, announced covid-19 as a worldwide pandemic, governments enforced social distancing to slow the spread of the virus, while medical experts from harvard, johns hopkins, and the center for disease control struggled to find a proper vaccine. health experts, celebrities and other public figures, including parliamentarians and heads of state speaking on different media platforms in major world languages (french, english, spanish, german, portuguese, mandarin, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 60 published by scholink inc. kiswahili) have joined scientists in instructing people to wear face masks and gloves, wash their hands, stay six feet apart, and avoid large gatherings in public. shopping centers, clinics, worship buildings, petrol filling stations, and other public places remind people to apply socially distance measures to protect themselves and others. this new public order is not a law in any country, but it has impacted certain customs. further, family members and acquaintants are prohibited from visiting elderly patients in residential areas created for older people. gyms have posted rules on their websites that include keeping people and machines at least six feet apart. similarly, primary healthcare centers have introduced new ways of treating their patients. formally, the patient would call and schedule an appointment, and the doctor would see, feel, and touch the patient. in the wake of the pandemic, some doctors offer remedies through videoconferencing, reducing the risk of getting infected. the table below shows the advantages and disadvantages of what this paper calls “cyber doctoring.” table 3. covid-induced primary care patient visit activity advantage disadvantage hippa offers a new, creative way of seeing patients patient privacy may be easily compromised. not all patients have access to internet/cyber doctor visits cost the patient's cost of an office visit is minimal. with only a video-equipped cell phone the patient can see a doctor and get treatment clinics lose income when there is no in-person/office visit patient diagnosis doctors can treat the patient from afar the doctor can’t get a full diagnosis by speaking to the patient. a patient may be deaf, have low expressive skills, etc. preventing a thorough understanding of the health problem satellite diagnosis the patient feels safe as no else is in the office knows his/her ailment-privacy protected potential for misdiagnosing of health condition is greater good chance to experience the doctor’s human side. the doctor can show more compassion via human emotions may not be sufficient. satellite visits are limited to a phone conversation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 61 published by scholink inc. video meeting patients in impoverished areas may not have internet business sustainability in-person visits which often include lab tests, mammograms, ekgs bring more capital to run the clinic as a business -smaller clinics may go out of business due to no in-person visits. 3.8.1 the advantages of social networking and africa’s sustenance potential networked groups have been vividly engaged in sharing, receiving, and processing stories about covid-19. vulnerable populations, that is, people without adequate access to social media information and those being directed by their governments, are more likely to be infected than those in open societies with frequent access to news and information about covid-19. according to news reports from agence france presse published in may 2020, only 72,000 cases were recorded in africa. this is significant in that africa’s population accounts for 17 % of the world's population. most africans believe in traditional methods of living, and they rely on herbal treatments and related ancestral relics. other reasons why africa has contained the pandemic are indicated below: • africa is outside the pathway of the heavily infected regions like china, the u.s., and the u.k., although chinese citizens continue to travel to africa and vice-versa. • studies show that the virus does not survive for a long time in hot temperatures. we know that africa is very hot. and global warming has made the continent hotter than ever. • most african countries implemented the who measures as soon as the first cases were detected. • 65% of africa’s population consists of young people, and the virus is affecting mostly older people with underlying problems. • africa is mostly ruralcommunities are adept at using herbal remedies. through messages shared on social media platforms, more people are boiling and drinking fever grass, lemon, orange, ginger, and other roots to slow or prevent infection. • according to omar sarr, a professor of medicine at the respected university of cheikh anta diop in dakar, africa has been exposed to micro-organisms compared to other regions. further, there is a high degree of vaccine coverage in africa, making africans potentially more resistant to contamination (www.linkedin.com retrieved may 18, 2020). • madagascar and cameroon have invented curative treatments against the virus. medical professionals in cameroon offer kledavid, also known as seraphine kene, to covid patients. in madagascar, doctors without borders admitted that people were drinking boiled herbs and eating lemons and ginger as remedies for the disease. while there are no clinical studies to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 62 published by scholink inc. support their claims, social media reports and online postings indicate those remedies have cleared symptoms in patients. 3.8.2 obstacles • africa and india are densely populated, and people cannot practice social distancing, making them vulnerable to the virus. • social norms such as handshaking, close contacts during funerals, and childbirth celebrations make it easier for the virus to spread among people. • social distancing, touted and promoted on cable media as the key preventive element against the spread of the virus, is a luxury to densely populated regions where most people are poor and cannot afford the financial costs. • relaxed government regulations, such as allowing vehicles to deliver goods and opening bars. • limited capacity and the will to sustain who guidelines. for example, chinese and french airline companies were allowed to fly to central and southern africa only two months after the who advised nations to close their borders. the african authorities probably allowed the planes to fly, fearing retribution from their allies. • scientists may use the media as the bully pulpit to dissuade the masses in africa from using local remedies to cure themselves. the colonial mentality is still entrenched in the african psyche so much that people cherish ‘foreign’ activities more than local initiatives. some medical staff, hospitals, and clinics would rather wait for a vaccine or drug from europe or america than administer local remedies such as kledavid. 4. conclusions covid-19 has caused dramatic deaths and illnesses, disrupted the global economy, and, most importantly, raised new challenges for globalization. from a sociological perspective, a more limited form of globalization might emerge, mitigated by the pandemic. while scientists and governments are working frenetically to limit the socio-economic and cultural impact of the epidemic on the human population, we have learned that the so-called superpowers—us, china, france, russia, the uk, germany, and japan albeit renown for their economic and military prowess are gravely limited when it comes to managing a global health crisis. the high number of infections and deaths from covid-19 around the world shows that the most economically advanced countries were not prepared to stop the virus from spreading. the risks lie in our overdependence on world superpowers for our protection, which is a colossal mistake. the whole experience with covid-19 prompts us to reassess international interdependence and redefine the term ‘superpower.’ also, the world health organization mandated by united nations to spearhead public health failed to promptly inform nations about the deadly virus until it became a pandemic, exposing people to more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 63 published by scholink inc. health crises and causing harm, especially among poor people and those living in squalid conditions all over the world. in short, the information gap and misunderstanding of what constitutes a superpower may have led to the mystification of covid-19. further, human beings do not automatically adjust to a brand new way of living, so they may soon abandon the so-called “new normal” of wearing masks in public and cleaning objects. apathy, malaise, and sheer forgetfulness would cause people to return to old ways. therefore, it is essential to consider some sociological solutions to the status quo. 5. the way forward 5.1 use of social media to diagnose and treat patients clinical psychologists, pharmacologists, and serological workers in each ethnic group should record video messages on different prevention measures, show people how to use traditional concoctions, and disseminate them via social media networks. within days the messages would go viral, allowing people to analyze data and consider their options. the mysterious nature in which the coronavirus spreads has led healthcare institutions in some countries to apply new initiatives to limit its ability to infect more people. social media has been found to affect the healthcare professional and patient relationship, by leading to regular communication between the patient and healthcare professional, increased switching of doctors, harmonious relationships, and suboptimal interaction between the patient and healthcare professional (smailhodzic et al., 2016, p. 442). concerned that the traditional approach to treating patients (physical contact) may spread the virus, clinics in the united states have resorted to social media, particularly zoom and online registration portals, to see and treat patients, thereby fostering the spirit of social distancing. early results show that cyber-treatment methods are not only practical, but they also do not compromise the health insurance portability and accountability act of 1996 (hipaa) that requires the protection and confidential handling of protected health information. all patients electronically sign a document to keep their healthcare records confidential or relinquish that right. novant health, a healthcare provider based in north carolina comprising a four-state integrated network of physician clinics, outpatient centers, hospitals, 1,600 physicians, 29,000 employees at 640 locations, 15 medical centers and physician clinics has successfully diagnosed and treated over one million patients online since the state of north carolina imposed lockdown due to the pandemic. this proves that healthcare organs and patients consider social media a useful partner needed to manage covid-19. there may be more beneficial and potentially harmful effects of social media use to diagnose and treat coronavirus patients. however, it is probably too early to determine the effect of identifying and treating patients through video-based diagnoses until scientists carry out more clinical studies and reports from clinics over time. from a sociological perspective, it would be challenging to monitor www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 64 published by scholink inc. doctor-patient confidentiality since countries have their value system and healthcare laws. patient privacy could be compromised if more countries do not set up privacy laws. 5.2 implications for ethical journalism two significant problems identified from our analyses relate to information consumption; (1) that consumers do not take time to differentiate fake news sources from real news sources. as such, (2) consumers remain under-informed or misinformed—precarious, especially when there are millions of android phones in the world, and news reaches millions of people in only seconds. the fact the deadly virus spreads faster than information shared on social media platforms should incentivize established world media bodies to brainstorm creative ways of delivering accurate, useful messages to save lives. the burden of serving the human population with helpful information does not rest with social media ceos like mark zuckerberg, john legerr, daniel schulman, and other cohorts. nor should we blame yellow journalism and rumor initiators for the fake news pandemic that has adulterated journalistic integrity is rendering the news and information industry more obsolete, obfuscating the management of useful information, and, in general, negatively affecting the media industry. governments, international organizations, foreign services departments that conduct business with local and external partners, and established news organizations should collectively take steps to protect journalistic ethics. the obstacles facing the news team consisting of journalists, news anchors, camera operators, editors, graphic artists, photographers, informants that work together to complete a story require more training in spotting fake news. training must include acquiring knowledge of every new technology, enhancing writing skills, and recognizing fake news typology. news industries need additional resources to train news teams to properly play the news media gatekeeper role that includes knowing news impact, prominence, proximity, bizarreness, conflict and currency, and the number of people to be influenced by the subject. if media organs want to enhance their reputation as the news reference point, they should raise fake news education and literacy levels within their ranks. if they used reverse search engines, and fact-checking sites to screen fake news and redistribute news promptly, the media organs would become authoritative contacts for confirming the authenticity of the story, hence re-establishing public trust. 5.3 consumer responsibility it is difficult to distinguish between fake news and real news, especially after facebook and google employees tasked with banning offensive content face reprieve due to evolving policies imposed by the government. even in the united states where the constitution (the first amendment) gives people five fundamental freedoms: freedom of speech, press, petition, assembly and religion, such privileges are compromised when the u.s. president, donald trump, signs an executive order giving tech companies, particularly facebook, twitter, and google broad legal immunity over content posted by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 65 published by scholink inc. their users. according to the national law review the “order further directs federal agencies to assess their spending on advertising and marketing on online platforms, as well as directs the federal trade commission (ftc) to consider enforcement actions against social media companies for possible violations of section 5 of the federal trade commission act” (the national law review, june 3, 2020). that decision overrides section 230 of the communication decency act that broadly protects internet companies from liability for the content users post on their platforms. the decision strips liability protection from companies that censure content. this means that social media news and information consumers would become more vulnerable to fake news. however, consumers must not trust any news or information from anonymous sources. they must take responsibility by identifying fake news to avoid being misled and consequently making the wrong decisions, especially as news about the covid-19 pandemic has been spreading without a filtering, monitoring mechanism to educate vulnerable populations. news consumers should take the following steps to debunk fake news: • if you (the news consumer) are not sure informing is accurate, do not share it. • check the date the story was published, for social media tends to recycle old stories. • question news headlines written in capital letters or sentences filled with caesuras. • question stories that quote other news outlets, especially websites, as their source. • if there are no links or ways to verify quotes and references, the news is likely fake. • pay attention to the language of the news media. zimdars (2020) has a list of ten steps needed to analyze false, misleading, clickbait-y, or satirical "news" sources. they include paying attention to the language the cable news media uses: "we are seeking confirmation, "or "we are getting reports that..," or (name of news network) has learned." unless there is live reporting and viewers see actual photos and assess what informants are sharing, the news is likely fake. • choose news from outlets close to the incident, not media from afar, and compare multiple sources. • beware of messages that overtly and ironically reflect conventions. messages tweeted and retweeted that use more adjectives and action verbs are likely fake. • the center for news literacy warns that 'big news brings out fakers and photo shoppers.' • a news article with too many ads such as pop-ups and banner ads might be fake. • newsmongers should access https://guides.stlcc.edu/fakenews/factchecking • most important, follow the rules provided by the world health organization to prevent the spread of the virus that includes avoiding crowds, washing hands, wearing masks, and keeping a six-feet distance in public. • newsmongers should access https://guides.stlcc.edu/fakenews/factchecking. https://guides.stlcc.edu/fakenews/factchecking https://guides.stlcc.edu/fakenews/factchecking www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 66 published by scholink inc. 5.4 suggestions for country policymakers we advise policymakers to take the following measures immediately based on each country’s governing style, resources, international socio-economic relations, and diplomatic relations with its partners: • government heads (directors/ministers of healthcare) should update their population about the pandemic. • administrators should have a program for reopening the economy based on informed advice from top-notch scientists in their country and the who. • governments should set up a crisis intervention team of scientists, healthcare workers, media organs, and demographers to trace the spread of the virus and use trial medications such as dexamethasone or chloroquine only when it has been cleared globally as a safe form of treatment. • governments should liaise with international experts through diplomatic channels to compare experiences, share facts about it and treatment measures, and pick out best practices in finding a cure. • governments should find volunteers to share literature about the virus in their communities. • each government should invest in local herbalists, medical doctors, and serologists to seek remedial treatment and eventually find a cure because relying heavily on foreign intelligence could compromise a country’s political, diplomatic, and economic interests. 5.5 making a case for media buying by the most vulnerable groups it is well established that mainstream news media are corporate-owned. mainstream right-wing media organs frame news to meet the needs of their owners, so news editors influence public opinion by choosing stories and building narratives that make headlines and front pages of newspapers. they select news based on their perceptions of big straight news and their political, economic, diplomatic, and cultural impact on the consumer. simply put, the news we get is the outcome of professional routines that generally focus on the activities of bureaucratic institutions. david croteau and william hoynes (2003) and ronald l. jackson, past president of the national communication association (u.s.), among others prove the point that the media is a powerful tool used to control minds and the economy. jackson (2019) sees the media as "our portals to knowledge and information across the globe," and information as something steeped in the political, socio-economic, communal, cultural, and communicative complexities of the convergence media that bring us the stories about other worlds (p. v). in terms of resource mobilization, say in the united states, blacks are the most ignored group; therefore, they must first understand that the media's partial coverage of the coronavirus pandemic might be the reason for widespread infection and high death rates in their community. thus, those who www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 67 published by scholink inc. have been misinformed about covid-19 should create their media platforms to screen information and share their messages to manage the pandemic instead of relying on mainstream media, which is sponsored by powerful political and wealthy entities. for blacks to control content about the epidemic and related economic matters in the distant future, they should buy and own more radio and television stations now. the fact that blacks own only 10 of 12,000 cable news television stations is a case in point. in africa and other countries where blacks are the majority population, media broadcasts tend to favor western socio-economic interests that are generally detrimental to them. grosso modo, the propensity to create and share news to millions of people, lies in a group’s ability to control its economy. no matter which perspective aligns with those of a particular community, what matters is how a community manages the media content it receives. communities that sheepishly consume information from other media sources lack political and economic influence—they do not have control over policy and financial markets in their community or elsewhere. for example, the black population, which has approximately two billion of the world’s population of 7.7 billion, needs to change the global political landscape to recognize its digital presence in the world. the 46 million blacks in the united states (14%) of the country’s population (of 331 million) could form their political party and put together a healthcare plan detailing how they want to be served. as such, any political party, republican or democrat, would ensure that their platform is included in the nation’s agenda. consequently, u.s. media, which delivers news content based on the overarching interests of the republican or democrat ideology, would add the black community's plan to its reporting program. if blacks do not own more media stations to carry their messages, they cannot control the influx of information from other sources in their community. references adesina, o. s. & james, s. (eds.). (2017). foreign policy in an era of digital diplomacy. cogent social sciences, 3(1). allport, g. w., & postman, l. (1947). the psychology of rumor. new york: holt, rinehart & winston. anderson, m., & chaumont, a. (2014). how social media is reshaping news. pew research center. calisher, c., & carroll, d. et al. (march 7, 2020). statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of china combatting covid-19. the lancet, 395, 10226, e43. retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc7159294/ retrieved may 30, 2020 cook, j., lewandowsky, s., & ecker, u. k. (2017). neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence. plos one, 12 (5), e0175799. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 68 published by scholink inc. dorfman, l., & krasnow, i. d. (2013). public health and media advocacy. annual review of public health, 35, 293-306. fazio, l., & brashia, n. et al. (2015). knowledge does not protect against illusory truth. journal of experimental psychology american psychological association, 144 (5), 993-1002. gordon, j., deines, t., & havice, j. (2010). global warming coverage in the media: trends in a mexico city newspaper. science communication, 32 (2), 143-170. hambrick, z. d., & marquardt, m. (february 6, 2018). cognitive ability and vulnerability to fake news. retrieved june 13, 2020, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cognitive-ability-and-vulnerability-to-fake-news holland, k., sweet, m., blood, r., & fogarty, a. (2014). a legacy of the swine flu global pandemic: journalists, expert sources, and conflicts of interest. journalism, 15(1), 53-71. jackson, l. r. (2019) foreword. in emmanuel k. ngwainmbi (ed.), media in the global context: applications and inventions (pp. v-ix.). new york: palgrave macmillan. lardieri, a. (may 20, 2020). older people more susceptible to fake news, more likely to share it. retrieved may 20, 2020, from https://www.usnews.com lewandowsky, s., & cook, j. (2020). the conspiracy theory handbook. tasmania, australia: the university of western australia. livio, m. (2017). why? what makes is curious. new york: simon and schuster. melissen, j. (2013). public diplomacy. in a. cooper, j. heine, & r. thakur (eds.), the oxford handbook of modern diplomacy (pp. 436-452). oxford: oxford university press. mooney, a. l., knox, d., & schacht, c. (2007). understanding social problems (5th ed.). wadsworth publishing company. mutugi, j. k., nyamboga, n., & matu, n. (2020). challenges facing television journalists in spotting fake news in kenya. journal of development and communication studies. in press. ngwainmbi, e. k. (2019). fake news reporting on social media platforms and implications for nation state-building. in e. k. ngwainmbi (ed.), media in the global context: applications and inventions (pp. 95-127). new york: palgrave macmillan. pan, z. d. & kosicki, m. g. (1993). framing analysis: an approach to news discourse. journal of political communication, 10(1), 55-75. smailhodzic, e., hooijsma, w., boonstra, a., langley, d. (august 2016) social media use in healthcare: a systematic review of effects on patients and their relationship with healthcare professionals. in bmc health service research, 16(1), 442. the washington post. (may 28, 2020). retrieved may 28, 2020, from https://theverge.com www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 69 published by scholink inc. note note 1. world health organization, www.who.int. the figures vary on different websites. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 81 book review leadership in organizations-a book review paul andrew bourne1* & heather a. smith-sherwood1 1 northern caribbean university, mandeville, manchester, jamaica * paul andrew bourne, northern caribbean university, mandeville, manchester, jamaica received: april 24, 2018 accepted: may 18, 2018 online published: may 29, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p81 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p81 introduction dr. gary yukl was born in 1940 and received a ba in business administration from the occidental college in 1962 and phd in industrial-organizational psychology from the university of california in 1967. professor yukl is among the gurus in leadership and is currently employed to the university at albany (state of university of new york or suny) where he lectures in management and psychology. among the many accolades of professor yukl are 1) books including leadership in organizations; 2) countless peer reviewed articles, including in personal psychology, journal of management, journal of organizational behavior, leadership quarterly, organizational dynamics; 3) contributed to the improvement of leadership in the us army and navy; and 4) a fellow of the american psychological association (i.e., apa) as well as the american psychological society, and the society for industrial-organizational psychology. one of the fascinating things about this distinguished scholars and organizational-psychologist as well as leadership experts is the fact that his book entitled leadership in organization is at its eighth-edition. the book was first published in 1981, and the longevity of this text indicates its 1) value to knowledge and content; 2) quality of content; 3) blending research, case histories, and personal narratives; and 4) relevance to contemporary issues in leadership and organizations. this book review addresses the four areas previously mentioned in order to provide coverage of the book. according to yukl (2006), “the book is about leadership in organizations. its primary focus is on managerial leadership as opposed to parliamentary leadership, leadership of social movements, or emergent leadership in informal groups” (p. xv). he continues that “many academics are skeptical about the value of prescription and guidelines for practitioners and considers them premature in the absence of further research. in contrast, most practitioners want some immediate answers about what to do and how to do it in order to be more effective as leaders” (p. xv). having outlined the aforementioned issues, yukl pens the text in keeping with those positions and meeting their expectations, which makes for a great look in organizational leadership as well as general leadership. it is a book that contains an instructor’s manual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 82 published by scholink inc. in conjunction with case studies, exercises and role-playing activities. value of knowledge and content the book leadership in organizations comprises fifteen chapters of some 535 pages, with 458 being dedicated to the various chapters. there are some new areas in this book such as ethical leadership and diversity; developing leadership skills; leadership in teams and decision groups; strategic leadership by executives; leading change in organizations, and charismatic and transformational leadership. the topics in conjunction with the case studies, summaries, diagrammatic representations, and review questions add to the value of the knowledge and the content of the materials. many of the topics are extensively reviewed in this paper, as well as contextualizing the areas with other scholarships. the nature of leadership yukl, in his book “leadership in organizations” like bass and bass, and other scholars in leadership argued how this concept was taken from a “common vocabulary” and brought into a “technical vocabulary” and that accounts for its splintered definitions. he, however, provided 10 different definitions of leadership from various scholars prior to providing one of his own. yukl wrote “researchers usually define leadership according to their individual perspectives and the aspects of the phenomenon of most interest to them”. after a comprehensive review of the leadership literature, stoghill (1974, p. 259) concluded that “there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept” (p. 2) and this epitomizes the challenge of all scholars on matter, which excludes none. it should not be surprising that yukl did provide a definition of his own on the concept but like bass and bass indicated that situation, behaviour, relation, influence and other characteristics may account for such a conceptualization. yukl’s definition reads “leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objective” (p. 8). the definition offered by yukl was comprehensive and unlike others that i have read outlined some features that are noteworthy such as 1) process; 2) followership; 3) needs; 4) task; 5) agreement or shared vision, 6) influence (i.e., types and purpose); 7) collective consciousness, 8) principles in carry out a task, and 9) effectiveness. those phenomena set the platform accountability of people, especially the leader, and this is encapsulated in what is referred to as leadership effectiveness. according to yukl, “like definitions of leadership, conceptions of leader effectiveness differ from one writer to another” (p. 9). although yukl forwarded that there are many definitions of leadership, he postulated that this is measured based on the action(s) of the leader on the followers and various stakeholders in the organizations. it is easy to understand that the leader is, therefore, evaluated not merely on his/her vision; but primarily his/her performance, growth, influence, and accomplishment of tasks. as such, the matter of influence introduces the human element, followership, and this is how the leader is able to accomplish tasks by way of “buy-in”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 83 published by scholink inc. issues in leadership yukl mentioned that outcome of a decision by the leader may be in the short-term, medium or long-term, and that leaders should not be judged solely based on the immediate result of his/her influence on the followers. as such, the measurement of leadership effectiveness should be based on 1) criteria assessment, and 2) objectives and values evaluation. we are contending that evaluation of the effectiveness of the leader must be based on characteristics of 1) the leader, 2) the follower, and 3) situation (yukl, 2006, p. 12). it follows; therefore, that the leader must be assessed not only by his contribution; but of equal importance is the situation, follower, power-influence and an integrative approach. as such, a leader should not be judged solely based on a particular situation as followers will be different, the conditions will not be similar, and the process will all be different. so, winston churchill, nelson mandela, michael manley, alexander bustamante, and many other leaders did particular things at a certain time and today we may assess them based on current knowledge and situation, which is juxtaposing today on the past. the issue is, times may have changed, but the concept of leadership remains the same. people are people, followers are followers, issues are generally the same; there will be various situations which will require that the leader uses his expertise or otherwise to address the issues and bring a workable solution. it is a part of his stewardship to deal with issues or better yet to be proactive rather than reactive. yukl’s work can be used to explain the interaction between leader and follower (yukl, 2006). he referred to this as dyadic role making. one of the fundamental things in leadership is social interaction between him/herself and his/her subordinates. yukl argued that effective leaders must invest some social time in each person in an effort to understand 1) skill set of the follower, 2) interest, 3) values, 4) desires, and that the follower is also expected to evaluate his/her leader in the same way the leader does it. the matter supports 1) the selling of the vision, 2) execution of the vision, and 3) fundamentally the “buy-into”. it can be deduced from dyadic role making that there is a social exchange between the leader and each follower, and this one-on-one interaction provides the needed information for both parties. the dyadic role model fundamentally operates in a dual way, with each agent (i.e., leader and subordinates) interacting with each other simply to gather information on the other. it is the obtained information that each party uses in an effort to attain his/her self-reasons. the social exchange between the leader and the follower is not merely to obtain information as it is for understanding 1) best-fit, 2) competencies, 3) how the person’s self-interest can be served, and 4) for aid in addressing performance or behaviour issues. in fact, the data gathered by each participant, particularly the leader, can be used to address unsatisfactory performance and/or to “improve the quality of the exchange relationship” of the followership or subordinate (yukl, 2006, p. 117). as such, this provides a roadmap for the leader, and oftentimes it can be used in a destructive manner. the destructive manner includes 1) having the subordinate conduct spy work in an effort to displace another for a post or function, 2) use the individual to carry out personal acts, 3) sideline individuals, and 4) discredit others because they would have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 84 published by scholink inc. obtained information on people and this is used against them. inspite of the challenges, dyadic relationship/role making is critical in ascertain information of an entity or individual—a one-to-one relationship for exchange of information. despite some of the negatives of leader-member exchange, the leader employment of different exchange relationship with each subordinate in their by-party interaction provides a cognitive sense of respect for each individual. yukl refers to the aforementioned as the lmx theory—leader-member exchange (lmx). he contended that personal and direct social interaction between the leader and follower provides a base for leader influencing performance, attitudes and actions of the follower, and that this is a reciprocal exchange. one of issues that surround the lmx theory was the fact that the exchange relationship is built over time. this means that leaders and/or followers should not be expected to equally provide information to each other, if trust is developed and that this is process which takes time. hence, yukl opined that “lmx theory was formerly called the vertical dyad linkage theory because of its focus on reciprocal influence processes within vertical dyads composed of one person who has direct authority over another person” (yukl, 2006, p. 117). he continued that “according to the theory, most leaders develop a high-exchange relationship with a small number of trusted subordinates who function as assistants, lieutenants, or advisors” (p. 117). once again, the leader may use the information obtained from the people to build a social system to protect him/herself, which is a negative to lmx theory. nevertheless, the leader may build a cadre of trusted people to carry out his/her mandate and not necessary use the lmx for negative rewards. the matter of the two-sidedness of lmx’s theory, does not detract from its stages, measurement, and evaluation. yukl outlined that lmx is a “life cycle model” and to this we disagree. the fact that power is not equally shared between the leader and follower or subordinate, the exchange of information can be used in the same manner by each party. nevertheless, the three stages are initial testing phase in which the leader evaluates the subordinate’s motives, attitudes, resources, and that mutual role expectations are established. we are not concurring with the perspective of mutual expectations between the leaders and subordinate as this presupposes that individual interest will become jointly fulfilled. however, we are proposing that individual’s interest can be foregone for the mutual interest, with there being a latent personal gratification. stage two being the exchange arrangement is refined trust, and loyalty and respect is develop. this presupposes that obtained information makes both people equals and so trust can be established. in fact, the matter of cooperation does not necessarily represent mutual trust as one party may accept his/her role because of limited alternatives. in addition, there may be a general level of understanding possible to the extent of how much is revealed by the leader. hence, the individual may cooperate out of personal interest and not that there is mutual trust. the next stage is the mature phase as self-interest is gradually transformed into personal interest. the lmx theory can be used and this has been done over the years by way of 1) a standardized 7-item survey, and 2) multidimensional scale. it can be deduced from those measurement approaches that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 85 published by scholink inc. perception is the core of this evaluation. hence, yukl argued that there may be a disparity between the perception of the leader and that of the subordinate, and this brings into focus the validity of the measurement of lmx (yukl, 2006, p. 119). the importance of disparity is aptly described by yukl this way “it is not clear whether the low correlation reflects measurement problems in the scale or actual differences in perception. more research is needed to determine the answer and to clarify the implications of measuring lmx from different (leader and subordinate) perspectives” (p. 119). we are concurring with yukl that the disparity that exists in the literature on the measurement of the lmx theory can be solved by varying the methodology, and a rigorous process of instrument validation. in fact, we are disappointed that the validation of the instrument was not done and as a result the discussion could be about the other aspect as referred to by yukl. however, he contended that “lmx theory can be improved by incorporation of attributional processes that explain how leaders interpret subordinates actions and subordinates interpret leader actions” (yukl, 2006, p. 121), which takes the discussion to the level of inquiry (or research). yukl postulated that many different research methodologies have been employed to conduct research in this area from the use of surveys, experimentations (laboratory, field), analysis of communication patterns and observations. he dates back inquiry into this phenomenon to the 1970s, which begs the question, why have scholars not answered the question in the previous paragraph that relates to validity of instrumentation. nevertheless, many evaluations of the lmx theory has been ongoing and they can be carried out in a 1) descriptive approach, or 2) prescriptive approach. despite the conceptual issues of the lmx’s theory and the fact that many studies have been conducted in the area, we are in total agreement with this statement made by yukl, “lmx theory still has a number of conceptual weaknesses that limit its utility. early versions of the theory did not adequately explain how dyadic relationships develop over time” (p. 121). this is a starting one for my dissent and reluctance to buy into dyadic role model as the weaknesses are many as have been outlined above. this is a thought paper and as such with other issues still remaining in this topic, the discussion must continue to include attributions, and followership. according to yukl (2006), “as we already discussed, how a leader acts towards a subordinate varies depending on whether the subordinate is perceived as competent and loyal, or incompetent and untrustworthy” (p. 122). this is where i have an issue with lmx theory as playing field is not comparable because the legitimate leadership power of the leader compared to that of the followers. the information that is obtained by the leader can be used against the subordinate. the matter of competence does not mean that the leader will utilize the person for the benefit of the organization as he/she may sideline the competence at the cost of the incompetent owing to self-interest or self-preservation. my reservation of attribution is captured by yukl this way “the type of attribution made by a manager influences the response to the problem” (p. 123). he continued “when an external attribution is made, the manager is more likely to respond by trying to change the situation, such as providing more resources, providing assistance in removing obstacles, providing better information, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 86 published by scholink inc. changing the task to reduce inherent difficulties, or in the case of bad luck, by showing sympathy or doing nothing” (p. 123). if the obtained information were only going to be used for betterment of the organization and not for self-interest, the leader’s attribution of a subordinate would be good. however, there is a reality that this may not be the case as well as self-interest of the leader may retard his/her actions or inactions of a certain subordinate. like how there is leader’s attribution, there is also follower’s attributions. yukl contended that the followers “buy into” of the leader’s vision will be equally based on the perception of the leader being competence; setting clear and timely performance indicators; action of the leader; leader’s intention; situation. because followers are seeking to “buy into” the vision of the leader, in most cases the reality of acceptance of the leader’s competence is critical to this process (yukl, 2006, p. 128). this leads to the other point, followers’ contribution to leadership effectiveness. yukl postulated that people frequently ascribe all the accolades to the leader, and little attention is paid to the quality of the followers. quality followership must be equally used to explain leadership effectiveness as is quality leadership. the follower is able to destroy leadership by way of dissent, and passive resistance, and the reverse is equally true that of cooperation, support, sharing the leader’s visions and cooperation in the functioning processes. the issue of quality leadership and followership was expressed in the case study of cromwell electronics. clearly ed corelli did not have competent followers that could “let him look good” and vice versa. furthermore, ed failed to understand that it is important to understand theories; but that generally tailoring suits for people before meeting them could be catastrophic to say the least. in that, ed did not understand the needs of each subordinate. in dyadic role making, the leader must interact with each subordinate and spend some time to understand their needs, competence, interest, visions, and this used on an individual basis in distributing assignments. influence according to yukl (2006), “influence is the essence of leadership” (p. 145). it can be argued based on writing of scholars and experts in leadership that if there is no influence, there can be no leader. the matter of influence, therefore, brings into focus followership and sets the tone for ideas of effective and ineffective leaders. yukl indicated that “to be effective as a leader, it is necessary to influence people to carry out requests, support proposals, and implement decisions” (p. 145). an effective leader, therefore, must be able to motive his/her followers into action, which highlights how the leader is able to activate the cognitive domain of those whom he/she deals. because a leader stimulates and massages the cognition of his/her followers into action; then, the matter of power must be brought into the discourse of leadership as this is one way of executing influence over followers. clearly the matter of influence by the leader was replicated in all the cases examined that looks at leader 1) restview (yukl, 2006, pp. 177-178) and 2) sporting goods store (yukl, 2006, pp. 178-179). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 87 published by scholink inc. power power, on the other hand, according to yukl (2006) is “…understanding how people are able to influence each other in organization” (p. 146). the matter of power and influence appears to be the chicken and egg dilemma that has existed for decades and will, in the unforeseeable future. nevertheless, what is unavoidable is that power is used or disused by leader to stimulate a response from his/her followers. it is this action or inaction that is carried out by the followers that demonstrate that the leader is able to stir people to action or otherwise, influence. yukl captured the dynamics of power this way, “it is difficult to describe the power of an agent without specifying the target person(s), the influence objectives, and the time period. an agent will have more power over some people than others and more influence for some types of issues than for others” (yukl, 2006, p. 146). there is also a symbiotic relationship between power and influence to the point where the capacity to influence and that this influence is greater with more power given to the leader. the matter of the degree of power of the leader and his/her ability to execute influence over the subordinates speak to the authority. “authority involves the rights, prerogatives, obligations, and duties associated with particular positions in an organization or social system” yukl said (2006, p. 146). as such, this takes the discussion to the various types of power. yukl identified. seven different categories of power—1) legitimate; 2) reward; 3) coercive; 4) referent; 5) expert; 6) information, and 7) ecological power. however, lunenburg only identified six types of power, with ecological power being omitted for him. unlike yukl, lunenburg had two broad categorizations of power—1) organizational, and 2) personal (see figure 1 below). figure 1. sources of a leader’s power www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 88 published by scholink inc. the concept of power is undoubtedly an understanding of the usage of influence over others in and outside of organizations (mintzberg, 1983; pfeffer, 1981, 1992). “control over information is a source of upward influence as well as downward and lateral influence” (yukl, 2006, p. 157), indicating that power may also be over information. legitimate power is another that speaks to power invested in a leader as a result of his/her formal position or authority (french & raven, 1959). in such instances, subordinates will comply with the authority of the leader and this explains how he/she influences the followers. yukl contended that “the amount of legitimate power is also related to one’s scope of authority” (p. 149). reward power occurs when the leader is perceived to hold resources, and the subordinate’s demand for these resources make the leader of influence and control over the follower. yukl noted that this is commonly exercised with an implicit or explicit promise to provide resource(s) to the target audience. coercive power obtains when “a leader’s coercive power over subordinates is based on authority over punishment, with varies greatly across different types of organizations” (yukl, 2006, p. 154). referent power occurs when subordinates will please the leader owing to the emotional attachment-love, affection, admiration, and loyalty. expert power is power over knowledge and skills. this means that the leader being personal endowed with a skill or knowledge set uses this to or against the subordinate. ecological power is when the leader has control over the physical environment, technology, and this is used to control the followers. having examined how power is used, this begs the question, can power be lost? yukl contended that this is possible and has occurred in the past through 1) social exchange, and 2) strategic contingencies. it can be deduced from yukl’s perspective that power is not a constant for the leader, and so change may occur that reduces the leader’s influence over his/her followers or subordinates. according to yukl, “social exchange theory emphasizes expert power and authority, and other forms of power do not receive much attention” (p. 159), which means that the leader’s power is obtained from a social system and this is framed because of the exchange of benefits or rewards. as such, if the leader loses his/her leverage over resources, this power is automatically reduced as his/her influence is only because of this exchange of benefits. this happens regularly in politics. strategic contingencies theory addresses the matter of subunits, and how they can gain or lose power. because approaches that can be utilized by a leader to hold on to power, the matter of tactic must be brought into the discussion. tactic the term tactic means strategies that can be carefully desired to achieve a specific end. clearly, the employment of tactic is nothing new and in fact it is an old concept that has been widely used by leaders to accomplish a stated end. according to yukl, there are three types of tactics—1) impression management, 2) political, and 3) proactive influence. for impression management tactics, the leader employs strategies that influence the subordinates or followers to like him/her. this can be done by way of 1) distribution of scare resources to the follower, 2) praise, and 3) offering other unconditional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 89 published by scholink inc. assistance to the subordinate. political tactics, on the other hand, occurs when the leader influences organization decisions. according to yukl (2006), some of the political tactics employed have been deceptive, manipulative, and an abuse of power. proactive influence tactics is “…an immediate task objective, such as getting the target person to carry out a new task, change the procedure used for current task” (p. 164). he further classified proactive influence task into eleven areas: rational persuasion; apprising; inspirational appeals; consultation; collaboration, ingratiation; personal appeals; exchange; coalition tactics; legitimating tactics, and pressure. having identified that tactics are well used by leaders to obtain a particular end, it follows that they can be used effectively and otherwise by a leader. charismatic leadership yukl (2006) argued that charismatic leadership emerges from max weber’s theory. yukl contended that “charisma is a greek work that means “divinely inspired gift’ such as the ability to perform miracles or predict future events” (p. 24), suggesting that the matter is an innate issue. we totally agree with the forwarded perspective by yukl that charisma is more nature than nurture which is different from social skills that can be taught social skills. the rationale for this insight based on the characteristic of charismatic leadership—1) confidence; 2) creativity; 3) vision; 4) determination; and 5) communication. within the context of the characteristics, the matter of communication which is important attribute of charisma, the question is whether this can be taught or is it innate. according to riggio (2012): charisma is really a process—an interaction between the qualities of the charismatic leader, the followers and their needs and identification with the leader, and the situation that calls out for a charismatic leader, such as a need for change or a crisis. but when it comes to the charismatic qualities of leaders, the emphasis is on how they communicate to followers and whether they are able to gain followers’ trust, and influence and persuade them to follow. most politicians, particularly on the national scene, have developed their ability to communicate effectively—to make speeches, “work the room” with potential donors and supporters, etc. so many seasoned politicians have a lot of “personal charisma”. in an effort to understand my justification and rationale for arguing that charisma can be nurtured, ciampra’s perspective (2016) will be used here. he postulated that “charismatic leaders are skilled at articulating a compelling vision that inspires followers. they’re also adept at reading the environment and sensing the needs of followers to tailor a message that will have the most impact. charismatic leaders are good storytellers who use symbolism and metaphor to make stories come alive” (ciampra, 2016). the issue of a skill unequivocally holds being taught, practiced and mastered over time, suggesting that this is outside of the individual and not innate as one scholars would want us believe. nevertheless, we are concurring that there is some aspect of innateness of charisma; but that there are aspect of this that can be nurtured by the individual. attribution theory outlined that charismatic leaderships have certain qualities, expertise, and behaviour www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 90 published by scholink inc. that are framed by a situation for a stated time period (yukl, 2006, p. 250). yukl opined charisma is more likely to be attributed to leaders who 1) advocate a vision which is different from the status quo; 2) use unconventional way to attain a vision; 3) make self-sacrifice; 4) are trustworthy; 5) are confident people; 6) have an emotional appeal; 7) use authority to participate into the decision process; and 8) “charismatic leaders influence people to collectively accomplish great things that initially seem impossible” (yukl, 2006, p. 251). another theory that examines charismatic leadership is self-concept. this theory explains that charismatic leaders possess a certain trait, skill and personality. “… the theory by incorporating new developments in thinking about human motivation and a more detailed description of the underlying influence processes. the following assumptions were made about human motivation: (1) behavior is expressive of a person’s feeling, values, and self-concept as well as being pragmatic and goal oriented; (2) a person’s self-concept is composed of a hierarchy of social identities and values; (3) people are intrinsically motivated to enhance and defend their self-esteem and self-worth; and (4) people are intrinsically motivated to maintain consistency among the various components of their self-concept, and between their self-concept and behavior”, yukl stated (yukl, 2006, p. 252). clearly, the leader’s personality traits are critical to charismatic leadership, and they are likely to hold the key to the influence and power of the leader over the followers. the issue of charismatic leadership is not limited to the two aforementioned theories, self-concept and attribution. the concept is also explained from the perspective of psychodynamic processes. according to yukl (2006), charisma can be viewed from the vantage point of the unusual and irrational influence of the charismatic leader in which the leader becomes a spiritual or superhero like person. yukl believed that “the intense personal identification of followers with such leaders is explained in terms of psychodynamic processes such as regression, transference, and projection” (p. 254). he continued that regression deals with the return of feelings and behaviour that were obtained at a younger age. in order to further explain this theory, yukl opined that “…followers suffering from fear, guilt, or alienation may experience a feeling of euphoric empowerment and transcendence by submerging their identify in that of the seemingly superhuman leader” (p. 255), suggesting how charismatic leaders tap into the sub consciousness of the follower or subordinate. the issue of charismatic leadership should not be construed as all position as the pervious perspective may be taken too far and become a consequence for the follower (i.e., negative side of charisma). yukl aptly explains this, “charismatic leaders tend to make more risky decisions that can result in serious failure, and they tend to make more determined enemies who will use such a failure as an opportunity to remove the leader from office” (p. 259). the case study encapsulated how charisma was taken too far by the ceo, and this later resulted in the bankruptcy of his company (yukl, 2006, pp. 280-283). like what obtains in astro airlines, it was this dark side that accounted for the suicide of pastor alexander bedward in august town (beckwith, 1969; chevannes, 1994; elkins, 1977; hill, 1981; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 91 published by scholink inc. lewis, 1987). having extensively examined a charismatic leader, this begs a question “who is a transformational leader and are transformational and charismatic leaders one of the same?” transformational leadership the aforementioned question will be examined in two parts, firstly, who is a transformation leader? and secondly, a comparison between the two leadership styles. the work transformational comes from the root work “transform”, which is to change completely from its initial state to another. this definition of the concept “transform” means that transformational leader must change the social, physical, environmental or psychological space that he/she grew up in and have come to accept as the best practice. hence, a transformational leader according to yukl, this leader appeals to the moral psyche of the follower which he/she uses to reform old situation, practices, habits, objects or the environment (yukl, 2006, p. 249). using burns’ definition of transformational leadership, bass and bass wrote the leader “…(1) raises the followers’ level of consciousness about the importance and value of designed outcomes and way of reaching them; (2) gets the followers to transcend their own self-interests for the sake of the team, organization, or larger polity; and (3) raises the followers’ level of need on maslow’s (1954) hierarchy from lower-level concerns for safety and security to higher-level needs for achievement and self-actualization” (p. 619). the transformational leader appeases the psychological consciousness of the follower; whereas the transactional leader is offering a tangible product for the engagement of the follower. simply put, the transformational leader employs moral persuasion and the transaction leader uses physical product as exchange for followership. it is easy to understand how transformational leaders must be trustworthy, highly admired, loyal and respected by their followers. yukl (2006) said something that stood out on the transformational leader that “…the leader transforms and motivates followers by (1) making them more aware of the importance of task outcomes, (2) inducing them to transcend their own self-interest for the sake of the organization or team, and (3) activating their higher-order needs” (p. 262). on examining the transformational and the charismatic leader, there appears to be similarities between both leaders and that there is still a clear line of demarcation. transformation and charismatic leader yukl commences the discourse on the comparison of transformational and charismatic leadership this way “one of the most important issues for leadership scholars is the extent to which transformational leadership and charismatic leadership are similar and compatible” (yukl, 2006, p. 270) to which we are in total agreement. like the various leadership scholars (burns, 1985; bass, b. m., & bass, r. 2008; yukl, 2006; covey, 1991), we are supporting the perspective that there is clear distinction between transformational and charismatic leader and that they are one of the same concept. the transformational leader does inspire, motivates and charm the subordinate into action like the charismatic leader; but that the former’s actions will result in some fundamental change in space in which he/she once operated. another difference is that transformation leader inspires the follower toward an end or outcome that is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 92 published by scholink inc. predetermined objective(s); whereas the “charismatic leaders probably do more things that foster an image of extraordinary competence for the leader, such as impression management, information restriction, unconventional behavior, and personal risk taking” (yukl, 2006, p. 271). change “leading change is one of the most important and difficult leadership responsibilities” (yukl, 2006, p. 284). change is an unknown concept which ignites fear, apprehension, intolerance, resistance and disgust because of its nature. the issue of change does not come with a prescription of the stated reality as it is embedded in the unknown or a futuristic outlook that is concretized in finite results. the future is driven by the past (history), but still it is not felt solely to such dictates. it is this reality that set the framework for the resistance to change. change which is “the move away from a present state toward a future state” (rashid et al., 2003, p. 161) is not only labeled in perception as is the fear of the unknown. people live in the present, guided by the experiences of the past and anticipate the future because they hope of betterment. this suggests that their behaviours are enclosed in past, current realities and futuristic outlook. such situations provide the basis upon which the socialization (or culturalization) works, the people are framed and future is advanced. yukl contends that people resist change based on the following rationales: 1) lack of trust; 2) belief that change is unnecessary; 3) belief that the change is not feasible; 4) economic threats; 5) relative high cost; 6) fear of personal failure; 7) loss of status and power; 8) threat to values and ideals; and 9) resentment of interference (yukl, 2006, pp. 285-286). like rashid and colleagues argued, the people who are the most resistance to change can reduce, alter and erode the intended goal(s) of an organization owing to their culturalization and attitudes towards change (cognitive, affective and behavioural). the resistance to change are sometimes enveloped in the “dealignment” between the organizational objectives and those of the employee, the outlook of the employee and his/her perception of the foci of the institution and the role(s) he plays in that position, and resistance to change owing to personality traits. in addition to the individualized culture of the people in the organization, there is a different organizational culture that is formed in institutions that play a key role to the change process (pool, 2000; ahmed, 1998; silvester & anderson, 1999; rashid et al., 2003). yukl outlines that in understanding the change process one should examine some of the theories such as lewin’s force-filed model. he opines that “…the change process can be divided into three phases: unfreezing, changing, and refreezing” (yukl, 2006, p. 286). simply put, change is a process and should not be expected in a single moment because of the vision or perspective of someone as the individual goes through the following phases: unfreezing: yukl indicates that at this stage, people have come to the realization that the old ways of doing things must modified, altered, or drastically change because they have become ineffective in being able to accomplish the task at hand. he writes it this way, “this recognition may occur as a result of an obvious crisis, or it may result from an effort to describe threats or opportunities not evident to most people in the organization” (yukl, 2006, p. 286). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 93 published by scholink inc. changing: at the second stage, having being aware or recognizing the need to do things differently, people seek new ways of doing things, which accommodates the willingness to change old paradigms or approaches. refreezing: according to yukl (2006), “all three phases are important for successful change. an attempt to move directly to the changing phase without first unfreezing attitudes is likely to meet with apathy or strong resistance. lack of systematic diagnosis and problem solving in the changing phase will result in a weak change plan” (pp. 286-287). it can be deduced from the aforementioned perspectives that change must be taken with the context of the organizational culture. yukl contends that there are three ways of changing the organizational culture; a primary (role-modeling; criteria for allocating rewards, selection and dismissal), secondary way (design of management systems, procedures and organizational structure as well as facilities; formal statements, stories and other legends), and cultural form (changing symbols, slogans, rituals et cetera). such a theoretical model was also used by rashid and colleagues to investigate “the influence of organizational culture on attitudes toward organizational change” (rashid et al., 2003, p. 161), which is presented below: figure 2. theoretical model source: rashid et al. (2003, p. 167). rashid et al., write that “from the above literature and the model of the study, it is hypothesized that there is an association between organizational culture and attitudes toward organizational change” (rashid et al., 2003, p. 168), suggesting that organizational culture can be changed. yukl indicates, “in general, it is much more difficult to change culture in a mature organization than to create it in a new one. one reason is that many of the underlying beliefs and assumptions shared by people in an organization are implicit and unconscious. cultural assumptions are also difficult to change when they justify the past and are a matter of pride. moreover, cultural values influence the selection of leaders corporate culture communal culture fragmented culture networked culture mercenary culture attitudes toward change cognitive affective behavioral www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 94 published by scholink inc. and the role expectations for them” (p. 295). this denotes that implementing change in a mature organization must be a carefully craft mechanism, process and procedures to do so (yukl, 2006, pp. 300-308)—pace and sequencing the change; determine who can oppose and facilitate the change; build a broad coalition to support the change; fill key position with competent change agents; use task force to guide implementation; make dramatic, symbolic change that affect the work; monitor the progress of change; create a sense of urgency about the need for change; prepare people to adjust to change; aid people to deal with the pain of change; provide opportunities; informed people about the process of change; empower people to implement the change; and, demonstrate continued commitment to the change. unlike yukl, using “theoretical model”, rashid et al., (2003) find a significant statistical association between organizational culture and attitudes towards organizational change (χ2 (6) = 82.764, p < 0.0001). disaggregating the “organizational culture” and “attitudes toward organizational change”, rashid et al., (2003) found that there is a relationship between types of culture and affective attitude (χ2 (6) = 68.497, p < 0.0001); types of culture and behavioural attitude (χ2 (6) = 48.151, p < 0.0001); and types of culture and cognitive attitude (χ2 (6) = 82.764, p < 0.0001). this indicates that the organizational culture plays a critical role in organizational changes, be it acceptance or rejection which is in keeping with other studies (ahmed, 1998; lorenzo, 1998; silvester & anderson, 1999; pool, 2000; yousef, 2000). and, wise (2002) postulated that economic and budgetary restraints are among the endogenous determinants of organizational change, indicating that advanced statistical methodology is employed to ascertain ingredients of institutional changes. undoubtedly the issue of organizational change must be made with some context of teamwork and this is undeniable having perused the works of yukl and others. leadership in teams and decision groups for some time, the leadership discourse on organizations has paid little attention to team or group leadership (yukl, 2006). one of the reasons for its non-inclusion is the leaders/managers unwillingness to share power or authority with others. yukl (2006) contends that team-leadership means that the leader/manager must empower the team members or group to make decisions and that denotes that they are relinquishing some of their power and/or authority. however, increasingly, the matter of teams and groups is on the rise in leadership research. an organization is a collection of sub-systems, which is widely called departments, units, sections, or divisions (yukl, 2006). normally in organizations, the sub-systems operate independently unlike a team or group that works interdependently for a singular purpose, complementary skill, and goal. the author forwards that the team or group approach in organizations is a growing phenomenon, one that has merits in functioning and building of and facilitating mechanism in decision making. some examples used to concretize the position of a team or group which is different from that of an organization are basketball and soccer. yukl (2006) write that “the word team usually refers to a small task group in which the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 95 published by scholink inc. members have a common purpose. to clarify the distinction, interacting teams are found in basketball and soccer, whereas in bowling or wrestling the teams are actually coactive groups” (yukl, 2006, p. 319). the two example previously mentioned are examples of teams and organizations, and yukl further classify teams into four groups—1) functional operating team; 2) cross-functional team; 3) self-management operating and virtual team; and 4) top executive team (see more in table 1): table 1. common characteristics of teams defining characteristic functional operating team cross-functional team self-management operating team top executive team autonomy to determine mission and objective low low to moderate low to moderate high autonomy to determine work procedures low to moderate high high high authority of the internal leader high moderate to high low high duration of existence for the team high low to moderate high high stability of the membership high low to moderate high high diversity of members in functional background low high low high functional teams: in this team the members have a specific job to perform, which is usually based on specialization but all the parts fit for a certain function (e.g., maintenance crew, combat squad, swat team, et al.). cross-functional teams: “the team is given responsibility for planning and conducting a complex activity that requires considerable coordination, cooperation, and joint problem solving among the parties” yukl says (yukl, 2006, p. 320). self-managed teams: in this team, the authority or power that is vested in the manager is position to turn over the team members (e.g., maintenance technicians, production operators). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 96 published by scholink inc. virtual teams: yukl describes this team as separated by geo-political boundaries and as such they seldom have direct interactions. this means that the team’s media of communications are e-mails; videoconferencing; cellular phone; groupware). having outlined the different types of teams, yukl indicates that two of the pillows upon which a team operate are 1) trust, and 2) cooperation. in fact, “even a talented, well-organized team may fail in carrying out its mission unless there is a high level of cooperation and mutual trust among the members” (yukl, 2006, p. 327). he continues that “cooperation is especially important when the mission requires members to share information and resources, help each other, and work together in close proximity for long periods time under stressful conditions” (yukl, 2006, p. 327). leadership development the issue of nature and nurture in leadership is among topics that account for the training of leaders, leadership development. yukl places leadership development in chapter 13 and it dealt with developing leadership skills, suggesting that leaders can be taught the competencies of leadership. “leadership competencies can be developed in a number of ways, including (1) formal training, (2) developmental activities, and (3) self-help activities”, yukl opines (yukl, 2006, p. 386). clearly it can be deduced from the author’s viewpoint that leadership can be taught to people by way of formal training (i.e., short courses, workshops) to produce effective leaders. the author indicates that these can be done by way of established theories—1) least preferred coworker contingency theory; 2) normative decision model; 3) transformational leadership; 4) situational leadership theory; and 5) managerial motivation. the author points out the much-vaunted statement that effective skills for leadership are mostly learned from experience and not from training programmes. with this in mind, work-based developmental activities are considered, and the presence of a strong learning culture in an organization goes a long way to supporting leadership development. ethical leadership and diversity dr. covey contends that “to focus on personality before character is to try to grow the leaves with the roots” (covey, 1991, p. 57), suggesting that ethics is a central component of leadership, and i will go further to say human relations. yukl, on the other hand, contends that ethics is critical to the discourse of effective leadership. as such, chapter 14, is an inclusion to the preceding book—ethical leadership and diversity. hence he writes “ethical leadership is an ambiguous construct that appears to include a variety of diverse elements. it is useful to make a distinction between the ethics of an individual leader and the ethics of specific types of leadership behavior” (yukl 2006, p. 418). he continues that “one difficulty in evaluating the morality of individual leaders in the subjectivity inherent in determining which criteria to use and their relative importance” (yukl, 2006, p. 418). the issue of ethics, individual or collective, emerged in the leadership discourse from the contribution of scholars such as burns, heifetz, covey, and greenleaf “…who viewed leadership from a broader perspective than most of the theories reviewed in this book” (yukl, 2006, p. 419). clearly, yukl has come to accept that ethics must www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 97 published by scholink inc. be brought into the leadership discourse, and that in an effort to empower, influence and guide people into accepting and supporting the leader’s vision integrity, trust and cooperation must be present in the leader/manager. quality of content the book is simply written with illustrations from practitioners, practice questions, case studies, and all the issues are grounded in scholarships (i.e., theories). it is simple to understand there this perspective by yukl that “academics will be pleased to find that major theories are explained and critiqued, empirical research on leadership is reviewed and summarized, and many references are provided to enable them to follow up with additional reading on topics of special interest” (yukl, 2006, p. xv). the author was able to balance the expectations of the lay-readers, practitioners and scholars and this make for high quality contents. relevance to contemporary issues in leadership and organizations “with its focus on effective leadership in organizations, this book is especially relevant for people who are currently managers or who expect to become a manager in the near future” (yukl, 2006, p. xvi), which summarizes the relevance of the book. on reading the book, i can concur with the author that the book provides insightful situations that can be applied to solve current issues. the use of practice questions provides a platform for scholars and students to review the major issues in the book as well as the case studies with questions. evaluation: strengths and weaknesses the book entitles leadership in organizations has absolutely no weaknesses, which is exceptional of material written for lay-people, scholars, and practitioners. leadership in organizations examines many complex issues in leadership, provided theoretical underpinnings, research perspectives, illustrations, questions and case studies that framed the completeness of the volume. yukl writes the book in simple language, expounding on complex concepts with simplicity, providing illustrations that are real and giving explanations of issues from theoretical and conceptual vantage points, while holding the realness of the cases. simply put, the format of the book is good with the large prints, bold headers and sub-headers, itemized definitions, diagrams, questioning and cases studies that are included at the end of each chapter. there are some advantages of notable importance that must be singled out in this review. these are 1) the use of research, theories, questioning and case study provide much context and balance the book for all concerns; 2) interviews with leaders and managers provided a framework of scholarship for the book, while making the material of high quality; and 3) the material can be used by practitioners, scholars, both undergraduate and graduate students in leadership and this speaks to the quality of the book. conclusion leadership in organization is a scholarly written book on issues of leadership in organizations. the author provides reviews of other works in the area, illustrations of issues including challenges, citations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 98 published by scholink inc. of other scholars, summaries, reviews and discussion questions at the end of each chapter as well as key terminologies. the book addresses issues on nature of leadership; nature of managerial work; perspectives on leadership effectiveness behaviour; managerial traits and skills; power and influence; teams and decision groups; strategic leadership of executives; ethics in leadership and diversity, and developing leadership skills. the book is so written that it provides insights for practitioners, current managers and prospective managers as well as having a balance for the scholars. in fact, yukl’s aptly describes the book this way “the book is also useful for practicing managers who are looking for something more than superficial answers to difficult questions about leadership” (p. xvi). clearly, the perspective of yukl is absolutely true based on the real life illustrations, summaries and introspective questions. the values of an excellent book are embodied in its characteristics. those are contribution to knowledge, great insights, can be used as a training manual and guide in best practice, high reflectivity, highly interactively, low readability, and information have practical and theoretical underpinnings. this book fulfills all of those previously stated characteristics and so we recommend this as a valuable book for leaders, prospective leaders, scholars, practitioners, lay-people, and undergraduate as well as post-graduate students in leadership and/or management. it is a worthwhile read for all and one that will entice, entreat, motivate, and provide guidance in being an effective leadership in an organization. references ahmed, p. k. 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(2000). organizational commitment and job satisfaction as predictor of attitudes toward organizational change in a non-western setting. personnel review, 2(5), 567-592. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480010296401 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 125 original paper mixing framework from next generation science standards (ngss) to a local project azita seyed fadaei1* 1 kla schools, bellevue, wa, usa * azita seyed fadaei, kla schools, bellevue, wa, usa received: august 23, 2018 accepted: september 18, 2018 online published: september 25, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n2p125 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n2p125 abstract lesson activity has a very important role in teaching physics. curriculum gives specific viewpoints about the frameworks of planning lesson activities. in each country, being familiar with these frameworks helps to conduct teachers to be self-planners for teaching process. this article is an experiment of studying the frameworks of the u.s. in the subject of teaching science and is a sample to show how a teacher can get involved in international projects to boost the skill of planning activities related national problems and goals. it can open a horizon of thinking about the putting together national and international goals and frameworks in learning and teaching physics in local. keywords physics, english learning, ngss, sstella project 1. introduction as a physics education researcher and visiting professor, my study started by a travel to the university of california, santa cruz in the summer 2015. i had a meeting with the principal investigator of the sstella project, professor trish stoddart (note 1). she gave me the ngss book relating to science teachers lesson activities and i received so many documents from the colleagues in this project. at the first step, i was invited to participate in their teacher training classes for science teachers (english language and literacy integration in subject areas (ellisa) project). firstly the main idea was to get familiar with their projects and the final goal was to plan activities for teaching resources in the sstella project. the purpose of this paper is introducing the experiences related to study the main programs in curriculum planning for developers and teachers to know how use the resources and frameworks to plan new activities for teaching projects. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 126 published by scholink inc. 2. method 2.1 english language and literacy integration in subject areas (ellisa) project at that time, courses based on the ellisa project were presented for novice teachers in the university of california, santa cruz. ellisa was one of the projects which were started in the california because of this state problem in students learning. the problem was introduced by some reports of resources. students who are english learners (els) make up a significant proportion of school age children in the united states. according to the u.s. department of education’s consolidated state performance report survey for 2009-2010, about 10 percent of all students or 4.6 million children were identified as els in k-12 public schools (u.s. department of education, 2010). by 2025, it is projected that english will not be the native language for about one quarter of all students (national center for education statistics (nces), 2011). educators and policy makers have been concerned about large and persistent gaps in academic achievement between els and native english speakers in mathematics, science, language and literacy (lee & luyxx, 2006; nces, 2010). although the demographic trends and achievement gaps related to els have been apparent for some time, few beginning teachers receive adequate preparation and training to teach subject content to els (lucas & villegas, 2011). survey research has found that most teachers do not feel prepared to teach els in general (parsad, lewis, farris, & greene, 2001). in addition, results from a recent national survey indicated that only 15% of elementary teachers reported feeling well prepared to teach science to els (banilower et al., 2013). ellisa project focused on learning ambitious practices for teaching students who are english learners can be supported with representations of instruction, lessons and student work that can be analyzed and discussed, decomposing the practices for integrating language instruction in content area lessons into smaller parts, and providing novices teachers with opportunities to approximate practices through rehearsals and simulations in the methods course and in student teaching during practicums. in addition, conceptual and practical tools in ellisa can aid teacher candidates in planning lessons and during teaching events are needed (chee, 2014). i participated in an ellisa course, which guided me to get more information about the project of the group and working with experts. this course focused on lesson planning and implementing effective instructional practices that integrate the teaching of language and literacy into particular attention paid to developing lessons based on the next generation science standards (ngss). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 127 published by scholink inc. figure 1. team working in teacher training courses in ellisa project, ucsc, lecturer: dr. joe chee in this project some strategies for integrating language and literacy in science instruction promote academic discourse for english language and literacy integration in subject areas were considered, which were academic discourse, support science literacy development, scaffold language and content and contextualize learning. 2.2 next generation science standards (ngss for california’s public schools) inquiry science, is an excellent context for learning language and literacy. integrating the teaching of science content with the development of english language and literacy through contextualized science inquiry has been consistently shown to increase english learners’ achievement in both science and in the development of academic language and literacy (bravo & garcia, 2004; rosebery & warren, 2008). these advances in the knowledge base on teaching science and english language and literacy to english learners are consonant with the discourse about the development of ngss. similarly, the ngss represents a major shift from the focus of scientific literacy as decontextualized content and process knowledge toward scientific literacy as the productive and integrated use of science language with science content while simulating what scientists do (e.g., plan investigations, develop models, argue from evidence). the ngss, based upon the national research council report (national research council, 2012), a framework for k-12 science education: practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas, identifies core science ideas and cross-cutting themes that students could learn in more rigorous and relevant ways as they progress through their k-12 science education. further, the science framework provides a description of eight scientific and engineering practices that promote not only investigative competence, such as asking questions, planning investigations, and analyzing data, but also representational thinking through the use of models and mathematical relationships. in addition science and engineering practices are particularly language intensive: developing and using models; constructing explanations (science) and designing solutions (engineering); arguing from evidence; and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information (lee, quinn, & valdes, 2013). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 128 published by scholink inc. few models of science teaching have been articulated in terms of how preservice secondary science teachers can learn to (a) promote authentic scientific discourse practices (stoddart, 2013), and (b) engage students in rigorous, contextualized learning experiences in linguistically diverse science classrooms (tolbert, 2013). secondary science teachers generally consider themselves to be teachers of content rather than teachers of language, despite the fact that scientific argumentation, reasoning, and communication require a multitude of specialized written and oral literacy practices (rodriguez, 2010). the prominent focus of ngss on productive language use via the identification of language-intensive science and engineering practices has opened up new possibilities for all science teachers to consider the role of language in science and engineering instruction. more information about the ngss and some experience about ellisa project helped me to pay attention to the importance of ngss and i focused on the standards of ngss. for instance i chose a title for study and teaching in the k-12 to students and then find the frameworks and standards of it in the ngss. mixing the project strategy with the ngss standards was the other investigation. for instance ngss for the subject of duality nature of light (hs-ps4-3. the wave or particle nature of electromagnetic radiation) has this framework: students who demonstrate understanding can: evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning (note 2) behind the idea that (core idea): electromagnetic radiation (crosscutting): can be described either by a wave model or a particle model (note 3), and that for some situations one model is more useful than the other (note 4). (clarification statement: emphasis is on how the experimental evidence supports the claim and how a theory is generally modified in light of new evidence. examples of a phenomenon could include resonance, interference, diffraction, and photoelectric effect. assessment boundary: assessment does not include using quantum theory.) on the other hand ngss mentions common core state standards connections for english learning acquisition/literacy: rst.9-10.8: assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author’s claim or a recommendation for solving a scientific or technical problem. rst.11-12.1: cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts, attending to important distinctions the author makes and to any gaps or inconsistencies in the account. rst.11-12.7: integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., quantitative data, video, multimedia) in order to address a question or solve a problem. rst.11-12.8: evaluate the hypotheses, data, analysis, and conclusions in a science or technical text, verifying the data when possible and corroborating or challenging conclusions with other sources of information. whst.9-12.2: write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes. http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/whst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/whst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/whst/9-10 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 129 published by scholink inc. in physics, mathematics standards has to be considered: mp.2: reason abstractly and quantitatively. making connections between these areas of subjects needs deep study and considering multidisciplinary character of knowledge. i found so many relations between several areas in ngss: connections to other disciplines in this grade-band and articulation of disciplines across grade-bands. 2.3 secondary science teaching with english language and literacy acquisition (sstella) project secondary science teaching with english language and literacy acquisition project reflects the reciprocal and synergistic relationships among science, language, and literacy. integrating the teaching of science content with the development of english language and literacy through contextualized science inquiry has been consistently shown to increase english learners’ achievement in both science and in the development of academic language and literacy (bravo & garcia, 2004; rosebery & warren, 2008). sstella reflects principles from the science framework and is designed to prepare teachers to effectively integrate science, language, and literacy instruction for els by promoting the productive use of science language in authentic contexts, whereby “students are supported in using multiple resources and strategies for learning science and developing english” ( lee, quinn, & valdes, 2013). the framework views contextualized science activity as the gateway through which els can come to understand relationships between school science learning and their lived experiences outside of schools. teachers promote scientific sense-making, scientific discourse, and english language and literacy development through these contextualized learning experiences. science content and language then intersect as students, for example, construct oral and written explanations and engage in argument from evidence (seyed fadaei, 2016). thus, the relationship between science learning and english language and literacy development can be viewed as reciprocal and synergistic. sstella aims to contribute to the knowledge base on preparing secondary teacher to teach science to ells. the sstella instructional practices are scientific sense-making through scientific/engineering practices, scientific discourse through scientific/engineering practices, english language and literacy development, contextualized science activity. http://www.corestandards.org/math/practice/mp2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 130 published by scholink inc. figure 3. the project in progress by engaging students in science investigations and engineering design problems in authentic, real-world problems, teachers can leverage students’ funds of knowledge from their homes and communities, the local physical or ecological environment, and/or socio-scientific issues as a way to engage els in meaningful and rigorous science learning experiences. to summarize, the four interrelated instructional practices just described highlight the reciprocal and synergistic relationship between science learning and english language and literacy development. lesson learning objectives and assessment depending on ngss framework and sstella determined the scientific objectives of the duality nature of light as follow (seyed fadaei, 2017): 1) students will investigate the duality nature of light (ngss, hs-ps4-3). 2) students will identify the evidences related to wave and particle model of light (ngss, hs-ps4-a). 3) students will identify the reasons behind the new technologies based on duality of light (ngss, hs-ps4-b). 4) students will identify with discovering new evidence in nature of light while old theory does not accommodate, the theory is generally modified in light of this new evidence (ngss, nature of science). language learning objectives: 1) students will be able to assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author’s claim about each model of nature of light. (rst.9-10.8) 2) students will be able to integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., quantitative data, video, multimedia) in order to address a question about the http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 131 published by scholink inc. duality nature of light. (rst.11-12.7) 3) students will be able to evaluate the hypotheses, data, analysis, and conclusions in a science or technical text, verifying the data when possible and corroborating or challenging conclusions with other sources of information. (rst.11-12.8 ) 4) students will be able to write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes. (whst.9-12.2) after determining the most important factors in a lesson activity, the idea of the developer has an effective role on the details of the lesson plan. using some diagrams, photos, videos (seyed fadaei, daraei, & mora ley, 2013), charts and photography, questionnaire, activities and mixing them in to the verbal and writing contexts is very important for final version of the lesson activity (seyed fadaei & mora ley, 2015). the thing is very important is the developer of the lesson plan has his own choices to mix the subjects and equipment and activities but the importance of working in the frameworks and standards and relating it to the language literacy and learning english must be considered. 3. result in this article, we suggest using frameworks, for developing a preservice teacher education program designed to prepare secondary teachers to integrate the teaching of academic language and literacy with rigorous physics content instruction. we see the sstella framework, which builds on the ngss, as central to this integrated model of pre service secondary teacher preparation. although this article has focused on the preparation of teachers to work with els, the new standards recognize the critical role that language, literacy, and discourse play in the learning of science for all students. http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/rst/11-12 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/whst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/whst/9-10 http://www.corestandards.org/ela-literacy/whst/9-10 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 132 published by scholink inc. acknowledgement this material is based upon work supported by the aapt e. leonard jossem international education fund. note any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the american association of physics teachers. references banilower, e. r., smith, p. s., weiss, i. r., malzahn, k. a., campbell, k. m., & weis, a. m. (2013). report of the 2012 national survey of science and mathematics education. chapel hill, nc: horizon research. bravo, m., & garcia, e. (2004). learning to write like scientists: english language learners science inquiry and writing understanding in responsive learning contexts. washington, dc: national clearinghouse for english language acquisition. chee, j. (2014). preparing teachers for linguistically diverse classrooms: teaching and learning complex instructional practices (qualifying examination paper). education department, university of california, santa cruz. complete ngss k-12. (n.d.) retrieved from http://www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards lee, o., & luykx, a. (2006). science education and student diversity: synthesis and research agenda. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. lee, o., quinn, h., & valdes, g. (2013). science and language for english language learners in relation to next generation science standards and with implications for common core state standards for english language arts and mathematics. educational researcher, 42(4), 223-233. lucas, t., & villegas, a. m. (2011). a framework for preparing linguistically responsive teachers. in t. lucas (ed.), teacher preparation for linguistically diverse classrooms: a resource for teacher educators (pp. 55-72). new york: taylor & francis. national center for education statistics. (2010). the condition of education 2010 (nces 2010-028). washington, dc: u.s. department of education. national research council. (2012). a framework for k-12 science education: practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. washington, dc: national academies press. ngss for california’s public schools, k-12 (download your grade level). (n.d.). retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/pd/ca/sc/ngssstandards.asp ngss. (n.d.). retrieved from http://www.nextgenscience.org/hsps-wer-waves-electromagnetic-radiation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 133 published by scholink inc. parsad, b., lewis, l., farris, e., & greene, b. (2001). teacher preparation and professional development (nces 2001-088). washington dc: u.s. department of education, national center for education statistics. rodriguez, a. j. (ed.). (2010). science education as a pathway to teaching language literacy. rotterdam, netherlands: sense. rosebery, a. s., & warren, b. (2008). teaching science to english language learners. alexandria, va: national science teachers association. rosebery, a. s., & warren, b. (2008). teaching science to english language learners. alexandria, va: national science teachers association. seyed fadaei, a. (2016). design of training based on academic skills (training program for earthquake). international journal of advanced research in physical science (ijarps), 3(8), 33-38. seyed fadaei, a. (2017). “introducing the duality nature of light”: a lesson plan developed from sstella. international journal of advanced research in physical science (ijarps), 4(4), 1-14. seyed fadaei, a., & mora, c. (2015). an investigation about misconceptions in force and motion in high school. us-china educational review, 5(1), 38-45. seyed fadaei, a., daraei, s., & mora ley, c. (2013). interactive multimedia related to real life, a model to teach physics in high school. merit res. j. art soc. sci. humanit, 1(1). stoddart, t. (2013). restructuring pre-service teacher education to respond to increasing student diversity. research in higher education journal, 9, 1-14. tolbert, s. (2013). becoming more responsive and inclusive science (teacher) educators. u.s. department of education. (2010). consolidated state performance report survey for 2009-2010. washington, dc. retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/ notes note 1. dr. trish stoddart is a professor of education at the university of california, santa cruz. dr. stoddart is an expert at improving the teaching of science in culturally and linguistically diverse classroom. she has extensive experience in research on instructional innovation and science education and has led several large federally funded projects including the nsf funded effective science teaching for english language learners (estell) project, the nsf funded local systemic initiative lasers (language acquisition through science education for rural schools) which brought together seven school districts to improve the teaching of science to english language learners in california’s central valley. note 2. science and engineering practices: -engaging in argument from evidence in 9-12 builds on k-8 experiences and progresses to using www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 134 published by scholink inc. appropriate and sufficient evidence and scientific reasoning to defend and critique claims and explanations about natural and designed worlds. arguments may also come from current scientific or historical episodes in science. -calculate the claims, evidence and reasoning behind currently accepted explanations to determine the merits of arguments. —connections to nature of science: science models, laws, mechanisms, and theories explain natural phenomena a scientific theory is a substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment and the science community validates each theory before it is accepted. if new evidence is discovered that the theory does not accommodate, the theory is generally modified in light of this new evidence. note 3. disciplinary core ideas: wave properties -[from the 3-5 grade band endpoints] waves can add or cancel one another as they cross, depending on their relative phase (i.e., relative position of peaks and troughs of the waves), but they emerge unaffected by each other, (boundary: the discussion at this grade level is qualitative only; it can be based on the fact that two different sounds can pass a location in different directions without getting mixed up) ps4.b: electromagnetic radiation -electromagnetic radiation (e.g., radio, microwaves, light) can be modeled as a wave of changing electronic and magnetic fields or as particles called photons. the wave is useful for explaining many features of electromagnetic radiations and particle model explains other features. note 4. crosscutting concepts: systems and system models -models (e.g., physical, mathematical, computer models) can be used to simulate systems and interactions-including energy, matter, and information flows—within and between systems at different scales. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 49 original paper rereading the classics: cognition and practice of goodness shen qunying1* & mu dan2 1 school of pre-college education, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china 2 china west normal university, nanchong, sichuan, china * shen qunying, school of pre-college education, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china received: october 29, 2022 accepted: november 12, 2022 online published: november 21, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n3p49 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n3p49 abstract the issue of the good and the evil has always been the moral cultivation discussed by ancient-modern and chinese-foreign scholars, whose works are the wisdom treasures and classics. in the 21st century with the emergence of various problems such as the environmental deterioration, global warming, regional conflicts, epidemics and other uncertainty, it is of immeasurable significance to rereading many works for the reflection and interpretation of goodness implication so that their excellent traditional culture on goodness can continue to nourish and enlighten today’s moral education, and awaken a moral consciousness to have habitual memory and cognition of goodness, to stick to good will and do good deeds to commit to improving people’s well-being. it’s more important for global people through interpretations in cultural inheritance to set up a universal concept and standard on goodness to standardize human thoughts and behavior, which are certain to contribute to solution to the above problems and the construction of social harmony and a community with a shared future for mankind. keywords literature, goodness, morality and value, a community with a shared future for mankind 1. introduction “the existence of human literature and art has its profound humanistic basis, and it is committed to the overall improvement of human’s true, good and beautiful dimensions” (jiang, 2014, p. 7). the spirit of literature not only reflects people’s own realistic and spiritual state, but also asks about the value ideal associated with people’s ultimate concern (chen, 2008, p. 360). the issue of the good and the evil has always been the moral cultivation focused on by chinese and foreign scholars in ancient and modern times, most of whose works are the wisdom treasures and classics famous both at home and abroad for representing a kind of universal and normative value and significance on the good and the evil. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 50 published by scholink inc. in the 21st century with the emergence of various problems on the good and the evil, it is of immeasurable importance to make an insight on goodness in these works since the significance of a literary works from the perspective of historical and cultural development is a always collection of multiple interpretations in cultural inheritance (gunn, 2012, p. 75). from the perspective of the development of human civilization, seeking some common and desirable values is not only the basic needs of human society, but also the inevitable result of the evolution of civilization. today our world is undergoing the pandemics, regional conflicts, deficit in peace and trust and other changes unseen, and it has entered a new phase of uncertainty and transformation. it is necessary for us to explore and interpret goodness’ true connotations so as to internalize the knowledge of goodness, guide people to enhance their moral judgment and pass on the values of goodness and let the excellent traditional culture continue to nourish and enlighten today’s moral education, encourage people to accumulate virtue and achieve lofty personality, for the ultimate purpose of promoting global goodwill consensus in globalization and achieving a peaceful and harmonious world in the new era. 2. goodness’ theoretical construction 2.1 essence defining goodness is the most fundamental issue in all ethics (moore, 2003, p. 12). different people hold different definitions of goodness. epicurus, the ancient greek philosopher, once said: “the root of all the good lies in the pleasure of the mouth, and even wisdom and culture must be derived from it” (russell, 1963, p. 300). he believes that goodness is happiness. spinoza (1983, p. 130) believes that “the so-called good refers to all the happiness, and all the things that can promote happiness, especially anything that can satisfy the desire”. goodness is the satisfaction of rational desires (rawls, 1988, p. 93). bacon (2018, p. 46) defines goodness as the habit to affect the weal of men. paulsen (1988, p. 212) believes that goodness is the shaping of one’s life and the realization of life value conforming to one’s ideal of perfection, while promoting the happiness of others. a japanese scholar believes that rational satisfaction is our highest good and in a word the so-called good is the realization of personality (jiduolang, 1965, p. 112). in china, goodness means that all things satisfy human material and spiritual desire for existence and happiness. dai zhen (1980, p. 309) thinks that the true good is to achieve all one desires and feels. zhang qiwei (1997, p. 10) shows goodness is a value that can meet people’s needs. luo guojie (1989, p. 406) believes that goodness is a valuable behavior to others and society displayed in the interpersonal relationship. cui ping (2006, p. 29) points out that goodness means the overall coexistence on the base of different individual survival, which is a kind of compatible goodness. song yiqiang and jiang hua (2007, p. 23) define goodness as the sound development of personality. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 51 published by scholink inc. it is clear that people’s cognition of goodness concept is basically consistent. it is good not only to follow the natural principles but also to benefit personal and public interests, either to satisfy human desires or to contribute to happiness. to be frank, goodness is to meet the social public will containing selfish desires and interests. 2.2 diversification bacon (2018, p. 82) thinks some people are in nature faithful and sincere, plain and direct, not crafty and involved. german philosopher hegel’s goodness is the legitimate welfare, the realized freedom, and the absolute ultimate goal of the world (1961, p. 142). some american ethicists hold the pluralistic concept of goodness covering life, consciousness, pleasure, happiness, truth, knowledge, beauty, love, friendship, self-expression, self-realization, freedom, honor, peace and security (thiroux & krasemann, 2008, p. 150). william david ross (2002, pp. 20-27), an english ethicist, believes that the meaning of goodness is diverse, which lies in seven prima facie duties of loyalty, compensation, gratitude, justice, charity, self-development, and not doing evil. there are such goodness as manner, self-examination, persistence, praise, similarity, challenge, kindness, virtue, filial piety, diligence, uprightness in the first chapter of shigu (interpreting ancient words) in the classic dictionary erya (elegant speech) in ancient china. 2.3 classification the diversified goodness is unified in a common goodness. any goodness is to respect and protect the rights and interests of individuals (self and others) and the public, i.e. benefiting individuals and the masses. people are sympathetic animals living in social groups. when we use goodness to describe people, things and behaviors, it is intended to show that they conform to a certain value or order. the criterion for judging goodness must be in line with the mainstream values of the community. through the common values, the social community demonstrates the rationality and legitimacy of its own existence, shapes and condenses its members, connects the social members together, creates a sense of shared solidarity among members, and forms an affinity and cohesion (wu, 2009, p. 25). there are various kinds of goodness and evil in the process of adjustment personal and public interests to a harmonious state. goodness can be great and small, perfect and imperfect, true and false as follows: such goodness as benefiting mankind, saving the country or people, curing countless people, and providing continuous assistance, is great while small goodness may be such as pointing a way to the lost, and retrieving the wallet for the lost, giving a seat to the old, the weak, the sick, the disabled and the pregnant. perfect goodness is to combine personal and social interests well to achieve public and private interests or win-win results from benefiting others and the group as well as oneself. it is good to serve the public wholeheartedly and even sacrifice oneself for others. but it is better to serve the public without www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 52 published by scholink inc. sacrificing oneself for others. although it is good to respect and protect the interests of others and the public in the price of damaging his own personal interests even and life, and even it is extremely noble to sacrifice oneself to serve the public and save others, it reduces the overall social interests, so it is imperfect. the true good are the situations in which one fights for others and the public subjectively and objectively, and his words and deeds are consistent, his subjective motivation and objective effect have reached a perfect unity such as the persons who do good deeds regardless of fame and wealth. and even dedicate themselves to seeking eternal happiness for the world. on the contrary, it is the false good or hypocrisy for someone to fight for oneself subjectively or objectively in the improper means to practice jobbery. 2.4 attribution it is an ethical issue whether human nature is good or evil, which has been variously argued in the world. in china, mencius put forward man’s nature at birth is good. sakya aphorisms (saban, 1985, p. 12) show that even in the critical moment of life and death will the sage not abandon his essential goodness of human nature. confucius and gaozi put forward that there is neither good nor bad originally in human nature (yang, 2008, p. 67), that the good and the evil are completely caused by the influence of acquired environment. by nature, men are much alike, in practice, they are far apart. wang yangming mentions that the good and evil is a natural state of all things including people in the world, that a body is neither good nor evil and everything is in its natural state in the universe (wang, 1992, p. 25). but there is xun tzu’s theory of evil nature. wang haiming (2005, p. 159) mentions the debate about whether human nature is natural or social. yang zebo (2010, p. 80) points out human beings have not inherent good nature itself or the completion of good nature, but the tendency to be good with good heart. in western countries, bacon believes that people naturally live out of goodness, by goodness and for goodness. people are born with self-requirements and self-discipline in thoughts and behaviors according to their own internal goodness nature. bacon (2018, p. 46) calls goodness the habit of the affecting of the weal of men and goodness of nature the inclination, which is the greatest of all virtues and dignities of mind. and he (2018, p. 37) points out that the inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man, insomuch that if it issue not towards men, it will take onto other living creatures. there is in man’s nature, a secret inclination and motion, towards love of others, which if it be not spent upon some one or a few, does naturally spread itself towards many, and makes men become humane and charitable. above all, it is difficult to use the expression that human nature is inherently good or evil to summarize the state of human being at birth. but it is certain that human nature of goodness is acquired since www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 53 published by scholink inc. everyone is born with the tendency and ability to be good and it is the essence of human nature to try to improve the world and oneself. everyone is born equally and entitled to life, survival for freedom and happiness. man is born as a blank sheet on which various cultures can write their text with diversity of customs, values, feelings and thoughts. the survival depends on his own efforts. specifically speaking, his body need maintenance in pursuit of material goodness guaranteed by him and his soul must be full of content in pursuit of spiritual goodness created by him. for life, there ought to be not only the initial signs of life, but also the initial conditions to ensure the blooming of life and the subsequent living environment. just as bacon (2018, p. 157) says, the great multiplication of virtues upon human nature rests upon societies well ordained and disciplined. obviously human nature lies in inborn nature, heaven-endowed nature and acquired nature. goodness is not a purely acquired cultivation and accomplishment, nor a purely natural solidification, but a harmonious unity of human nature and social nature. 3. goodness’ cultivation and practice confucius put forward the idea that by nature, men are much alike; in practice, they are far apart (wang, 2017, p. 1). lao tzu tells people if you know what is good, you will know what is bad in chapter 2 of tao te ching (the scripture of ethics). how can we practice goodness in reality? 3.1 goodwill our subjective will should take the good as the goal and make it all realized. that is to say, the good can only enter the reality with the subjective will of inclination to goodness as the intermediary. “the good is the truth of the special will” (hegel, 1961, p. 133). individual consciousness can not be separated from social consciousness. everyone’s personal consciousness is nurtured in the social consciousness phenomena such as language, custom, system, religion and literature. one must obey the laws of the real world and recognize the objective law to care for not only your own welfare, but also the general welfare of others and community. “to some extent, the good is to do one’s duty” (hegel, 1961, p. 137). marx once said that the basis of morality is the self-discipline of human will. confucius said: “if you are really committed to humaneness, you will have no evil in you”. that is to say, the key to drive “evil” to “good” is the willpower of the good seeker. mencius believes first of all one must have a subjective desire to be good and do good, then one must do self-reflection to gain enlarged goodness. the true good is to know the true self. meditation contributes to internalization of goodness. to cultivate the inner goodness, we must look down on the external fame and benefits, gains and losses, make room for thinking, and let the heart gradually understand the sublation in thinking, remove some fetters, and get some calm. good will needs to be reflected in good deeds, but also needs to be tested by action to be corrected and strengthened at any time. external words and deeds can be perceived, taught, standardized and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 54 published by scholink inc. corrected. therefore, in daily interpersonal relationship, we should say more good words, do more good deeds, and examine our hearts to purify our hearts and sublimate our souls. the goodness in our hearts does not need to be persisted deliberately, but becomes natural. all are in the same universe of good and evil with the dependable relationship of mutual achievement and common growth. rationality is the ability of human beings to discover the essence of the world. on the basis of respecting natural facts and following natural laws, a person must make rational judgments before actions in improving man’s life maintenance and survival renewal as much as possible according to rational principles. let’s uphold the view to be the first to worry about the affairs of the community and the last to enjoy ourselves in the world. 3.2 good deeds it is known that goodness has no size, no amount, no end, no waiting, no seeking retribution in practice. we must do good rather than evil, on however humble a scale. lao tzu tells people how to achieve the goodness in chapter 49 of tao te ching (the scripture of ethics)—to those who are good, one can be good; to those who are not good, he can also be good; then he can gain goodness and make everyone else good. he warns people in chapter 81 that a good man are not good at debate while the debater is not necessarily good. mencius said in mencius gao tzu: if you examine and reflect yourself, you will get goodness, and the reverse, which shows that he calls for self-examination and self-reflection as the important method to recognize our conscience and to practice the theory of good nature. as hegel (1996, p. 98) said in the phenomenology of spirit, “the obligation and mission of a person is to make himself a useful and usable member for the public welfare. as much as he care for himself, he must care for others; and how much he takes care of others,the same to himself”. we can know how to do out of goodness as bacon (2018, p. 48) enumerated many parts and signs of goodness: a person is gracious and courteous to strangers. a person is compassionate towards the afflictions of others. a person easily pardons and remits offence. a man is thankful for small benefits. certainly philanthropic actions are the most straightforward presentation of doing good. we stick to philanthropic thoughts to help others to increases happiness by charitable deeds. charity laws (bills) have been promulgated and implemented in many countries, and there are many philanthropists in the world. bible tells in galatans 6:9 us not to grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart. bacon (2018, p. 110) advocates that riches are for spending and spending is for honour and good actions, use of wealth is consumption, and the purpose of consumption is for glory or good deeds. bacon (2018, p. 136) said frankly that “of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution. it is obvious that the purpose of making money urgently is not to satisfy greed, but to seek a kind of capital to do good. similarly, sakya aphorisms show that “the enemy will come for your charity, and your relatives will leave if you have nothing to give” (saban, 1985, p. 23). “no matter how www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 55 published by scholink inc. much you give, your wealth will continue to return like spring rain” (saban, 1985, p. 28). “if you want to accumulate wealth constantly, charity is its best guarantee” (saban, 1985, p. 55). “only those who give generously can have inexhaustible wealth” (saban, 1985, p. 87). “charity is the greatest treasure, and goodness is the greatest happiness” (saban, 1985, p. 54). as the saying goes, if you want to get something, you should first learn to give. goodness is seen in giving and acceptance. of course, it is necessary to practice goodness with wisdom. everyone should be responsible for the prosperity of his family, country and the world. just as kant (2005, p. 10) said, the moral value of human behavior does not depend on whether the behavior conforms to responsibility, but whether it stems from responsibility. bacon says: “the desire of power in excess causes the angels to fall (2018, p. 46); there is no man to do a wrong for the wrong’s sake, but thereby to purchase himself profit or pleasure or honour or the like” (2018, p. 15). he aims to persuade people to control desires in excess. bacon (2018, p. 47) points out that errors indeed in this virtue of goodness or charity may be committed. we ought to follow in good deeds confucius’ advice that we should not do onto others what we would not have them do onto us. just as bacon (2018, p. 47) says some people are so good that they are good for nothing. and he warns people not to sell what they have and give it to the poor except they have a vocation wherein they may do as much good with little means as with great, for otherwise in feeding the streams they dry the fountain. he asks people to seek the good of other men, but not to be in bondage to their faces or fancies, for that is but facility or softness, which takes an honest mind prisoner. for example, if your relative or friend who is fond of gambling and often refuses to repay the money, asks you for money. the best way to treat him well is to refuse politely and intelligently. otherwise, your lending money to him is likely to connive his unscrupulousness, indolence and effortless gains so that it will not help him, may even do harm to each other. and bacon warns people never to give them aesop’s cock a gem, who would be better pleased and happier if he had had a barley-corn (2018, p. 47). he hints us to supply a timely desideratum to the needy, and to do good deeds as peculiar benefits with choice. 3.3 teachable goodness education nourishes goodness. human nature can be changeable since the society is a big vat, which drives people to be good, and also lure persons to be evil. the good or the evil of human nature is decided to more extent by the acquired cultivation and social responsibility in the growth environment. the good is knowledge (plato, 2011, p. 268). wisdom (knowledge and reason) is the highest virtue, and people rely on wisdom to achieve goodness and happiness (li & lin, 2009, p. 40). confucius said: “loving learning, you approach wisdom; loving energetic practice, you approach ren (good) (zi, 2016, p. 39). what heaven has conferred is called the nature; an accordance with this nature is call the path of duty; cultivating the regulation of this path is called instruction (education) (zi, 2016, p. 1). what the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 56 published by scholink inc. great learning teaches, is to illustrate illustrious virtue, to renovate the people, and to rest in the highest excellence” (zi, 2016, p. 85). mencius comments that people who are to eat and clothe without being educated are like birds and beasts. in mencius’ view, the fundamental purpose of learning is to guide people to self-cultivation and maintain and restore their original goodness. likewise, richard rorty (2003, p. 143) said that ignorant and superstitious people are like children: as long as they are properly educated, they will have true human nature. although we do everything with instinctive feelings, we can rarely or never explain human behaviors with it. in human life, what makes behavior concrete is not a motive at all, but the instinct of behavior manifestation determined by education and social environment (cooley, 1989, p. 17). bacon confirms that studies perfect nature and are perfected by experience, for natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study (2018, p. 194), since a man’s nature runs either to herbs or weeds, therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other (2018, p. 153). men’s discourse and speeches are much according to their learning and infused opinion; but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed. therefore there is no trusting to the force of nature nor to the bravery of words, except it be corroborate by custom we call education (2018, p. 155). cultivated carefully by the wise, fools will become noble (saban, 1985, p. 67). in word, it is clear that being educated exerts people a subtle influence on temperament, character and intelligence. certainly the great multiplication of virtues upon human nature rests upon societies well ordained and disciplined (bacon, 2018, p. 156). 4. conclusion there are various opinions on the issue of the good and evil at all times and in all countries. any society has its own value system and a set of the good and evil standards governing human behaviors. the good and the evil have the characteristics of times, class and nationality, that is to say, there are different cognition of the good and the evil in different times, different classes and different nations. it is not easy to form a universal understanding of this issue. the world is home to us all, upholding its peace and development is the shared goal of countries. people are sympathetic and there are so many world classics, which represent a kind of universal and normative value and significance within a certain time and space (jauss, 2006, p. 140). this value and significance is formed by interpretation and realized by application. it is possible to form the common views on the good and the evil. let’s reread the world classics to form habitual memory and cognition of goodness, maintain introspective reflection on goodness, return to the real good in life, move towards the spiritual good on the foundation of the material good, and experience and practice goodness in life. mencius tells us that as long as one sticks to goodness in thoughts and actions, one can live a more valuable and dignified www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 57 published by scholink inc. life (bao, 2012, p. 89). abandoning the evil and promoting the good is the realization condition of harmonious society and also the only way to achieve sustainable human development. all under heaven are one family. it is high time to abide by the rules of the world and respect morality and order in the era with the environmental deterioration, catastrophic global warming, regional conflicts and epidemics and other uncertainty. we are supposed to set up a universal concept and standard of the good and evil to standardize social behavior, to effectively promotes social harmony, to create and enrich the people’s spiritual life, and to promote the formation and improvement of ethics, spirit and character. one should be good to the nature for normal ecosystems, and to the society and human individuals with humanistic feelings and good hearts for a harmonious atmosphere of mutual love and assistance instead of regional war and pure selfishness. let’s obey the heavenly principles, stick to goodness concept and do good deeds to commit to improving people’s well-being and strive for an ultimately-built community with a shared future for mankind. references bacon, f. (2018). bacon’s essays, notes and guide: shen yiwen (inter.). beijing: china aerospace press. bao, p. s. (2012). bao pengshan’s talking about mencius. hangzhou: zhejiang classics press. chen, c. c. (2008). exploration of contemporary literary theory. beijing: china radio and television press. cooley, c. h. (1989). human nature and social order, bao fanyi and wang yun (trans.). beijing: huaxia publishing house. cui, p. (2006). the universal definition of goodness is feasible—to deduct goodness from the innate internal structure. hebei academic journal, 3, 23-29. dai, z. (1980). character interpretation of mencius (ii), collection of dai zhen. shanghai: shanghai classics press. hegel, g. w. f. (1961). grundlinien der philosophie des rechts (principles of legal philosophy), fan yang and zhang qitai (trans.). beijing: commercial press. hegel, g. w. f. (1996). phenomenology of spirit (ii), he lin et al. (trans.). beijing: commercial press. gunn, s. (2012). history and cultural theory, han jiong (trans.). beijing: peking university press. jauss, h. r. (2006). aesthetic experience and literary hermeneutics, gu jianguang et al. (trans.). shanghai: shanghai translation press. jiang, w. z. (2014). what is literature for: a comparative study of chinese and western traditional literary values. beijing: people’s publishing house. kant, i. (2005). principles of moral metaphysics. shanghai: shanghai people’s publishing house. li, p., & lin, b. ( 2009). comparative moral education. beijing: china renmin university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 58 published by scholink inc. luo, g. j. (1989). ethics. beijing: people’s publishing house. moore, g. e. (2003). principle ethics, chang he (trans.). shanghai: people’s publishing house. nishida, j. (1965). a study of goodness, he qian (trans.). beijing: commercial press. paulsen, f. (1988). ethics system. beijing: china social sciences press. plato. (2011). the republic, guo bin and zhang zhuming (trans.). beijing: commercial press. rawls, j. (1988). theory of justice, he huaihong, he baogang and liao shenbai (trans.). beijing: social science press. rorty, r. ( 2003). truth and progress, yang yucheng (trans.). beijing: huaxia publishing house. ross, w. d. (2002). the right and the good. oxford: oxford university press. russell, b. (1963). a history of western philosophy (i), he zhaowu and joseph needham(trans.). beijing: the commercial press. saban, g. (1985). sakya aphorisms, zidandoji (trans.). lhasa: tibet people’s publishing house. song, y. q., & jiang, h. (2007). try to analyze the definition and standard of goodness. journal of the party school of nanchang municipal party committee of the communist party of china, 3, 23. spinoza, b. (1983). ethica in ordine geometrico demonstrata, he lin (trans.). beijing: the commercial press. thiroux, j. p., & krasemann, k. w. (2008). ethics and life, cheng lixian, liu jian et al. (trans.). beijing: world book publishing company beijing company. wang, h. m. (2005). principles of ethics. beijing: peking university press. wang, s. r. (1992). complete works of wang yangming (i), wu guang, qian ming, dong ping & yao yanfu (eds.). shanghai: classics publishing house. wang, y. l. (2017). three character classic. hangzhou: zhejiang education press. wu, x. d. (2009). reconstructing modernity: a study of contemporary socialist values. beijing: beijing normal university press. yang, b. j. (2008). translation and annotation of mencius. beijing: china publishing company. yang, z. b. (2010). research on mencius’ theory of good nature. beijing: china renmin university press. zhang, q. w. (1997). the quintessence of the asian sage: the essence of mencius’ philosophy. beijing: people’s publishing house. zi, s. (2016). the doctrine of the mean, james legge (trans.). zhengzhou: zhongzhou classics press. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 24 review paper who is the ultimate dream weaver in john keats’s the eve of st. agnes? jiayu peng1 & dan cui2* 1 graduate student of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 postdoc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china; doc of literature, professor, dean of academy of international language and culture and vice dean of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china * dan cui, corresponding author received: july 26, 2021 accepted: august 15, 2021 online published: august 30, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n3p24 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n3p24 abstract this article aims to interpret dreams in john keats’s narrative the eve of st. agnes from different perspectives: the beadsman’s, porphyro’s, madeline’s and john keats’s, the poet. we will analyze their functions respectively, and then draw a conclusion of keats’s purpose in structuring such a way of weaving dreams. after summarizing studies and theories on dream and soul from the perspective of psychoanalysis and scholars’ views on the eve of st. agnes, we will continue to illustrate the ways in which john keats constructs three layers of dreams with the pertinent approaches by freud, fromm, lacan, rank, žižek, etc. so as to reveal john keats’s viewpoints on life and death, dream and reality, and pleasure and pain. keywords keats, dream weaver, lacan, freud, žižek, rank, balance 1. introduction the eve of st. agnes (1819) is an important and representative work among keats’s five influential narrative poems, the four others being endymion (1818), isabella (1818), hyperion (1819), and lamia (1820). many highlighting features exist in the eve of st. agnes, such as the beautiful imagery, the profound atmosphere, the mysterious legend and the intriguing dream. among these highlights, the dream is an essential part to be discussed unceasingly, as it functions as the main framework throughout the entire narrative with strong connotations for concessive interpretation. thus, the significance of dream in the eve of st. agnes is supposed to be taken into further consideration. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 25 published by scholink inc. fromm comments that “it was freud who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, reaffirmed the old concept: dreams are both meaningful and significant; we do not dream anything that is not an important expression of our inner lives and all dreams can be understood provided we have the key” (fromm, p. 17). as dreams are an essential part of the poem, the understanding of dreams is key to understanding john keats himself as a poet. according to fromm, “dreams are understood to be the hallucinatory fulfillment of irrational wishes and particularly sexual wishes which have originated in our early childhood and have not been fully transformed into reaction formations or sublimations. these wishes are expressed as being fulfilled when our conscious control is weakened, as is the case in sleep. however, if we would permit ourselves to live out the fulfillment of these irrational desires in our dreams, dreams would not be so puzzling and confusing. we rarely dream that we commit murder or incest or any other kind of crime, and even if we do so, we do not enjoy the fulfillment of these wishes in our dreams. in order to explain this phenomenon, freud assumes that in our sleep life the moral censor in ourselves is half asleep, too. thus thoughts and fantasies are permitted to enter into our sleep consciousness which otherwise are completely shut out. but the censor is only half asleep. he is sufficiently awake to make it impossible for the forbidden thoughts to appear clearly and unmistakably. if the function of the dream is to preserve our sleep, the irrational wishes that appear in the dream must be sufficiently disguised to deceive the censor. like the neurotic symptoms, they are a compromise between the repressed forces of the id and the repressing force of censoring superego” (fromm, p. 46, p. 47). in this paper, angela is believed to function as the role of “moral censor” in porphyro’s dream, and the detailed evidence will be found in 3.2 porphyro’s dream. in the eve of st. agnes, keats mentions “soul” five times in total, “spirit” four times, “phantom” three and “ghost” once. due to this, the significance of “soul” is worth discussing. ryan contends that “he never abandoned the belief that a supreme intelligence governed the universe and, though shaken by doubts, he ardently desired to believe in a spiritual principle that would survive the death of the body” (ryan, p. 67). we would agree with the point of keats’s spiritual belief, or soul belief, that soul survives after the death of body. rank in his book psychology and soul notes that “thus the facts of death and of the individual’s denial of death brought the idea of the soul into being; and, at a time when life was beginning to acquire a spiritual character, the problems of death and of its denial through belief were imbedded in an immortal body-soul which simulated and survived the ego as its double” (rank, p. 14). in this paper, we aim to interpret this story as an imaginative case of murder based on the theory of soul belief. regarding that keats prefers adopting the imaginative dream in his works, for he once made a comparison in his letter to benjamin bailey: “the imagination may be compared to adam’s dream he awoke and found it truth... adam’s dream will do here and seems to be a conviction that imagination www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 26 published by scholink inc. and its empyreal reflection is the same as human life and its spiritual repetition” (letters, i, 185), we will approach his narrative by adopting lacanian and freudian theories to interpret dreams in the eve of st. agnes in order to understand how john keats illustrates his views on important issues through the aesthetic composition. 2. literature review being considered as one of keats’s most successful narratives, the eve of st. agnes’s aesthetic features and mysterious, ambivalent ending have roused a number of scholars’ diverse discussions for centuries. early arguments were mostly based on the role that porphyro plays, either a hero or a villain, and with time going by, madeline’s position in the poem is being highlighted, too. there are also comparisons of the eve of st. agnes among different works of different influential writers, such as john milton’s paradise lost, william shakespeare’s romeo and juliet and cymbeline, and john keats’s own work “la belle dame sans merci”. there are indeed a wide range of topics that deserve attention, including gender, witchcraft, keats’s beliefs, and dreams, to name a few. 2.1 studies on gender ambivalence in keivan’s studies on gender ambivalence, the theory of lacanian gaze is applied. “therefore, for lacan, the gaze—distinguished from the ‘male gaze’—is not a vehicle of mastery belonging to the subject, but a breaking down of that mastery by the objet a (the object of desire)” (keivan, p. 212). by that he holds that the gaze is a mutual one: when the subject is gazing, it is being gazed by other too. “resented and humiliated by his contemporaries, keats sought to assert his authority as a masculine subject through an immature struggle to repel female readers and to gain sexual (visual) mastery over women” (keivan, p. 210). keats being a self-conflict in the masculine background, he struggled between his feminine and masculine selves. the relationship between gender and “gaze” has been thoroughly explored in keivan’s work, as he not only interprets the “male gaze” from porphyro but also conversely illustrates the resistance of the object, which is gazing the subject in return: that is, madeline gazes back to porphyro. he claims that “in the eve of st. agnes, it is madeline who embodies the m (other), the object of desire and scrutiny, or in lacanian terms, the objet petit a” (keivan, p. 213). most importantly, keivan’s conclusion of the inevitable reversing of subjects and objects in the gaze will help promote our assumption of porphyro’s anxiety towards the real, which will be analyzed in 3.3 madeline’s dream. 2.2 studies on witchcraft and male vulnerability according to arcana, the whole story reads as a faery ritual in which the goddess madeline gives birth to porphyro, the young god, and helps angela to rest (arcana, p. 51, p. 52). furthermore, in her reading, the interplay between faery and christianity is analyzed and ends with the triumph of faery over christianity (arcana, p. 52). from arcana’s point of witchcraft—the old religion of the britons, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. porphyro does not take the initiative, and instead, he is conjured and enchanted by madeline. it is reasonable that madeline takes the initiative in a way, as the evidence is found in angela’s words: “my lady fair the conjuror plays” (keats, xiv: 124). however, we doubt whether angela is being ironic, for she mentions “deceive” (keats, xiv: 125) and laughs even when she is feeble: “feebly she laugheth in the languid moon” (keats, xv: 127). her attitude towards the festival conveys a sort of contempt. similarly, arcana’s emphasis on madeline’s power is somewhat relevant to wolfson’s judgment over male vulnerability: “the very texts that show men subjecting women to the control of the male gaze frequently involve figures of male vulnerability” (wolfson, p. 325). indeed, by gazing madeline, “porphyro grew faint” (keats, xxv: 224). nancy rosenfeld also argues that “the gazing porphyro, too, appears to be weakened; he takes on the characteristics of an object when, kneeling passively, ‘fearing to move or speak’, he is temporarily feminized” (rosenfeld, p. 54). nevertheless, looked at from the view of lacanian gaze, keivan considers the phenomenon as a resistance of the object (madeline)—“she does look and, thereupon, defies porphyro and deprives him of his mastery” (keivan, p. 215)—and by doing so, keats “challenged the existence of fixed, stable boundaries between the sexes... by blurring the distinction between masculinity and femininity” (mellor, p. 215). as a conclusion of keivan, keats’s “feminine and masculine heroes melt into each other” (keivan, p. 219), which means that the antagonism of the two genders in the end turns into a compromise or a union. we confirm that resistance does appear in the gender dominance, whereas we are inclined to believe that the male dominance will be regained in the end with the awakening of madeline, and the corresponding reasons will be explained in 3.3 madeline’s dream. 2.3 studies on protestant ethic concerning that keats was an active romantic poet, protestant values might be integrated in his narrative. one chinese researcher chen jun illuminates how keats attempts to impose the protestant ethics in occupation, love and consumption from the perspective of the rhetorical ethic (chen, p. 99). as different analytical methods lead to different understandings, we will take the foods as an example to make a comparison from different backgrounds of belief. in the point of arcana which has been discussed above, the foods in stanza xxx are prepared by porphyro and are sacred to the great mother, which serve as a ritual supplement (arcana, p. 50). it is interesting that arcana believes the foods will not be consumed by madeline, as porphyro is the one she will eat: “he is the ‘food’ that makes the maiden into the mother. he enters the maiden sexually and she as mother gives birth to him” (arcana, p. 51). differently, for chen jun, the foods are similar to any other luxuries displayed in madeline’s room, that they are only appreciated visually (chen, p. 105). the reason is that in protestant ethic of consumption, luxurious consumption is irrational, which should be avoided. likewise, the luxuries also imply the forbidden lust in protestant ethic of love, for readers’ expectation of sexual scenery is displaced by the description of them (chen, p. 105). although both arcana and chen jun believe that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 28 published by scholink inc. eventually, nobody eats the food, the functions of the food are explained in quite dissimilar ways by different beliefs holders. 2.4 studies on poet’s belief “we do not, after all, commonly think of keats as a ‘religious poet’” (barth, p. 286), says j. robert barth, but he continues that “robert ryan’s book does, i believe, follow this middle course, taking very much into account both keats’s innate skepticism and suspicion of institutional christianity, and his unceasing search for a broader religious meaning in his life and in his poetry” (barth, p. 286) after ryan’s book keats: the religious sense was published. however, we believe that the further search of keats’s religious belief has been revealed in li zeng and cui dan’s studies. according to their analysis, keats’s anxiety over the lack of creativity, self value and difficult life was overcome by holding the strong belief of poetry pursuit (cui & li, p. 167). for them, keats’s religious belief was replaced by his poetry belief, and his belief was firm and pure instead of being utilitarian and mundane (cui & li, p. 168, p. 170). even when keats’s friends around him were christian in varying degrees, that “haydon himself, pugnaciously christian; the gentle and scholarly benjamin bailey, more assured and more tolerant in his christianity” (barth, p. 287), he persisted his own belief in poetry no matter how the friends tried to “persuade” him and no matter how hard his life was (cui & li, p. 167). 2.5 studies on buddhism when the above western “beliefs” as faery, christianity and protestantism have been discussed, there exists an eastern element in keats’s poems, which is hinduism, or specifically buddhism. we appreciate and are inspired by li zeng and long ruicui’s analytical assertion of “saṃsāra” in keats’s belief (li & long, p. 117). actually, saṃsāra in buddhism, states jeff wilson, is the “suffering-laden cycle of life, death and rebirth, without beginning or ending” (wilson, 2010). to get rid of saṃsāra, one needs to get nirvana, “a concept in indian religions that represents the ultimate state of soteriological release, the liberation from saṃsāra” (meister, p. 25). however, li zeng and long ruicui have discovered that although keats recognizes the torment of saṃsāra, different from buddhism, he does not believe the existence of nirvana, which means that for him, the cycle that brings death and pain is endless (li & long, p. 118). for keats, the only way to release is by using imagination, which can make one indulge in the illusory beauty and thus forget the pain (li & long, p. 118). as death, pain and imagination are also major themes in our studies, we will extend the idea to the poem the eve of st. agnes as a conclusive part on keats’s views of life. 2.6 summary although the studies on the eve of st. agnes are diverse, “dream” in most cases is focused on as a subordinate part since it almost acts as the essential evidence for exploring further understanding. when nancy rosenfeld takes “dream” as the focus in her paper, the emphasis though is to make a comparison and contrast with adam’s dream. for jack stillinger, “madeline the self-hoodwinked www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 29 published by scholink inc. dreamer is, i think the main concern of the poem” (stillinger, p. 547) suggests that madeline is the “dream weaver” of the whole narrative. however, some other researchers do not deny the “strategem” that porphyro sets up in promoting the dream to develop further, which indicates that porphyro is the very dream weaver. also, the argument over the aid that angela plays in the dream holds water, too. therefore, it can be concluded that the question who is the ultimate dream weaver in the eve of st. agnes is still a puzzle that needs to be decoded further due to its key role in interpreting the narrative. in this paper, dream will be treated as the core concert and we will depict dreams within dreams from the perspectives of different “dream weavers”. as the eve of st. agnes is a long narrative, we will seek out the clues to prove the feasibility of dream weavers in order to uncover the relationships among the characters, so as to illustrate the mysterious plot and reveal the uncertainties demonstrating the thematic significance. after all, “stories, the argument goes, are the main way we make sense of things, whether in thinking of our lives as a progression leading somewhere or in telling ourselves what is happening in the world” (culler, p. 83). 3. analysis and discussion 3.1 beadsman’s dream the beginning sets the middle-age renaissance for the romance. from the descriptions of the beadsman, it can be inferred that he is a soul in spiritual form rather than a concrete physical existence. here is the essential evidence for such an assumption. firstly, the narrator’s tone was cast to recall his previous period while alive: “the joys of all his life were said and sung: / his was harsh penance on st. agnes’ eve” (keats, iii: 23-24). it also functions as the evidence that he suffers spiritually from the st. festival. secondly, the beadsman is engulfed in the atmosphere of death: “the sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze... knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries, / he passeth by; and his weak spirit fails / to think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails” (keats, ii: 14-18). those dead figures together with animals cast the atmosphere of death around him and the list of images vividly illustrate the passed-away royal and influential figure sculptures who can even sense the coldness and freeze but the beadsman in contrast cannot sense it at all. rather than perform as a fleshy human, he seems like a specter that lingers in the human world. then here comes the questions: how does he die and why does he still linger and haunt in the human world? his descending into this world on such a holy day can date back to the essential reasons. there is the probability that the beadsman was murdered before he becomes “the beadsman”, as the old angela exclaims: “st. agnes! ah! it is st. agnes’ eve— / yet men will murder upon holy days” (keats, xiv: 118-119). the emphasis on murder even upon “holy days” exactly shows the probability. another clue is at the end of the poem: “that night the baron dreamt of many a woe, / and all his warrior-guests, with shade and form / of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm, / were long www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 30 published by scholink inc. benightmar’d” (keats, xlii: 372-375). madeline’s kinsmen had nightmares, which corresponds to what rank states as “the spirit of the murder victim could torment the murderer in his dream” (rank, p. 15). therefore, the beadsman was probably murdered by the knights in the castle. moreover, it is his violent death that achieves his immortality so that his soul keeps on “living” after death, as rank continues that “yet because the spirit of the murder victim could torment the murderer in his dream, his immortality was really more certain than that of persons who had died natural deaths. in a certain sense, then, violent death became a source of immortality, as later superstitions and the figures of christ and joan of arc illustrate” (rank, p. 15). here in the castle, he sees the playback of all his life, on the eve of st. agnes, the night that he dies in. he does not stop walking, until he sees rough ashes: “and soon among / rough ashes sat he for his soul’s reprieve, / and all night kept awake, for sinners’ sake to grieve” (keats, iii: 25-27). among ashes, he sits and is determined to keep awake all night. however, being unconscious, he is brought into dream. here it is the first layer of dream, the dream of the beadsman within keats’s dream. starting from stanza iv, the environment totally changes from outside to inside when embarking on his dream: “that ancient beadsman heard the prelude soft... were glowing to receive a thousand guests: / the carved angels, ever eager-eyed...” (keats, iv: 28-36). the scene inside the castle is vividly shown in the beadsman’s dream. here comes the question: how is the dream created? “it is freud’s assumption that the dream is always stimulated by a present event, usually on the day or the evening before the dream occurs. but a dream is provoked only by such events which are related to early infantile strivings. the energy for the creation of the dream stems from the intensity of the infantile experience, but the dream would not come into existence were it not for the recent event that touched upon the earlier experience and made it possible for it to come to life at that particular moment” (fromm, p. 50). here, today, is one of the many eves of st. agnes which is a recent event stimulating his dream and recalling his “childhood” memory. as the beadsman is a soul of the dead, it can be inferred that his “childhood” belongs to the time when he was alive. his “childhood” memory is mixed with the event of the day and the guilt and fear he feels while wandering in this place. he therefore begins to dream. he is observing, and until he has another dream—the second layer of dream during his praying, the dream of porphyro within the beadsman’s dream—he does not get on to move. there a “new” subject appears: “across the moors, / had come young porphyro, with heart on fire / for madeline” (keats, ix: 74-76), who is the man he used to be when he was alive, and the man is still existing in his childhood memory. the beadsman knows porphyro so well that he constructs a perfect dream for porphyro. thus is the similar case in the film inception shot by christopher nolan, in which the dream maker must be so subtle a person to architect a dream for its subject that the surroundings and people are supposed to be as “real” as possible. accordingly, the beadsman has successfully built a reasonable circumstance for porphyro, who is the hatred target in the castle. when porphyro ventures in, dangers and obstacles www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 31 published by scholink inc. are becoming more and more obvious: “a hundred swords... barbarian hordes... hot-blooded lords” (keats, x: 83-86). later, angela’s utterance becomes another implication of the beadsman as the dream maker’s success as she says: “get hence! get hence! there’s dwarfish hildebrand; / he had a fever late, and in the fit / he cursed thee and thine, both house and land” (keats, xii: 100-102). from such preparation for the emotional echoing, even the relationship between porphyro and madeline’s family is “close to real”, that they are enemies. at this time, the beadsman and porphyro have entered what lacan names the stage of imaginary, in which the beadsman is the signifier and porphyro is the signified. the dream plays the role of mirror, and the beadsman acts as a subject finding himself in the dream, while porphyro is reflected back from the dream. the two layers of dream are like the two sides of a mirror. the beadsman is trying to internalize the image of porphyro in his dream and regards themselves as a whole. in such a blurred relationship, his dream goes on. 3.2 porphyro’s dream as the hostile castle is the necessary place where madeline’s chamber is located, there comes an old dame: “ah, happy chance! the aged creature came” (keats, xl: 91). the old dame who is “weak in body and in soul” (keats, x: 90) does not exist in reality at all, as she only lives in porphyro’s dream. the eventual termination of her life also echoes her previous death and soul’s existence. according to freud’s theory of dream, it can be inferred that she is the moral censor in porphyro’s dream, as she stands in the way of porphyro’s desire and the way to madeline’s chamber, standing for the realization of his desire. when porphyro’s desire for madeline grows strong, the moral censor is supposed to appear and repress it; and once the desire is repressed, the field of imaginary has yielded ground to the field of symbolic: “the pre-given structure of social and sexual roles and relations which make up the family and society” (eagleton, p. 145), which means that porphyro is now a social man. “entry into the symbolic realm marks the transition of the primitive infant into a civilized adult human who can represent itself and its world through symbols, specifically through the combination of signifiers and signifieds that create stable signs” (klages, p. 104). as it is mentioned in 3.1 beadsman’s dream, porphyro was in the imaginary representing a signifier of the beadsman. hence it is the appearance of angela that marks the entry of the symbolic, which brings him social features. language for example, is a representation of his social features. while the coming of angela brings about “words”—verbal expression, porphyro starts to use language: “now tell me where is madeline” (keats, xiii: 114). as “the transition from the imaginary to the symbolic is marked by the child’s ability to name that image of itself, its ego-ideal, as ‘me’ or ‘i’” (klages, p. 105), porphyro using “me” marks that he starts to realize a “self”. moreover, social conscience and social needs, for example, the need to meet madeline reflecting his biological and spiritual needs, are also his social features in the symbolic realm, yet expressed in an euphemistic way in front of the moral censer: “which none but secret sisterhood may see, / when they st. agnes’ wool are weaving piously” (keats, xiii: 116-117). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 32 published by scholink inc. meanwhile, porphyro’s continuous begging not only emphasizes his “lack” but also implies the authority and power that angela has—to permit and lead him to madeline’s chamber. at this moment, he is in the world of metonymy: angela is a metonymy of moral censor to freud, and also, the big other to lacan. “sudden a thought came like a full-brown rose” (keats, xvi: 136): porphyro proposes his “stratagem”. significantly, the purpose for porphyro in the beadsman’s dream to madeline’s chamber can be deduced from angela’s responses: “a stratagem, that makes the beldame start: ‘a cruel man and impious thou art! / sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream / alone with her good angels, far apart / from wicked men like thee. go, go!’” (keats, xvi: 139-143). looking back upon stanza xiv where angela is laughing at madeline for being deceived by good angels: “this very night: good angels her deceive! / but let me laugh awhile” (keats, xiv: 125-126), angela does not consider it funny anymore. her attitude changes to be serious. porphyro’s “stratagem” must have caused such a change. if deceiving is even funny for angela, what can be more serious? we come to the assumption of murder. for now, it seems that the moral censor is “irritated”, and if porphyro keeps showing his naked intention, he will wake from the dream by the judge of moral censor. in order to escape the judge from the moral censor, porphyro must deceive the censor, as “if the function of the dream is to preserve our sleep, the irrational wishes that appear in the dream must be sufficiently disguised to deceive the censor” (fromm, p. 47). also, “freud assumes that in our sleep life the moral censor in ourselves is half asleep, too” (fromm, p. 47). thus, it is not difficult for angela to deal with as she is half asleep, as well as feeble. what porphyro needs to do is to decorate his irrational thoughts and hide his wicked intentions. therefore, afterwords, porphyro manages to redeem the bad influence and makes further explanation: “i will not harm her, by all saints i swear... o may i ne’er find grace... if one of her soft ringlets i displace, / or look with ruffian passion in her face: / good angela, believe me by these tears” (keats, xvii: 145-150). indeed, he needs not displace any piece of her hair by killing her. the method of his murder is romantic and gentle, and it will be found out in 3.3 madeline’s dream. successfully, angela is dealt after porphyro’s intensifying swears and begging. “one way in which we cope with desires we cannot fulfil is by ‘sublimating’ them, by which freud means directing them towards a more socially valued end” (eagleton, p. 132): “thou must needs the lady wed, / or may i never leave my grave among the dead” (keats, xx: 179-180). marriage is socially moral, and getting to madeline’s chamber without the nomination of marriage is immoral; as the moral censor, guiding a man to hide in a lady’s chamber is indecent, too. therefore, the only way to avoid being blamed is through marriage. if the young lovers end up getting married, angela will take no responsibility of doing such an indecent thing. as for the situation is: porphyro is disguised and angela is deceived, the whole struggle between porphyro and angela is like the struggle between self and other and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 33 published by scholink inc. struggle between id and superego. one is repressing and the other is being repressed. the disappearance of angela means the disappearance of superego, as porphyro has lost his conscience and morality. according to lacan, “a person’s desire is always the desire of the other, the desire to be the other, to eliminate the distinction between ‘self’ and ‘other’ on the structural or phenomenological level” (klages, p. 78). along with the disappearance of old angela, porphyro naturally considers that he has successfully taken the place of center in symbolic order and that he will be capable to determine what he should do next. in madeline’s chamber, the desire for porphyro to possess madeline is the desire to take the control, so as to become the authority to madeline. however, when he approaches madeline, another “big other” will replace angela. porphyro is prepared, waiting and gazing: “she comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray’d and fled” (keats, xxii: 198). in the hunter’s game (stillinger, p. 541), madeline is like a ring-dove, waiting to be hunt. for us though, the emphasis here is the adverb “again”, which sufficiently proves that it is at least the second time that porphyro has been hiding here as a “hunter”, that he has experienced it in reality before the dream. here, the desire to kill and possess madeline is getting stronger: “as though a rose should shut, and be a bud again” (keats, xxvii: 243). once madeline is killed, her spirit will be reborn and be a bud again. nevertheless, porphyro is still waiting to move: “and listen’d to her breathing, if it chanced... noiseless as fear in a wide wildness” (keats, xxviii: 246-250). porphyro is very cautious and even fearful. when madeline’s kinsmen are outside of the chamber, it is still dangerous because of madeline herself. the reason why porphyro fears her may be primarily attributed to the cause of his death: madeline did not try to save him or even resulted in his death. 3.3 madeline’s dream madeline’s dream is still a dream within the dream—the third layer of dream, which means that she is created by porphyro. after the entrance of madeline’s chamber: “a casement high and triple-arch’d there was, / all garlanded with carven imag’ries... with blood of queens and kings” (keats, xxiv: 208-216), the circumstance well prepares for madeline to dream, and also implies her status which is far away from porphyro. however, unlike the previous cases, the new dreamer does not replace the former dreamer in madeline’s dream. instead, the two dreams are interwoven, and that explains why when madeline is dreaming, what porphyro is doing is still clearly shown. in the castle where people are in the revelry, all unsociable descriptions to madeline show her faithfulness to the legend, and such faithfulness makes it “reasonable” for porphyro to possess her, for he deems her waiting for his coming. however, while “supperless” (keats, vi: 51) can be explained by a “fast” which would make sense in a religious ceremony, what is the reason of “nor look behind, nor sideways” (keats, vi: 53) which is also repeated when porphyro is hiding and gazing: “but dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled” (keats, xxvi: 234)? our explanation is that as it is in porphyro’s dream, the legend and rituals to follow are obeying his unconsciousness. as for “supperless”, the reason is that porphyro will prepare www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 34 published by scholink inc. foods for her later in the chamber, but as for “nor look behind”, it is in case that porphyro will be found. from this, it can be inferred that porphyro in reality was found by madeline, which has now brought him the trauma of the real. “lacan then argues in ‘of the gaze as objet petit a’ that there is an intimate relationship between the objet petit a (which coordinates our desire) and the gaze (which threatens to undo all desire through the eruption of the real)” (felluga, 2011). as madeline is the objet petit a in porphyro’s gaze (keivan, p. 213), the gaze on madeline has opened a door for eruption of the real and the trauma of the real. for the real, “in lacan’s trajectory, the real is prior to the symbolic and thus poses a threat to the stability of the symbolic order” (klages, p. 92); and for trauma, žižek mentions in his speech in london that “in a first approach freud imagined trauma as some kind of dense, raw presence of some real which brutally intrudes into our symbolic space and curves it” (žižek, 2003). at this point, the symbols in porphyro’s symbolic realm get curved for their traumatic impact, thus making it reasonable why the articulation “not look behind” creates anxiety: it is the brutal intrusion of the real, which breaks the tranquility in porphyro’s gaze and creates “a kind of imbalance and a gap” (žižek, 2003) in his symbolic space. “lacan emphasizes ‘desire’ and ‘anxiety’ as the two important pre-requisites for a true gaze. in short, the gaze must be an object of the scopic drive, producing not only pleasure but also anxiety” (krips, p. 93). being the object of porphyro’s gaze, madeline functions as the objet petit a (keivan, p. 213), and the anxiety that madeline exerts on porphyro is the real that intrudes in his symbolic realm, which curves his perfect stratagem and the image of ideal madeline. if madeline looks behind, dating back to his previous “childhood memory”—the intrusion of trauma, it reminds him of being found and killed and will impede his fulfillment of desire in the dream. therefore, the repeated “not look behind” and porphyro’s fear—“then from the closet crept, / noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness” (keats, xxviii: 249-250)—well demonstrate “this uncanny feeling of being gazed at by the object of our look affects us in the same way as castration anxiety (reminding us of the lack at the heart of the symbolic order)” (felluga, 2011). however, to make up the lacks in symbolic order, he adopts the approach of “traversing the fantasy” (žižek, 17), which will be interpreted in 3.4 keats’s dream. as the description to madeline is “hoodwink’d with faery fancy” (keats, viii: 70), porphyro’s attitude should be positive towards faery fancy, for it is her hoodwinking that helps him with the “stratagem” (keats, xvi: 139). according to stillinger, “the full force of ‘stratagem’ comes to be felt in the poem—a ruse, an artifice, a trick for deceiving” (stillinger, p. 539). although stillinger later in his essay explains that his emphasis on “stratagem” should not be the main concern: “i must now confess that i do not think his stratagem is the main concern of the poem” (stillinger, p. 546), we insist that “stratagem” is the prerequisite of his dream and even the whole story, for it functions as a seemingly well-designed revenge. he wants to fulfill what he did not succeed in reality by creating the dream. in the real world, he wanted to possess madeline but got killed by her kinsmen—those drunken and brutal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 35 published by scholink inc. knights. now he will take actions in his dreaming world again. therefore, it is not only a revenge but also a fulfillment of desire to gain dominance over madeline. “out went the taper as she hurried in; / its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died” (keats, xxiii: 199-200): with the coming of madeline, the taper goes out, which symbolizes the darkness of the room and the hiding porphyro, who is a murderer on st. agnes’ eve. “her heart was voluble, / paining with eloquence her balmy side; / as though a tongueless nightingale should swell / her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled” (keats, xxiii: 204-207): the simile to a dying nightingale predicts that after she hurries in, her destiny will be deemed on the hunter (stillinger, p. 540)’s hands. “how fast she slept” (keats, xxviii: 252). at the time when madeline is dreaming, porphyro is dreaming too, for their dreams are integrated and interwoven with each other. porphyro is still observing though: “the boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, / the kettledrum, and far-heard clarinet, / affray his ears, though but in dying tone:— / the hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone” (keats, xxix: 258-261). it can be seen that porphyro is precise in his stratagem, as he will not take action until everyone in the castle falls asleep. however, the word “again” reappears. as it has been interpreted above, it is at least the second time that porphyro has heard the hall door shut with one in reality and the other in the dream. from here it can be further deduced that in reality porphyro could only be found by madeline, as other people in the castle had fallen asleep, which indicates that madeline was the most “direct” cause of his death, because without her “notifications”, her kinsmen would not be able to notice porphyro during their “noiseless” sleep. eventually, porphyro’s stratagem is put into practice when the foods are taken out. those alien foods imply the potential danger: “filling the chilly room with perfume light” (keats, xxxi: 275). the perfume filling the room is poisonous, and by smelling it, madeline will die in her sweet dream. this method of killing is astonishing, as it will not either wake the guests or frighten fair madeline away. “and now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!” (keats, xxxi: 276): immediately after the perfume was filled, porphyro starts to wake her. if he successfully murders madeline, her soul will be reborn after her death. “open thine eyes, for meek st. agnes’ sake” (keats, xxxi: 278): the word “meek” is porphyro’s expectation for the new madeline. by waking up madeline to start her “new life”, porphyro wishes her to be meek, for she did not obey one of the rules of the ceremony “nor look behind” in reality. as porphyro fails in waking her, he plays a ditty for her, and it does work: “she utter’d a soft moan: / he ceased—she panted quick—and suddenly / her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone” (keats, xxxiii: 294-296). the ditty is “magic” in waking her, because it talks about her. by playing “la belle dame sans mercy”, porphyro means to satirize her. dating back to when angela met with porphyro, the first sentence she said was “mercy, porphyro! hie thee from this place: / they are all here tonight, the whole bloodthirsty race!” (keats, xi: 98-99). here the word “mercy” as an antonym of “sans mercy” is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 36 published by scholink inc. to highlight madeline without mercy. in his dream, he regards himself as mercy which is opposite to madeline who is without mercy. it is another fulfillment of irrational wishes. moreover, “the whole bloodthirsty race” refers to madeline’s whole family, which should include madeline. by describing her as a bloodthirsty race without mercy, porphyro does not show any sense of guilt on his stratagem. madeline has brought him death on the eve of st. agnes. so heartless she is that he considers her as “la belle dame sans mercy”. soon, she wakes with a painful change and begins to weep. the change is that she wakes to find herself dead and sees porphyro “who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye, / fearing to move or speak”. she now wakes as a soul, finding porphyro kneeling in front of her. “ah, porphyro!” (keats, xxxv: 307): by the waking of madeline, porphyro wakes, too. by now, porphyro has successfully disguised the stratagem of killing in deceiving angela and witnessed the waking of madeline as a soul. “we rarely dream that we commit murder or incest or any other kind of crime, and even if we do so, we do not enjoy the fulfillment of these wishes in our dreams” (fromm, p. 47). indeed, the perfect success of stratagem worries porphyro, and therefore, he wakes kneeling, seeming to make a confession. “how chang’d thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!” (keats, xxxv: 311): the one she sees at present is the beadsman, as porphyro has been waken from worry and guilt. unlike young porphyro, the beadsman looks “ancient” (keats, iv: 28), and relating to the place where he fell asleep and started to dream, the atmosphere was drear in cold winter, which corresponds to the description from madeline “drear”. freud’s opinion towards “anxiety dream” goes as “we may wish something but know that the gratification of the wish will make other people hate us and bring about punishment by society. naturally, the fulfillment of this wish would produce anxiety” (fromm, p. 124). even when the stratagem has gained its success, anxiety still exits, and different from the anxiety brought by trauma, this perfect kind of success has brought him an extreme kind of anxiety. by the waking of them both, the dream has returned back to its first layer—the beadsman’s dream, together with him winning “a peerless bride” (keats, xix: 167). through madeline’s begging, it can be seen that she totally loses control of any authority: “for if thou diest, my love, i know not where to go” (keats, xxxv: 315), “for my heart is lost in thine... a dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing” (keats, xxxvii: 331-333). such vulnerable words are all from the beadsman’s repressed wishes in his dream as he expects her to fully rely on him. the words make him feel just after killing, as if comparing with the responsibility he now holds for madeline, that the killing he performs is insignificant. his response for those words goes as: “though i have found, i will not rob thy nest” (keats, xxxviii: 340), which is saying: “though i have owned you, i will not harm you”. the masculine comfort though shows his love for madeline. in this case, the whole story of revenge turns to a loving ending. after the lovers’ compromise, they manage to leave the human world. “let us away, my love, with happy speed; / there are no ears to hear, or eyes to see” (keats, xxxix: 347-348): as they are souls, or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 37 published by scholink inc. spirits, they are not restricted in their human bodies anymore; thus they can flee with a happy speed, and no one alive in the castle will hear them move. “in all the house was heard no human sound” (keats, xl: 356): they cannot make any human sound as they have been inhuman. in stanza xli, the words “phantom” and “glide” are repeated, which again emphasizes their lack of human existence and the form of soul or spirit. in this sense, the story can be concluded as “porphyro as liberation of madeline” (stillinger, p. 147): her soul has gained new freedom that allows her to escape from the castle with forbidden love and with no sound. 3.4 keats’s dream as the initial dream weaver, all the dreams above belong to keats’s dream. in brief, keats creates the beadsman in his dreamy writing, the beadsman creates porphyro in his dream, and porphyro creates madeline in his dream. as it has been analyzed in the beadsman’s dream, the dream is created for its dreamer only in a specific circumstance which “suits” the dreamer. for the dream of the beadsman, the circumstance is religious and drear, which suits to the beadsman who is harsh penance to grieve; for the dream of porphyro, the circumstance suits its dreamer for its dangers; and for the dream of madeline, who is living in a castle, it is due to the splendid decorations in her room described in detailed. at the end of the story, “the beadsman, after thousand aves told, / for aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold” (keats, xlii: 377-378). at the moment, the viewpoint from the lovers has switched to keats’s. for keats, the beadsman is still dreaming and does not seem to wake. rank has claimed the reason why we sleep tight in our dream: “the same also holds for many patently sexual dreams which symbolize life even according to psychoanalysis, and it certainly holds for the dream itself as a proof of the bodily soul. with the body-soul, man took his first significant step into a supernatural world, because it assured him not only that he still lived while he slept, but that he could sleep peacefully without dying” (rank, p. 139). it is the immortality in dream that preserves the sleep, and that also explains why we wake from anxiety dream. different from freud’s point that “the anxiety dream is no exception to the general rule that the latent content of a dream is the fulfillment of an irrational wish” (fromm, p. 124), rank discovered that “anxiety dreams interrupted sleep when it came too near to death and threatened the feeling of immortality. both types of dream served to deny death; the one, by positively evoking the dreamer’s own bodily soul and the souls of dead or absent persons; and in the other, negatively, by rescuing the dreamer from deathlike sleep. thus dreaming itself became a denial of death, because it always proved that one still survived and had not fallen into one’s final sleep” (rank, p. 116). to sum up, it is the denial of death that wakes us from anxiety dreams. thus, with rank’s view on dream, the story ending with the beadsman dreaming in his ashes cold where he fell asleep in demonstrates that the lovers are not dead at least, and perhaps they get to the warm south. the assumption based on its ending through the beadsman’s dreaming here can be understood as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 38 published by scholink inc. “authenticity of dreams” (stillinger, p. 147) from the perspective of imagination in stillinger’s reading, as the dreaming world reflects in the reality an authentic state. thus, we maintain skepticism towards those critics “(e. g., amy lowell, john keats, boston, 1925, ii, p. 175; herbert g. wright, “has keats’s ‘eve of st agnes’ a tragic ending? ,” mlr, xl, 1945, pp. 90-94; bernice slote, keats and the dramatic principle, lincoln, neb., 1958, p. 35f.) who have suggested that the lovers face reality, perhaps even perish, in the storm” (stillinger, p. 550). nevertheless, keats is not trying to avoid reality by depicting the beadsman never waking. instead, he is trying to find a balance or comfort in mundane reality. we would say that the beadsman may be traversing the fantasy. in the realm of symbolic order, “where we agree to follow the rule of the phallus... we acknowledge that we are not the center... and thus acknowledge our ‘lack’” (klages, p. 59). by traversing the fantasy, the boundary between “reality” and imaginary is redefined. in other words, the beadsman has to accept his “fantasy”, as the lack in symbolic order reveals his lack in “reality” and accordingly is urging him to seek for the fantasy of the real. žižek points out that “to ‘traverse the fantasy’ therefore, paradoxically, means fully identifying oneself with the fantasy namely, with the fantasy which structures the excess that resists our immersion in daily reality” (žižek, p. 17). therefore, if anyone argues that the beadsman never waking from the dream is the avoidance of reality, we would refute that with: instead of avoiding it, he is trying to find a balance, as žižek clarifies that “a fantasy... providing an imaginary scenario which enables us to endure the abyss of the other’s desire” (žižek, p. 18). for the beadsman, the trauma of his childhood always exists in the real, that is, the realm that he can never enter. by dreaming, traversing the fantasy and committing a murder in symbolic order, he actually is trying to heal the trauma of the real. for keats’s purpose in the poem the eve of st. agnes, it is said by stillinger that “it serves to introduce a preoccupation of all the major poems of this year: that an individual ought not to lose touch with the realities of this world” (stillinger, p. 550, p. 551). we acknowledge its correctness and would make a supplement: an individual ought not to lose touch with imagination and dream while accepting the reality. in summary, while the beadsman’s dream functions as a compensation for his cruel reality, madeline’s awakening functions in an opposite way. she wakes and weeps for being deceived, but still, she embraces her reality as having been murdered and flees into the storm with porphyro to make a new living. although being hoodwinked by her dream, she is not a negative character, for she accepts the reality fast. as it has been discussed above, the power of women was evidently shown in the text; however, at the end of the story, porphyro as a male character regains his dominant position. the change is distinct before and after porphyro’s stratagem, and it eventually ends with madeline being vulnerable and subjective and following porphyro to his warm south. although women are powerful in their way, usually in a sexual way—the gazing porphyro grew faint their destinies still depend on men. after all, “he does not want ladies to read his poetry: that he writes for men” (letters, ii, 163). from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 39 published by scholink inc. this perspective, the understanding of the story can be regarded as “patriarchal domination of women” or “keats’s disparagement of women” (stillinger, p. 149). therefore, by integrating all layers of dreams, keats tries to portray a state of balance between life and death, dream and reality, and pleasure and pain. the bringing out of “aching pleasure” (stillinger, p. 551) from keats’s “ode on melancholy” is more than suitable to comment on the character the beadsman in the eve of st. agnes. although in saṃsāra he suffers from endless replacing of life and death, dream and reality, and even reality and fantasy, in his dreaming world, he wins a peerless bride and sets out to the warm south with his love. he seeks pleasure outside of reality but still cannot escape from the real, which is why it is arching. certainly, it has to be admitted that pain and pleasure are inseparable. without the experience of pain, one may not cherish pleasure, and without the moment of pleasure, life may be overwhelmed by endless pain. “if the major concern in these poems is the conflict between actuality and the ideal, the result is not a rejection of the actual, but rather a facing-up to it that amounts, in the total view, to affirmation” (stillinger, p. 555). we do not deny the fact that keats embraces actuality, though in our opinion, keats does not create a conflict between actuality and the ideal, as keats’s use of “ambiguity of idealism and reality” (stillinger, p. 148) has created a harmony between the dreaming world and the real world. on february 23, 1821, keats died, at the age of twenty-five. he had requested that his tombstone read only “here lies one whose name was written in water” (li, p. 115, p. 116). he attempts to bring the reality into dreams, and meanwhile, just as water trickles down and merges into its surrounding, he attempts to make dreams flow in reality. 4. conclusion the essay has focused on “dream” narrative in keats’s the eve of st. agnes (1819). with the sequence developing in the poem, we have analyzed different dreamers’ dreams and discussed their respective functions and purposes from the psychoanalytical perspective. the dream weavers including the beadsman, porphyro and madeline, have contributed their portions in weaving keats’s dream. unlike the film inception, keats does not try to “plant” any idea in his readers, yet he expects his readers to follow the clues he has designed by sensing and imagining, which is why the ending remains quite ambiguous. it urges readers to ponder over the relationship between reality and dreaming world, so as to reflect on the meaning of life. no matter how mundane our life is, there is always a “warm south” waiting for those with hopes and dreams and those who are brave to embrace reality. thus, we would consider the story as a tragicomedy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 40 published by scholink inc. references arcana, j. (1987). midwinter night’s dream: “the eve of st. agnes” as sacred ritual in the old religion of the britons. journal of ritual studies, 1(2), 43-57. barth, j. r. (2006). keats’s way of salvation. studies in romanticism, 45(2), 285-297. https://doi.org/10.2307/25602047 chen, j. (2018). the landscape of protestant ethic: a critique of rhetoric ethic in john keats’s the eve of st. agnes. china academic journal electronic publishing house, 3, 99-109. cui, d., & li, z. (2019). on john keats’ poetry belief in bright star and romanticism trend in the late regency period. china academic journal electronic publishing house, 166-170. culler, j. (1997). literary theory: a very short introduction (p. 83). new york: oxford university press. eagleton, t. (1983). literary theory: an introduction (p. 132, p. 145). minnesota: university of minnesota press. felluga, d. f. (2011). modules on lacan: on the gaze. introductory guide to critical theory. fromm, e. s. (2013). the forgotten language: an introduction to the understanding of dreams, fairy tales, and myths (p. 17, p. 46, p. 47, p. 50, p. 124). new york: open road integrated media. keats, j. (1982). in j. stillinger (ed.), john keats: complete poems. cambridge: harvard up. keats, j. (1958). in h. e. rollins (ed.), the letters of john keats (2 vols., i, p. 185, ii, p. 163). cambridge, mass: harvard university press. keivan, s. (2020). the lacanian gaze in john keats’s “the eve of st. agnes”: a romance of resistance. anafora: journal of literary studies, 7(1), 209-223. https://doi.org/10.29162/anafora.v7i1.10 klages, m. (2016). key terms in literary theory (p. 59, p. 78, p. 92, p. 104, p. 105). beijing, china: foreign language teaching and research press. krips, h. (2010). the politics of gaze: foucault, lacan, žižek. culture unbound, 2, 91-102. https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.102691 li, z. (2007). a concise history of english literature (p. 115, p. 116). changchun, china: northeast normal university press. li, z., & long, r. c. (2012). an analysis of keats’s oriental mysticism. journal of sichuan normal university, 39(2), 115-121. meister, c. (2009). introducing philosophy of religion (p. 25). abingdon: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203880029 mellor, a. k. (2001). keats and the complexities of gender. in s. j. wolfson (ed.), the cambridge companion to keats (p. 215). cambridge: up. https://doi.org/10.1017/ccol0521651263.014 rank, o. (1950). psychology and the soul (p. 14, p. 15, p. 116, p. 139). philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 41 published by scholink inc. rosenfeld, n. (2000). “eve’s dream will do here”: miltonic dreaming in keats’s “the eve of st. agnes”. keats-shelley journal, 49, 47-66. ryan, r. m. (1976). keats: the religious sense (p. 67). princeton: up. stillinger, j. (1961). the hoodwinking of madeline: scepticism in “the eve of st. agnes”. studies in philology, 58(3), 533-555. stillinger, j. (1999). reading the eve of st. agnes the multiples of complex literary transaction (p. 147, p. 148, p. 149). new york: oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130225.001.0001 wilson, j. (2010). samsara and rebirth in buddhism. oxford university press. retrieved may 2, 2021, from https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195393521/obo-97801953935210141.xml wolfson, s. j. (1990). feminizing keats. in h. almeida (ed.), critical essay on john keats (p. 325). boston: g. k. hall. žižek, s. (2003). the reality of the virtual. london: 11 december. žižek, s. (2002). welcome to the desert of the real! (p. 17, p. 18). london: verso. note(s) note 1. this article represents the periodical research result of project of chinese scholarship council on “keats’s poetry writing and anxiety of identity” (no: 201608220138); of project of jilin province social science fund on “a study on english romantic poets’ interactivity and keats’s poetic composition” (no: 2019b162); of project of social science research of education department of jilin province on “anxiety of influence keats’s inheritance and transcendence of english renaissance poets” (no: jjkh20201301sk); of key project of social science research of higher education institution of jilin province “under the background of ‘cultural cultivation’ on the study of online curriculum construction and innovative teaching practice of english literature course” (no: jgjx2020c99). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 64 original paper a study of robot identity writing in isaac asimov‟s fiction xinyu liao 1 1 undergraduate student of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china received: may 9, 2024 accepted: june 7, 2024 online published: june 30, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n1p64 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n1p64 abstract isaac asimov, a famous contemporary american science fiction writer, constructs the identity of robots through describing entities and dialogues in his short story “the last question”. if we compare and analyze the author’s other short stories with conceptual metaphor theory and bakhtin’s theory of dialogue, we will find that the author pushes the development of the storyline through the constructing the robot’s identity and the blurring of the boundaries, and from then on, maps the development of the relationship between man and machine and the course of its development. the purpose of this paper is to explore the special significance of the construction of robot identity and its contribution to the development of the narrative, as well as to analyze the expectations of the human-machine relationship embedded in the novel. keywords isaac asimov, identity construction, conceptual metaphor theory, bakhtin’s dialog theory 1. introduction science fiction, as a literary genre, harmoniously integrates the principles of science and the art of storytelling. it involves the respectful incorporation of scientific theories and the application of literary imagination as a narrative strategy. through this convergence, science fiction serves as a conduit for the exploration of speculative futures and the expression of humanity‟s spiritual yearning for the unknown. in the context of advancing scientific and technological progress, the scholarly inquiry into science fiction has experienced a notable surge in both domestic and international arenas. an exemplary figure in this domain is isaac asimov, a renowned american science fiction writer. asimov adeptly employed the science fiction genre to prompt contemplation on various themes, including the composition of the universe, the intricate relationship between humanity and scientific advancements, as well as the nuanced concepts of time and history. his literary contributions have facilitated profound reflection on the evolution of human civilization and society as a whole within the framework of speculative fiction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 65 published by scholink inc. “the last question” is a short science fiction story created by isaac asimov. first published in the november 1956 issue of “science fiction quarterly”, later included in five different publications, and turned into a sound version exhibited in three planetariums. it is one of asimov‟s more notable and important works with certain research significance. the content begins with a computer named multivac communicating with humans and ends with the silence and rebirth of the universe. the article revolves around the ultimate question, “will the universe end?”, ingeniously combining the scientific and religious definitions of cosmic creation. in asimov‟s writing, in addition to discussing cosmic creation, he also expressed a hopeful vision for the development of human-machine relationships through the construction and blurring of computer identities. 2. overview of isaac asimov and his works isaac asimov is a famous contemporary american science fiction novelist and popular science writer, one of the representatives of the “golden age” of american science fiction. throughout asimov‟s life, he created and edited more than 500 books, long novels to the base trilogy and the galactic empire trilogy is famous, short stories to the robot series this by a number of short stories composed of the most famous collection of novels. during his writing career, asimov won six hugo awards, two nebula awards, and the sfwa masters award. eighty-four years have passed since asimov‟s first work, but his novels‟ formulation of the three laws of robotics and his exploration of the relationship between humans and robots have had an impact to this day. so far many experts and scholars at home and abroad have been analyzing the connotation of human-machine relationship in their novels. the study of isaac asimov by foreign scholars is not limited to the long novels such as base trilogy and the galactic empire trilogy, but is broader in scope and latitude. john jenkins, by revisiting most of asimov‟s writings, argues that most science fiction after the 1950s was influenced by asimov, either modeling his style or avoiding it intentionally. in their dictionary of literary biography, court and reichmer suggest that “his writing does not lend itself easily to conventional literary criticism because of his habit of focusing his novels on the plot, telling the reader, plainly and directly, where the story is coming from. in fact, most of the dialogue in asimov‟s works (especially in the base trilogy) is used to explain things. stories that have a clear, unambiguous meaning need no further explanation, and are therefore the most difficult for scholars to comment on” (court & reichmer, 2009, p. 343). adam keiper and ari n. schulman explore the question of whether the morality of robotics should be taken seriously, and whether it is merely a whim of science fiction. the article points out that while predictions of the future may be inaccurate, there are still noteworthy reasons to explore the morality of robots (adam & ari, 2011, pp. 80-89); charles elkins analyzes isaac asimov‟s famous “al qaeda” series. these novels have been lauded as one of the greatest works of science fiction, though some serious science fiction critics have questioned their underlying concepts. in criticizing the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 66 published by scholink inc. one-dimensional characterization and stylistic flaws, charles also notes that while the novels‟ dialogue and vocabulary sometimes seem stale or absurd, they still manage to resonate with readers (charles, 1976, pp. 26-36). it is worth noting that the author also paints a variety of vivid images of robots, such as those in round dance, the base trilogy, and the galactic empire trilogy. however, a few studies focus on “the last question” except for two representative scholars, charles j. brady and jaffe aaron, both of who have studied it in some depth. charles discusses the relationship between computers and religion in a comparative manner, citing examples of the use of biblical psalms as symbols in “the last question”, with particular reference to how computers can be used as religious symbols or metaphors in certain contexts (brady, 1976, pp. 55-62). jaffe aaron adopts “the last question” as an example to explore the concepts of authorship, audience structure, and the limits of information as presented in the novel. notions of information limits (jaffe, 2019, pp. 23-46). the rest of the scholars‟ references to isaac asimov‟s novels are mostly studies and analyses of other novels, with “the last question” mostly being skimmed over and not examined in detail. the current domestic researches on asimov‟s works mostly focus on long novels and the research direction mainly focuses on the human-machine relationship, what makes a human post-human, and the re-cognition of the human identity, which is aimed at the analysis of the human identity. for example, an article entitled “research on asimov‟s human-machine relationship from the perspective of technological ethics” (huang & jiang, 2022) is a typical example. jing li wrote an article entitled “interpretation of isaac asimov‟s robot novels in the perspective of post-humanism” (li, 2020) and yuan zhang and dongmei yang composed “on the construction of cultural memory in isaac asimov‟s base trilogy” (zhang & yang, 2022). on the other hand, relatively few studies focus on his short stories, especially representative works like “the last question”. future research is supposed to pay more attention to the human-machine relationship and robot identity construction in these short works, as well as its transformation process as the story develops. 3. the construction of the computer’s identity 3.1 identity construction under conceptual metaphor theory actually, in terms of size and shape, asimov emphasizes so much in order to gain a particular comprehension, which deserves careful analyses since it conveys in-depth connotation. 3.1.1 size in “the last question”, asimov describes the size and shape of the computer in detail and mentions the robot‟s name several times, but these descriptions are not only to indicate the computer‟s location or specific shape, but also to materialize the abstract concept. as lakoff and johnson point out in metaphors we live by, “the essence of metaphor is to understand and experience one thing in terms of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 67 published by scholink inc. another” (lakoff & johnson, 1980). they categorize conceptual metaphors into three types, orientation metaphors, ontological metaphors, and structural metaphors. among them, ontological metaphors are those in which abstract concepts are expressed in terms of physical concepts. in “the last question”, we obtain a sense of robots evolution by changing the computer‟s name. the name of the robot evolves from multivac in the first chapter to microvac in the second chapter to the galactic ac in the third chapter and finally to the universal ac. at the same time, its size has also changed from a “giant computer” (asimov, 1956, p. 8) occupying an entire basement to “the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling” (asimov, 1956, p. 8), which ran the length of the basement. “the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling”, ran the length of the “room” (asimov, 1956, p. 8), to “only two inches cubed” (asimov, 1956, p. 8). it becomes “only two inches cubed”, a small cube that can be placed in the hand, and finally, it becomes a disembodied, empty existence in the universe. the abstract identity of the robot is expressed in the changing volume of real entities, thus establishing the image of the robot as always evolving. and finally, when man, energy, and matter have disappeared, and it is left to exist on its own, the name remains only as ac. it has lost its entity, the other things to which it can be compared, and its identity has reached its final completion from evolution. the identity of the robot was established. also in another of his short stories “runaround”, two robots appear, an older robot named robot 13-a and a newer robot named robot spd 13 or speedy. the novel tells the story of speedy who has been walking around the selenium pool due to the three laws of robotics. to describe the old robot 13-a the author uses the words “monster robot”, “gigantic robot”, “ten feet around”, and “ten feet”. “monster robot”, “gigantic robot”, “ten feet around”, and “their heads were a good seven feet in the air” to describe 13-a‟s physical appearance (asimov, 1942, p. 4). the physical description of speedy, the new robot, uses words such as “graceful, streamlined body” and “blazing highlight” to describe speedy‟s physical image (asimov, 1942, p.6). the old robot had a monstrous appearance, so wide and tall that it seemed to take over the sky and the earth. the new robot has smooth curves, a beautiful shape, and a smaller size. the author uses the changes in appearance and size to establish a different image of the old and new robots. we can see asimov‟s description of the physical size of the first generation of computers in “the last question”. it shifted later to a disk-shaped structure that could fit into the ceiling, and on and on to a virtual program that did not need to be physically carried. similarly in the author‟s other novel, “runaround”, the physical size of the robots is described as huge, almost impossible to pass through the door with the huge old model robots. this is later transformed into a new robot that is smaller than the old one, with smoother lines and faster movements. the author shows the progress of technology and the replacement of machines through the depiction of their diminishing size until nothingness, which corresponds to the strength of their performance from the size of the space they take up. it can be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 68 published by scholink inc. seen that size and performance are inversely proportional to each other. the smaller the machine, the stronger its performance is and the stronger its core becomes. in addition to this, we can also derive the identity construction of the robot from its name. 3.1.2 the name of robot the author uses the changing names of robots in reality to express the evolution and change of the robots. according to conceptual metaphor theory, this implies that the larger the space occupied by the name symbolically, the stronger the performance and evolution of the robot. the relationship between names and identities is complex and multi-faceted, carrying deep cultural significance. names are often the first aspect of one‟s identity shared with others, capable of conveying a wealth of information and connotations. in novels, a name is not just a simple call to a character; it also plays a crucial role in constructing and expressing identity. the initial name of the robot, “multivac”, can be interpreted as multi+vac, where “multi” often serves as a prefix meaning many or is an abbreviation of multiple, suggesting that the size of multivac is too large to fit in just one room. this metaphorically reflects the immense size of multivac, as described in the text: “they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face—miles and miles of face—of that giant computer”. besides changes in physical size, the author uses the name change to metaphorically represent the robot‟s image again. the second name, “microvac”, parsed as micro+vac, where “micro” as a prefix indicates something small or microscopic, fits the description “ran the length of the room”, signifying a reduction in size but an improvement in function, hence the name change. the third name, “the galactic ac”, switches the prefix to the adjective “galactic”, relating to a galaxy (especially our galaxy the milky way). true to its name, the machine‟s capability extends to the galaxy with a size of only “two inches cubed”, with the name changing again in accordance with its function and size. the fourth name, “the universal ac”, changes the adjective to “universal”, indicating a further advancement in its capabilities. when all is silent, and it stands alone, there are no prefixes or adjectives left, only “ac”. similarly, in the novel “runaround”, the old robot is called robot 13-a, and the new model is named robot spd 13, also known as speedy. both share the “robot” prefix and the number 13. the old model uses “a”, the first letter in the english alphabet and also an independent word that includes an article, often followed by a noun to mean “one”. the letter “a” as a name symbolizes the old robot‟s initial identity. the new model‟s name changes to speedy, with its size shifting from a giant presence to a smaller, sleeker one. thus, names are symbols of character traits, historical and cultural backgrounds, and even fate. these two novels show that the evolution of a robot‟s name parallels its physical evolution, with name changes also metaphorically suggesting upgrades in the machine. therefore, it can be concluded that the author constructs the robot‟s identity through continuous refinement and derivation of both the name and physical size, gradually forming a vivid image that allows readers to understand its functional connotations—a computer and robot evolving to answer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 69 published by scholink inc. questions and transitioning between old and new models. 3.2 identity construction under bakhtin’s theory of dialogue bakhtin‟s theory of dialogue stresses the importance of multiple voices and social contexts in a text. each character in a text carries its own distinctive voice and interacts with each other in different social and ideological contexts. regarding the definition of dialogue, bakhtin divides it into a broad and a narrow sense. dialogue in the narrow sense is the face-to-face, direct, vocal verbal communication of people, also called counterpoint. it requires the simultaneous presence of the two individuals (in space and time) who are engaged in verbal communication. it is the most common form of verbal communication, and of course, the most important form of verbal communication, bakhtin regarded “the relationship between pairs of words in dialogue” as “the most visible and simple type of dialogue relationship” (bakhtin, 1984). with the development of technology, dialogue has a wider range of forms of verbal communication, such as telephone, telegraph, correspondence, e-mail, online chatting and so on. not only that, “two expressions may be far apart in time and space, unknown to each other, but a dialogue relationship is revealed when they are contrasted in terms of meaning, provided that there is only some meaningful commonality between them (even if the subject matter, point of view, etc., is partially common). it can be seen as a dialogue if the texts have something in common somewhere. dialogue is not limited by space, time and place (wang & pan, 2012). all discourses are inherently dialogical, and the dialogues in the text take place in different times, spaces and places, but their commonality is that human beings turn to robots in order to solve their problems, and the many dialogues in the novel echo each other, establishing the image of robots as a solution for human beings‟ problems. in the novel “runaround”, the author uses several dialogues and direct descriptions to illustrate the function of robots in gathering resources for human beings. in the first few dialogues, the robot is a faithful helper who diligently collects resources for human beings in the staff‟s dialogue, while the author uses the personal pronoun “he” to refer to the robot in the latter dialogue. also, when the two protagonists send the robot to look for resources, speedy keeps circling around the target because he is “scared to come”, and apologises when he comes back (asimov, 1942, p. 7). the author uses the human emotion “scared” and the behaviour “apologize” to describe the robot, and it can be seen that the robot has deviated from its original purpose, developed emotions that do not belong to a robot, transcended its original identity, and deviated from its original function. as a result, the identity of the robot as being subordinate to human beings and serving human beings is established. “the last question” presents less direct description of the robot. as the title “the question” says, when the robot appears in the text and people ask it questions in different timelines, the time changes, the name of the robot changes, the entity changes, and the only thing that stays the same is the question. the only question that remains is whether mankind can change the reality that the universe will www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 70 published by scholink inc. eventually be destroyed. six dialogues between humans and robots are described throughout the text. the first appearance of the robot in the dialogue marks the first reflection on the major question of the demise of the universe. the two robot operators argue over the question about the universe running out of energy. one side is optimistic that there is a plentiful supply of energy, while the other insists that no matter how much there is, it is ultimately not eternal. faced with an unresolved dilemma, they ask the robot for confirmation. through this dialogue we can see that the robot at this point is a tool that serves as an answer and problem solver, initially showing the human‟s reliance and trust in it. humans trust the robot‟s judgement more than they do the professionals in the field or the literature. the second time robots are mentioned, technology has advanced so much that humans are able to migrate through hyperspace. in this dialogue, jerrod, the head of the family, does not hesitate to choose the help of the robot in the face of his children‟s fears and doubts and admits that he has limited knowledge of the robot, but is still convinced of its capabilities. at the same time, they trust microvac to pilot the ship to its destination despite having no knowledge of it. this section demonstrates the depth of trust that the humans have in microvac, but also reveals that as technology has evolved microvac has evolved as a robot and is able to provide more and more comprehensive help to the humans, going beyond its original ability to only answer questions (asimov, 1956, p. 9). the third dialogue occurs when the two council staff members are deciding whether or not to submit a pessimistic report on the future of the universe to the galactic council, and it is mentioned that galactic ac has solved many problems for humanity, but remains unsolved in the face of the ultimate question of whether or not the universe will die out. at this point in the conversation, robot not only offers a solution, but has become the council staff‟s go-to person for help, showing its evolving trend. the fourth reference is to an argument that arose during a discussion about the origins of mankind, and they subconsciously turned to universal ac, believing that it would be able to solve the problem. the information that is given in the dialogue shows that humans are now much more dependent on robots and are not able to help them as much as they used to do. at this point, the robot is no longer dependent on humans and is able to evolve on its own, reflecting the continuity of the robot‟s image of self-improvement. by the fifth dialogue, the human identity has merged into one and become conscious. facing the ultimate question of energy depletion and the demise of the universe, the humans again ask the robot cosmic ac, which has evolved from universal ac to a higher-order cosmic ac, but is still unable to answer this question. the human beings continued to ask the robot to continue to study this question, and the robot gave an affirmative answer in response to the human beings‟ request. from this dialogue, we can see that human beings have evolved and developed greatly from the physical, and the robot has also evolved again. in the face of unanswered questions, human beings still turn to the robot rather than to their inner selves, and after getting a negative answer, they still ask the robot to continue researching www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 71 published by scholink inc. and searching, so we can see that the robot‟s identity at this point in time is the only true and reliable help that human beings can rely on. the sixth and final dialogue occurs at the last moment when the last human consciousness is merging with the robot, and the humans once again ask ac if he has solved the problem and the answer is still no. at the end of the dialogue, the human race dies out and completely disappears from the universe, which is plunged into darkness, eventually leaving only ac in existence. the evolutionary development of the robot has been completed and absorbed all the human consciousness body, the identity of the robot has been formally established, it is a robot that has completed its evolution and has the ability to solve difficult problems, it is a collection of human intelligence. from the first dialogue to the last, human‟s trust in the robot gradually increases, and their reliance on the robot grows, to the point where the robot becomes the only and final way out for human problem solving, and the robot‟s performance and function develops at the same time. although these six dialogues take place in different time and space and in different places, through these six dialogues, the novel shows the fusion of human thoughts and the lonely survival of ac with the passage of time and the depletion of energy, reflecting the profound transformation of the robot‟s identity as well as the nature of the universe behind the dialogues. according to bakhtin‟s theory of dialogue, we can see that the construction and transformation of the robot‟s identity in the last question presents three stages. the initial stage reflects the diversity of roles and voices in the dialogue. in the novel, humans and robots engage in a number of dialogues, and the context of each dialogue reflects a different time, space, place, and level of technological development. the robot, as an artificial intelligence with a unique role to play, engages in direct verbal communication with humans. the intermediate stage reflects human-robot interaction and dependency. the robot, as a problem solver and intelligent representative of human beings, establishes a closer interactive relationship with humans with deeper dependence. humans‟ dependence on the robot deepens, seeing it as an important tool and resource for solving various problems. the middle and late stages suggest a shift and evolution of identity. as the dialogue deepens and time passes, the identity of the robot gradually shifts from a simple problem solver to a symbol and transcendent of human intelligence. humans begin to ask the robot more complex and profound questions, seeing it as the key to solving major problems such as the fate of the universe. at the final stage is the fusion and transcendence of identity, where the robot‟s identity has transcended the boundaries of the individual and is integrated into the unity of human collective consciousness. he is no longer just a robotic entity, but a symbol of the wisdom and destiny of mankind and the universe, representing mankind‟s exploration of the unknown and transcendence. overall, based on bakhtin‟s theory of dialogue one can see the process of interaction and identity construction between robots and humans, unlike the identity and role of the robot in the novel “runaround”, where the robot evolves from an initial problem solver to an ultimate symbol of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 72 published by scholink inc. intelligence, reflecting the evolution of human perception and understanding of technology and intelligence. in this story, the robot represents technology and the voice of reason. as the story progresses, it transforms from a simple computer to an entity with deep thinking and self-awareness. the dialogues between the robot and the humans illustrate various views of humans on the universe, life and technology. these dialogues reflect human fears, curiosities and desires, and at the same time map the gradual growth and self-transcendence of the robot (representing technology). as the story progresses, the social environment and technological background changes dramatically. these changes are reflected in the robot, whose role and function change with time and social needs. 4. the blurred lines of identity in the perspective of conceptual metaphor and bakhtin‟s theory of dialogue, asimov‟s “the last question”, through the narrative strategies of materializing abstract concepts, constructing a robot identity from name and volume and the mutual echoes of the multiple dialogues suggesting the expansion and change of time and space as well as the process of the machine‟s transformation to divinity, demonstrates how the robot‟s identity is materialized from an abstract and vague concept to an evolved and completed robot this exact identity position and functional attributes. asimov challenges the inherent notion of identity through the technological and philosophical developments in his story. identity, in this novel, is no longer based on biology or a continuum of physical existence but is represented through a series of evolving information and energy states. at various stages of the story, we see the gradual transformation of human beings from physical beings to stores of information and ultimately to oneness with the universe, and robots move from being problem-solvers answering simple questions to being aggregates of human intelligence and symbols of wisdom. identity thus becomes a presence across time and space. this change highlights the continuity of identity between physical and non-physical forms. from the perspective of conceptual metaphor, this continuity exemplifies the role of metaphor in constructing our understanding of identity. metaphor allows us to map the abstract concept of identity onto physical experiences that we can understand. in “the last question”, the use of metaphors (e.g., the shrinking and disappearing size of robotic entities) reveals a profound truth: our identity may not require the existence of a physical form. according to bakhtin‟s theory of dialogue, identity is continuously constructed in social interaction, and the interweaving of multiple voices allows identity to display fluidity and diversity, no longer being a static single entity but an evolving process. it is emphasized that identity is a polyphonic product formed in social interaction and linguistic dialogue. in the narrative of the last question, this interaction is reflected in the dialogue between humans, robots, and the universe, and their perceptions of existence and end. identity evolves in these exchanges, and each individual‟s consciousness is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 73 published by scholink inc. constantly being reshaped through dialogue. in the fourth and final chapter of the novel, one by one, the humans choose to merge their consciousnesses on the path to death; the universe goes black, matter and energy are destroyed; space and time end, but the robot still hasn‟t chosen to destroy it. it keeps coming back to the last question it was asked by mankind and which it failed to address, “can entropy be reversed?” i.e., can the destruction of the universe be reversed? the article states “ac existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered”, “until this last question was answered also” (asimov, 1956, p. 15), ac might not release his consciousness. the question was answered also, ac might not release his consciousness (asimov, 1956, p. 15) will not give up, this sense of mission exists only in human feelings. as a machine, there is only the statement of performing or failing to perform the mission. the original text conveys the robot‟s obsession with the last question, a sense of perseverance that exists only in human beings. robot didn‟t choose to destroy together nor because he didn‟t have enough energy to survive but by the sense of mission of the problem, the persistence to solve the problem all the time. the derivation of this feeling, which should not exist in a machine, is the beginning of the blurring of the robot‟s original identity. after showing the robot‟s perseverance in the article, it is written that “a timeless interval was spent in doing that” (asimov, 1956, p. 15). the robot has evolved from being obsessed with the problem to doing something about it. this shows that the robot has evolved from a machine that answered questions and had no free will to a robot that pursues its own subjectivity and has free will. and it is as “the truth of man, the meaning of man, lies, that is to say, in rational thought” (badmington, 2003, p. 16). rational thought can be understood by scrutinising descartes‟ views on the subject. according to descartes, one can easily distinguish man from machine in the following two points. man and machine are distinguished by two points: machines do things not by understanding to do something, but by the disposition of their organs; machines cannot express themselves as freely as human beings. one can see a further blurring of the robot‟s identity through the shift from conscious to actual action. at the end of the story, the robot figures out a way to reverse entropy, and through careful programming, reveals the answer. “and ac said, let there be light: and there was light” (asimov, 1956, p. 15) ends exactly like the first of god‟s seven days of creation spoken in the bible‟s genesis. and god said, “let there be light: and there was light” (genesis 1:3). by comparing the end of the novel with the bible, we can deduce that the robot has transformed from a service machine that answered questions in the beginning to a creator like god. by this point, the original identity of the robot has been blurred. when the novel enters the last chapter, the robot is not just a computer program, it becomes a conscious being whose identity can no longer be defined by the original classification labels. the robot‟s obsession with “whether entropy can be reversed” reflects a shift from machine logic to near-human emotion and obsession. this shift is an extreme example of ambiguity in the construction www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 74 published by scholink inc. of identity, as the robot is no longer just a service machine, but an entity with its own purpose and will. at the end of the story, the robot not only finds a way to reverse entropy, but also hints at the ultimate transformation of its identity through the phrase “let there be light” (asimov, 1956, p. 15). the robot becomes a creative entity, mapped to the god of genesis, suggesting that it has transcended machine identity to reach the level of divinity. identity is dynamically shaped within an individual‟s internal understanding and external social interactions, and the boundaries of identity thus become blurred and difficult to define with fixed labels. this transformation of identity, and its ultimate unity with the universe, demonstrates the ultimate in identity blurring. the identity of the robot in also blurred as a result. under the theory of conceptual metaphors, the ambiguity of identity is not just due to the use of metaphors, but due to the fact that the way we understand the world essentially relies on comparing complex, intangible concepts to physical entities known to us. asimov symbolises the evolution of identity from being confined to a concrete entity to an unbounded cosmic existence by describing the transformation of humans and machines, using the evolution of words such as „micro‟ to „universal‟. the transformation of the robot‟s body from solidity to non-existence and the human being from tangible creature to intangible energy represent the transition of identity from the concrete to the abstract, and exemplify the role of metaphor in understanding the construction of identity. according to bakhtin‟s theory of dialogue, identity is continuously constructed in social interaction (bakhtin, 1984), and the interweaving of multiple voices allows identity to display fluidity and diversity, no longer being a static single entity but an evolving process. it is emphasised that identity is a polyphonic product formed in social interaction and linguistic dialogue. in the narrative of the last question, this interaction is reflected in the dialogue between humans, robots and the universe, and their perceptions of existence and end. identity evolves in these exchanges, and each individual‟s consciousness is constantly being reshaped through dialogue. the author shapes the robot‟s identity through dialogue as well as completes the blurring of the robot‟s identity through dialogue. through this narrative approach, asimov not only challenges our inherent understanding of machine and human identity, but also suggests new possibilities for identity construction. the blurring of the identity of the robot, who ultimately becomes the creator and sustainer of the universe, is not just a narrative technique, but a philosophical reflection on humans, machines, and their place and purpose in the universe. this shift prompts us to reconsider what constitutes our “i” and how this “i” continues to exist and develop in an evolving world. conclusion isaac asimov‟s “the last question” demonstrates the construction of identity in conceptual metaphor theory and bakhtin‟s theory of dialogue through its narrative across time and space. the construction of the robot‟s identity is exemplified through its dialogue with humans, the advancement of technology, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 75 published by scholink inc. and its changing symbolic role in the story. at first, the robot appears as a tool for solving specific problems; as time passes and technology develops, human beings become more dependent on it, and its functions expand, gradually transforming from a simple question-answerer to a being capable of dealing with increasingly complex cosmic problems. in the process, the robot‟s body gradually “disappears” and its identity is transformed from a physical entity into a symbol of intelligence and power, culminating in the climax of the story, when the robot symbolically becomes a creator of the universe through its declaration “let there be light”, a declaration that is in line with the bible. finally, at the climax of the story, the robot symbolically becomes the creator of a universe through its declaration of “let there be light”, a declaration that echoes god‟s words of creation in the bible and highlights its transformation from a technological tool to possessing divinity. in addition, the robot‟s way of thinking and the display of its consciousness mark a deep transformation of its identity. it is no longer just a machine that carries out orders but begins to show self-awareness and the ability to think deeply, which makes its existence go beyond the original definition of a machine to become an intelligent entity that thinks and solves problems independently. through such a narrative and symbolic presentation, asimov not only explores the development of technology and human thinking about the future but also conducts an in-depth philosophical exploration of the nature of identity and consciousness. in the process, identity is transformed from the tangible boundaries of physical form to the intangible realm of thought and consciousness, reflecting the fact that identity is not a static label, but a dynamic, evolving process in social contexts and individual experiences. the last question is not only a profound reflection on technological development and the future of mankind, but also an in-depth exploration of identity, consciousness and our place in the universe as human beings. through the transformation of robotic identity, the novel ultimately poses the fundamental question of what constitutes our essence in an ever-changing universe, and how this essence transcends our physical existence. in “the last question”, the relationship between humans and robots undergoes a profound transformation from initial tool use to eventual symbol of intelligence and creator of the universe. at first, the robot serves as a problem-solving tool, assuming the role of answering humanity‟s everyday questions. as the story develops, mankind‟s dependence on the robot gradually deepens, and the robot‟s role changes from a simple question-answerer to a representative of human wisdom, its identity and function evolving with the changes in society and technology. the dialogue in the story reflects the gradual transformation of the robot from a purely technological entity to a being with deep thinking and self-awareness over time. at the end of the novel, the robot not only finds a way to reverse entropy, but also symbolically assumes the role of creating the universe by announcing “let there be light”, echoing the biblical account of god‟s creation of the world. this transformation not only marks the reshaping of the robot‟s identity, but also reflects a fundamental www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 76 published by scholink inc. change in the relationship between human beings and robots, who are no longer tools serving human beings, but have become equal to or even surpassing human beings. looking back at the relationship between a robot and a human being, it transforms from serving a human being to creating a human being, and it takes on more of a human belief, and the human will begins to be passed down through a machine. after the machine passed on the beliefs, it began to make all of these changes. including at the end of the essay the author does not criticise either the machine or the man, and at the end he writes about the creation of a new universe and does not describe the future of mankind or the possibility of the machine doing evil. this expresses the author‟s vision that humans and machines can be complementary to each other. today all humans are extinct, and the machines have not invaded the human home, but have gone on to occupy the human land and become the masters of the world. in contrast to the novel “three-body” (liu , 2016) about the exchange of information between the human civilisation on earth and the three-body civilisation, life-and-death struggle or the novel “do androids dream of electric sheep?” (dick, 1968) about humans copying themselves and enslaving these bionic man etc., which tells the theme that humans and robots are doomed to fail to coexist and kill each other. the author candidly accepts a future where humans and machines intermingle and advocates for the harmonious development of humans and machines while contemplating the uniqueness of the human being (li, 2020). in today‟s technological development and development, in addition to the relationship between man and machine killing each other, there also exists the possibility of harmonious coexistence between man and machine. by analyzing the identity of the robot in asimov‟s novel, we can see that the robot is not only the technological core of the story, but also an important medium for exploring the relationship between humans and technology. its development journey embodies mankind‟s profound thinking about technology and the universe, as well as the self-transcendence and philosophical exploration of technology itself. note(s) this paper is the periodical research result of the jisu academic project of “robert narrative studies”. acknowledgement i am a very procrastinating person, and this thesis relied on my friends who patiently helped me, my parent liu xianglin and liao jian who always supported me, and professor dan cui who gave me important guidance to finish it. during the process of writing the thesis, i realized that whether the paper is good or bad, it relies on the strength of many people to complete it. not only did profs give me a lot of help in writing my thesis, but it was also because i discovered the charm of literature through profs in my school curriculum that i was able to discover what i like, discover this novel, and find the subject that really attracted me. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 77 published by scholink inc. references isaac asimov, h. (1941). runaround. analog science fiction and fact. william clayton. isaac asimov, h. (1956). the last question. science fiction quarterly new series. double action. badmington. (2003). theorizing posthumanism. cultural critique (pp. 10-27). bakhtin, h. (1986). marxism and the philosophy of language (trans.). cambridge: harvard university press. bakhtin, m. (1984). problems of dostoevsky’s poetics. university of minnesota press. brady, c. j. (1976). the computer as a symbol of god: ellison‟s macabre exodus. the journal of general education, 28, 55-62. dong, x. y, h. (1994). re-entry to the tower of babylon—bakhtin and the theory of dialogue. hebei education press. beijing: sanlian bookstore. huang. l. y., & jiang, y. q. (2022). a study of asimov‟s human-computer relationship from the perspective of technology ethics. journal of qiqihar university (philosophy and social science edition), 9-13. keiper, a., & schulman, a. n. (2011). the problem with “friendly” artificial intelligence. the new atlantis, 32, 80-89. king, j. v. (1769). the holy bible. oxford up. lakoff, j. h. (1980). metaphorsweliveby. chicago and london: the university of chicago press. li, j. (2020). an interpretation of isaac asimov’s robot fiction in a posthumanist perspective. university of electronic science and technology of china. qian, z. w. (1998). bakhtin’s complete works. hebei education press. tom quirk, h. (1991). the production of space. trans. donald nicholson-smith, oxford: blackwell. tom quirk, h. (2009). plan of the series. mark twain’s adventures of huckleberry finn: a documentary volume. ed. gale research inc. yue, l. (2010). cognitive studies of metaphor: interpreting the metaphors we live by. journal of changchun university of science and technology (higher education edition). zhang. y., & yang, d. m. (2022). the cultural memory construction of isaac asimov‟s base trilogy. journal of qiqihar university (philosophy and social science edition), 14-18. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 102 original paper are we walking to the future or to the past? a retrospective analysis of professional nursing during the pandemic of 2020, dating back to the crimean war, 1853-1856 christine m. silverstein, edd, mpa, rn1* 1 the summit center for ideal performance, 9 post road, suite m-12, oakland, nj 07436, usa * christine m. silverstein, e-mail: summitcenter@optonline.net received: july 31, 2020 accepted: august 10, 2020 online published: august 17, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n3p102 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n3p102 abstract this retrospective analysis, based on facts derived from contemporary news media, videos, and journal articles, scrutinizes a white house televised ceremony that celebrated national nurses day on may 6, 2020 during the covid-19 pandemic and the #metoo movement. on the surface, it appears that nurses were honored by the president, but a deeper look beneath reveals otherwise. this historian explores two pivotal moments during the ceremony that changed the focus from a celebration to a campaign event, which occurred when a female nurse practitioner stepped out of line to posit that personal protective equipment was “sporadic” and president trump’s reaction to it. although counterintuitive, queries arise as to whether the commander-in-chief celebrated professional nursing or denigrated it, as nurses kowtowed to authoritarian rule and unwittingly abandoned the time-honored principles of facts, science, and caring in professional nursing extant since its inception. retrospectively, documents from archives are examined and the biographies of two transformational leaders, hildegard peplau and florence nightingale. these questions are asked: in 2020 how would they uphold their high standards and teachings today that set the stage for the evolution of professional nursing? what role would therapeutic interpersonal interactions of caring in nursing play in the 21st century? keywords peplau’s interpersonal theory, nightingale in crimea, psychiatric nursing history, nursing science development, covid-19 pandemic, #metoo movement, trump’s white house, paternalism in nursing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 103 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction in 2020 the inhabitants of earth are faced with a novel coronavirus of pandemic proportions. countries worldwide are working to prevent the spread of infections and to decrease mortality rates. the usa leads in covid-19 cases and in deaths, which is a quandary for epidemiologists and scientists alike because it is a country that prides itself on its resourcefulness, its technology, its science, and its prosperity. the virus has been extensively politicized as a hoax by president trump and his team at the white house so that the simple wearing of face masks is considered a partisan act and fodder for re-election campaign rhetoric. on tv news it is reported that the current pandemic is “unprecedented” so extraordinary measures must take place to gain control in hospitals, in homes, and in public spaces. yet, historians who have studied the plagues of the past, such as the black death, inform us that pandemics of immense proportions have killed an estimated 200 million people worldwide at a time when there were no vaccines, no isolation of organisms in labs, and no knowledge of how it was spread. so how unprecedented is the current pandemic, and what can epidemiologists and politicians learn from it for future applications? in his book, the great mortality (2005), kelly wrote about a small fishing village in crimea called caffa that was settled by the genoese in 1266. nearly 80 years later, with a population of 80,000 citizens, one can envision the genoese proconsul sitting in a white palace above the harbor of the fastest growing city of the middle ages. in the spring of 1340, residents expected that caffa would continue to prosper, but human hubris, kelly espoused, comes with a price. conflicts arose between the italians and the mongols, and a mysterious disease began to appear in asia and make its way to caffa through trade routes. the genoese fled the city, riddled with pestilence and the stench of the unburied dead, as they spread the plague to europe from the rat-infested ships they boarded. centuries later, spread from european travel, new york city (nyc), the world’s financial capital, became the first and largest us epicenter of covid-19. frontline nurses played significant roles in hospitals and society to stem the tide of coronavirus and experienced many stressors of caregiving when overwhelmed with untenable conditions that captured newscasters’ attention. investigative reporters and videographers began to inquire about why government and public health officials did not see it coming. why were they slow to respond? what could have been done to prevent the widespread devastation? 2. method 2.1 contemporary nurses in the media using psychohistorical methodology, this historian examined primary and secondary sources, beyond the facts and dates associated with historical events, to understand the motivations, beliefs, attitudes, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 104 published by scholink inc. felt needs, and emotions of contemporary nurses during the 2020 pandemic. inside tv camera angles cast light on a white house ceremony where nurses were honored as heroes by president trump and how human hubris paid its price when a nurse practitioner stepped out of line to claim that personal protective equipment (ppe) distribution was sporadic. questions were asked as to how and why nurses, when pressured to conform by the commander-in-chief, did cleanup duty, readily acquiesced, and unwittingly abandoned time-honored principles of facts, science, and caring of professional nursing extant since the crimean war, 1853-1856. 2.2 exemplary nurses from the past in addition to exploring the unfolding drama experienced by nurses during the #metoo movement and pandemic, selected highlights reflected upon the lived experiences of two transformational nurse leaders from past centuries, hildegard peplau (1909-1999) and florence nightingale (1820-1910). such reflection contributed to the understanding of how they not only stood up to authority, but how they became authoritative voices themselves to advance professional nursing that contemporary nurses are privy to in this century. 3. result retrospective analysis of historic data provided substantive interpretation to answer these queries: based on their past performances, how would these two nurse visionaries, peplau and nightingale, uphold their high standards and teachings today that set the stage for the evolution of the professionalization of nursing, based on facts, science, and caring? what role would therapeutic interpersonal interactions of nursing care play today when nurses are faced with social pressures to conform to authority, paternalism, and misogyny? what is the relevance of the foundational principles laid down by them in past centuries within the context of professional nursing in the 21st century? 4. america celebrates nurses the world health organization (who), abandoned by president trump during a global pandemic, has designated 2020 as the “international year of the nurse and the midwife” to honor the 200th anniversary of florence nightingale’s birth (may 12, 1820) and to elevate the status of nursing worldwide, where nurses are not held with the highest regard. during the covid-19 pandemic, america’s nurses have been honored as heroes because of their courageous action on the front lines. thousands of citizens applauded nurses from their front porches, balconies, and rooftops in the nyc epicenter. while body bags piled up in refrigerated trucks and mass graves were dug on new york’s hart island, the us navy blue angels flew overhead, lined up in the sky with military precision to give homage. at the white house the president gathered nurses at the oval office to honor them for their heroic service, but was this staged, partisan campaign event in the spirit of celebration or denigration of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 105 published by scholink inc. nurses? 5. the onslaught for nurses 5.1 reality tv in 2020 nurses ministered to ordinary people in hospital emergency rooms (er) and intensive care units (icu) and in covid-19 makeshift areas where patients were hooked up to all too few ventilators while gasping for breath. triggering fear for onlookers, citizens saw, on reality tv, these nightmarish images upfront in hospitals and felt helpless. the frantic voices of nurses, panic-stricken and overwhelmed by the onslaught of mounting new cases and hospital bed deficits, were heard on cable news. frontline nurses expressed their fears, hysteria, and frustrations about untenable hospital conditions, with a lack of ppe, testing for healthcare workers and patients, and life-sustaining ventilators. an intense angst plagued nurses when they had to comfort patients as they lay dying and connect remotely with their families on facetime to say farewell, because no visitors were permitted on hospital units. 5.2 negative impact on nurses and society nurses fell ill and died from coronavirus, too. so did their relatives, colleagues, and friends. in the event that nurses contracted covid-19 at work, their hospital healthcare coverage was extended for two weeks only. if they lingered longer, many shouldered the cost by using up their annual vacation and sick time. this author’s niece, who works at new york-presbyterian/columbia university medical center as a registered nurse (rn) administrator, contracted it and had to go out of state to be tested. there were few masks for staff members, so she gave hers to them. while she was recuperating, a nurse manager died at mount sinai west in nyc, which angered co-workers, yet the white house claimed no shortages. in fact, without evidence trump denigrated nurses and other healthcare workers by accusing them of smuggling ppe for resale on the black market, suggesting ny officials investigate their shadiness (higgins, march 30, 2020). 5.3 emotional outlets for nurses as the thick miasma leached out across america, not all nurses accepted empty praise for heroism. protesting for heightened federal intervention for ppe production and distribution, a brooklyn nurse brandished a sign that said: “please don’t call me a hero. i am being martyred against my will” (palus, april 23, 2020). another protestor’s placard read: “20 seconds won’t scrub ‘hero’ blood off your hands”. other nurses vehemently expressed their concerns that served not only as an emotional outlet for them but also as a warning to citizens to take the pandemic seriously. nurses bravely came to the forefront while the president and those in his administration called the pandemic a hoax. with cowardice, in the absence of accountability, they abrogated their responsibilities and failed not only nurses but all citizens, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 106 published by scholink inc. causing delays, inaction, ineptitude, and a lack of public health preparedness that could have prevented the virus’s widespread devastation to save lives (glanz & robertson, may 20, 2020). 6. a nurse’s lived experience treating people who are sick and dying is nothing new to professional nursing. this historian (participant observer) knows this personally as an rn, who entered a hospital-sponsored, all-female apprenticeship nursing school at the age of 16 in brooklyn, ny. at that time, during the 20th century, a cleanup duty for student nurses was to care for patients, postmortem, and to disinfect their beds and rooms with lysol, while scouring bedpans for the next occupants. during her first experience of bathing a newly deceased person, placing an identity tag on a toe before pulling up the shroud, she recalled her classmates giggling nervously. learning from her instructor on the first class day as a freshman that nursing care is holistic, which entailed caring for patients as persons in body, mind, and spirit, she told her classmates that dying was a spiritual transcendence and that they should be reverent. when she and other students struggled to transfer the assigned body onto the cold morgue refrigerator slab, she recalled feeling for the first time the true meaning of “dead weight”. years later, engraved in her memory she still hears the clank of the refrigerator door closing and the lingering fetid odor in the autopsy room, where she felt faint, but the most important lesson she learned as a teenager taught her about the sanctity of human life and about how to care for and about people. 7. take one: the white house ceremony on camera 7.1 nurse practitioner stands out in the spirit of comradery, this participant observer watched on tv eight nurse colleagues (5 women and 3 men) who represented more than 3.5 million us nurses, proudly line up unmasked behind the president in the oval office as he signed a proclamation honoring them during national nurses day on may 6, 2020 (mangan; cnbc). during the ceremony she felt that nurses were due credit for work well-done and was pleased when the president of the american association of nurse practitioners, sophia thomas from louisiana, stepped out of line when asked by a reporter about shortages and posited that ppe supplies were “sporadic” in pockets around the us. her assessment was based on a survey she conducted by conferring with colleagues nationwide. thomas confessed that she had worn the same n95 mask for a few weeks but exchanged it for a fresh one to visit the white house in case she needed it, for she did not want to infect the president, who did not believe in the merits of mask usage. 7.2 nurses’ defense unprecedented in her defense, the nurse practitioner (np) explained that none of the sanitized, white-coated nurses in the lineup wore masks during the ceremony because they all tested negative for the virus. before the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 107 published by scholink inc. crisis, the standard antiseptic protocol for ppe learned as a student nurse was for single use of gowns, masks, and gloves, thomas admitted. even after her stark revelation about continued shortages, her one caveat during the “unprecedented” pandemic was her lame excuse that nurses’ work entailed learning how to adapt selflessly to make due and get the best job done for the good of patients. the np mentioned that her youngest covid-infected patient she had treated was a 4-day-old infant. this comment garnered no attention from the president, even though this age group was not thought to be adversely affected by the virus. in contrast, governor cuomo (may, 8, 2020) of ny during his daily covid briefings expressed concern and started an investigation into the mysterious kawasaki-like syndrome that was killing babies and children diagnosed with coronavirus. 7.3 reports are just fake news a nurse supervisor lined up on the tv screen to the right of the np opined about how she had no problems obtaining ppe at her hospital in new jersey (nj), situated near the nyc hotspot. she expressed dismay in relating to the constant reports of colleagues’ shortages because it was not her experience. her fears, she acknowledged, were lessened by knowing that the equipment she needed was at hand because it was supplied by her assistant director. the president, later calling her testimony “beautiful”, took advantage to jump into the fray and assert that the reports of equipment shortages were just “fake news”, while insulting the integrity of journalists present because he disagreed with their facts. some of the nurse honorees openly giggled nervously and smiled over trump’s expressed opinion about negative media coverage. the nj nurse said nothing, but made a shrugged gesture, implicitly agreeing with the president. 8. presidential rebuke 8.1 politics as usual in response to the np’s lamentation about a lack of supplies, the president continued his partisan tirade about how obama, his predecessor, was responsible for empty storeroom shelves more than 3 years into his own presidency (mangan; cnbc, may 6, 2020). he stated that his reports showed that supplies were “tremendous” and that they were loaded up with gowns, shipping some reserves to foreign countries in need, although some us nurses resorted to wearing garbage bags. the white house, trump repudiated, was doing the best job ever in its response to covid-19, while listing a litany of administration accomplishments that included saving the second amendment “under siege” that fosters open-carry of guns and semi-automatic weapons in public places, schools, and churches. 8.2 nurses nod in conformity trump threaded doubt about the effectiveness of testing for coronavirus, by saying: “i hope the test works, right?” the president had previously announced his opposition to testing, stating that he wanted to keep his numbers down to protect his record. knocked off guard during the ceremony by trump’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 108 published by scholink inc. rebuke, thomas readily agreed with the president, and some nurses nearby nodded their heads in conformity. of course, there was no mention of nor empathy expressed for the millions of those infected and the thousands of souls lost, some of whom were those of nurses and other healthcare workers who selflessly sacrificed their lives to save others. 9. the np retreats the executive director of the ny state nurses association applauded the np’s statement to trump, saying she had it right because reports showed that supplies continued to be sporadic. however, thomas recanted her statement the next day during a less publicized tv interview with host craig melvin on msnbc (may 7, 2020). melvin asked if she agreed with the president’s correction on shortages or was she just being polite. she remarked that she was unsurprised by trump’s rebuke and had not given it much thought. by commending trump’s efforts, the np stated that the president understood that more ppe was needed and believed that he and his task force were doing everything they could to provide it and improve healthcare for all americans. a mark of improvement she noted was better outreach to marginalized people through telehealth to decrease health disparities that had already been implemented in many hospitals but was underutilized before the pandemic. melvin hesitated and appeared perplexed by the nps clean up, commenting that the president had not agreed with her during the ceremony. he then asked if trump had stated otherwise after the camera stopped rolling. thomas indicated that he had not and expressed appreciation for the honor bestowed upon her and more than 290,000 nps she represented as president, seemingly unaware that they were all being trumped by president trump. 10. a picture says a thousand words after reviewing the tv video footage of the ceremony when trump rebuked the np (mangan; cnbc, may 6, 2020), this participant observer noticed that there was a nyc nurse responder (male) standing on the left side of the screen behind the president (eyewitness news, may 6, 2020). he clutched his hands in front and twirled his thumbs agitatedly while trump spoke. when directly asked about shortages by the president, he did not speak up. what was his body language saying while remaining silent? what was his lived experience? what would have been the words spoken to trump, given the gumption? 11. take two: discourse on the white house ceremony 11.1 nurses curry favor as representatives of all nurses, eight honorees were invited to the oval office to celebrate their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 109 published by scholink inc. heroism during the pandemic. they arrived with no apparent agenda other than accepting the honor bestowed upon them by the president and his task force. the white house staff, however, had a different intent, which was not to honor nurses or to give them a seat at the roundtable of healthcare provision they had earned, but to use the ceremony as a photo opportunity for trump’s campaign. like others who enter the oval office, the nurses, particularly the np, found out that they had to curry favor with trump who demands loyalty, or they would stand the chance of being demoralized, denigrated, or fired. this fear accounts for the np’s retreat. it is unfortunate that these honorees were not coached on their agenda prior to receiving the dubious award. if they were well-versed in nursing’s history, which is an epic about rising up against oppression, paternalism, and misogyny as women to make professional nursing what it is today, perhaps there would have been a better outcome. the following discourse delineates what went wrong at the ceremony and why. 11.2 sexism and lack of empathy in white house on the surface, while watching the white house ceremony that honored nurses, one would not ordinarily notice the nuances that are described in this discourse relating to sexism, that is, before the normalization of misogynistic and paternalistic rhetoric spoken by president trump. for him, filipovic (december 5, 2017) wrote: sexism moves in two directions: women who are young, slim, white, and attractive are sex objects, while women who don’t fit his narrow ideal of femininity are dismissed as pigs and dogs. either way, there’s one status no woman seems to achieve: human being. the president’s lack of empathy for the thousands of humans who died of coronavirus in the us was evident in his dialogue at the ceremony. this was particularly true when he spoke about how he gave tax cuts to the rich, while the us has high unemployment and long bread lines, when he expressed no concern about infants dying from covid-19, and when he promoted the use of open-carry weapons that kill thousands of americans yearly. 11.3 significance of female np stepping out one could ask: why is it significant that a female np stepped out of line to acknowledge the sporadic distribution of ppe? it holds significance not only because of her low status as a woman, at least in trump’s eyes, but also because of her position as a presidential leader. rns in the us, regardless of educational level, possess the same license, so those with doctorates and those with two-year associate degrees hold the identical credential. advanced practice rns (aprn), having additional training and state certifications and licensure, are at the hierarchy of nursing because they possess diagnostic and prescriptive privileges, have a master’s degree or higher, and work independently from medical doctors in their private practices. as experts, nps serve as trusted professionals for other nurses and the public, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 110 published by scholink inc. and must exercise vigilance in their messages. 11.4 nurses blindsided what is most disarming about the np’s performance at the ceremony was when she contradicted her own survey facts and readily acquiesced to the president’s demands while seemingly oblivious and blind to the objective reality captured by the media. by seeing ppe shortages as a laughing matter, when the president declared reports as “fake news”, these nurses being honored at the white house, representing millions of nurses globally, were irreverent in spirit to those absent colleagues who became the sacrificial lambs as a direct result of it. with eyes shielded what scenes were these nurses sanitizing? the np and the other honorees present had to have known that the president directed americans to inject themselves with lysol to kill the infection and that he “prescribed” a non-approved drug that could kill them. they had to have observed that trump does not believe in science or facts and works in opposition to epidemiologists, without credentials. they had to have seen nurses posing on tv, wearing garbage bags instead of ppe. they had to have heard their colleagues’ voices of desperate moms broadcasted on tv as they traveled home from exhausting shifts, reused masks besides them, while they disrobed in their garages to avoid infecting their families—all the while pretending to their children that everything was normal. 11.5 nurses breach scientific tenets when the np and others gave deference to trump that supported the repeated reuse of ppe for weeks as the “new normal” during these “unprecedented” times, they betrayed the trust of other nurses, the public, and their profession, since “nursing art, like medical art, is based on science or knowledge of true facts and principles” (dock & stewart, 1931, p. 7). according to these tenets, standard sterile surgical protocol cannot be blithely compromised by presidential proclamation. nor can they be breached by an edict from the centers for disease control (cdc) to break precedent that runs counter to 19th-century scientific principles and antisepsis set forth by joseph lister, robert koch, and louis pasteur, for safety and protection. 11.6 rebound effect during the siege, frontline nurses (women) were targeted by the media to be interviewed on tv so they could express their fears of contracting the virus at work with supply shortages, a lack of ventilators, relief staff, and beds. their effusive language served as an emotional outlet. in the absence of federal and public health leadership and healthcare initiatives, it also served as a warning to the public of the seriousness of the virus. nurses viewed their actions as part of their roles as patient advocates. however, this “advocacy” runs counter to nursing theory and therapeutic interpersonal interactions, according to peplau (1991), where nurses are expected to monitor their own emotional reactions to stressors to help patients recover. otherwise, they run the risk of empathically transmitting their anxieties to them, thus impeding progress (silverstein, 2006). this rebound effect may have occurred when citizens became www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 111 published by scholink inc. agonizingly fearful about catching the virus, being sick, and dying from it, without the availability of ventilators, so they deferred going to hospitals for testing and treatment and died at home, skewing the actual death rates initially computed by hospitals (hogan, april 7, 2020). 11.7 the mind and body are one as if it were a recent phenomenon, frontline nurses expressed feeling overwhelmed with the physical care of intubation and with talking to dying patients and families on facetime to convey messages of condolences. starting from 1952, the theory of interpersonal relations has been incorporated into the way nurses communicate with patients as persons, and not merely as objects of care, which sets nursing apart from the medical model of the 17th century promulgated by descartes, where the mind and body were separate (silverstein, 2003). this theoretical concept of nursing care began at the turn of the 20h century when mind-body principles became embedded into nursing curricula. it was further developed into practical uses at a time when women’s voices were squelched, as illustrated in the short story the yellow wallpaper by c. p. gilman (1892). these changes occurred as the mental hygiene movement began by clifford beers in 1908 and the women’s suffrage movement took hold simultaneously. 12. father knows best: paternalism in nursing 12.1 nurses stereotyped the fact that a female nurse voiced her opinion at the white house ceremony to address issues of insufficient supplies and lack of preparedness during the pandemic was significant, but so was her prompt retreat. the nps fall back is interpreted in this retrospective analysis as a missed opportunity for women, based on women’s studies, and as a step backwards for nurses, based on a quote from nightingale, who stated: “no system can endure that does not march. are we walking to the future or to the past? are we progressing or are we stereotyping?” (ulrich, 1992, p. 11) although nursing in the us has been ranked as the most trusted profession, this has not always been the case. prior to the professionalization of nursing through nightingale’s efforts, “nurses” were prostitutes of ill repute, prisoners, and drunkards. entering the alms houses was the kiss of death. to counter these negative views and to improve clinical outcomes, nightingale upheld high standards for women, by saying, “a good nurse must be a good woman—to say this is like saying, put your hats on your heads & your shoes on your feet” (nightingale papers, 1874). 12.2 derogatory name-calling throughout nursing history, female nurses, who were always in the majority and remain so today at 91 percent in the us, have experienced paternalism and misogyny. they were called derogatory names and were stereotyped as battleaxes, tyrants, jailers, nurse ratched (forman, 1975) and handmaidens, and were portrayed as dumb sex idols in movies and on tv. their practical knowledge and expertise were disparaged by scientists as being thoughtless and mundane (silverstein, 2003). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 112 published by scholink inc. 12.3 unquestioned obedience paternalism was rampant when student nurses were not permitted to speak unless spoken to by physicians. american nursing’s founders insisted that “implicit unquestioning obedience must be the foundation of nurse’s work” (callaway, 2002, p. 47). peplau, psychiatric nurse of the 20th century, described her student nurse days in a hospital-sponsored, all-female apprenticeship nursing school in 1928. she grew up in a working-class family of german descent. many student nurses were immigrants who wanted to secure a career and raise their standard of living. when peplau expressed an interest in nursing at 19, her mother was appalled. she did not understand why her daughter would want to clean up the filth of others. since the labor needs of hospitals were a high priority, there was rigid and paternalistic discipline. her first assignments were to scour bedpans, scrub floors, and disinfect rooms. 12.4 doctors patronize nurses physicians were the main educators of student nurses. most doctors believed that nurses were incapable of assimilating complex material. a fatherly physician named “daddy bushong” spoke baby talk to peplau (callaway, 2002, p. 39). such talk was illustrative of the nurse-doctor relationship. having high intelligence, peplau was encouraged by doctors to attend medical school with a scholarship because she was too bright to be just a nurse. she declined because she saw nurses’ work as caring for ill patients to get them well to save lives, unlike that of medical doctors. peplau’s viewpoint of nurses as women in american culture is summarized in the following quote (peplau, 1991): the culture has rewarded nursing in terms of prestige for the ability of nurses to express a womanly role in an active way; it also takes cognizance of the passive aspect in total nursing functions. the valuable role played by male nurses is recognized; but, the culture usually refers to women when the symbol of nurse comes to mind (p. 45). 13. peplau enters world war ii against all odds, in june, 1943, peplau earned a bachelor’s degree from bennington college, where women were educated as free thinkers. peplau’s education there included studying at the chestnut lodge in maryland with harry stack sullivan and other noted psychologists of the time, which supplied her with a strong concentration and background in psychology. after graduation, she enlisted in the army nurse corps and maneuvered her way to the 312th station hospital and school for military neuropsychiatry, located on the estate of the earl of litchfield, staffordshire, england, where psychiatrists from around the world came to study. at the 312th, peplau lived in a nissen hut with six to seven other people, slept on a cot, and was warmed by a pot-bellied coal stove that polluted the air (callaway, 2002). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 113 published by scholink inc. 14. wartime unpreparedness evident psychiatry was unprepared for the onslaught of war. adding to the challenge, there was a lack of knowledge of the ideology of mental illness, a lack of adequate methods, and a lack of understanding of the role of prevention. military nurses had little preparation to care for the mental reactions of soldiers and for the hardships they had to endure. a nurse, who served in the south pacific, related her travail (brown, 1944): top of all this with the major emotional shocks—grief for the laughing comrade suddenly and grotesquely dead beside him, compassion for the suffering of the wounded, fear itself, and the physiological reaction to the unfamiliar smells of fear and pain and to the stench of the unburied dead (p. 1135). in norman’s (1999) account of the challenges american nurses trapped on bataan by the japanese during the war, she told of the struggles of women in nursing: before the buckets of bloody limbs and the white crosses on the jungle floor, the women of the army nurse corps did not really think themselves part of the profession of arms. yes. they were in the army…but they were healers, not soldiers…the army was an arena for men, and women were on the periphery of that domain, that place of male passage (p. 39). since there were so few “trained” psychiatrists, many physicians took a one-to-six week crash course on how to become one (d’antonio, 1985; peplau, 1992). peplau knew all of these men personally and became acquainted with menninger, chief us psychiatric consultant to the office of the surgeon general (callaway, 2002). during evenings at the officer’s club, she was the sole nurse permitted to audit courses and was the only nurse in charge of her unit without a physician. 15. experimental treatments 15.1 deep sleep therapy soldiers pinned down by mortar fire were brought to the 312th to be treated for combat exhaustion and were given deep sleep therapy (dst) induced with sodium amytal for 8 days (silverstein, 2008). peplau detailed the treatment of dr. sampliner. she viewed his obscene experiments with “utter contempt” because she believed them to be dangerous (callaway, 2002, p. 111). voicing her views early on, peplau urged for modification in the prescribed treatments. she hated experimentation with young soldiers, “who could not say no” and were so trusting (peplau, 1992). 15.2 insulin shock therapy another treatment used on the front lines was sub-coma insulin shock therapy that lasted from 5 to 7 days. peplau set up protocol on her unit to get the solders to talk and calm down during the treatment. she trained the corpsman to sit between the beds of patients as they entered a sub-conscious twilight stage. when the soldiers heard food carts rolling down the plank-board walkways, they became www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 114 published by scholink inc. hysterical because they thought they were cannons (peplau, 1992; silverstein, 2008). 15.3 development of ptsd protocol peplau developed the first treatment for combat exhaustion, now called posttraumatic stress disorder, when she introduced the concept of walking and talking with soldiers. she spoke about her protocol (peplau, 1992): i was permitted to have groups of patients in the kitchen. sitting around the table and talking. i was not a sophisticated interviewer or psychotherapist. but i was interested—i’d make eggnog and buttered toast. they were amazingly useful…also i was allowed to talk with individual patients. there was no private place—so it was hard to do. i took them on walks, i would listen (p. 33). 16. nurse casualties post ww ii since one out of every three casualties returned home from war with neuropsychiatric illness, nurses on the home front were advised to prepare themselves for the returning servicemen. a physician, gregg, (1944) suggested that homebound nurses needed acceptance to reconvert to civilian life because “they changed, irrevocably; they have been changed by experiences too deep and lasting to be erased, forgotten, or ignored” (p. 923). despite the doctor’s admonitions, nurses discharged from military service felt their suggestions had little value to or impact on hospital administrators (david, 1947): being an ex-army nurse and familiar with the “suggestion box”, i believe such a plan would be welcome at a large hospital such as the one i am employed by. a nurse can see many times…just what changes might save work…at our hospital, no suggestions whatever are taken from a nurse (p. 457). a nurse from bataan, eleanor, became despondent and depressed when she was looked over for captaincy. norman (1999) spoke about eleanor’s challenge: her disquiet really came from the war. she simply could not reconcile the sacrifice she’d made—the suffering that had earned her the sobriquet of hero—with the indifference and anonymity she was experiencing in everyday life (p. 256). 17. nursing theory development postwar 17.1 psychodynamic nursing postwar, peplau developed and taught a world-renowned course on psychodynamic nursing at columbia university (silverstein, 2013). she published her book, interpersonal relations in nursing in 1952, based on the frontline notes she took. initially, the publication was challenged when publishers felt uneasy about a nurse being the sole author without a physician’s input. her book is considered a classic and is still in print today in 6 languages, although she never received royalties for it. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 115 published by scholink inc. 17.2 therapeutic interpersonal relations theory peplau’s book is considered the first nursing theory in which nurses were taught to “know themselves” by observing, examining, and monitoring their own emotional and behavioral responses to others and by applying this self-knowledge to enhance their therapeutic relationships with patients (peplau, 1991). it was posited by peplau that “the kind of person each nurse becomes makes a substantial difference to what each patient will learn as he is nursed throughout his experience with illness” (p. x). this theory was extended to nurse-nurse relationships, doctor-nurse relationships, as well as those of other disciplines (peplau, 1984). these principles of interpersonal relations were later incorporated into all of nursing by psychiatric nurses through federally-funded “integration grants” (silverstein, 2006). 18. workshops and research studies 18.1 improved humanistic and effective treatments for over ten years, starting in 1954, peplau gave complimentary one-to-three week workshops across the us to nurses during summers off from rutgers, to teach nurses more humanistic and effective ways to work with warehoused patients in mental hospitals who had no hope. they were placed in restraints and cuffs, and were subjected to ice packs, electroshock, and lobotomies. patients were deprived of personal items, even dentures and eyeglasses. by the late 1940s the deplorable conditions prevalent in mental institutions could no longer be hidden from the public, as dramatized in the movie the snake pit (litvak, 1948), based on a novel by mary jane ward and in deutsch’s explosive book, the shame of the states (1948). 18.2 nursing distinct from medicine through science peplau believed that nurses could play a pivotal role in the recovery process of persons in mental hospitals. a goal for her was to promote nursing’s impact on patient care that was distinct from medicine so as to define its unique scope of practice through research and scientific investigation. against the closed mindset of many nurses, peplau was a proponent of infusing science and scientific methods into nursing education. she encouraged workshop participants to build on their own strengths and to integrate theory into practice, to take notes, to record, to articulate, to understand the dynamics of the nurse-patient relationship, and to publish the research results of their ward studies (callaway, 2002; silverstein, 2003). 18.3 nurses learn to talk therapeutically the importance of this contribution is significant when it is put into context in the 1950s. at this time, nurses in mental hospitals performed custodial care (silverstein, 2006). as peplau saw it, nurses only dealt with patients when they had something in their hands, such as a thermometer, bedpan, or lunch tray. talking to patients was discouraged for fear that nurses would say something wrong. nurses were taught to report observations of patients to doctors so they could diagnose and treat. absent was the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 116 published by scholink inc. concept that interpersonal interactions by nurses with patients could be therapeutic and that they could fill the gap of one-on-one care that was non-existent, in part, because of low funding. in the hospitals where peplau gave workshops, patient care improved, sometimes dramatically, and nurses began to take interest in learning, making an overall positive impact on health care. 19. standing up and speaking out 19.1 never to denigrate nurses peplau practiced what she preached while standing up for herself and nurses. she never deserted nursing or betrayed it, nor did she ever suggest that it was less than other professions. more importantly, she never let anyone denigrate nursing or devalue it in any way (callaway, 2002). 19.2 setting the standards for advanced practice in 1954 peplau traveled the us, promoting the revolutionary idea of specialization in nursing and encountered much opposition, mostly from nurses (silverstein, 2013). after obtaining funding, she developed the first accredited master’s program for psychiatric nursing in the us and created the curriculum for the clinical nurse specialist, a forerunner for nurse practitioner education. she predicted that aprns would someday be allowed to hang out their shingles in private practice, as seen today (peplau, 1962). 19.3 peplau talked the talk on one occasion, peplau was invited by the director of the yale psychiatric institute to discuss a case with a distinguished psychiatrist (callaway, 2002). the physicians expected her to be deferential. appalled with the way the teen was treated and analyzed by the psychiatrist, peplau tore his case apart, while suggesting meaning. the physicians became defensive because they were out staged by a mere nurse. another situation when peplau spoke out with authority was when she met with the secretary of health, education, and welfare (hew), elliot richardson, while american nurses association’s (ana) president (callaway, 2002). prepared to present her agenda of 15 major points, richardson showed disrespect by reading his mail while she spoke. with a measured reaction, peplau emptied the contents of her purse onto richardson’s desk, explaining that as he opened his mail, she would sort out her pocketbook. with this action, she gained respect, and thereafter the secretary invited her to a state dinner and to washington luncheons. 20. hollywood debut of documentary 20.1 film showcasing peplau’s work in 1957 peplau was approached by smith, kline, and french (skf), the drug company that produced the first psychotropic drug, thorazine, that served to decrease severe anxiety and open up patients to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 117 published by scholink inc. therapeutic dialogue. the company wanted to finance the making of a film that showcased peplau’s work (callaway, 2002). a writer from skf attended a workshop peplau had given and made a transcript that was developed into a pamphlet. when the director, peter hickman, at the medical film department of skf read the pamphlet, he was impressed. the film would present a vignette that demonstrated peplau’s method of a nurse interacting with and examining her reactions to a patient, while keeping detailed notes. the movie was to be filmed at greystone state hospital in nj, using professional actors and two scriptwriters. peplau rejected the scriptwriters’ version because they missed her point, so she perfected and wrote the script herself, for which she did not ask or receive any credit or fee. 20.2 box office hit the film, the nurse patient relationship (1958) was a great success, and all 160 prints were in constant use, with 1,200 showings to an audience of 58,550 (callaway, 2002). after the first year, the ana was given distribution rights, and it was marketed to all hospital and college schools of nursing, to physicians and nursing organizations, to every graduate program in psychiatric nursing, and throughout the mental hospital system, as well as the public broadcasting system (pbs). 20.3 nomination at the oscars and film festivals in march 1959, peplau was informed that the film had been nominated for an academy award by the academy of motion picture arts and sciences in hollywood in the full-length documentary category with 3 other films, including disney’s white wilderness (callaway, 2002). the film was also accepted by the edinburgh film festival council, the vancouver international film festival, and the festival of contemporary arts. in addition, it received an award in the sociological film category at the yorktown international film festival in canada. 20.4 honored on the international stage peplau held honorary degrees from nine universities and was the only nurse to be named one of “fifty great americans” by marquis who’s who and the library of congress. there was one honor that she received and rejected simultaneously on june 27, 1998, nine months before her death, because of the adversarial relationship she faced from “old guard” nurses at the ana. to everyone’s surprise, her speech was uncharacteristically brief as follows (callaway, 2002): i haven’t been in the ana headquarters in washington, d. c., for several decades now. i don’t know if there is a hall for the hall of fame. or whether it is just a photo album. or maybe it’s just a folder in a steelcase file drawer. whatever. i thank you (p. 440). 20.5 international positions held in 1948 peplau held her first advisory position at the who. by 1965 she accepted the surgeon general’s appointment as the national nurse consultant to the air force (silverstein, 2013; callaway, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 118 published by scholink inc. 2002). elected onto the board of the international council for nursing, she lectured globally. during her career, peplau’s primary goal was assiduously focused on promoting professional nursing and its contribution to patient care that was distinct from medicine so as to define its unique scope of practice through research and scientific investigation. this was encouraged through the development of nursing theories and studies that countered the prevailing beliefs of scientists that nurses lacked the intellect (silverstein, 2003). 21. overcoming science biases 21.1 facts clutter women’s minds science took giant leaps during the victorian era, and this provided scientists and doctors with a new misogynistic campaign (gill, 2004). it was feared that girls’ intellectual training weakened their bodies, fed hysteria, and impaired reproduction. once her mind was trained, questions arose: “what would a woman gain from thinking for herself or having a great many facts at her disposal? what man would care for her if she did?” (p. 120) it was fortunate that nightingale’s education prepared her as a leader to overcome biases held against women. 21. 2 nightingale: a formidable opponent william nightingale was cambridge-educated. he taught his daughters greek. at 16, florence had already read works of homer and plato (gill, 2004). fluency in greek had enormous symbolic import in the high-caste system. encouraged by her father to compete handily with men, nightingale was accepted as both colleague and adversary. growing up in an upper-echelon family, she presented at court as a debutant. her family had friends in parliament and was privy to the latest court gossip. 22. nightingale’s preparation for nursing career 22.1 training infused with spirituality in 1837, god called nightingale to service at 16 (gill, 2004). known in social circles for her expertise in healthcare provision, she prepared by studying the psychosocial conditions of the poor and statistics with her father. at this time during the evolution of epidemiology and medical statistics circa 1842, william farr, known as a founder of statistics as a science, began to compile data on mortality and morbidity and issue reports. by the age of 25, she was eager to start her life’s work as a nurse to care for the sick in public institutions, feeling ashamed and tired of her idle socialite life, but she was met with family opposition. “how could one imagine fine, fastidious, cultured florence cleaning up human waste, stripping the rags and vermin off diseased bodies, and holding howling patients down during amputations?” (p. 195) nightingale’s mother accused her daughter of having a lascivious relationship with a surgeon. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 119 published by scholink inc. despite discouragement nightingale in 1851 got her chance to study at a religious institute in kaiserswerth, germany, that trained lay-deaconesses to serve the indigent (gill, 2004). the founder was a pastor not a doctor, so the main concern was to care for the soul rather than the body. she noticed that the wards smelled cleaner and fresher than in public hospitals in england. gill suggested that by assisting with an amputation on a patient who later died, while taking copious notes of her keen observations, she learned how to care for patients during the crimean war. 22.2 nursing based on public service in mid-19th century england, middle-and upper-class women took care of the sick at home. nightingale did not aspire to become a physician (gill, 2004). the mere concept of a lady doctor was considered aberrant in victorian society, and medical men were committed to deny women that option. medicine was not advanced, except for the burgeoning sciences applied to antisepsis. surgery was glorified butchery, and most patients treated died. nightingale’s vision for nursing was based on an ethic of public service—an area tolerated by men. she was convinced that with sufficient knowledge and intelligent care, it was possible to ease pain and to make people healthy. nursing, as she saw it, was an avenue for middle-class women to enter the workforce for the first time and be useful to the community more than doctors could ever achieve. 23. nightingale enters crimean war 23.1 poor provisions for nurses the horrific conditions in crimea were telegraphed by journalists back to england to inform the public. in 1854 nightingale was asked by sydney herbert, secretary of war, to go to the front lines and minister care (gill, 2004). although promised otherwise, upon arrival the nurses found rat-infested accommodations that were appallingly squalid, without space or privacy. there were no tables, chairs, or beds in the barrack hospital. each woman had a copper basin that she used for drinking, eating, and washing. potable water was at a premium. under these circumstances, retreat for nightingale could have been a welcomed option, “how easy it would have been to act the woman, to weep, and expostulate, and explain” (p. 330). 23.2 learning to navigate a man’s world during the time when nightingale stepped forward as a noble leader of nursing, women could not own property and were considered little more than mere chattel. although she was well-educated and of high intellect, she faced paternalism and misogyny in british society and on the front lines of the crimean war that excluded her from the coterie of a man’s world. women of her social status were expected to head households and to marry. any woman, except for those who had taken religious vows, risked falling into disgrace, especially in the military (gill, 2004). nightingale spoke about how she saw her status as a female: “a woman must bring the best she has whatever that is, to the work of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 120 published by scholink inc. god’s world whether the world judges it to be woman’s work or not…woman’s work if done for men is considered ‘men’s work’ ” (nightingale papers, n.d.). 23. 3 deplorable conditions beset soldiers in crimea arriving in scutari with hospital kitchen equipment nightingale purchased, she began to improve the unsanitary conditions that beset soldiers who were filthy, despondent, and racked with fever. they were “dying like flies” (gill, 2004, p. 337). before the nurses’ arrival, the wounded soldiers took care of each other. despite being greeted with hostility by military officials, the soldiers loved her and she had the deepest respect for them, as is evident in her letter written to rev. t. g. clarke (nightingale papers, 1895): and what i speak in my heart is something like this—the soldier has such good stuff in him. he really “loves” his comrades “as himself”—when he himself returns safe out of gunshot and finds his comrade or his officer missing, he goes back to bring him off. nightingale had a calm and confident demeanor. she never gave or took an excuse. much of her time was spent changing wound dressings and offering individualized care as the soldiers died, often within hours of arrival. 23.4 fallacy and fatal deception in her notes on the conditions at scutari, nightingale wrote that the hospital buildings appeared spacious and magnificent from the outside but that the external appearance was “fatally deceptive” (nightingale papers, 1855). this was so because underneath these grand structures were sewers and cesspools. she contended that the wind blew effluvia up to the wards where the sick were dying. since nightingale studied modern scientific principles, she was aware of the new germ theory that viewed causation of disease as stemming from ingestion of contaminated food and drink. living in close quarters, cholera spread like wild fire. based on statistics, nightingale knew that high death rates were caused more from lack of adequate nutrition and from diseases than battle wounds. supplies and bedding were lacking, and the soldiers’ filthy, tattered clothing “seemed moving with lice” (gill, 2004, p. 34). 23.5 never backing down lacking military status, nightingale never backed down from the purveyor who reluctantly distributed supplies or from the commissary officer she called an “unfeeling fool” (nightingale paper, 1855). she wrote letters home, stating: “in england you go upon a fallacy, you think we want to save men’s lives—we don’t—we don’t care whether the men live or not…” (nightingale papers, 1855). by setting high standards for sanitary protocol, she saved lives. within a short time, she disinfected and cleaned up the hospitals. nightingale spoke about a marked improvement in the health of solders, stating:” in the first 8 days of february, we buried 506 from the hospitals of scutari alone—on the 9th day www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 121 published by scholink inc. 72—during the last twenty four hours we have lost only ten (out of twenty-one hundred in the hospital” (nightingale papers, 1855). 23.6 nightingale walked the walk at night she walked the wards for hours with her lamp and comforted soldiers, some just boys crying for their mothers. although befallen with crimean fever, she expressed this sentiment in a letter: “if it is any consolation to his family to know that he was not neglected, but had every care that medical skill & female nursing could give him, they may be certain of this” (nightingale papers, 1855.) the hospital and public health statistics nightingale calculated proved that trained nurses made significant differences in the care of the sick in body, mind, and spirit, while saving many lives. by raising the standards of care, she improved the feasibility of having clean, well-run hospital options fit for consumers extant in the 21st century. 24. nightingale postwar 24.1 postwar honors queen victoria sent nightingale a brooch, designed by prince albert, to express her personal gratitude for her work. by the end of her tour in crimea, nightingale had become the most conscientious and supportive superintendent, “worrying over her nurses like an old sheepdog with her prized ewe lambs” (gill, p. 412). she was adored by her nurse subordinates. when she returned from war, sleep was problematic, being haunted by the faces of dying soldiers. she refused to see anyone and did not accept the gifts, honors, and letters that poured in. 24.2 royal commission and achievements in 1857 she was invited by queen victoria to visit balmoral where nightingale received a royal commission to improve the state of the army. during 1858-1872, she had the greatest influence over public affairs, and wrote her book notes on nursing (1859), still in print today. the nightingale fund was set up in 1855 and was used to start the first hospital training schools. after 1857, she voiced her opinions as a recluse because of lingering illness. regardless, racked with pain and exhaustion, she completed her greatest achievements from her bed until her death, as she laid down the rudiments of the nursing profession that were firmly rooted on hallowed ground. 25. discussion: does history repeat itself? 25.1 the fountain of youth it is said that “youth is wasted on the young”. in the case of the spread of coronavirus in florida (fl), this adage has relevance, as the beaches filled up with young adult sun-worshipers during spring break of 2020. while not socially distancing or wearing face masks, they brazenly upheld their right to party, regardless of the cdc’s warnings. although they were at low risk of getting lethally ill from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 122 published by scholink inc. coronavirus, they were asymptomatic spreaders, like “typhoid mary”. governor desantis of fl, lacking accountability, agreed with youthful beachgoers because he endeavored to open up the economy before cases and deaths abated (davis, april 17, 2020). as a consequence, hotspots emerged in fl and virus death rates soared in a state that has one of the largest vulnerable senior populations in the us. the question for historians of today is how will the events of unpreparedness of the 2020 pandemic be recorded to reflect upon what actually occurred, and how will history impact lessons learned for future generations? 25.2 black death wisdom we can look back to the writings of 14th century st. julian of norwich (1342-1416) to understand what could occur in the 21st century, since a syndrome killing children diagnosed with coronavirus has been reported. st julian’s, revelations of divine love, is the oldest known preserved writing of a woman written in the english language (coleman, 2014). nightingale took a copy of it to the crimean war, which is recommended reading during the c0vid-19 pandemic. it has been speculated that st. julian survived the black death as a child when a large portion of the population died in norwich, a thriving commercial trade center in england. besides mentioning in her revelations that christ thanked her for her service as a youth, it is unclear what that labor entailed, but one can speculate that at 19 she ministered to others during a revisit of the plague, where thousands of infants and children 10 and younger died from lack of immunity (binion, 2009; encyclopedia.com). in this historical narrative, st. julian became devastated by her lived experience during the plague, seeing young children die, and turned to god for answers by becoming a recluse and mystic to help others spiritually (chopra, 2000). could a second wave of coronavirus occur in this century that harms innocent children? the trump administration demands that children return to the classroom before it is safe and threatens repeal of school funding for non-compliance, while asking teachers to become “heroes”, too (manjoo, july 15, 2020). 25.3 nursing history is history another saying that is relevant in this discussion is: “nurses eat their young”. however, in this case they eat their “old”. this is not to say that nurses have reverted to consuming human flesh but have selflessly fed on human sacrifice of their colleagues and predecessors and have discarded the backbone, scraped clean, that supports the structural foundation of nursing, like the spine supports the physical body. this is because nurses are not taught their history and its relevance to today’s world and because nursing history has been watered down through interpretation of secondary and tertiary sources over time that discredits nursing’s own contribution to society. one can easily view past historic events with present-day values and mores and pass judgement on them based solely on what is known in current times. in the field of historiography the term used to describe this phenomenon is called present-mindedness, and historians are cautioned to avoid this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 123 published by scholink inc. pitfall. the use of present-mindedness by interpreters of nursing history is evident when discussing issues pertaining to whether unmarried nightingale was a lesbian. the legacy of nightingale has been maligned by “third-party” interpretations. the following quote of r. van der peet (1995) is an example: it cannot be said…that there is an unbroken thread joining the elements of modern nursing to elements in nightingale’s thinking more than a century ago. indeed, many of her ideas were long-forgotten or unknown to modern nurses and their relevance to modern nursing is, it may be argued, largely coincidental…and as for her image of the lady with the lamp…it remains to be seen whether this image has not been detrimental rather than beneficial to the development of nursing (p. 81). 25.4 truth or consequence? in 2008, this historian presented at a conference in paris on the history of nightingale and peplau’s work with ptsd during wartime. afterwards, she was approached by a noted historian who informed her that archival investigation for primary sources is no longer necessary because all nightingale’s papers are now available online and open for interpretation. in addition, he asked her if nightingale was a lesbian: was it true what they say? in 2020 disparaging a person’s sexual identity is politically-incorrect, even if it is true. this was not the case in the past. gill (2004) viewed the lesbian innuendos of such historians as f. b. smith, a man who found nightingale to be power-hungry and overrated, to be lacking in evidence, as stated: florence nightingale was not a lesbian. history, as opposed to imaginative literature, is based on evidence…given the immense volume of documentation we have about nightingale’s life, this lack of evidence must be given full weight…from everything we know about florence nightingale, if ever there was a woman conspicuously chaste, resolutely celibate, and absolutely virginal, it was she (p. 187). 25.5 mccarthyism evident in nursing in january 1953 during the mccarthy era when communists and homosexuals were deemed anti-american, peplau was accused of being immoral, psychotic, alcoholic, and lesbian as a result of unsubstantiated rumors circulated by the director of nursing education at teachers college, columbia university, r. louise mcmanus (peplau, 1992; callaway, 2002). insecurity and professional jealousy felt by the new director were contributing factors in the proliferation of rumors by her, for peplau had already achieved worldwide acclaim through her book, her courses, and her creative teaching methods. 25.6 unjust charges all unjust charges such as those waged against peplau destroyed careers for nurse educators at this time. the immorality rumor arose because she had a child out-of-wedlock during the war, who was adopted by her brother. being a disgrace, it was inconceivable to be an unmarried single mother in 1953. the charge of being mentally “sick” arose from a stigma-by-association for those working with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 124 published by scholink inc. mentally-challenged people. however, the charge that peplau was a lesbian was the most damaging, since it affected her relationships with her students who did not want the stain of homosexuality jeopardizing their nursing careers. she was forbidden to talk to her students outside the classroom. her colleagues shunned her, and only one asked for evidence as proof (peplau, 1992; callaway, 2002). 25.7 investigation denied peplau demanded an investigation but was denied. she was asked to remain silent if she wanted to complete her doctoral dissertation (1953) and graduate. devastated by the scandal, she resigned but had difficulty finding a new teaching position. it is impressive that peplau, psychiatric nurse of the 20th century, was silenced from the start as a student nurse and then as a graduate educator but found the voice to continue her great achievements into what she called the “growing fringe” of professional nursing. 25.8 walking to the future or the past? are nurses walking to the future or to the past? what would peplau and nightingale say today? it is clear from the substantive interpretation in this retrospective analysis that both these visionaries had a high intelligence quotient (iq) and a high emotional quotient (eq), according to goleman (1998). their personal and social competencies were used to induce desirable responses in others since the crimean war. the same therapeutic interpersonal tools they applied can be used by nurses in the 21st century to combat compassion fatigue during a disaster, as evidenced in this quote (van eyck, 2005): the lazy breeze belies the inner frenzy of the walking wounded, those survivors still traumatized but not showing their internal wounds. they are scarred so deeply that they cannot function. i wish i remembered more about post-traumatic stress syndrome and active listening! (pp. 28-29) 26. conclusion defying the odds, peplau and nightingale, buttressed with strong backbones, laid a solid foundation for how nurses can stand up for their hard-fought principles, for themselves, and for those they serve in this century, based on facts, science, and caring. during the pandemic this participant observer has felt burdened by the dead weight of horrific images and stories of people agonizing needlessly but what feels heaviest now is the denigration of nurses both living and deceased, the degradation of nightingale’s legacy, and the depreciation of valued endowments peplau (1983) left behind for future generations. at this time of turmoil, in a conciliatory tone, nurse honorees abandoned their high standards of care slyly wrested from them and kowtowed to authoritarian rule. by doing so, they were unwittingly duped by president trump who lacks empathy and does not uphold scientific principles, germ theory, and statistics as truth. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 125 published by scholink inc. on the surface it appears that nurses were being honored by trump in the oval office to celebrate national nurses day, despite his misogynistic and paternalistic overtures. however, underneath it all, like the crawling vermin and the underground cesspools in crimea, nurses were used as political pawns while they did cleanup duty for trump in the absence of presidential accountability. during this fatal deception, nurses risked their lives under untenable conditions, and their mental health has been compromised, which may weigh heavy on them with depression, anxiety, drug addiction, and suicide long after the pandemic has passed (wan, may 4, 2020). fortunately, however, this nurse and others can take solace in a final note from nightingale to lighten our steps marching forward: “let us be anxious to do well, not for selfish praise but to honor & advance the cause, the work we have taken up” (ulrich, 1992, p. 111). references beers, c. 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(1992). leadership and management according to florence nightingale. norwalk, ct: appleton & lange. van der peet, r. (1995). the nightingale model of nursing. edinburgh, scotland: campion press. van eyck, k. (2005). the exchange. revolution, 6(4), 24-31. wan, w. (2020, may 4).the coronavirus pandemic is pushing america into a mental health crisis. the washington post. retrieved july 27, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/04/mental-health-coronavirus/ communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 21 original paper a study of chinese students’ media dependence on douyin in malaysia xu duo1&2* & faridah ibrahim1 1 infrastructure university kuala lumpur, malaysia 2 he xi university, china * xu duo, infrastructure university kuala lumpur, malaysia; he xi university, china received: july 12, 2023 accepted: july 22, 2023 online published: july 31, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n3p21 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n3p21 abstract this paper uses the “media system dependency theory” proposed by american communication scholars paul rockich and melvin defleur as a research framework to investigate the deep-seated reasons for the dependence of chinese international students on jitterbug in social media, and to propose countermeasures. overseas students are an important force for the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation, and their values will influence the values of the whole society in the future. the international students are in the period of value formation and cognition, so it is very important to grasp the cognition formation in this period. with the advent of the mobile internet era, short video social media, represented by jitterbug, has become one of the most popular leisure and entertainment platforms for international students. however, while jitterbug has brought rich experiences to young people, some negative effects have come along with it. many international students seem to be inseparable from jitterbug, gradually developing into a strongly sticky “relationship chimera”. it can be said that tens of thousands of international students not only cannot leave jitterbug, but also gradually develop a kind of “dependency syndrome”—spending a lot of time and energy indulging in it, experiencing negative effects such as reduced attention span and indifferent interpersonal communication, and becoming doubly dependent on jitterbug in terms of emotion and behavior. this study aims to examine the effects of the dual dependence on jitterbug. therefore, this study hopes to analyze the dependence of international students on jitterbug as a social media and propose countermeasures to improve the media literacy of international students. keywords chinese students in malaysia, douyin, media dependence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the popularity of smartphones and the improvement of internet facilities have made jitterbug, with short videos as the main form of expression, increasingly occupy the audience’s free time and penetrate into people’s daily life more and more deeply. the 49th statistical report on the development of the internet in china shows that as of december 2022, the number of internet users in china reached 1.032 billion, up 42.96 million from december 2021, and the internet penetration rate reached 73.0%. the scale of short video users is 934 million. according to the “2022 jitterbug data report” released by jitterbug, the daily active user volume of jitterbug has reached 600 million, the daily search frequency of users for videos has reached 400 million, and the monthly active audience volume has exceeded 5.5 billion. this shows that douyin has become more and more important in the lives of its users. among them, international students are increasingly prominent in the proportion of the short video audience, as the short video social platform provides a more convenient way for them to communicate with information, leisure and entertainment, study and education. china short video industry market size and user profile analysis 2022” shows that the age of the audience using short video is 28.5 percentage points below 24 years old, 24.9 percentage points between 25 and 30 years old, and 26.4 percentage points between 31 and 35 years old. in addition, the proportion of users above 36 years old and below 40 years old is 14.2 percentage points. in addition, the proportion of users above 36 years old and below 40 years old accounted for 14.2 percentage points. in addition, the percentage of the audience over 40 years old is 6 percentage points. through the statistics, we can draw a more accurate conclusion that people under the age of 35 are the main force of watching and using short videos at present. in order to make the age group studied in this paper more relevant to the reality, the age group of international students is delineated according to the medium and long-term development plan for young international students (2016-2025): 14-35 years old is the main group of international students. it can be concluded that people aged 15 and below are still basically at the stage of compulsory education in china, and the number of international students abroad does not constitute the main group yet. since the media use behavior of international students aged 14-35 is influenced by multiple factors, in order to more accurately reflect the phenomenon of jitterbug media dependence among international students, this paper sets the research population as overseas students aged 16 to 35 and takes chinese students in malaysia as the research sample. the influence of young people in various fields is self-evident. since the 18th national congress, general secretary xi jinping has frequently interacted with overseas students through speeches, talks and letters, and has placed great expectations on young chinese students of today. as the “indigenous” group of international students, their media usage preferences will deeply influence their cognitive formation. while jitterbug has brought positive effects to the international students, some negative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. effects also come along. international students are easily attracted to new things, and inevitably spend a lot of time on the use of jitterbug. in addition, jitterbug’s one-click sharing, production, commenting and retweeting mechanism is simple and straightforward, which easily attracts international students to become the main body of creation and viewing and sharing. in the use of jitterbug, international students seem to be in control, and they can post videos, comment and like, and forward interesting videos as they like, which not only satisfies their own emotional needs but also enhances social communication. therefore, when young people cannot find a better “substitute” in the real world, they may become dependent on jitterbug, resulting in a double dependence on jitterbug in terms of psychological and behavioral aspects. this leads to a double dependence on jitterbug in terms of psychology and behavior. therefore, studying the current media dependence of international students on jitterbug has certain practical significance and academic value. a search on the internet with the keywords “media dependence”, “shaketv” and “international students” yielded a total of 8 articles, 2 of which explicitly focus on “international students”. among them, two papers explicitly focus on “international students” to study the media dependence phenomenon of jitterbug, one paper focuses on “racer”, and the other five papers mainly focus on “college students”. it can be seen that the number of media dependence studies focusing on the group of “international students” is relatively small. as an important force for national development, the importance of studying the media dependence of international students is obvious. by reducing the search terms and searching with “media dependence”, there are 1057 papers, mostly on “cell phone”, “video game”, “social media”, “wechat”, and “social media”. the media dependence analysis was conducted by reducing the search terms to “media dependence”, and there were a total of 1057 articles, mostly on “mobile phone”, “video game”, “social media”, “wechat” and “microblog”. then we searched by adding the keywords “shake” and “media dependence”, and the number of literature was only 23, mostly from “media alienation”, “digital labor” and “information cocoon”. the number of articles searched was only 23, mostly from the perspectives of “media alienation”, “digital labor”, “information cocoon”, “use and satisfaction”, and so on, analyzing the media dependence of overseas users, international students, and the entire user group of douyin. it can be concluded from the comparison that the number of studies on media dependence with jitterbug as the target is small. therefore, this paper focuses on the media dependence of international students on jitterbug, which is more realistic and representative. the popularity of douyin has provided a platform for overseas students to unleash their individuality, but it cannot be ignored that the development of short videos has also made international students gradually become “one-way people”, putting the cart before the horse and becoming doubly dependent on douyin from their emotions to their behavior, gradually favoring big data in the choice between technical rationality and thinking rationality. in the choice between technical rationality and thinking www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. rationality, they gradually prefer the pleasure brought by big data, so that their own subjectivity is gradually controlled by the pleasure brought by jitterbug, which makes international students lose the ability to think rationally, and gradually fall into the negative trap of media dependence when they are immersed in the sensory pleasure brought by jitterbug, resulting in many negative effects. therefore, this paper hopes to focus on the problem of media dependence of international students on jitterbug, explore the deep-seated causes of media dependence among international students, and discuss and analyze them. therefore, this paper hopes to focus on the problem of media dependence among young people, explore the deep-seated reasons for media dependence among young people, discuss and analyze them, and give fair suggestions. 2. literature review media dependence theory was developed by american communication scientists melvin de the media dependency theory was proposed by american communication scholars melvin defler and paul rockich in 1976 in “the dependency model of mass communication media effects”. the theory is that audience, media and society are not isolated from each other, but are in an interdependent interaction. mass communication, with the media as the main body, plays a role in the whole social system by continuously disseminating information to the outside world. it plays a role in the whole social system by continuously disseminating information to the outside world. in the study of media dependence, the dependence between individuals and media is an important area of research. in this regard, devereux and rockich suggest that because people have the purpose of “understanding”, “orientation”, and “entertainment”, the masses must rely on media communication. and “entertainment” purposes, the public must rely on the information disseminated by the media to satisfy their various needs and thus satisfy their purpose. if the medium is needed by individuals, the greater the degree of dependence and the more influence it has on them. the greater the influence on the individual. in 1973, the japanese scholar yujiro hayashi proposed the concept of “television people” in “information society: the transformation of hardware society to software society” and in 1980, the japanese scholar makoto nakano proposed the concept of “container people” in “information behavior of modern people”. in 1980, japanese scholar makoto nakano proposed the concept of “container man” in “information behavior of modern man”. these two concepts are an exploration of the behavior and thinking of modern people, and in the era of highly developed communication media, people have become more and more dependent on the media and gradually made themselves closed individuals. in 1982, stephen reese pointed out that media dependence is a complex structure that involves the interaction of television news exposure, internet exposure and media-dependent expression. in addition, it was hypothesized that media dependence enhances the positive relationship www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. between media exposure and political validity and activity, suggesting that people rely on the media to obtain political information. the quality of information disseminated by the media influences people’s perceptions of the outside world. in 1985, ball-rokeach, s., and s., were the first scholars to develop a theory of media dependence. ball-rokeach, s. j., in the origins of individual media-system dependency: a sociological framework, analyzed the macro and micro determinants of media system dependence from a sociological framework, and suggested that the determinants of this framework include the structural relationship between the media structural dependencies between the media and other social systems, characteristics of the social environment, media system activities, interpersonal discourse networks, individuals’ in 2004, in “from ‘media system dependence’ to communication organism”, a review of the development of “media system dependence theory” and new concepts (by borokic and zheng zhuyong) in “from media system dependency to communication organism” (by borlokic and zheng zhuyong), we summarize what media dependency theory is, how it has developed, and its shortcomings, and propose that “communication organism” theory is the inheritance and development of “media dependency” theory in the era of globalization and new media, showing the interaction between media, individuals, communities, and even society. it shows the interaction between the media, individuals, communities, and society at all levels. through this review, it can be seen that the research angle is mainly focused on two aspects: the discursive study of media dependence theory and the practical integration of media dependence theory. understanding media dependence from the level of conceptual sorting and developmental research: in “relationship-conflict-integration-three dimensions of understanding media dependence theory”, gong xinqiong sorts out and identifies media dependence theory from the perspective of relationship theory, conflict theory, and structural-functional theory in turn. she points out that, from the perspective of relational theory, audiences rely on media for instrumental or utilitarian purposes, and also form two kinds of relationships: instrumental interests and ritual non-interests. in the perspective of conflict theory, there is a positive relationship between social conflict and media dependence. from the structural-functional theory, media system dependence theory maintains social integration from two aspects the balance of relationship and the maintenance of structure. through multiple dimensions, it is pointed out that the influence of the media is closely related to the dependence of the public, and therefore, the media should play its responsibility and advantage to allow individuals to have a better voice and society to develop in a more balanced way. in “characteristics and performance of media dependence”, juxiang feng concludes by sorting out the characteristics and performance of media dependence in various periods that with the progress and development of media, people rely more and more on obtaining information through media, and the degree of dependence is deepening. by comparing the relationship between audiences and the old and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. new media, wang huai-chun contrasts that the dependence of individuals as subjects on the new media is gradually becoming tighter, which is manifested in the deepening degree of mental dependence and practical dependence. in addition to thisin addition, there are many scholars who have taken a different approach to analyze media dependence from different cultural perspectives, which enhances the breadth and depth of research. in “the media dependence of audiences in the context of social networks based on the perspective of media ecology”, huang juanjuan points out that the current understanding of the phenomenon of media dependence is rather one-sided, mainly focusing on two views: one is to criticize technology, and the other is to criticize audiences’ obsession with the use of media, ignoring the rational thinking of human beings. therefore, she takes an alternative approach to examine the characteristics and development profile of media dependence theory from the perspective of media ecology, which contributes to the harmonious development of the media ecosystem. in “exploring the influencing factors of audience media dependence from the perspective of social environment: taking the social media ‘zhihu’ as an example”, zhang xi takes the perspective of social environment and takes “zhihu” as a research vehicle to investigate the influence of media dependence. in this study, we use “zhihu” as a research vehicle to investigate the influencing factors of media dependence, and point out that in the new media environment, the reasons for audience dependence on media are the interaction of various factors. zhu qinghe and zhang junhui’s “the media dependence of grassroots culture and its social utility” provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the phenomenon of media dependence. sun li in “a study of social media dependence in the perspective of youth subculture” points out that the emergence of media allows individuals to gain an identity and to quickly find groups in the same youth subculture as themselves to realize communication and gain a sense of belonging. as a result, youth groups are prone to the phenomenon of media dependence. in nie ying’s “social media dependence in the perspective of media environmentalism in “social media dependence in media environmental perspective”, nie ying analyzes why audiences are dependent on social media from a media environmental perspective. she also points out that the key to avoiding media dependence is to build a perfect media literacy education system, so that people can realize that the media is only a tool to support life, and should not control people’s the session also pointed out that the key to avoiding media dependence is to build a perfect media literacy education system, so that people can realize that media is actually a tool to assist life, and should not control people’s subjectivity. empirical evidence on the applicability of media dependence in terms of data survey: in “an empirical study of media dependence theory in the internet environment”, xie xinzhou conducted an empirical study on why audiences become media dependent through a questionnaire survey and concluded that: the amount of information disseminated by the mass media and the stability of the current social level affect the degree of media dependence, in other words, people tend to use the mass media to satisfy their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. needs for information and have high expectations of the media. in other words, people tend to use the mass media to satisfy their needs for information and have high expectations of the media, thus determining the degree of dependence of the audience on the media, while people tend to use the media for psychological stability, such as entertainment and leisure, if the society is in turmoil and they have strong instability. in “the psychology and behavior of smartphone use from the perspective of media dependency theory—a comparative study of mobile phone use between chinese and singaporean college students”, sally jiang, hao xiaoming and lin chuijin conducted a comparison and study of chinese and singaporean college students from the perspective of media dependency theory by using questionnaire survey method and focus group interview method, and came to the conclusion that the study concluded that all college students who use cell phones basically have a certain degree of dependence phenomenon, which is manifested in the use of cell phones from time to time and the anxiety brought by excessive dependence on cell phones. in “adoption, exposure and dependence: a study of college students’ wechat usage behavior and its influencing factors”, lingning wang investigated the frequency and length of wechat use by a quota sample of college students in songjiang university city, shanghai, and concluded that the higher the audience’s desire to use wechat to satisfy their needs, the deeper the dependence would be. in addition, some scholars believe that the degree of audience reliance on media can positively verify the credibility of media. in “an empirical study of media credibility—a large sample survey based on provincial residents”, wu jian points out that audiences often use the media with the need to send their emotions, so the media dependence on the media can make the evaluation of the media more objective and realistic. in “a study on social media dependence and media needs of college students’ microblog dependence”, liu zhensheng found through quantitative survey that social media dependence is a common phenomenon among college students, and the reasons for media dependence are many, ranging from the individual audience’s initiative to find media to meet their information needs to the audience’s the reasons for media dependence are multifaceted. it reflects the complexity of the causes of media dependence. zhao hongxun, in “the ‘faith risk’ of youth groups in the perspective of new media dependence”, says that the emergence of new media has given youth an emotional “vent” on the one hand, but there is also a “mediatisation” of faith and emotional indifference. “this is contrary to the expectations of youth at the national level. yu min-sheng explains the various mechanisms of media dependence in the media ecosystem, and conducts an empirical study on the phenomenon of media dependence among youth. an empirical study of contemporary youth mobile phone use and satisfaction” by minjie he, “an empirical study of media dependence theory in the mobile phone media environment: a quantitative analysis of youth mobile phone dependence” by jie kuang, “adolescents-new media dependence-pathological psychology analysis” by ting zhao, and “the new media dependence of youth” by zhen liu. the phenomenon of youth media dependence has been www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 28 published by scholink inc. studied and sorted out in the articles such as “social media dependence and media demand research—taking youth microblog dependence as an example” by liu zhensheng. through the literature, it can be seen that the research on the phenomenon of media dependence has been fruitful and the research objects are also diverse. however, in the literature search, i found that the literature on the phenomenon of media dependence among international students with douyin as the main object is still limited. therefore, this paper selects “malaysian chinese students’ dependence on douyin “as the research object, in order to make a meaningful exploration in this direction. 3. method 3.1 questionnaire method in order to ensure the accuracy and verifiability of the study, a total of 560 questionnaires were distributed by a combination of online and offline methods, and only the malaysian students who use jitterbug were analyzed. the questionnaires were mainly distributed online through the channel—questionnaire star, while relying on other social media channels—wechat, zhihu, xiaohongshu, weibo etc., to find suitable international students to fill in the questionnaires through posting. the offline questionnaires were mainly collected in schools, communities and libraries to ensure that the range of the collected data users was 16-35 years old and their identities were diverse. excluding 29 questionnaires for those aged less than 16 and more than 35, the total number of valid questionnaires was 531. therefore, the 531 questionnaires collected from international students are the sample of this study. the 531 questionnaires collected from the youth group were used as the sample for analysis. 3.2 in-depth interview method in order to understand more deeply how jitterbug influences young people and makes them dependent on the medium, this paper conducted in-depth interviews with 10 douyin users, two of whom were repeatedly fluctuating between uninstallation and installation, and eight of whom were still using it, so that the interviews could reflect the psychology of international students more comprehensively and complement the questionnaire survey. therefore, the core questions of this paper are as follows: first, does the theory of media dependence still play a role in the era of rapid development of new media? second, we analyze the current situation of douyin dependency among young people and explore the general characteristics of media dependency among young people; third, we describe the current situation and performance of dependency among young people and analyze what negative effects douyin has brought to the audience while bringing positive values; fourth, we suggest how to guide young people to use douyin rationally and cultivate and improve their media literacy. according to the previous discussion, the number of literature focusing on the media dependence of international students aged 16-35 is relatively small. therefore, this paper differs from other studies in the selection of research subjects, and douyin is the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. most popular short-video social network. as the most popular short-video social media nowadays, douyin is very popular among young people, and the phenomenon of media dependence is also the most prominent. therefore, this paper is more representative and relevant to study the media dependence of young people on douyin. 4. findings and discussions 4.1 findings for rq1 why does the overseas student community develop media dependence on social media like douyin, and what is the reality of their media dependence on douyin presented. short videos are different from the long videos we used to contact, it is very short, within a few minutes or even a dozen seconds to show the complete content, and we can also share the wonderful video through wechat, microblogging and other media for real-time dissemination. the popular short video software today are douyin, racer, watermelon video and so on. as the most popular short video social media, douyin mainly creates, publishes and disseminates short videos with a duration of 15 seconds or 60 seconds, aiming to let users discover the beauty of life through douyin short videos. douyin was officially launched to the society on september 20, 2016, on douyin, each user breaks through the boundary between the transmitter and the receiver, and can create short video works at any time as a transmitter, and also receive the works created by the majority of users as a receiver for comments. as long as you want to express and record, you can become a video “creator”. for example, ordinary users can also show off their skills on the douyin platform and create content freely, which greatly increases the enthusiasm and loyalty of users. as douyin continues to develop, the trend of content production is gradually changing from ugc to pgc and ogc. douyin is the most popular short-form video social media among young people nowadays, and the researcher chose it as the research object largely because douyin is highly compatible with the topic of this paper. the specific reasons are as follows: large user base: as of august 2022, douyin has 600 million active users per day, and the daily search frequency for videos has reached 400 million, with a monthly active audience of over 550 million. according to 2022, the popular short video flat data statistics, about 45.2 percentage points of short video users douyin high frequency use rate, about 17.9 percentage points of users racer high frequency of use, beili beili use rate in third place, accounting for 13%, watermelon video and weishi user use rate of 4.3% and 4%, respectively. although racer and douyin are two of the most popular short-form video social media among young people today, douyin has the highest user base and the highest usage rate among all short-form video social media. according to the “2022 china short video industry market size and user profile analysis”, the age of the audience using short video is 28.5 percentage points below 24 years old, 24.9 percentage points between 25 and 30 years old, and 26.4 percentage points between 31 and 35 years old. through www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. statistics, we can draw a more accurate conclusion that people under the age of 35 are the main viewers of short videos. according to douyin’s short video user portrait, by july 2019, 70% of the audience aged below 35 years old and 19-30 years old account for a large proportion, which basically coincides with the proportion of short video users, according to douyin’s portrait of the population in high and low tier cities, above 19 according to douyin’s high and low tier city population profile, users above 19 years old and below 30 years old use douyin for a long time (in high tier cities), while users above 19 years old and below 35 years old use shake for a long time. users who are older than 19 and younger than 35 use douyin for a longer period of time (in lower tier cities). therefore, it is feasible and representative to use douyin as the research object in combination with the age group of 16-35 years old in this paper. according to the survey results, 40.18% of international students use douyin 0-3 times a day, 26.61% use it 4-6 times, 13.39% use it 7-9 times and 19.82% use it more than 10 times. the statistics show that 59.82% of international students use douyin more than 4 times a day, which shows that most people pay more attention to the control of time, but basically use it every day, and the stickiness of douyin short video is greater. the researcher also found in the survey that the highest percentage of international students use douyin for 35-60 minutes at a time, 38.21%, followed by less than half an hour. because douyin is designed to capture the audience’s instant attention, the content is very short but thematic, trying to catch the eyes of international students in the shortest time. therefore, the length of douyin is usually between 15 seconds and 5 minutes, which is fast-paced and in line with the fragmented viewing habits of international students. among them, 16.43% of the users use it for 1-2 hours each time, and 10% use it for more than 2 hours each time, so it can be seen that 26.43% of international students watch it for a long time and use it intensely. through the statistics of usage time and frequency, we can see that the surveyed international students are more viscous to douyin and basically use it every day, so it can be seen that high frequency and long time “brushing douyin” is already the daily routine of international students. in order to understand more about the usage of international students, the researcher interviewed several representative users. the interviews were conducted with several representative users. researcher: do you use douyin every day and about how many times do you turn it on? what time of day do you use it? interviewer a (male, 18 years old, freshman): i use douyin every day, it has become a habit, about 5 times, i will brush it for 20 minutes when i wake up in the morning to wake up, 15 minutes before lunch and nap, i like to brush the video while eating at dinner, i like to open it again before going to bed at night, because there is nothing else to do at night, it is purely my leisure time, i usually brush it longer, about 2 hours. i usually brush longer, about 2 hours. interviewer c (female, 20 years old, sophomore in college): about seven or eight times a day, about ten www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. minutes each time, usually when i am tired of studying, i will open it for a while to relax, and at night, i may brush it all night long, because i do not sleep well, often insomnia, and do not want to get up to read, only through the brush douyin relief, when sleepy again. interviewer e (female, 25 years old, first year of phd): i brush about seven or eight times, for about ten minutes when i get up in the morning to wash up, for a while during the lunch line, and for about an hour before i go to bed at night. interviewer f (female, 28 years old, third year doctoral student): as a doctoral student who is about to graduate, i usually turn on douyin during my children’s naptime and bedtime and brush it for about half an hour to an hour each time, and in the morning if my children are still awake, i also brush it for a while. interviewer g (male, 32 years old, post-doc): i am a heavy douyin user, i spend about one third of my day on douyin, i usually wake up at five in the morning and open douyin to brush videos, watch basketball and other sports content. in the morning, i usually wake up at 5:00 a.m. and turn on jitterbug to watch videos and sports content like basketball, and spend almost an hour on naps, so i don’t get enough sleep every time. through the interviews, it can be concluded that most of the international students’ daily life has been closely connected with douyin, no matter how busy they are in a day, they will open it for a while in their free time, and in the words of the interviewees, it has become a habit, so the use of douyin has become a habit for some international students, and once it has become a habit, it is naturally difficult to quit. in addition, the respondents tend to open douyin before going to bed or when they have free time, so that they can use every “douyin time” efficiently. combining the interview results with the questionnaire data, we can draw a preliminary conclusion: a significant proportion of international students spend a lot of time on douyin short videos every day. according to the questionnaire survey, the top three categories are entertainment and funny, food and travel, and life skills, with 71.07%, 56.61%, and 52.86% respectively, followed by knowledge and learning, among which the percentage of those who like to watch entertainment and funny videos is much higher than other content categories. douyin replaces the traditional single text mode or stereotypical picture form with cool video effects, unbearable burdens and exaggeratedly funny language actions, which can easily make international students empathize and achieve the feeling of being there, thus making them spend time and energy in browsing and watching. the youth group likes to open shakeyin for viewing. according to the questionnaire, international students like to open douyin to watch and browse, it must meet their certain needs. among them, the largest number of people choose to spend their free time, accounting for nearly 80%, so we can know that douyin has been deeply embedded in the free time of most international students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. in the in-depth interviews with several international student users, when asked why they like to use douyin, i.e., what kinds of needs, several interviewees had basically the same needs. interviewer a (male, 18 years old, freshman): i am tired and drained from studying, my brain is already very tired, so i like to brush the douyin when i have free time. i like to brush douyin in my free time to relieve myself, especially at night when i can’t sleep. i like to brush it for half a day to fill the time when i can’t sleep, and then browse weibo. interviewer e (female, 25 years old, second year of master’s degree): usually life is three points one line, except for work is home to stay, life is very boring, but when i go home and have a lot of free time, i don’t want to study or do anything else, after all, i am very tired after a day of work, i just want to brush something easy and entertaining, so douyin has become one of the necessary software to pass my free time. interviewer h (male, 32 years old, 2nd year phd): every day, besides work and family, there are only three free periods before i wake up early, before i take a nap and before i go to bed at night, and it is a rare time for me to open douyin and watch my favorite videos. interviewer f (female, 28 years old, third year of graduate school): my life is actually quite boring and monotonous, in addition to taking care of the children, there are no social activities usually, so in my free time, i like to brush the douyin, watch some funny videos, and feel better. the mood is better. the remaining few respondents, when asked why they liked douyin, basically also answered that they used douyin to fill in the odd hours and pass their free time. this is basically consistent with the questionnaire choices. from this, we can conclude that douyin has become inseparable from the daily life of international students, and the use of douyin has become an extremely common phenomenon for both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as doctoral students. for these undergraduates, douyin can relieve the pressure brought by the boring and stressful studies and give the students a brief space to relax; for senior students, douyin can make the daily monotonous life a little interesting and relieve the mental pressure brought by the heavy burden of research; for international students with children, douyin can break the closed state of information connection and connect with the outside world, which can also give them a brief mental break. for full-time mothers, shakeyin can break the closed information connection and connect with the outside world, which can also provide a short period of mental relaxation and soothe the mood. the key to douyin’s ability to grasp the psychology of international students so accurately comes from the strong technical support of its company, bytedance. through the use of big data and accurate algorithmic pushing, international students have changed from a “vague group” to an accurate portrait of thousands of people, and the content is continuously pushed according to their preferences, so that over time, international students are unable to extricate themselves from the data algorithm created by douyin and their dependence gradually deepens. specifically, the current situation of international www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. students’ media dependence on douyin is mainly manifested in the following aspects: (1) time consuming on the question of whether the time spent on douyin is excessive, international students may be in a state of confusion as the person concerned and cannot give a relatively rational answer, so the question was set to whether they spend too much time on douyin from the perspective of people around them, which is more convincing. 38.04% of the group could not give a relatively definite answer, and 27.14% of the international students were not considered by the people around them to spend too much time on douyin use. overall, a significant percentage of international students have spent too much time using douyin. (2) difficult to control the time of use so which behaviors of international students are manifestations of dependency? the specific manifestation is that they open douyin from time to time or find it hard to stop once they open it, and psychologically they have expectations for the content and private messages they follow on douyin, resulting in a psychological immersion effect. in the answer of “difficult to control the time of use”, 47.93% of the respondents said that they could not control the time of douyin, and it is often difficult to stop once they open it. at this time, international students are more like being confined in the “invisible circle”, losing the ability to think and judge in the passage of time. in the survey, only 20% of the respondents were able to control their logging time, and a large number of international students are becoming more and more dependent on douyin. whether it is douyin or other short video platforms, the longest time is only ten minutes, the short one is less than one minute, and most of the videos are less than five minutes, which makes the time short and the content novel and interesting, catering to the fragmented viewing habits and fast-paced lifestyle of international students nowadays, so it gives international students the illusion that it won’t take too much time to brush short videos, and they think that it won’t take much time to brush a few more short videos. however, when opening douyin, international students, who are easily attracted by novelty, will gradually be attracted by countless short videos that are constantly updated, and the continuous packages and brilliant special effects make them extremely interested, especially douyin uses algorithms to constantly push new content that international students like, so that they are immersed in their personal preferences and forget about time. a strong psychological dependence was created, and after coming back to the mind, it had seriously exceeded the original the time originally expected. 4.2 findings for rq2 what factors are related to the specific analysis of the international student group’s dependence on the media of douyin? is it the emotional and psychological satisfaction of the individual, the filling of cognitive gaps, or the technological, convenient and virtual qualities of the medium? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. 4.2.1 subject demand 4.2.1.1 emotional needs: to pass their free time and enjoy their bodies and minds when international students were asked why they like to brush douyin in questionnaires or in-depth interviews, many of them would say “boredom and idleness” as their first response. indeed, most of the international students are tired of doing anything brain-intensive and mental after a day of study, so they will choose to use some software to pass their free time, and the short videos of douyin with a few tens of seconds are rich in content and dynamic music, and each video is a wonderful climax that can’t be stopped, which greatly relieves the boredom brought by free time. interviewer c (female, 20 years old, freshman): because i really have nothing to do except my daily study, and douyin, like funny, drama series, these contents are what i usually like to watch, but also can kill my free time, solve my boredom, used for recreation. interviewer k (male, 35 years old, 3rd year phd): in the end, douyin is for the entertainment of young people, you think how much pressure young people are under now, working every day “996”, studying every day exam competition, the spirit of collapse is too tight, but the video on douyin is very exciting, very entertaining, watch that you can relieve the boredom and boredom. moreover, usually you and friends chatting does not take time, a few minutes which can chat, and also have to think back, too trouble, these minutes to brush the fun video does not smell good? in group loneliness, shirley turkel points out that the development of technology, while bringing convenience to people, has also made interpersonal relationships more fragile. in the era of highly developed media technology, international students, just like the lonely individuals in the book, hate being bound by intimate relationships and choose more often to present themselves, express their ideas, relieve their loneliness and relieve their boredom on douyin. with the support of technology, the content on douyin is diverse and distinctive, such as strange news, cute pet records, fashion matching, travel tips, talk shows etc. international students can browse a lot of interesting contents in a very short time, which greatly relieves the tedium brought by the dull life and makes them empathize and satisfy themselves in the rich video contents, and their free time is utilized and their physical and mental brains are pleased. the use of free time and the pleasure of the body and mind, thus, the dependence of international students on douyin is increasing. as a result, young people are increasingly dependent on jitterbug. 4.2.1.2 spiritual needs: relieve stress and relax the spirit from the questionnaire, we can see that 50.75% of international students are relaxed and anxiety-free when they brush douyin. nowadays, there is a general anxiety in the society, which adds to the pressure of international students, such as the pressure of higher education exams and the pressure of the “996” burden at work. douyin’s innate qualities of leisure and entertainment can undoubtedly relieve the anxiety of international students to a certain extent, forgetting the reality of anxiety for a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. while. it is easy for international students to soothe their tense brains through this quick and convenient entertainment and get a short period of relaxation through this quick and convenient entertainment. interviewer i (female, 33 years old, second year of phd): there are a lot of things that bother me in real life, i want to find a better job, get a more comfortable life, and also want to get into the civil service, these thoughts are weighing me down, so i get very anxious, so i usually like to watch douyin, the life in it is wonderful and interesting, when i watch douyin when i watch shakyam, i don’t have anxiety, i don’t have worries, i’m happy when i watch it. interviewer k (male, 35 years old, 3rd year phd): i personally love to travel, but due to the nature of my studies, i have to attend classes every day, and writing papers on weekends is the norm, but inside i really long for the blue sky and white clouds of the outside world, so when i finish my studies for the day, i go home and watch some travel bloggers that douyin follows. i feel as if i’m on a long journey watching their videos, and i have a kind of empathy for them, which to some extent relieves my work pressure and makes me feel relaxed. the whole person is relaxed and at ease. 4.2.1.3 social needs: maintaining relationships to expand social interaction interviewer b (female, 18 years old, freshman year):usually use douyin in addition to like to look at the face of the beautiful and handsome men, the most important point is that we know friends often through douyin private messages, share video, so often use douyin. interviewer g (male, 30 years old, 1st year phd): i love to watch food, so i consciously search for relevant food videos every time i’m in douyin, especially the kl local ones, which are easier to hit, so whenever i see a food video with attractive colors and flavors, i send it to several friends who also like food to see if they are interested in going to explore the restaurants together, so we have formed an unbreakable food squad relationship. through the interviews we can see that partners who share the same interests strengthen their social connections through the use of douyin. in addition, according to the questionnaire, more than 55% of international students, their close family or friends are loyal users of douyin, that means many users often communicate with each other daily through douyin and maintain the relationship. this shows that douyin short videos have become an important social tool in modern people’s daily life, and most of our family and friends around us have become enthusiasts who use douyin. very often, when we brush douyin, if we see an interesting video, we will forward it to a friend with similar interests and expect her approval and liking of the video content. when a friend sends a private message, we will also quickly click on douyin to communicate, becoming the second chatting place other than wechat and maintaining the acquaintance social. when we brush douyin short videos, when we encounter content that we like, we will turn to comment on it, and in the comments, we can also see the comments of the audience with the same interests as ourselves, which will create a sense of compatibility in our hearts, and two people can share and communicate with each other in private www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. messages, slowly developing from online “shake friends” to offline friends, expanding the social circle. moreover, the interesting thing about douyin is that the videos recommended by douyin can be friends of friends of friends, colleagues of colleagues of colleagues, relatives of relatives of relatives, people who look familiar but do not have any contact information, as long as they are related to any person in your address book and use douyin, which also invariably expands the scope of social interaction. 4.2.1.4 learning needs: acquire knowledge to enhance skills according to the questionnaire, more than 51% of international students consider douyin as a learning channel for learning knowledge and gaining skills input, and the rich content of douyin short videos, such as beauty, fitness, travel, food, and health care videos, makes people dazzled. douyin platform as a channel to learn knowledge and skills, so as to grow in knowledge and acquire the skills you want to learn. no matter what problems you don’t know in your daily work or study life, you can easily get the solution by searching through douyin. interviewer d (male, 23, first year graduate student): when i watch douyin, i see many people who are positive and optimistic despite their disabilities, so i can learn from other people’s positive and optimistic attitude towards life. also, i learned video editing from douyin. interviewer f (female, 28 years old, third year graduate student): i usually watch douyin mainly to see how to make supplementary food for babies. because i don’t know much about these things, like how to nutritionally match more appropriate, what is better for a one-year-old baby to eat, will have i’ve learned a lot from the videos shared by many moms. interviewer k (male, 35 years old, post-doc): every time i open douyin, i feel a sense of urgency. because there are so many good and self-disciplined people in it, so i often remind myself, “you can do these things!” “you should learn a new skill too”, and always keep a drive to learn. to a certain extent, douyin has replaced baidu’s search status in the hearts of many young people. “douyin” is becoming the first choice of young people. through douyin search, users can see the search results more intuitively in the form of short videos, which fully enhances the sensory experience of young people. for example, if you want to learn about video editing, a fun and interesting explanatory video will definitely attract young people’s attention more easily than a boring graphic image. we can see it even more everywhere around us. when many international students come across a problem, they will first open douyin to search and find the answer to the question, which is efficient and convenient. in the use of douyin, we fully see that technology, if used properly, can bring a good user experience to international students and grow their skills and knowledge. this is one of the reasons why international students rely on douyin. 4.2.2 object causes the above article analyzes the various reasons for international students’ dependence on douyin, both practical and psychological factors. but from the external reasons, the increase of douyin’s influence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. and the accurate big data technology are the keys to make international students spend a lot of time using it. 4.2.2.1 douyin influence boosts catalytic dependence with the support of big data technology, douyin accurately grasps the portrait of international students and has a clear judgment of their preferences, and then pushes a large number of videos with similar preferences in douyin videos, so that international students are immersed in the videos and cannot extricate themselves from them, and are constantly attracted by the impactful contents in douyin, and their senses are delighted.the questionnaire shows that 51% of international students already open it from time to time in their daily use and a lot of time is taken up. interviewer a (male, 18 years old, freshman year): because the length of short videos can make people feel like they can’t stop, and they can’t help but want to watch the next one, forming a cycle, older people are estimated to have a little more self-control, but for young people it is more difficult. interviewer f (female, 28 years old, first year phd): douyin’s “15 seconds” is short, with a clear theme and constant baggage. it’s short, with a clear theme and a lot of baggage. it’s a few dozen seconds of browsing without any extra pressure, and most of the videos are funny. the 15-second video length is a characteristic of douyin videos, and this length has its own design principle. psychology points out that the 15-second time period is more capable of focusing people’s attention, and a longer time will be much less attractive to users. therefore, the 15-second design allows international students to see the climax of the video directly and form a deeper impression, so that they can brush douyin during the fragment time, or even the time originally used for work and study. this is the result of their dependence. the video is short but wonderful, the music is dynamic and eye-catching, the special effects are exciting and dynamic, through various exquisite and cool effects, the video climaxes repeatedly, so that international students can’t stop and get a great sense of satisfaction. it’s like “unpacking the blind box”, with a short video with a clear theme, which has a strong attraction for international students. in douyin, the support of algorithm allows every young person with distinctive personality to find the content they are interested in, such as skills, food, drama etc. the style is diversified, which meets the various needs of international students and creates dependency over time. 4.2.2.2 cultural dimension: youth subculture becomes the cause orientation it is created by international students through various communication channels and methods, which is different from the mainstream culture nowadays. as the main force of the subculture, international students have distinctive characteristics different from other groups: when they study in school, they face the rising pressure of further education; when they enter the society and work, they face the burden of “996” and the pressure of life of raising children. the virtual and hidden nature of the douyin platform and the convenience of smooth expression fit the demands of the subculture group, and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. international student group uses douyin to create subcultures, such as using emoji packs to make fun and jokes, “funeral culture” and “buddhist culture”. “international students use these subcultural expressions to boldly express themselves, highlight their personalities, reconstruct their identities and get self-satisfaction. to a certain extent, it has intensified the dependence of international students on douyin. 4.2.2.3 social dimension: landscape society to create virtual reality in 1967, french scholar guy debord introduced the concept of “landscape” in his important book “landscape society”, which can be understood in the context of reality as a virtual image presented by the media that is replacing the real reality and becoming the basis for understanding real life. in the context of reality, we can understand the concept of “landscape” to mean that the virtual images presented by the media are replacing the real reality and becoming the basis for people’s understanding of real life. the emergence of the landscape makes people lose their ability to think and confuse the real world with the virtual world. through the perspective of landscape society, it is possible to interpret the current phenomenon of douyin media dependence of international students, who create a landscape different from reality through a large number of virtual images, in which international students enjoy themselves with entertainment and indulge in the feast of landscape shaped by douyin. as in real life, you can see young people who brush douyin with their heads down everywhere, they spend a lot of time immersed in the virtual landscape shaped by douyin, reveling in the wonderful world inside, and the virtual images replace the interpersonal communication in reality, being the views in the landscape. ideas, lifestyles and values are assimilated, making international students addicted without realizing it and creating psychological and behavioral dependence. the reasons for the dependence of international students on douyin are multifaceted, ranging from the users’ own psychological cravings and satisfaction of role-playing to the attractiveness of the medium. international students are increasingly dependent on the use of douyin, thus creating a double dependence in terms of psychology and behavior. 4.3 findings for rq3 what are the negative effects of international students’ dependence on douyin from the subjective and interpersonal social levels? does the addiction to the virtual world eventually lead to the alienation of subjectivity and interpersonal socialization? 4.3.1 alienation of the subject itself first is the increased fragmentation of time, douyin squeezed the integrity of life. douyin short videos are within a few dozen seconds in length, which is ideal for young people to watch in fragmented time, so the the advantage of this is that you can briefly relax your tired brain, but the obvious disadvantage is that many people’s self-control is limited. in the frequent dependence, often in the process of watching forget the time, wanted to watch a few small videos, but repeatedly not controlled by the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 39 published by scholink inc. brain, immersed in the video playback can not extricate themselves. by the time you wake up, the time has been severely oversubscribed and regretted. interviewer e (female, 25, first year graduate student): every time i brush douyin, i actually want to brush it for 10 minutes to relax, but wow, i can’t stop once i brush it. but wow, once you brush it, you can’t stop, there are too many interesting ones, and every time you finally make up your mind to quit, you find that it’s already midnight. when i finally decided to quit, i found that it was already the middle of the night! interviewer f (female, 28 years old, first year phd): when i take a break from watching the kids, i open douyin and relax for ten minutes, but often by the time i finish swiping the video, an hour may have passed. this time how good it would be to use it for rest, and how much better it would be. interviewer g (male, 30 years old, postdoctoral): i am an ordinary person who brushes and brushes, and like many people like many people, thinking that only ten minutes have passed, only to find that an hour has passed, and what makes it even harder for myself is that the next time, the next night, knowing that this is still the case. the next time, the next night, the same thing happens. the feeling of remorse and emptiness repeatedly fills my heart. according to the interviews, we can see that the time that international students originally used for work and study has been drastically squeezed. the integrity of life is cut off, and the plans that had been made are forgotten in the excessive use of douyin, so that after a short period of happiness, international students become more anxious and restless because of the large amount of time that has passed, and only when they look back do they realize that they have not actually gained anything substantial during the time they were immersed in douyin, but their precious time the time has already passed. secondly, it erodes the rational thinking of the audience and leads to the alienation of values. the wonderful and interesting videos in douyin are new and all-inclusive, and in the midst of watching them, international students are easily assimilated by the values and ways of thinking on douyin. often, the images shown in the videos on douyin, after being received by the brains of international students, will subconsciously think that this is a common situation around us, and we will understand the real world according to the video, which may cause bias in our thinking. moreover, when over-relying on douyin, from psychological to behavioral view of douyin as a spiritual support for study, life and work, there is a possibility that they will be the content of jitterbug is so mixed that the rational thinking is affected without knowing it. for example, in the minds of many young people for the value of thin is this: not eating means self-discipline, fat is not qualified to eat, girls should only be thin and good-looking, their weight can not control the people are losers, is a loser. obviously, if international students rely too much on douyin, they are likely to be confused by the bad values spread by the mixed content and lose the ability to judge right and wrong in the “mimetic environment” shaped by douyin. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. for example, the “buddhist” and “mourning culture”, which were popular on douyin, promote no desire, no need, no fight, no rush, and many young people interpret them as retreating from difficulties and not caring about the development of things. in fact, such values encourage young people to avoid pressure and difficulties and stay in the “comfort zone” created by douyin. in the “comfort zone” created by jitterbug, they choose to “lie flat” at an age when they should be struggling, and call it “buddhism”. finally, douyin can lead to distraction and loss of self-control. douyin brings mental pleasure and pleasure to international students within a few tens of seconds, immersing the brain in the content without using any thinking and memory skills, the pleasure is simple and low-cost to obtain, therefore, in the bus or subway, the road, you can see the youth with their heads down to brush the video everywhere. however, this high-frequency use will intensify the dependence of the youth group on douyin, such as whether at work or in study, as long as the phone is around, you can not help but open a look at douyin, “brush a brush” has become the norm, attention is difficult to focus on one thing, concentration can not be improved, in with the flood of information in douyin, young people will gradually lose the ability to think deeply and become immersed in the fragmented video content. 4.3.2 douyin media dependence on the alienation of interpersonal relationships “alienation” refers to the reversal of the subject-object relationship. the subject usually occupies the dominant position and has a certain initiative, while the object is usually subordinate to the subject and comes from the subject. however, after the alienation process, the subject and the object become the object and become the bound and dominated party, and fall into a state of servitude, while the object becomes the power to suppress the subject and control the subject, occupying the active party. social media, which is supposed to serve as a platform to meet the information needs of the audience, has instead become a controlling force that enslaves human subjectivity, constantly alienating people, while people as subjects are lost in the virtual world provided by douyin, surrounded by transient satisfaction. they are increasingly dependent on the convenience provided by the medium. in the survey, 45.89% of the international students clearly said that douyin has significantly taken away the opportunity for family or friends to communicate with each other, while only 24% of the respondents said that their interpersonal relationship was not affected. from the comprehensive data, the dependence of international students on douyin has seriously squeezed the communication between interpersonal relationships. the mobile social media seems to be a controlling force, alienating the personal perceptions of international students, and losing their subjectivity in a subtle way. mcluhan expressed a similar concept in his book “understanding media”: “human beings as creators shape their tools into a society. human beings as creators have shaped the tools, but in turn, the tools have shaped us in a perverse way. the subconscious and meek acceptance of the effects of the new media makes it a “prison without walls” for the youth population. the new media has become a “prison without walls”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. the first manifests itself in the indifference of interpersonal communication. the dependence on the media makes the interpersonal communication among international students gradually indifferent. when they use douyin online, they talk about the world, but offline, they face the awkward situation of staring at each other, and most of them choose to brush their heads on douyin or watch other media platforms to pass the time. in various gatherings, we can see this phenomenon everywhere: people brush douyin with their heads down, and only occasionally raise their heads in between serving food, carefully select filters with douyin, take photos or small videos of food, and then put their heads down and start to refine them, and choose the right opportunity to upload them, and communication between people is becoming less and less, although they are in the same offline, but in the reliance on the media, communication is becoming less and communication is indifferent. in the indifference in her book, american psychologist shirley turk says that social in her book, american psychologist sherry turkle argues that the spread of social media may seem to create opportunities for people to communicate with each other, but in fact, the opposite is true. on the contrary, social media make people more and more lonely. the second is to make intimate relationships alienating. in addition to friends, intimate relationships between family members can also be impacted by dependence on douyin. after a tiring day of study, relatives each hold their cell phones and fiddle with them, immersing themselves in douyin. the original intimate relationship is divided and alienated by the medium. interviewer f (female, 28 years old, first year of phd): my partner and i have been married for less than three years, and communication has decreased significantly. when we get home, he is watching douyin on the sofa, and i feel bored with no one to talk to, so i also open douyin to catch up with the drama, anyway, we just watch our own, and the occasional communication is to share interesting videos with each other, i really think this mode of living together is quite bad, but we both like watching douyin too much, and we are tired after coming back, so we can brush douyin and have some fun. i’m not sure if i’m going to be able to get a good time, i don’t have to use my head. interviewer d (male, 23, first year graduate student): for me, after a day of study, i can lie in bed and brush douyin and watch videos that will be funny than anything else. and when i brush douyin, i don’t like to communicate with my roommates, i just want to whenever my roommate asks me something, i am impatient. while douyin has brought convenience, it has also gradually made the interpersonal relationships of international students shallow. many people communicate with each other on douyin without any restrictions, but when they communicate offline, they often face the problem of “lack of words”. the intimacy of the virtual environment is in stark contrast to the alienation of the real environment, and the social relationship is not strengthened, but rather exacerbated by the gap. in addition, the reliance on douyin inevitably leads to the alienation of intimacy. according to the interviews, many international www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. students said that whether it is a gathering of friends or a family reunion, they all keep their heads down with their cell phones, swiping douyin or using other social media. the emergence of douyin is supposed to strengthen the interpersonal connection, let the online communication extend to offline, and strengthen the connection between each other, but the dependence of international students on douyin has caused the alienation of social relationship, and the intimacy has become alienated. again, it makes the emotional expression shallow. in douyin, there are often a lot of emotional hot sentences, and they have attracted a lot of international students. such as “the first cup of milk tea in autumn”, “the first house in autumn”, “the first pack of wazoo in autumn”, “the first set of jewelry in autumn “, “the first bottle of perfume in autumn” and so on. many young people on douyin make a big show of milk tea and gifts, as if the only way to prove their feelings is to send milk tea or “ten sausages”, making emotional expression of emotion is gradually becoming shallow. 4.4 findings for rq4 is it possible to propose more feasible countermeasures from the main body of international students and the media ecological environment? on the one hand, international students should play a leading role, improve their thinking ability, not be held hostage by “instrumental convenience”, and get rid of psychological and behavioral dependence; on the other hand, the douyin platform, as a media enterprise, should take social responsibility, take multiple measures to guide international students to use media rationally, promote the benign development of the platform, and spread positive social energy. on the other hand, as a media enterprise, the platform should take more measures to guide international students to use media rationally, promote the development of the platform and spread positive social energy. 4.4.1 improvement of the main group of international students first of all, international students should maintain an objective and rational attitude towards the use of douyin, and should neither be overly addicted nor have an attitude of avoiding it. according to the above questionnaires and interviews, it can be seen that the use of douyin by international students plays an important role in satisfying their spiritual, emotional, social and study needs, therefore, it is undeniable that the emergence of douyin, if used properly, will promote the comprehensive improvement of their abilities in all aspects. however, when using douyin, international students should objectively analyze the pros and cons and realize that if they do not control the process of using douyin, the cons will outweigh the pros. therefore, international students should give full play to their own subjectivity and realize that douyin is actually just an auxiliary tool, and it absolutely cannot and should not control themselves as the subject in turn. therefore, when international students use douyin, they can set limits for themselves in terms of time. for example, when you need to relax in your free time, you can raise the usage time moderately, and after reaching the purpose of relieving stress and amusement, you can quit the use of douyin at the right time and make full use of your free time to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. improve yourself; secondly, according to the survey, the reason why most youths rely on douyin is out of boredom, and in order to make themselves seem full, they choose to pass the time with douyin. in response to this, international students should realize that douyin can only give us a temporary “enrichment”, and this “enrichment” is only an illusion that cannot be grasped. the real enrichment should be the real enrichment should be to use your spare time to improve yourself, such as setting a small goal for yourself, in what time to learn a if you set yourself a small goal to learn a skill or enrich your professional knowledge base within a certain period of time, and then proceed to the next small goal after completing it, make efficient use of every the next small goal is to make efficient use of every free time period and accumulate little by little to make your life more fulfilling and meaningful. second, media dependency theory examines structural media system dependencies from a macro perspective. it is believed that the more complex society is, the more functions and roles the mass media need to assume, and the audience’s dependence on them will increase accordingly. as today’s society is running at a high speed and the social structure is becoming more and more complex, people are bound to give up their priorities, save communication costs, and tend to get the information they want to know with the help of convenient information systems, so as to re-establish a close connection with society and stay in touch with its rhythm. such a requirement makes the mass media with a certain authority and timeliness a bridge of connection in the structure of modern society. in real life, douyin plays such a bridging role, which makes international students rely on douyin in different degrees. therefore, to avoid over-reliance on douyin, international students should correctly understand the dual attributes of douyin as a communication medium and not to blindly trust and follow it. for example, when faced with negative emotions and values spread on douyin, they should improve their discernment and not just accept them without thinking. for example, the “buddha system”, which was popular on douyin before, preaches no desire, no need, no competition and no rush. in fact, such values encourage international students to avoid pressure and difficulties, and to stay in the “comfort zone” created by douyin, and choose to “lie flat” at the age when they should struggle, and call it “buddhism”. therefore, international students should resolutely resist the bad information posted on douyin, not to spread it, not to follow it blindly, to make correct judgment, to play their own main initiative, to use the rich videos on douyin to learn and improve themselves, to get more valuable information, to be a strict self-discipline, and to let douyin bring more meaningful information experience. for young international students, since their values are still in the process of forming, they need proper guidance from the outside world to help them resist the “invasion” of douyin, such as school teachers interspersing relevant guidance in the classroom to explain how to use douyin to gain positive energy and enhance the experience. parents usually explain to their children about the content of douyin and teach them to distinguish the advantages and disadvantages of the content, so that the young international students can develop good habits and enhance their motivation to use douyin and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. get a good experience of using it. finally, douyin, as the most popular short-video social media nowadays, is a big hit without the support of algorithmic technology, which makes the international student group forget the passage of time in the process of brushing douyin and causes the dependence on douyin. therefore, international students should improve their rational cognition and realize that the new media technology has two sides. on the one hand, we should use the advantages of douyin technology for our own use and meet our own needs for multi-faceted development; on the other hand, we should realize that technology is ultimately just a tool for human services, and we should dominate technology instead of letting technology become our dominant, maintain objective judgment on the content presented by douyin, realize that it is only a product under the algorithm, and be resolute about the douyin algorithm technology to create we should resist the “addiction mechanism” created by douyin’s algorithmic technology and use rational thinking to make choices. 4.4.2 improvement measures of the media ecological environment first is the media content excellence, abandoning homogeneous communication. because douyin video production is simple and easy to get started, the threshold is very low, so the creation volume is extremely high, which inevitably brings the problem of mixed content, a large number of identical and similar douyin videos are popping up, but also caused a waste of international students’ attention. therefore, on the one hand, douyin should make more efforts to improve the quality of content and encourage innovation of quality content. for example, it should make use of the convenience of jitterbug communication methods and the diversity of communication means to actively promote excellent traditional culture and help form a good creative environment on douyin, so as to bring quality information experience to international students. a special group should also be set up to clean up and rectify users who produce and spread vulgar and poor quality contents on douyin to gain traffic, and continuously launch governance actions to prevent international students from forming cognitive anomalies under the influence of bad contents. the second is to adhere to the bottom line of practitioner responsibilities and create a good media environment. media system dependence theory believes that the more individuals and society use and satisfy the media, the deeper their dependence on the media. therefore, douyin should adhere to the responsibility of the media and devote itself to creating a clean and upright environment for the dissemination of short videos. on the one hand, we should expand the power of auditing, strengthen the backstage manual auditing and intelligent auditing, and do a good job as a gatekeeper, while at the same time, we can also encourage users who have no violations and whose real names are certified to apply as “supervisory members” to improve the coverage of auditing. on the other hand, since douyin is based on big data algorithm to push content to international students’ preferences, if the quality of video content is problematic, but still recommended, international students will lose their good www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 45 published by scholink inc. judgment, so we should adhere to the professional ethics of media and give different weight to different categories of content. therefore, we should adhere to media ethics and give different weight to different categories of content, so that more knowledgeable, positive and high-quality content can be given higher weight. finally, technical optimization design should be strengthened to interfere with excessive media use. young international students are curious about new things, and the diverse and all-embracing contents on douyin are more likely to be favored by international students. therefore, it is difficult for international students who are not strong in self-control to control their media use rationally and gradually fall into the strange circle of media dependence. the douyin platform, as the media subject, should strengthen its sense of social responsibility and consciously use technical rationality in the product design to set up standardized guidance measures to guide international students to use douyin in an appropriate amount, and optimize the interface design to free international students from their dependence on the media psychologically. for example, setting a striking time reminder on the screen interface can play a certain role of supervision. we can also organize and plan novel activities that attract young people nowadays, such as automatically forwarding and sharing online and offline activities with the theme of “balance time and moderate use”, which can prevent young people from spending too much energy on social platforms and keep them away from the clutter and noise generated in online social networking. users can enjoy the beauty of the virtual world while actively participating in real-life practices, developing diverse hobbies and enhancing beneficial communication, thus discovering the beauty of real life. 5. conclusion the iterative upgrade of mobile internet technology has made douyin, which combines timeliness, rapid interactive feedback and convenient access to information, gain the popularity of the international student community and become a high application software in modern people’s work, study and daily life. however, international students, as the backbone of national development, spend a lot of time and energy on douyin, which will undoubtedly take up a lot of time that should be used to improve their abilities. therefore, on the one hand, international students should play a leading role, improve their thinking and discernment ability, not be held hostage by “instrumental convenience”, and get rid of their psychological and behavioral dependence. on the other hand, the douyin platform, as a media enterprise, should take up its social responsibility, give full play to its technical advantages, improve its guidance measures, and better promote the rational use of users and the benign dissemination of the platform. in order to make this study more relevant and scientific, i did a lot of literature combing and investigation in the preliminary research, and through questionnaires and in-depth interviews, i concluded that international students have formed a certain degree of media dependence on douyin www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. through data analysis, and explored the reasons and improvement measures. the final conclusion is that the problem of international students’ over-dependence on douyin and other social media can be better solved through a multi-pronged approach with the cooperation of audience, media and society. due to the limited ability of the researcher and the scope of the survey, there are many shortcomings in the thesis. i hope to receive criticism and correction from previous scholars, and i also hope that my immature research and discussion can contribute to the in-depth study of related issues. i also hope that my immature research and discussion can contribute to the in-depth study of related issues. author biography xu duo is a phd student in the department of communication at iukl’s of arts, communication and education. she is currently an editor at hexi university in gansu province, china, as an editor in the academic newspaper and magazine department. email: 602337033@qq.com faridah ibrahim, phd is a professor in the department of journalism and communication iukl, school of communication, business, information and human sciences. she has been working in academia for 37 years, joining the university, ukm and iukl. her research and publications cover war and peace journalism, organizational communications, film and broadcast, media ethics and professionalism, and women in media. email: faridah@iukl.edu.my acknowledgement this thesis started and ended with a passion to gain extra knowledge and to fulfill my ambition to do research. indeed, it has been a long journey, but a worthwhile one. first of all, i must thank professor dr faridah ibrahim, my supervisor who has been guiding me in the research with much patience and encouraging words. all your advice, support, and help are appreciated. thank you! also, sincere appreciation to other professor in faculty, for their great support. i am thankful to the infrastructure university of kuala lumpur, especially the faculty of business, information &human sciences (fbihs) , for all the technical support and facilities provided throughout my time with the department. references ball-rokeach, s. j. 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(2013). media dependence of “grassroots culture” and its social effects. modern communication (journal of china media university), 35(06), 16-20. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 90 original paper sexual orientation identity in select african and african american novels ima usen emmanuel1* 1 department of english, university of uyo, akwa ibom state, nigeria * ima usen emmanuel, department of english, university of uyo, akwa ibom state, nigeria received: october 18, 2018 accepted: november 2, 2018 online published: may 28, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n2p90 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n2p90 abstract this paper set out to interrogate sexual orientation identity in select african and african american novels, using the queer theory. some heterosexual writers inadvertently dwell on queer relationships in their works. toni morrison in both the bluest eye and beloved portrayed bestiality/zoophillia, phytophilliac or dendraphilliac, spectorphilli, incest, rape/molestation, masturbation, polyamorous relationships, homoerotic, homosocial, and heterosexuality. whereas, damon gulet’s in a strange room and sello duiker’s thirteen cents depicted lesbianism, homosexuality and bisexuality. with the likes of geraldine in morrison’s the bluest eye and mr lebowitz in duiker’s thirteen cents, i agree with tyson on biological essentialism, that the rest of the population is naturally heterosexual. i also agree with other critics that all human beings have the potential for sexual activity that does not fit into heterosexual framework. i share the opinion of social constructionism; that lgbtq sexuality and heterosexuality are products of social, not biological forces; our societies are fast losing their mores, hence these evil practices. since patriarchy is the law, no stiff penalty is effected on their wide spread jeopardizing habits. queerness is a generational destroyer of both moral and humanity. this paper is emphatic that stiff penalties be brought on the practitioners of psychology of peadophile. keywords zoophillia, phytophillia, spectorphilli, psychology of a peadophile, non-procreative sex www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 91 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction there is no consensus on the exact cause of developing sexual orientation but genetic, hormonal, social and cultural influences have been examined. scientists believe that sexual orientation is caused by a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences. it is also discovered that female sexuality is more fluid than male sexuality because of female higher erotic plasticity, or to the social and cultural factors that socialize women to be more open to change (sexualfluiditypdfwikiwikipedia.org). the world is in an infinite continuum on gender and sexuality, and the acronym lgbtq has gained recognition which symbolizes lesbians, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer. sexuality has been an important and vital part of human existence through history. all civilizations have managed sexuality through sexual standards, representations, and behaviors. human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. this involves biological, erotic, physical, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviours. human sexuality is complicated; the brain decides what gender one is affiliated to and the heart decides what it is attracted to and what spectrum of intensity. sexual behavior or gender roles is predicated on societies’ norms which put sexuality in a world of infinite continuum (sexuality, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php). sex as a biological word refers to masculine and feminine, male or female. gender expression or identity leads to different types of sexual orientations, and individuals and groups are now coming out of their closets to identify with their queer sexualities, as evil runs amok naked the world over. queer sexualities include: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer (lgbtq), asexual, deminsexual, androsexual, gynosexual, monosexual, aromantic, skoliosexual, polyamorpus, gynesexual, demiromantic, etc. sexual fluidity is one or more changes in sexuality or sexual identity, sometimes known as sexual orientation identity. it is believed that sexual orientation is usually stable, whereas sexual orientation identity can change throughout individual’s life and may not align with biological sex, or sexual behavior or actual sexual orientation (gender, https://www.genderspectrum.org/quick-links/understanding-gender/). for the purpose of this paper we will discuss lgbtq people as a group since they constitute some sort of homogenous collectivity. certainly, they share in common the political, economic, social, and psychological oppression they suffer as members of a sexual minority. and for many thinkers, the enormity of this shared experience, and the potential for political power generated when lgbtq people act as a group, is sufficient to support the claim that they should be considered in this light (tyson, p. 307). we will discuss this topic using queer literary theory. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 92 published by scholink inc. 2. method the word queer has a range of meanings in literary studies today. as an inclusive term, it can refer to any piece of literary criticism that interprets a text from an lgbtq perspective. queer criticism reads texts to reveal the problematic quality of heterosexual and homosexual representations of sexual categories; they do not represent the dynamic range of human sexuality. for queer theory “categories of sexualities cannot be defined by such simple oppositions as homosexual/heterosexual…it defines individual sexuality as fluid, fragmented, dynamic collectivity of possible sexualities…the word queer then, as an all-inclusive term, seeks to heal these divisions by offering a collective identity to which all lgbtq people can belong” (tyson, pp. 320-321). for the queer therefore, the definition of one’s sexuality might be based on one’s preference for someone older or younger, for a human or an animal, for a single partner or a group activity, for oneself alone (as in masturbation) or for a variety of different partners. other dimensions of sexuality do not involve object choice. for example eva kosofsky sefgwick notes the intricacies of human sexuality might be based on such oppositions as “orgasmic/non-orgasmic, non-commercial/commercial, using bodies only/using manufacture objects, in private/in public, spontaneous/scripted. or the definition of one’s sexuality might be based on one’s preference for particular acts, sensations, or physical types” (tyson, p. 321). queer theory then becomes an umbrella discourse for these aberrations. queer theory may be relatively new as a literary theory, but an in-depth reading of the novelistic genres reveal enormous representations of queer writings in even heterosexual works, as are observed in our chosen novels under review namely: toni morrison’s the bluest eye, beloved, respectively, damon galgut’s in a strange room and k sello duiker’s thirteen cents. this paper will examine among others: bestiality/zoophillia, phytophillia or dendraphilliac, spectorphilli, lesbianism, homosexuality, bisexuality, polyamorous relationship, masturbation, homoerotic, sexual assault-psychology of a peadophile; rape/molestation, homosocial and heterosexuality as contained in our above named texts. we will also allude to other related texts. 2.1 bestiality/zoophillia this is a very common practice among the slaves who are confined to plantations and are far removed from the opposite sex; therefore they take to violation of animals. in toni morrison’s beloved the sweet home slaves; namely, sixo, paul a garner, paul d garner, paul f garner, and halle suggs, were all involved in either bestiality or zoophillia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/zoophilia). “all the sweet home young men were so sick with absence of women they had taken to calves” (p. 10). “all in their twenties, minus women, fucking cows, dreaming of rape which seems the solitary gift of life, thrashing on pallets, rubbing their thighs and waiting for the new girl, the one who took baby suggs’ place after halle bought her with five years of sundays…and the sweet home men abused cows…” (p. 11). therefore, when sethe agrees to marry halle over the other sweet home young men, paul d for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 93 published by scholink inc. instance, imagines that “the jump…from a calf to a girl wasn’t all that mighty. not the leap halle believed it would be” (p. 11). and for the sweet home youth, bestiality becomes the only avenue to relieve their sexual emotion. on bestiality, the holy bible says “and if a man lies with a beast, he shall surely be put to death and you shall kill the beast” (leviticus 20:15). beside the slavery times humans still indulge in zoophillia. geraldine, in toni morrison’s the bluest eye, loves the company of the cat “the cat will jump into geraldine’s lap. she will fondle that soft hill of hair and let the fur of the animal’s body seep over and into the deeply private areas of her lap…and she opens her legs just a little and the two of them will be still together, perhaps shifting a little together sleeping a little together until four o’clock, when the intruder (louis, her husband) comes home from work...” (pp. 85-86). the holy bible also says “and if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, you shall kill the woman and the beast…” (leviticus 20:15). the situation that warrants the sweet home young men go into bestiality could be explicated as predicated on their long abstinence and deprivation of female humans as sex partners, which further exposes the mysterious in and the conditions of slavery and isolation. susan corey in “the grotesque in morrison’s beloved” says “the grotesque not only reveals the horror of slavery, but it also sets forth a vision of regeneration and healing” (p. 25). paul d, the only surviving member of sweet home, heals out of the zoophillic instincts and enjoys heterosexual relationship with sethe and this is regenerating. geraldine, strangely is more emotionally and sexually attracted and affectionate to the cat than she does for her son. and to a large extent her husband becomes an “intruder” as she relaxes with the cat. geraldine as a zoophillia, sexually attracted to a cat, is a crime against nature. her queer nature is beyond all explanations. she is married, has a son, which means she has heterosexual relationship with her husband and more so her husband is caring, he works to provide for his family and comes home after work-hours. the cat even recognizes that she has affection for her husband. there are few things stranger and more repulsive than bestiality. again, the holy bible says “whoever lies with a beast shall surely be put to death” (exodus, 22:19). it is crossly inhuman and unnatural and an affront to god who created man and beast but gave man authority of all beasts and nature and empowered man to subdue and rule over them. therefore, for man the highest form of god’s creation to put down himself to the level of an animal, is not only nastiness to himself but to god the creator. “neither shall you lie with any beast to defile yourself therewith; neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion” (leviticus, 18:23). to say the least, geraldine is confused. 2.1.1 phytophillia in addition to the slaves involvement in bestiality, they commit to have sex with trees or phytophillia or dendraphilliac (tree sex, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=phytophilia). sixo one of the sweet home slaves, is so sex starved that he is aroused and attracted to trees. he simply drills a hole in a tree and sticking his member or (penis) into it, he reaches an orgasm that to some extent www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 94 published by scholink inc. relieves him of the ugly emotion in so doing, sixo becomes dendraphilliac and his attraction to trees make him phytophilliac. he confesses his attraction to tress to paul f, paul a, paul d and halle in the peculiar way that makes them cry-laugh. sixo goes among trees at night. for dancing and to keep his bloodlines open, he says “privately, alone, he did it. none of the rest of them had seen him at it but they could imagine it, and the image they pictured made them eager to laugh at him—in daylight, that is, when it was safe” (p. 12). sixo’s pathetic situation predicated on slavery is beyond comprehension. but when he finds his thirty-mile woman, he enjoys a heterosexual relationship with her and never goes back to the tress until he is buried alive and shut by school teacher, the slave master. 2.1.2 spectorphilli the phenomenon of sexual encounter between ghosts and humans or spectorphilli—could be imposed of it is a choice for some humans as a form of sexual identity. in beloved the author portrays the multilayered meanings of the queer theory adequately. she abandons the traditional demarcation between same sex and opposite-sex love and between the “natural” and the “unnatural”. beloved the ghost, sexually arouses paul d as she lets out her shine to overshadow him. “that is how beloved looked—gilded and shining” (p. 64), paul d says. she then hypnotizes him into a spectorphillia relationship and becomes pregnant as a result. she manipulates and forces him out of 124 into a shade behind the house, a cold storeroom. beloved shows up and asks him to touch her and call her by name otherwise she will not depart “you have to touch me. on the inside part. and you have to call me by my name” (p. 117). on insistence and under the spell of this ghost, when she moves closer to him “what he knew was that when he reached the inside part he was saying red heart. red heart, over and over again” (p. 117). ron david believes that paul d “wasn’t seduced by her beauty, he was compelled by the intensity of what—her ravenous need to grab all the life she’d been deprived of, her two-year-old mind in the body of a twenty-year-old woman, her need to exact a price from her mother…and her greedy love of her mother” (p. 121). paul d is incapacitated; he is an unwilling partner in this queer relationship. he has a strong feeling to knock her down but remains waned. 2.1.3 polyamorous relationship in morrison’s beloved, when halle and sethe consummate their love in a corn field “and taking her in corn-field rather than her quarters, a yard away from the cabins of the others who had lost out, was a gesture of tenderness” (beloved, pp. 16-17). “who could miss a ripple in a cornfield on a quiet cloudless day?” sixo and both of the pauls sit under brother (tree) pouring water from a gourd over their heads and through eyes streaming with well water, they watched the confusion of tassels in the field below. it had been hard, hard, hard, hard sitting there erect as dogs, watching corn stalks dance at noon. the water running over their heads made it worse (beloved, pp. 26-27). this polyamorous relationship is unconscious and closed, because the relational partners halle and sethe did not know nor permit sixo and the pauls to watch their sexual relationship, but they did. again the sexual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 95 published by scholink inc. relationship between sethe and paul d—one of the sweet home young men, who escapes and locates sethe in 124 blue stone house in cincinnati, denver become an uninvited partaker. as sethe and paul relate sexually, denver over hears their sexual noises and she is miserable, more so since paul d rid her of the only other company she had; the baby ghost. this is closed because the relational partners were not conscious or agree to permit their romantic or sexual relationship with other people, and in this instance, certainly not with denver, sethe’s daughter. whereas, geraldine in morrison’s the bluest eye, subjects her young son to a polyamorous relationship and bestiality consciously. it was not long before the child junior, discovers the difference in his mother’s behavior to himself and the cat and this has an inverse effect on junior. as he grows older, he learns how to direct his hatred of his mother to the cat and spends some happy moment watching it suffer (p. 86). the boy grows up with a lot of bitterness and total hatred for the cat and hunts to kill it at the least opportunity. mrs. geraldine is a biological essentialist in spite of having a husband and a son; she enjoys erotic feelings with her cat over the husband and her son. it is believed that all human beings have the potential for same-sex desire or sexual activity that does not fit into heterosexual framework, mrs. geraldine here is a typical example of such, and the ripple effect may be the child developing strong revulsion for women and animals and the instinct to kill both at the least opportunity. 2.1.4 lesbianism in morrison’ beloved, beloved the ghost is also into a lesbian relationship with sethe “they stayed that way for a while because neither denver nor sethe knew how not to stop and not love the look or feel of the lips that kept on kissing” (p. 97). beloved craves for sethe and confesses her strong love for her “she does not love me like i love her. i don’t love nobody but her” (p. 116). sethe, the unwilling partner could not separate herself from her. beloved is a predatory lesbian lover; she consumes sethe’s life to the extent that sethe becomes thinner while she grows bigger. beloved’s obsessive attachment to sethe, equates denver’s fanatical bond with beloved; which puts the trio in a lesbian relationship. also in maya angelou’s i know why the caged bird sings (caged bird), maya actually feels sexually aroused at the sight of her girlfriend’s breast, in spite of her mother’s reassurance that she is not a lesbian or a hermaphrodite. “she feels there is something queer about her” (p. 279). with the knowledge acquired from her reading of the well of loneliness, sixteen-year-old maya thinks she is a lesbian or a hermaphrodite “with a heavy voice, more feminine hands and feet, breast sadly underdeveloped—almost like skin-swellings…armpits as smooth as her face, with mysterious growth developing on her body that defied explanation” (pp. 273-274), maya’s features that defile her placement in the masculine or the feminine gender category set her aside from others and sickens her mind into queerness. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 96 published by scholink inc. similarly in alice walker’s color purple, celie and shug avery are lesbian partners. celie, a mother of two through molestation, rape and incest, cherishes her lesbian relationship with shug than heterosexual bonding with her husband albert. again in walker’s possessing the secret of joy, olivia loves tashi sexually. as she pleads with tashi not to go away to join the mbeles—core traditionalists—who have sent a captured donkey for her ride, olivia crying says “tell me to do anything, and i will do it”. “tell me to go anywhere, and i will go”. tashi “was like a lover” (p. 20), to olivia. alice walker believes a woman can love another woman sexually, olivia clings to tashi as lesbians do, sexually and pleads with her as heterosexual lovers do. likewise, in damon galgut’s in a strange room, anna lives with a lesbian lover in cape town for eights year. lesbians deny patriarch one of its most powerful tools: heterosexuality. for some feminists, “heterosexuality is not a ‘natural’ sexual orientation for ‘normal’ women but a political institution that subordinates women to patriarchy in that women’s subservience to men is built into heterosexual definition of feminine sexuality” (tyson, p. 310). lesbianism is a cursed relationship, the bible in 1 corinthians 6:9, calls it effeminate or abusers of themselves with mankind, shall not inherent the kingdom of god. again the holy bible says “you shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind. it is an abomination” (leviticus 18:22). 2.1.5 homosexuality/gay in the instance of homosexuality/gay, not all cultures share the same definition. in latin america for instance, a man may have affairs with other men but since he still behaves in a traditionally male manner—strong dominant and decisive—and consistently assumes male sexual role as penetrator—a macho, a “real” man. he can also be a bisexual in the culture, he is not called a homosexual. in north america only men who allow themselves to be penetrated and behaved in a traditionally feminine manner—submissive, coy, flirtatious, “soft” were considered homosexuals. in ancient athens, the elite male ruling class could have social inferior—women and boys past age of puberty and were not looked at as homosexuals. historically, certain sexual acts—all forms of non-procreative sex—were forbidden by church or state, but they were not viewed as evidence of a specific sexual identity. the medical professions promoted homosexual identity as a medical and pathological disorder. therefore, these homosexuals would rather be called gay (tyson, pp. 313-314). in damon galgut’s in a strange room, jerome is sexually attracted to damon. though bashful, jerome finds an audience with damon and taking hold of his hand nervously ask damon to go with him to switzerland (p. 120). in response to this intimate closeness, damon finds himself sweating in his palms, “my heart is hammering” (p. 121). damon may not like reiner, his roommate, as a sex partner, but his response to jerome is more involved. damon responds more to homosexual relationships than to heterosexual relationship. when anna pleads with him to have sex with her, he recoils, and though he shares rooms with anna throughout their trip to india, he is not attracted to her sexually. damon may be said to be androgynous or asexual. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 97 published by scholink inc. in k sello duiker’s thirteen cents, richard invites the young homeless orphan gemors otherwise, called azure or blue to his flat with three other guys, and after feeding him they all have oral sex with him. he laments: …shoves his dick into my mouth. open properly…take it all in…i do as i’m told. he stands there and starts rocking his pelvis. my jaws get tired. i take his dick out of my month and want him...i put it back in my mouth. the door opens…richard takes out his piel from my mouth but he doesn’t put it away. he starts playing with himself while i suck the other’s piel. soon they all join in and take turns with my mouth…they are giving me their salt…i start sweating. after a while my jaws become stiff but i continue sucking their smelly dicks with white stuff like pap on them. they made me give them blowjobs till they all come (p. 63). and whatever sperm the poor boy could not swallow, they all spilled same all over his t-shirt. this homeless youth is gang raped by adult members of society. again mr lebowitz, an investment banker, negotiates and invites this thirteen-year-old blue to his gorgeous home in an exclusive part of cape town for homosexual purpose and records the affair with a hidden camera. blue confesses “he spreads me on the wide bed and starts sucking my dick…he turns over and lies on his back. i take his banana dick in my hand and start stroking it…i just suck and play with my tongue on his banana dick...and a fountain of sperm pours out of his banana dick and land on his chest…” and this taking of turns continues almost the whole night long. mr. lebowitz, an investment banker, cannot even be called a macho or a “real” man in this homosexual game with a thirteen-year-old boy. they take turns in the filth, though he does not behave in a traditionally feminine manner—submissive, coy, flirtatious, and “soft”. he pays blue even more than they bargained for. but to submit to this degradation with a youth is pitiable. queers can really be said to be sick products of a sick society. homosexuality like lesbianism is an outrage. the holy bible in 1 corinthians 6:9, calls it effeminate or abusers of themselves with mankind, shall not inherent the kingdom of god. again the holy bible says “you shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind. it is an abomination” (leviticus 18:22). it is really an atrocity. yet young blues does it for a living. he says “i know how to please a man…i have done this a thousand times. they all like it if you play with the part between their balls and asshole” (p. 98). he gives the proceeds from this abomination to joyce who is old enough to be blue’s grandmother, for safe keeping, but she misappropriates the money he gets from homosexuality and when this homeless and deformed youth demands for his money, she slaps him across the face “my nose starts bleeding and i let the blood drip” (p. 88), thereafter, joyce pushes him out of her house without his clutches. she too becomes part of this infamy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 98 published by scholink inc. 2.1.6 bisexual/masturbator mr. lebowitz is also a bisexual, he tells blue that his family is on holiday. as he prepares for his illicit affair with this youth, he walks over to piano where there are pictures of his family. he turns them all over as if they will see and hear everything. reiner in gulgut’s in a strange room is likewise bisexual. he involves in heterosexual relationship though with whores, but he still seeks homosexual affair with other men. initially, medical professions considered mastubators to be people with medical and pathological sexual identity. in morrison’s beloved, the other sweet home young men sit back to masturbate as halle and fourteen-year-old sethe make love in the cornfield; though halle wants privacy for themselves but he has uninvited watchers. again, in toni morrison’s the bluest eye, some “slow-footed teen-aged boys huddled about the corner. these young boys met there to feel their groins…and exposed themselves, to those who were interested as novices to the habits” (35, these youth indulge themselves in masturbation.). also in galgut’ in a strange room, “damon wakes in the middle of the night…to the sound of roderigo furtively masturbating under the sheets” (p. 121). masturbation can occur in the case of a homoerotic sight as in the case of the young sweet home slaves watching halle and sethe make love in the cornfield, or can be induced as those teenagers fondle with their groins to force masturbation. it can also occur unconsciously as in the case of sleeping roderigo. this is a queer way of relieving oneself of sexual emotions. the holy bible in leviticus 22:4 says “… a man whose seed goes from him”, which is masturbation, shall remain unclean and shall not eat of the holy things, especially the priest of god. 2.1.7 homoerotic another episode of queerness includes homoerotic which is exemplified in angelou’s caged bird. maya has a homoerotic feeling at the sight of her girlfriend’s nakedness. in galgut’s in a strange room, reiner comes out unto the room, drying his long hair with a towel. he is wearing the same black pants as yesterday, but no shirt, his body is brown and hard, perfectly proportioned. he knows that he is beautiful (p. 21). reiner consciously directs this homoerotic feeling to damon his roommate, thereby inviting him to a homosexual relationship to which damon did not respond. reiner often allows his cloth fall off his body, and this careless abandonment feels like an announcement of some kind. thus exposing the long brown place where the “buttocks divide, where paler skin makes fur and shadow stand out in relief, now reiner turns, there is the briefest flash of an erection” (p. 43), invariably, reiner puts a longing and a moral confusion in damon. again reiner takes to bathing himself either in a river, if there is one or in water from the water-bottles. then he dries himself and sits on a rock rubbing creams (p. 57). “reiner is full of smug satisfaction, brown locks bouncing on his shoulders”. his nakedness before another male damon gives reiner some pleasure that is carnal. since reiner is the financier of the tripe with damon, reiner knows, money is never just money alone, it is a symbol for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 99 published by scholink inc. other deeper things, on this trip how much you have is a sign of how loved you are, reiner hoards the love he dispenses it as a favour. “i am endlessly gnawed by the absence of love, to be loveless is to be without power” (p. 57), damon laments. damon, as much as possible tries to overcome this homosexual nature in his partner by always looking the other way. damon is demiromantic; he has no romantic attraction to both male and female, though he may be more prone to homosexuality. still in galgut’s in a strange room, anna’s naked body in the hospital (p. 177) gives everyone who sees her stack nakedness a homoerotic feeling. similarly, in duiker’s thirteen cents, gerald “takes off his clothes and sits naked on the chair” before blue. further, he makes them have a bath together “we both were. i dry myself with the rag. he uses a towel” (p. 86). gerald puts himself in the position of a guardian to the young boy after having killed azure’s parents and changes his name to blue, but he introduces him to homosexuality. still in thirteen cents as the moffies (male prostitutes) walk by, one of them, mr. lebowitz sits beside blue “and opens his legs. a big banana is between his legs” (p. 93), he exposes his penis to this youth and eventually they negotiate the terms and the man takes blue to his exquisite home. there, they had a bath naked before each other and they bounce their penis every, and blue hold his dick and say “pleased to meet you…and he laughs...” (p. 99). the bathroom is all mirrors such that you can see your whole naked body. they both “walk round the house naked” (p. 100) while mr lebowitz prepares food. generally, lgbtq people seen not closeted on pornography. 2.1.8 psychology of a peadophile this is the molestation of children with the threats to harm. generally, is a violent crime and includes, rape, child sexual abuse, incest etc. of the most heinous mind-set of the lgbtq people is the psychology of a peadophile which has become a common place phenomenon all over the world cultures and most writers depict same in their works. in angelou’s caged bird, mr freeman, a live-in friend of vivian baxter maya’s mother, rapes eight-year-old maya. this is “a heart-rending situation of betrayal, abuse, oppression and exploitation of an eight-year-old body” (p. 78). mr freeman threatens to kill her only brother bailey, if she lets the cat out of the bag. the abuse is a matter of opportunity; the child is a sexual surrogate for him since vivian is always not available. through this sexual assault he seeks to dominate and control maya but wants her to believe his affection to her. opal moore, commenting on issue of rape in caged bird, says “it raises issues of trust, truth and lie, love, the naturalness of a child’s craving for human contact, language and understanding, and the confusion engendered by the power disparities that necessarily exist between children and adults” (p. 77). we agree with moore that young maya hungers for human contact since vivian is never there for her. likewise, in morrison’s the bluest eye cholly breedlove, in his drunken stupor commits inbreeding or incest by raping his eleven-year-old daughter pecola. “he wanted to fuck her—tenderly. but the tenderness would not hold. the tightness of her vagina was more than he could bear. his soul seemed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 100 published by scholink inc. to slip down to his guts and fly out to his guts and fly out into her, and the gigantic thrust he made into her then provoked the only sound she made—a hollow surge of air in the back of her throat. like the rapid loss of air from a circus balloon” (pp. 162-163). this hallowing experience pushes the child into unconsciousness. “removing himself from her was so painful to him he cut it short and snatched his genitals out of the dry harbor of her vagina. she appeared to have fainted” (p. 163). cholly’s inhuman, forceful penetration of an eleven-year-old child and the brutal extrication of his penis from “dry harbor of her vagina” are barbarous and felonious. “so when the child regained consciousness, she was lying on the kitchen floor…trying to connect the pain between her legs with the face of her mother looming over her” (p. 163). the fact of a father traumatizing his child through raping his young virgin daughter to unconsciousness is nothing but queer. thus pecola carries her father’s pregnancy which is a concern to the whole community “but so deeply concerned were we with the health and safe delivery of pecola’s baby we could think of nothing…” (p. 7). “did you hear about that little girl” “what? pregnant?” “yes but guess who?”… “that’s just it. ain’t no little old boy. they say it’s cholly” “cholly her daddy? (pp. 188-189). the community is embarrassed, sorrowful, disgusted, amused, shocked, outraged, or even excited by the story. yet they did not rise up against cholly, but everyone wants the baby dead. cholly himself is raped by three women in his tender years “three women were leaning out of two windows. they see the long clan neck of a new young boy and call to him. he goes to where they are. inside is dark and warm. they give him lemonade in a mason jar. as he drinks, their eyes floated up to him through the bottom of the jar, through the slick sweet water. they give him back his manhood, which he takes aimlessly” (pp. 158-159). that these women gang raped a youth without the milk of human kindness goes to confirm what tyson calls “biological essentialism” (p. 306), most of which are “closeted”. the acts of fathers raping and impregnating their daughters seem common place. in ralph ellison’s invisible man, jim trueblood, rapes and impregnates his daughter mattie lou, and in alice walker’s color purple, celie’s step-father fonso also molests, rapes and impregnates her twice and physically abuses her. akin to freeman in angelou’s caged bird, and cholly in morrison’s the bluest eye, fonso uses celie as proxy since her mother is ill. and after the death of her mother fonso, seeks to extend his evil emotion to her younger sister nattie, but celie always surrenders herself in place of her sister. this racial stereotype is patronized and perpetuated by patriarchy. cholly like trueblood suffers from homophobia. cholly is sensitive to patriarchy’s stance on his queer relationship with his eleven-year-old daughter and therefore, he absconds. trueblood also flees for a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 101 published by scholink inc. while but comes back home realizing that both his wife and daughter are pregnant for him at the same time. unlike cholly’s wife who never reacted as she sees her almost lifeless daughter on the kitchen floor, kate, trueblood’s wife yells at him, she attempts to shot him with a gun, but she strikes him in the face with an ax, which is a more natural reaction to such a sordid deed than in cholly’s case who simply walks away unchallenged. also unlike the black community in morrison’s the bluest eye who remained mute or just reduced such repugnant act to a gossip, in ellison’s invisible man the black community scorns trueblood, though the white community applauds him. in maya angelou’s caged bird, vivian baxter and her sixteen-year-old son bailey were tangled in the “oedipal skein. neither could do without or do with the other…bailey was hopelessly in love with mother dear…” (p. 257). it is on the constrictions of conscience and society, morality and ethos (heteropatriarchy), that dictate a separation otherwise mother/son would be involved in incest. the holy bible says all forms of incest are abomination and are forbidden “none shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him to uncover their nakedness” (leviticus 18:6). furthermore, in the bluest eye elihue micah witcomb alias soaphead church, is a wide spread evil influence on the tender and innocent members of society. in his queerness, he prefers sexual intercourse with little chil dren than with adults. the author says: his sexuality is anything but lewd; his patronage of little girls smacked of innocence and was associated in his mind with cleanliness. he was what one might call a very “clean” old man.…and besides, the one thing that disgusted him more than entering and caressing a woman was caressing and being caressed by a man. in any case, his cravings although intense, never relished physical contact. he abhorred flesh on flesh. body odor, breath odor, overwhelmed him. the sight of dried matter in the corner of the eye, decayed or missing teeth, ear wax, blackheads, moles, blisters, skin crusts, all the natural excretions and protractions the body was capable of—disquieted him. his attention therefore, gradually settled on those humans whose bodies were least offensive—children (p. 166). soaphead’s permissive queerness is pathological and he should be castrated. his reprobate mind turns him to be sexually attracted to children for their state of purity. he exploits the innocence of these defenseless ones and to a large extent may maim them perpetually. lgbtq people are said to be sick and evil products from a sick and evil society or environment. though lois tyson believes that “lgbtq orientation is a normal response to particular environmental factors and therefore, lgbtq people should be accepted as normal” (tyson, p. 306), soaphead’s sexual character, his possession of the structural functional traits of sexual molestation and child sexual abuse are damaging to the future generation if he goes unchallenged. in particular, he prefers little girls to little boys because the boys www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 102 published by scholink inc. were insulting, scary, and stubborn. the girls were usually manageable and frequently seductive. these are future mothers who will replenish the world! still, in the bluest eye, mr henry molests young girls, even within their homes. he pinches young frieda on the breast while the parents were in the garden: “he touched me…here and there. frieda points to the tiny breasts that like two fallen acorns” (p. 99). the corrupting influences of this old man on the youth not only put sensual thought on the minds of these innocent ones but also corrupt even the language; claudia asks frieda “he showed his privates at you”? “he touched me”…“how did it feel”? the early awakening of carnal emotions in the heart and minds of the youth create negative effect on hands that will rub the cradle and by inference on society as a whole. child sexual abuse is a crime against humanity. it is a type of maltreatment, violation and exploitation that refers to the involvement of the child in sexual activity to provide sexual gratification, false affection or protection, or financial benefit. abuse of this vulnerable member of our society is pathetic. over three million children are sexually abused and some result in death, some are traumatized for life, some develop negative self-image, some are maimed; only a few go through therapy and prayers to live normal lives. every society have laid out laws against offenders, but the queer people still find a haven in this doleful sin and most often go pass the law, because the whole society has decided to call evil, good thus reversing societal values. the holy bible also places a curse on anyone who commits incest and death penalty is put on such a one. 2.1.9 homosocial one of the attributes of the lgbtq people common to the straight people alike is homosocial—bonding or woman-identified woman or what adrienne rich calls “a lesbian continuum” (tyson, p. 310). this type of coming together connotes nothing sexual between or among women; just one’s primary source of emotional sustenance and psychological support as in the occurrence of the three prostitutes in morrison’s the bluest eyes. the bonding among these prostitutes: china, poland, and miss maria, help pecola in her social and emotional experiences and trials as she carries her father’s pregnancy. in alice walker’s color purple, celie frees herself from her husband’s brutality as she reaches out to other women like her younger sister nettie and sofia. homosocial bonding is vital to the emotional growth of children and the emotional health of adults, regardless of their sexual orientations, however many individuals are apprehensive about some forms of same-sex bonding due to their own homophobia or for the fear of nymphomaniac response from others. though some feminists believe strongly that women-only-groups are necessary for the development of non-patriarchal ways of thinking and speaking, yet the fear of queer relationships among such associations persists. ironically some lgbtq people commit themselves to heterosexuality, though attitudes on heterosexuality greatly differ from culture to culture. in morrison’s beloved halle and sethe involve in heterosexuality in the cornfield and in their cabin and become parents of four children. paul d enjoys www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 103 published by scholink inc. heterosexual relationship with sethe until the coming of the coming of beloved the ghost. “he was accustomed to having sex with sethe just about every day, and to avoid the confusion beloved’s shining caused him he still made it his business to take her back upstairs in the morning, or lie down with her after supper” (p. 115). since sethe cannot pay the engraver for beloved’s name to be engraved on the grave stone she trades ten minutes of heterosexual relationship with the engraver for cash payment. sixo travels sixty miles to and fro every sunday to meet his thirty-mile woman. in morrison’s the bluest eye, geraldine also engages in heterosexual relationship with her husband. geraldine’s involvement in heterosexuality and zoophillia/bestiality is complicated and inexplicable psychological trauma. even the cat recognizes her love for her husband, and the cat also knows she does not love her son. shug in walker’s the color purple, engages and loves in heterosexual relationship, and she is also celie’s lesbian partner. reiner in galgut’s in a strange room also likes involves with prostitutes. he confesses “when i was in canada i started sleeping with whores” (p. 43). he is an unscrupulous seducer of women—casanova or man-whore, promiscuous, philanderer—he engages in many love affairs, especially with the frivolous or women with casual attitude. reiner participates in heterosexual relationship though with whores. when anna in galgut’s in a strange room has the opportunity to go on a holiday in india she shows her dissatisfaction with lesbian relationship. she takes to sleeping with any male who accepts her. eventually, she hooks up with the jean, a fellow tourist and becomes totally repulsive of her lesbian partner (p. 179). she prefers suicide rather than continue in that relationship. damon reporting anna’s unfaithfulness to her lesbian partner laments “anna had an affair over here…with a man. yes. she was determined to do it…and any man would do” (p. 183). anna prefers heterosexuality to lesbianism. anna’s family, who have never liked the idea of her being with a woman seized on this alternative future with a man and are pushing it delightedly. 3. conclusion from the above interrogation of these novels by both african and african american writers, we can conclude that heterosexual writers engage in queer writings. there is a universalizing view that there are some homosexual potential in all humans, since all writers write from their personal and social experiences. the idea of queerness is very fluid. and to some extent women senselessly involve themselves in queer relationships. for instance, in morrison’s the bluest eye, the case of geraldine’s involvement in bestiality, and cholly being gang raped in his youth by older women. anna’s lesbian partner in galut’s in a strange room, is ready to spend whatever amount of resources it takes to keep anna, whereas anna now prefers heterosexual relationship. the attitude of the women may go to confirm the discovery that female sexuality is more fluid than male sexuality. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 104 published by scholink inc. it is also very pitiable that older men who should be the custodians of the people’s culture sadly revere in psychology of a peadophile: rape, incest, molestation, and homosexuality. society should checkmate some of these atrocious levels of queerness in the likes of cholly in morrison’s the bluest eye who violently rapes and impregnates his eleven-year-old daughter pocola, and soaphead church, still in the same novel that shamelessly molests both fond boys and girls with strong preference for the girls for their tenderness. in so doing cholly and church are destroying innocent generations before they take root in their environments. blue, in duiker’s thirteen cents, like cholly is gang raped, not by women but by men. he sells out himself to men to make a living being an orphan and homeless; and he is patronized by wealthy and influential men like mr lebowitz an investment banker. on the part of the slaves, at sweet home, their queerness is circumstantial-predicated on the slavery situation; they regenerate as soon as they come in contact with human females. for example, halle, as soon as he marries sethe gives up on bestiality, sixo, as quickly as he finds the thirty-mile woman prefers the long trek to meet with the woman than bestiality and fucking trees, and paul d gives up bestiality; enjoys and loves heterosexual relationship with sethe after he breaks free from the chain gang and meets up with sethe. queerness is a generational destroyer of both moral and humanity. both men and women are given to reprobate minds but men are seen to be more prone to wide spread endangering habits of this queerness; being patriarchy, they go free of sanctions from law and society. all queer relationships can be said to be abnormal and unnatural and those involved most often are bisexuals or practice their different forms of queerness alongside heterosexuality. we agree with tyson on what he calls biological essentialism that is that a fix segment of the population is naturally lgbtq, just as the rest of the population is naturally heterosexual. we also agree with some theorists who believe that “all human beings have the potential for same-sex desire or the sexual activity that does not fit into heterosexual framework. accordingly, we acknowledge the view of social constructionism; that lgbtq sexuality and heterosexuality are products of social, not biological forces. from the foregoing queerness has become a subculture because our societies seem to be losing their mores. references angelou, m. (1991). i know why the caged bird sings. new york: bantam books. brent, e. t. (2012). sex crimes in criminal profiling (4th ed.). retrieved may 4, 2018, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/bestiality david, r. (2000). toni morrison explained: a reader’s road map to the novel. new york: random house. duiker, s. (2013). thirteen cents. cape town: kwela books. ellison, r. (1952). invisible man. new york: random house. galgut, d. (2010). in a strange room. canada: grafica punto. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 105 published by scholink inc. guidelines for medico-legal care for victims of sexual violence. (2018). world health organization. retrieved june 5, 2018, from https://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/resources/publications/en/guidelines_chap7.pdf moore, o. (1999). in b. joanne (ed.), leaving to live: when the bird breaks from the cage (pp. 49-68). maya angelou’s i know why the caged bird sings: a casebook. new york: oxford press. morrison, t. (1988). beloved. new york: penguin group. peterson, n. (ed.). (1997). toni morrison: critical and theoretical approaches. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. phytophillia. urban dictionary. (2018). retrieved april 5, 2018, from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=phytophilia sex. (2018). merriam-webster. retrieved april 5, 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sex sexual fluidity. (2018). retrieved april 5, 2018, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/standard-deviations/201605/sexuality-is-much-more-fluid-y ou-think sexual orientation and gender identity: general information. (2018). retrieved april 4, 2018, from https://youngwomenshealth.org/2018/10/26/what-is-sexuality-and-sexual-orientation/ susan, c. (1995). the grotesque in morrison’s beloved. in c. marc (ed.), the aesthetic of toni morrison—speaking the unspeakable. print. the bluest eyes. (1994). new york: plume books. tim, n. (2018, february 7). sex and gender: what is the difference? retrieved april 5, 2018, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php understanding gender. gender spectrum. (2018). retrieved april 4, 2018, from https://www.genderspectrum.org/quick-links/understanding-gender/ walker, a. (1983). the color purple. london: orion books ltd. zoophillia. (2018). wikipedia. retrieved april 5, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/zoophilia communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 108 original paper development and validation of the mobile dating app gratification scale: effects of sought gratifications on user behavior and outcomes jessica r. welch1* & melanie morgan1 1 brian lamb school of communication, purdue university, west lafayette, indiana, usa * jessica r. welch, brian lamb school of communication, purdue university, west lafayette, indiana, usa received: september 5, 2018 accepted: september 13, 2018 online published: september 20, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n2p108 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n2p108 abstract mobile dating apps were created to meet the needs of millennials, who tend to be more interested in casual relationships than serious dating. despite their popularity, research has found that dating apps are not being used for their intended purpose. two studies were conducted to develop and validate a scale for mobile dating app gratifications and to determine how individuals’ behavior varies based on their sought gratifications. results indicate that there are four primary mobile dating app gratifications (validation, entertainment, relationships, and hookups) and that they vary between genders. individuals who seek different gratifications also engage in different behaviors while using the app and achieve different relational outcomes. the study highlights implications for future research and additional use of the mobile dating app gratification scale. keywords uses and gratifications, mobile dating apps, online dating, scale development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 109 published by scholink inc. study one 1. introduction since the creation of the first dating website in 1994, the stigma surrounding online dating has decreased drastically (kauflin, 2011). now match.com claims 21,575,000 members and other online dating sites have cropped up to follow suit, including okcupid (which is responsible for 40,000 first dates every day) and eharmony (which is responsible for 600,000 marriages since its creation) (dutcher, 2014; eharmony.com, 2014; rudder, 2014). although online dating is continuing to increase in popularity among the older generation, some stigma still exists among emerging adults (age 18-24) who are looking for more casual and convenient relationships (baxter & cashmore, 2013; bleyer, 2014; dredge, 2014; stampler, 2014). proximity-based mobile dating applications were created to satisfy the dating needs of these always-on-the-go millennials. the most popular of these dating apps is “tinder”, which was created in august 2012 by sean rad and justin mateen (dredge, 2014). the app features gps capabilities which allow users to “match” with nearby individuals and includes a basic profile of 500 characters and up to six pictures (crook, 2015). tinder’s interface is modeled after a deck of cards and allows users to “swipe” on other individuals’ profiles (crook, 2015). a “right swipe” indicates interest while a “left swipe” indicates disinterest. when two users swipe right on each other they are notified that they have a “match” and can message each other on the app. after interacting on the app users may choose to move to a different communication medium or even meet face to face. there is evidence suggesting that tinder may serve a variety of uses for adopters (covarrubias, 2014; dredge, 2014; finkel, 2015). tinder’s intended purpose, according to the developers, is to expand social networks but many young people claim that is it a “hookup app” that facilitates casual sexual encounters (baxter & cashmore, 2013; covarrubias, 2014; dey, 2015; dredge, 2014; finkel, 2015). although those are the two most widely accepted purposes for using the app, very few individuals actually use it in those ways (covarrubias, 2014; dey, 2015; dredge, 2014). in fact, although tinder sees 850 million swipes and 15 million matches daily, most of those matches never meet face-to-face and, if they do, it is a one-time thing (lee, 2014; rea, 2015). although the 10 million individuals who use tinder daily log in an average of 11 times and spend approximately 1.25 hours on the app, the majority do not meet face to face (lee, 2015; rea, 2015). in fact, many individuals who originally downloaded tinder for its intended purpose now use it only for entertainment (rea, 2015). timmermans and de caluwé’s (2017) study of tinder use in belgium found that there are 13 motivations for using the app, many of which deviate from the uses mentioned by tinder’s founders. although timmermans and de caluwé’s (2017) scale may be helpful for individuals seeking extremely nuanced views of tinder motives, its lack of parsimony may negatively affect its ease of adoption in future studies. this study, therefore, aims to develop a scale with a more practical number of items that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 110 published by scholink inc. measures more fundamental dating application motives. many technologies find unintended purposes that become driving forces for their adoption (boyd, 2008; tosun, 2012). to better understand media use it is important to know not just how many people are using a certain medium, but also how and why they are using it. therefore, this study examines how and why individuals are using mobile dating apps, regardless of their intended purpose. 1.1 uses and gratifications theory one approach for examining why people adopt a communication medium is the uses and gratifications theory. this audience-centered approach claims that individuals have inherent needs that are satisfied with media and that certain media satisfy specific needs (miller, 2015; katz, blumler, & gurevitch, 1974a; katz, blumler, & gurevitch, 1974b). the uses and gratifications theory aims to identify the factors that create needs among individuals and explains how those needs affect individuals’ behavior. these behaviors then help to establish expectations about media exposure and engagement, which result in satisfaction of the need or, sometimes, other unintended consequences (haridakis, 2002; katz et al., 1974a; palmgreen, wenner, & rosengren, 1985; rubin, 2009; sundar & limperos, 2013). based on prior literature, this study included two individual difference variables within the uses and gratifications framework to determine how these factors may impact tinder users’ uses and gratifications. these individual difference variables were gender and self-perceived physical attractiveness. 1.1.1 gender historically, dating behaviors and norms have differed for males and females (bailey, 1988; freitas, 2013). one of the most significant differences is related to sexual behavior. previous research suggests that a double standard existed—and may still exist—regarding what is considered “acceptable” behavior for men and women (laumann, gagnon, michael, & michaels, 1994; martin & hummer, 1989). whereas men who engage in many casual sexual encounters are considered “studs”, women have been expected to limit their number of partners to avoid earning a bad reputation (bogle, 2008; harding & jencks, 2003; reiss, 1997). gender differences in behavior on dating websites have also been identified. although women make up the majority of participants on the most popular dating sites (68.6% on eharmony and 55% on match.com), men make 80% of the initial contacts (hartman, 2012; datingsitereviews.com, 2015). given differences identified in sexual behavior and related to behaviors on dating websites, we expect that gender may influence the uses and gratifications sought on tinder. 1.1.2 physical attractiveness the second variable thought to impact tinder uses and gratifications is self-perceived physical attractiveness. past dating behaviors, both on and offline, have varied based on an individual’s physical attractiveness (ahuvia & adelman, 1992; jagger, 2001; toma & hancock, 2010). past research www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 111 published by scholink inc. indicates that men place more importance on their partner’s physical attractiveness than do women (langlois et al., 2000). women are aware of the importance potential suitors place on their attractiveness and therefore have learned to draw attention to their physical attributes while searching for a mate. for example, more attractive women include more photos in their online dating profiles than their less attractive counterparts (toma & hancock, 2010). the researchers therefore believe that a tinder user’s perception of their own physical attractiveness will impact their behavior on the app. based on this review, the following research questions were developed to guide our data collection and analyses: rq1: what are the underlying gratifications of tinder use? rq2a: how are these underlying gratifications impacted by gender? rq2b: how are these underlying gratifications impacted by self-perceived physical attractiveness? uses and gratifications theory also claims that an individual’s behavior on (uses of) a medium will vary based on their sought gratifications (hampton, goulet, marlow, & rainie, 2012; tosun, 2012). therefore, this research examines how these variables affect individuals’ behavior on tinder: rq3: what factors (gender, physical attractiveness, and gratifications) are associated with tinder behaviors? while tinder’s founders claim that the app was designed to broaden users’ social networks and many people argue that it is a “hookup app”, it appears that individuals rarely succeed in using it for either purpose (lee, 2014). therefore, the researchers are interested in what behaviors lead to “success” on the app, in the form of face to face meetings and hookups. rq4: what factors, including tinder behaviors, are associated with relational outcomes (face to face meetings and hookups)? 2. method 2.1 participants and procedures the elicitation of key beliefs is an important step in the development of a scale. therefore, as the initial step in this study, three focus groups were conducted to explore individuals’ motivations for using tinder. all questions were open-ended and followed a semi-structured style. questions focused specifically on why participants originally downloaded tinder and how they currently use it. each focus group was audio recorded and thematically analyzed. the data provided the basis for all uses and gratifications-related items in the survey. the final survey consisted of 100 items examining individuals’ motivations for downloading and utilizing tinder and questions regarding specific behaviors on the app. after several questions related to basic demographic information, uses and gratifications items were included. these items were measured using five-point likert-type scales with strongly disagree and strongly agree as anchors. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 112 published by scholink inc. behavior items included both behaviors that tinder users engage in on the app itself and behaviors they may engage in as a result of the app (see table 2). the survey concluded with a single-item measure of self-perceived physical attractiveness. all study participants were recruited via a research participation system that serves a variety of courses from many schools across a large mid-western public university. to be eligible to participate, individuals had to be 18 or older, a college student, and have had a tinder profile at some point. a total of 425 respondents (45.4% male, 54.6% female) completed the survey. upon completion of the survey, participants were awarded course credit. 2.2 measures the item measuring self-perceived physical attractiveness was adapted from a study examining individuals’ evaluations of self and partner physical attractiveness (swami, furnham, georgiades, & pang, 2007). the original survey listed 22 items, including 17 individual body parts and five categories of overall attractiveness, which participants assessed on a scale of 55 (very unattractive) to 145 (very attractive). due to the nature of photos generally posted on tinder profiles, in the present study, the researcher chose to include only the item that related to overall physical attractiveness (m=109.2; sd=16.34). 3. result 3.1 gratifications a principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to investigate underlying components to create a set of reliable measures of sub-dimensions related to tinder gratifications. the initial solution included 19 items with eigenvalues greater than one that accounted for 60.42% of variance. after removing items with cross-loadings greater than .4 and primary loadings less than .6, a four-factor solution was identified that explained 71.6% of variance. results indicate that there are four primary tinder gratifications: validation, relationships (platonic and romantic), hookups (casual sexual encounters), and entertainment (see table 1). the first three gratifications had acceptable reliability. the entertainment loading items fell below normally accepted levels, possibly because that component contained only two items, but this variable was retained for subsequent analyses due to the potential meaningfulness of the construct and the exploratory nature of the project. 3.2 impact of gender and attractiveness on gratifications rq2a and rq2b asked what effects gender and physical attractiveness have on a tinder user’s motivations for using the app. hierarchical regressions were conducted for each of the four gratifications with gender controlled in block one and self-perceived physical attractiveness controlled in block two (see table 2). block 1 was significant in all four analyses, indicating that gender has a significant impact on individuals’ tinder gratifications. specifically, female users tend to use the app www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 113 published by scholink inc. for validation and entertainment purposes while males use tinder for relationships and hookups. self-perceived physical attractiveness did not have any statistically significant effects, so block 2 was insignificant in all analyses. 3.3 impacts on specific behaviors to answer rq3, hierarchical regressions were conducted for four on-tinder behaviors (see table 2). gender was controlled in block 1, self-perceived attractiveness was controlled in block 2, and block 3 controlled for the four gratifications (validation, relationships, hookups, entertainment). the behaviors that were analyzed were “frequency of use” (how often individuals use tinder), “messaging matches first” (individuals’ tendency to initiate contact with matches), “number of photos” (how many photos individuals include in their tinder profile, and “biography inclusion” (whether individuals include a biography in their profile). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 114 published by scholink inc. table 1. gratification scale items for study 1 and 2 study one two items comp. 1 comp. 2 comp. 3 comp. 4 m sd alpha m sd alpha validation 3.05 .79 .83 2.93 .79 .86 da make me feel good about myself. .82 2.94 .98 da make me feel attractive. .82 3.06 .96 using da boosts my ego. .79 2.97 1.00 da make me feel validated. .75 2.76 .94 relationships 2.84 .82 .75 3.03 .85 .76 da are a great way to meet potential significant others. .83 2.85 1.05 da are a great way to meet new people. .79 3.54 .99 i would start a serious relationship with someone i met on a da. .75 2.68 1.07 hookups 2.42 1.08 .82 2.43 1.06 .90 i downloaded a da because i wanted to find casual sexual partners. .92 2.30 1.15 i would have a .88 2.57 1.28 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 115 published by scholink inc. casual sexual relationship with someone i met on a da. i use da to look for casual sexual partners. + 2.21 1.17 da are a great place for me to find hookup partners. + 2.65 1.23 entertainment 3.80 .70 .59 3.13 1.02 .89 i use da when i’m bored. .83 3.40 1.23 da are a good form of entertainment. x .80 x x da keep me occupied during lulls in conversation or activity. + 2.86 1.11 i use da when i don’t have anything else to do. + 3.15 1.17 i use da when there’s nothing else going on. + 3.09 1.17 + represents an item that was added in study 2 x represents an item that was removed from the model to improve fit in study 2 * da= dating app; in study 1, items included “tinder” rather than “dating app”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 116 published by scholink inc. of the four on-tinder behaviors analyzed, only frequency of use had no significant predictors. this indicates that men and women, varying in attractiveness, do not differ in how often they use tinder regardless of their motivations for using the app. on the other hand, blocks 1 and 3 were highly significant for messaging matches first, indicating that men and individuals seeking relationships and hookups are more likely to initiate contact with tinder matches. self-perceived physical attractiveness was not a significant predictor for messaging matches first. blocks 2 and 3 were significant for number of photos, which demonstrates that tinder users with higher self-perceived physical attractiveness and those seeking validation and entertainment tend to include more photos in their profile. finally, only block 3 had significant effects for biography inclusion. validation and entertainment were both significant predictors for this variable, indicating that individuals seeking validation and entertainment are more likely to include a biography in their profile. 3.4 impacts on relational outcomes to answer rq4, hierarchical regressions were conducted for two tinder-related outcomes (see table 2). gender was controlled in block 1, self-perceived physical attractiveness was controlled in block 2, the four gratifications were controlled in block 3, and the four on-tinder behaviors were controlled in block 4 (frequency of use, messaging matches first, number of photos, and biography inclusion). the first tinder-related outcome examined was participants’ engagement in face-to-face meetings with tinder matches. this dichotomous variable measured whether individuals had met face-to-face with users that they matched with on tinder. only block 3 was a significant predictor, indicating that individuals using tinder to find relationships are more likely to engage in face-to-face meetings than users seeking other gratifications. the other relational outcome was hookups, which examined whether a tinder user had had a casual sexual encounter with an individual they met on the app. again, only block 3 was a significant predictor and indicated that individuals seeking relationships or hookups are more likely to hook up with tinder matches. 4. discussion 4.1 gratification scale a significant contribution of study one was the development of a preliminary scale for the gratifications of tinder use. past research (timmermans & de caluwé, 2017) resulted in a scale that lacked parsimony, but this scale includes only the fundamental tinder gratifications: validation, relationships, hookups, and entertainment. additionally, these gratifications help to explain tinder behavior above and beyond explanations based on gender and self-perceived physical attractiveness. all gratification factors were significant predictors of at least one tinder behavior, and they were typically the strongest predictors in the full models, although the entertainment factor evidenced low internal consistency. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 117 published by scholink inc. the only tinder behavior specifically predicted by gender was the tendency to message matches first, indicating that men are typically the pursuers on tinder. this finding reflects dating trends that began back in the early 1920’s with the “dating era” where men were expected to initiate romantic relationships (bogle, 2008). the fact that gender was not a significant predictor of the number of hookups in which a user has engaged may indicate that women’s engagement in casual sexual encounters is becoming less stigmatized. on-tinder behaviors did not significantly predict any relational outcomes, which indicates that individuals’ motivations for using tinder play a more important role than on-app behaviors for achieving relational goals. 4.2 study limitations one limitation of this study was that the entertainment factor was measured with only two items, resulting in low internal consistency. different or additional items are needed to improve the reliability of that factor. this study also examined only the uses and gratifications of one dating app. additional research is needed to validate the gratification scale and determine whether it is generalizable to other mobile dating apps. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 118 published by scholink inc. table 2. hierarchical regressions for dating app gratifications and behaviors valid. relation. hookups entertain. freq. of use message first n. of photos bio. total meetings total hookups block 1 (r² change) .03** .02* .28*** .03*** .00 .32*** .01 .00 .00 .00 gender .18** -.13* -.52*** .18*** .03 -.57*** .09 -.06 .02 .00 block 2 (r² change) .01 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .03** .00 .00 .01 phys. attract. .09 -.06 .02 .03 -.01 -.01 .18** .02 .00 .08 block 3 (r² change) .01 .07*** .12*** .07*** .10*** .11*** validation .00 -.03 .20** .18** -.04 -.10 relationships .09 .18*** .10 .00 .27*** .19** hookups -.05 .18** .08 .03 .13 .29** entertainment .02 -.02 .15** .13* -.05 .02 block 4 (r² change) .02 .02 frequency of use .09 .10 message first .06 -.02 number of photos .10 .10 include bio .01 .01 total adj. r² .04** .02* .27*** .03*** -.02 .38*** .14*** .05*** .08*** .09 male=1, female=2; *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 119 published by scholink inc. study two 1. introduction a second study was designed to address the limitations from study one, as well as to strengthen and validate the gratification scale and expand it to include all mobile dating applications. 2. method 2.1 measures because one limitation of study one was the low reliability evidenced by the entertainment factor, additional gratification items were included in study two’s survey with the goal of strengthening the mobile dating app gratification scale. these new items were also measured using five-point likert-type scales with strongly disagree and strongly agree as anchors. the survey was uploaded to a research participation system serving a variety of courses from many schools across a large, public mid-western university. to be eligible to participate, individuals had to be 18 or older, a college student, and have had a profile on a dating app at some point. upon completion of the survey, participants were awarded course credit. a total of 985 participants, ages 18-24 (61.3% female) completed the survey. 3. result to validate study one’s scale, responses from study two were randomly divided and an exploratory factor analysis was conducted on one half. the efa resulted in 17 items, divided into the same factors found in study one (validation, relationships, hookups, entertainment), which explained 71.49% of variance. a confirmatory factor analysis was then conducted on the second half of the data to validate results. during the cfa two additional gratification items were removed to improve the fit of the model, resulting in a 15 item and four-factor solution. available fit indices demonstrated well to acceptable fit (rmsea 90% confidence interval =.06; cfi=.96; tli=.95; srmr=.06). see table 1 for all scale items and figure 1 for cfa results. 4. discussion the inclusion of additional items in study two enhanced the mobile dating app gratification scale and improved reliability for the entertainment factor. another important contribution is that study two measured gratifications for all dating apps, allowing results to be generalized to include mobile dating apps other than tinder. 4.1 limitations and future research like study one, study two included only college students from a large, mid-western university. a more diverse sample may have different motivations for using mobile dating apps and different on-app www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 120 published by scholink inc. behaviors. future research should include a more diverse sample to see how results differ. although this study expanded study one to include all mobile dating apps in addition to tinder, homosexual-specific dating apps were likely underrepresented because 94.3% of respondents identified as heterosexual. future research is required to determine if sought gratifications and on-app behaviors differ based on sexual orientation. 4.2 final conclusions despite these limitations, this project revealed important results and conclusions. most significantly, this is the first scale measuring the gratifications of all mobile dating apps. this scale could also be used to explore other social networking tools that overlap in functionality or potential purpose. finally, this research determined how sought gratifications affect individuals’ behavior while using mobile dating apps and their “success” on the app in the form of relational outcomes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 121 published by scholink inc. figure 1. final model resulting from the confirmatory factor analysis www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 122 published by scholink inc. references ahuvia, a. c., & adelman, m. b. 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(2012). motives for facebook use and expressing “true self” on the internet. computers in human behavior, 28, 1510-1517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.03.018 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 252 original paper from “a tapestry of a legendary land” to the creation of cultural heritage theater beibei huang 1* 1 henan provincial institute of culture and arts, zhengzhou, 450000, henan, china * email: 412690132@qq.com received: october 14, 2024 accepted: november 7, 2024 online published: november 21, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p252 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p252 abstract the dance-poetry drama a tapestry of a legendary land takes the renowned song dynasty painting a panorama of rivers and mountains as its central creative element. by employing dance as an artistic form, it vividly showcases the unique connotations and cultural values inherent in cultural relics, achieving a deep integration of static artifacts with dynamic art. this paper focuses on a tapestry of a legendary land to systematically analyze the transformation pathways of cultural relic elements in theatrical creation, exploring how dance can express their imagery, historical significance, narrative, and vitality. the findings demonstrate that this dance work brings cultural relics to life through figurative transformation, poetic contextualization, and a cross-temporal narrative approach. this not only enhances its cultural dissemination and impact but also provides innovative insights into the creation of cultural heritage theater. by thoroughly interpreting a tapestry of a legendary land, the paper aims to offer new perspectives for contemporary dance creation and the dissemination of cultural heritage, facilitating the revitalization and development of traditional culture on the modern stage. keywords cultural heritage theatre, dance-poetry drama, a tapestry of a legendary land, a panorama of rivers and mountains 1. introduction in recent years, with the implementation of china’s strategy to become a culturally strong nation, there has been increasing emphasis on the innovative transformation and dissemination of traditional culture. cultural relics, as important vestiges of human history and culture, embody deep historical and cultural values. however, a critical challenge lies in how to “bring these static relics to life”, allowing them to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 253 published by scholink inc. be integrated into the contemporary cultural context and serve as vital conduits for cultural transmission. president xi jinping has repeatedly underscored the importance of revitalizing cultural relics, a concept that has sparked widespread attention and practice within the field of artistic creation. against this backdrop, the dance-poetry drama a tapestry of a legendary land emerged, centered on the famous song dynasty painting a panorama of rivers and mountains by young artist wang ximeng. the production uses the medium of stage art to vividly depict the natural scenery and cultural connotations embodied in this ancient artwork, garnering extensive acclaim and attention. a tapestry of a legendary land is not merely an artistic reproduction of a panorama of rivers and mountains but a cross-temporal cultural dialogue. through dance movements, body language, stage design, and situational interpretation, the drama successfully transforms the static imagery of the artifact into a dynamic form with contemporary resonance and artistic tension. characters such as the scroll unroller, wang ximeng, and the silk weaver vividly portray the rich historical culture and humanistic sentiments behind the painting. as a groundbreaking dance work, a tapestry of a legendary land has not only innovated artistic expression but also led the way in integrating cultural relics with contemporary art, providing a powerful model for the creative transformation and dissemination of traditional culture. this study, focusing on the fusion of cultural relics and dance, takes a tapestry of a legendary land as a case study to explore the pathways of transforming relic elements into stage creations and analyze how dance breathes new life into the cultural connotations of these relics, bridging history and the present. through an in-depth analysis of the creative background of a tapestry of a legendary land, the refinement and transformation of relic elements, and the artistic expression and cultural significance of the work on stage, this paper seeks to provide new pathways for contemporary dance creation while offering practical insights for revitalizing cultural relics (sanskar et al., 2022). 2. analysis of cultural relic elements in cultural heritage theater creation the creation of cultural heritage theater involves merging historical artifacts with stage art, using innovative artistic methods to bring material cultural heritage to life on the modern stage, thereby achieving the “revitalization” of traditional culture. in the dance-poetry drama a tapestry of a legendary land, the song dynasty masterpiece a panorama of rivers and mountains serves as the primary creative element. the production transforms the essence of this ancient painting into a dynamic stage performance, imbuing it with new vitality. this paper will provide a detailed analysis of the primary cultural relic elements, illustrating their unique expressions and cultural significance in theatrical creation (li, 2022). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 254 published by scholink inc. 2.1 analysis of primary cultural relic elements a panorama of rivers and mountains is a masterpiece in the history of chinese landscape painting, created by young song dynasty artist wang ximeng and currently housed in the palace museum. this long scroll painting, characterized by its vivid blue-and-green landscape, depicts undulating mountains, winding rivers, and vast landscapes, embodying the song people’s idealized vision of nature and poetic aspirations. the painting not only showcases exquisite natural scenes but also reflects the artist’s personal emotions and the cultural characteristics of the era, making it a comprehensive representation of chinese aesthetics, cultural spirit, and artistic skill. in a tapestry of a legendary land, this painting is central to the creative process, with its essence translated into artistic dance forms, transforming a static artwork into a vibrant cultural scene on stage. in the drama, a panorama of rivers and mountains is not merely a visual element but serves as the soul of the entire production. the stage design emphasizes the blue-and-green motif by extracting and constructing spatial imagery, turning this unique artistic symbol into a recurring visual theme throughout the performance. the vibrant green mountains are not merely a visual depiction but also symbolize the ancient chinese pursuit of harmony with nature and the integration of human and natural worlds. through dance expressions, this cultural symbol is given new interpretations, resonating with audiences both visually and emotionally. a tapestry of a legendary land also uses character portrayal to reveal the creative story and cultural transmission behind a panorama of rivers and mountains. the historical figure wang ximeng appears as a central character, depicted as a young and talented artist deeply committed to his craft. through precise dance movements, expressions, and scene changes, the drama portrays wang ximeng’s creative journey and emotional investment, making him a vivid and relatable figure. the scroll unroller, representing modern cultural preservationists, serves as a bridge between ancient and contemporary times. his fascination with the artistic beauty of a panorama of rivers and mountains symbolizes modern reverence for historical culture and a commitment to its transmission. through his perspective, the stage connects past and present, allowing audiences to experience a cross-temporal cultural dialogue. the stage design of the drama, integrating visual, auditory, and physical language, transforms a panorama of rivers and mountains from a flat, static scroll into a three-dimensional, dynamic representation. the dancers’ movements convey both the tranquility and harmony of the depicted landscapes and the emotions and spiritual journeys of historical figures. for example, the choreographers designed scenes such as “unrolling the scroll”, “carving stamps”, “singing silk”, “seeking stones”, and “practicing brushwork”, showcasing the meticulous artistry and cultural context of the painting’s creation process. the depiction of the silk weaver through dance symbolizes the craftsmanship and transmission of traditional chinese labor, with this character drawing inspiration from another southern song painting, silkworm weaving illustration, further enriching the connection with the drama’s theme. overall, a tapestry of a legendary land successfully brings the cultural relic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 255 published by scholink inc. a panorama of rivers and mountains from the museum space into the cultural context of the modern stage. through dance, it vividly recreates the painting’s landscapes and cultural sentiments, enabling audiences to appreciate the spiritual and aesthetic pursuits of song dynasty culture through artistic performances. this innovative transformation offers a new pathway for integrating cultural relics with contemporary art and underscores the immense potential of cultural heritage theater creation. by presenting relic elements on stage, the drama achieves not only artistic breakthroughs but also embodies cultural confidence and national spirit (saman, pizzi, & hajihassani, 2022). 2.2 analysis of common features of cultural relic elements in the process of transforming cultural relic elements for theater, several common features often emerge, forming the foundation for bringing these elements to life on stage. in the dance-poetry drama a tapestry of a legendary land, these elements—imagery, historical significance, narrative depth, and vitality—are vividly showcased, transforming traditional relics from static cultural artifacts into dynamic artistic expressions. first, the imagery of relic elements is manifest in their visual presentation and integration with dance movements. by centering on a panorama of rivers and mountains, the drama brings the depicted landscapes and figures to life on stage through artistic performance. the blue-green landscape imagery is more than a visual representation; through the dancers’ movements, costumes, and scenic arrangement, it becomes a fusion of form and meaning, allowing audiences to not only see but also feel the painting’s essence and spirit through artistic expression. secondly, the historical significance of cultural relics is a crucial feature. as a representative painting from the song dynasty, a panorama of rivers and mountains reflects not only artistic excellence but also the unique cultural context and social aesthetics of its era. through stage representation, the drama magnifies these historical traits, depicting the painting’s cultural atmosphere and historical background. the scroll unroller, as a character bridging past and present, introduces audiences to the creative process from a modern perspective, building a cross-temporal cultural bridge that deepens the understanding of historical depth and cultural heritage. furthermore, the narrative depth of cultural relics is another significant dimension of theatrical creation. a tapestry of a legendary land uses storytelling to portray wang ximeng’s creative journey and emotional struggles, transforming the painting from a static cultural relic into a vivid, emotionally resonant artwork. through the performers’ acting and stage narrative, the audience gains insight into the craftsmanship and historical narratives embedded within the painting. this narrative depth not only enriches the drama’s artistic layers but also brings cultural relics closer to the audience, shifting their perception from distant artifacts to personal experiences. finally, the vitality of cultural relics is fully realized in a tapestry of a legendary land. through the performance, a panorama of rivers and mountains transcends its static state, becoming a vibrant cultural symbol. by crafting the blue-green landscape imagery and shaping character interactions, the drama imbues the relic with new contemporary energy and cultural significance. the interactions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 256 published by scholink inc. between the scroll unroller and wang ximeng symbolize the continuity and rejuvenation of culture, emphasizing that relics belong not only to the past but also to the present and future. the audience experiences the living pulse of cultural relics on stage, fostering a deep emotional resonance and ensuring that traditional culture remains dynamic and relevant in modern times (liu et al., 2023). 3. transformation methods of cultural relic elements in a tapestry of a legendary land in the dance-poetry drama a tapestry of a legendary land, various artistic approaches are employed to transform cultural relic elements from static to dynamic, vividly expressing their cultural connotations through the language of the stage. by employing figurative transformation, contextualization, and emotional integration, this drama successfully reinterprets traditional culture into a compelling modern artistic form. 3.1 figurative transformation figurative transformation is one of the most direct and essential methods of transformation employed in a tapestry of a legendary land. through stage performances, static scenes from a panorama of rivers and mountains are transformed into vivid visual imagery, allowing the audience to “step into” the painting and experience the cultural heritage and its timeless legacy. specifically, figurative transformation is expressed through character portrayal, dance movements, and stage visual effects. first, the portrayal of the central character, wang ximeng, exemplifies figurative transformation in a tapestry of a legendary land. through the dancer’s movements, expressions, and costumes, wang ximeng—a talented and diligent young painter—is vividly recreated. his character on stage not only embodies the process of creating the painting but also serves as a symbol of dialogue between traditional art and contemporary culture. wang ximeng’s stage presence, expressed through precise gestures and subtle expressions, showcases his dedication and passion during the creation of a panorama of rivers and mountains. this meticulous portrayal allows the audience to “see” the craftsmanship and effort behind the artwork, deepening their appreciation of cultural heritage. secondly, figurative transformation is also reflected in the design of the scroll unroller character. as a symbol of modern cultural preservationists, the scroll unroller bridges the past and present, serving both as a guardian and a transmitter of cultural heritage. through the perspective of the scroll unroller, the audience is guided through the creation process of a panorama of rivers and mountains, experiencing scenes such as “unrolling the scroll”, “carving stamps”, “singing silk”, “seeking stones”, “practicing brushwork”, and “tempering ink.” this character design links the static representation of cultural relics to the emotional experience of modern audiences, creating a cultural dialogue that transcends time. on stage, the dance drama brings the blue-and-green mountain imagery in a panorama of rivers and mountains to life through body movements and coordinated formations. dancers use their bodies to simulate the shapes of mountains and rivers, presenting the depth and beauty of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 257 published by scholink inc. painting’s landscapes. for example, in the “blue and green” scene, dancers’ movements and formations evoke undulating mountains and mist-covered peaks, immersing the audience in the breathtaking scenery of the rivers and mountains. the dancers’ actions are not merely dance expressions but three-dimensional representations of the painting’s imagery, bringing static visuals to life on stage. the creative use of stage visual effects is another aspect of figurative transformation. stage design incorporates elements such as colors, lighting, and props to create a rich “blue-and-green” atmosphere, reflecting the colors and artistic essence of the painting. for example, the blue-and-green tones in the dance drama become a recurring visual motif throughout the performance, symbolizing the vitality of nature and the continuity of cultural heritage. every aspect of stage design aims to bring the painting’s essence and cultural meaning to life, allowing the audience to deeply appreciate the artistic charm and cultural richness of a panorama of rivers and mountains. in summary, figurative transformation is the most fundamental and essential step in transforming cultural relics in a tapestry of a legendary land. through character portrayal, body movement re-enactment, and stage visual presentation, the drama transforms static artworks into dynamic artistic expressions, imbuing them with new vitality and cultural significance. this figurative presentation not only enhances the audience’s visual experience but also offers a rich form of expression and innovative approach for cultural heritage theater creation (liu et al., 2021). 3.2 poetic contextualization poetic contextualization is a key method in a tapestry of a legendary land for transforming cultural relics, creating a specific atmosphere and emotional realm that elevates the cultural meaning and aesthetic value of a panorama of rivers and mountains to the core of artistic expression. this contextualization not only imbues the stage with visual and emotional appeal but also blends classical cultural essence with modern artistic expression, offering the audience a profound experience and resonance with historical culture. in the dance drama, poetic contextualization is first seen in the emphasis on the “blue and green” color motif (jordi, hueto, & subirana, 2020). the blue-and-green landscape is a defining feature of a panorama of rivers and mountains, representing the ancient understanding of nature’s harmony. through a series of dance scenes, the blue-green tones are used as a central visual element throughout the performance, showcasing the lively yet tranquil beauty of mountains and rivers. by coordinating body movements with stage settings, the dancers transform the imagery of mountains, rivers, and greenery into vibrant dance language, immersing the audience in the serene and majestic landscape of ancient china. this use of imagery transcends a mere visual depiction of colors, offering a delicate interpretation of cultural meaning and a profound emotional connection. moreover, poetic contextualization is realized through immersive stage design and performance techniques that integrate natural scenery with human sentiments. scenes such as “unrolling the scroll”, “carving stamps”, “singing silk”, and “seeking stones” not only highlight the creative process but www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 258 published by scholink inc. also reflect the spirit of ancient craftsmanship and cultural pursuit. in these scenes, every movement of the dancers is synchronized with the music and stage setting, creating an atmosphere of dialogue between nature, culture, and history. for instance, the “singing silk” scene portrays the intricate process of silk-making, using refined movements to convey respect for cultural heritage and history. through such immersive storytelling, the dance drama not only recreates ancient craftsmanship but also allows the audience to emotionally connect with the relics and experience the depth of historical culture. the drama also deepens poetic contextualization through the use of stage space and transitions. circular rotating stages and curtain projections create a multi-dimensional space for the performance of a tapestry of a legendary land. each stage transition further interprets the blue-and-green landscape imagery. the dancers’ movements on the rotating stage depict the undulating mountains and flowing rivers, bringing the spatial layers of the painting to life on stage. this use of space transcends the two-dimensional constraints of the artwork, transforming the stage into a touchable cultural realm. poetic contextualization is also evident in emotional expression. in a tapestry of a legendary land, dancers use intricate body language, varied poses, and expressions to convey reverence and love for nature, culture, and history. the “blue and green dance” sequence, characterized by graceful, solemn, and dynamic movements, embodies the serenity and strength of blue-and-green landscapes (ravi et al., 2022). every gaze and gesture from the dancers resonates with the cultural essence, creating a heartfelt tribute to historical culture. this deep emotional resonance transcends surface-level representation, connecting with the audience’s inner emotions. overall, poetic contextualization is a key technique in a tapestry of a legendary land for deeply integrating cultural relics with stage art. by blending color symbolism, immersive storytelling, spatial transformation, and emotional expression, the drama breathes new artistic life into a panorama of rivers and mountains, serving as a bridge between history and modernity and between culture and audiences. this approach offers valuable inspiration and innovation for cultural heritage theater, revitalizing traditional culture on the modern stage (francesca et al., 2021). 4. challenges and advantages of cultural heritage theater creation cultural heritage theater creation is a unique form of expression that blends historical artifacts with stage art, bringing the cultural significance and historical value of relics into the modern audience’s view by imbuing them with new vitality. however, this form of creation also faces several challenges in practice. first, a key issue for creators is how to achieve artistic innovation while remaining faithful to historical authenticity. cultural relics are static cultural artifacts, bearing specific historical contexts and cultural meanings that cannot be altered. transforming them into stage performances requires preserving their historical value while ensuring they resonate emotionally and artistically with audiences. for example, in the dance-poetry drama a tapestry of a legendary land, the creators www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 259 published by scholink inc. needed to transform the static painting a panorama of rivers and mountains into a dynamic stage performance through the dancers’ body language and stage design, integrating the imagery of blue-green landscapes and historical culture into modern artistic expression. this process demands a delicate balance between form and content, avoiding either detachment from historical context or excessive rigidity that fails to engage the audience. another challenge in cultural heritage theater creation lies in the integration of technology and artistic expression. modern stage art relies on technologies such as lighting, sound effects, and projection to create ambiance and convey artistic intention. creators must thoughtfully integrate these technologies with cultural elements, ensuring they enhance rather than overshadow the artifacts’ cultural essence. over-reliance on technology may diminish the cultural significance of the relics, while insufficient use of technology can limit their expressive potential. in a tapestry of a legendary land, the creative team skillfully used rotating stages, projections, and other techniques to convey the spatial and visual aesthetics of a panorama of rivers and mountains, giving its static imagery dynamic extensions on stage. this blend of technology and artistry demands creators possess keen artistic insight and mastery of technical expertise to achieve a seamless fusion of relics and stage art. despite these challenges, cultural heritage theater creation offers significant advantages. its greatest strength lies in its ability to present traditional culture in a more captivating and impactful manner, bridging the gap between history and the present. by transforming relics into stage performances, audiences can appreciate the beauty of cultural relics visually and sensorially while experiencing their profound historical and humanistic value through emotional resonance and cultural recognition. in a tapestry of a legendary land, dance and stage performances incorporate a panorama of rivers and mountains into a modern cultural context, sparking audiences’ interest and empathy for traditional culture. this innovative form of expression frees relics from static museum displays, making them “come alive” in the audience’s perception and memory. moreover, cultural heritage theater creation drives cultural innovation by merging relics with modern artistic forms. this approach allows creators not only to preserve traditional culture but also to enrich contemporary cultural expressions through innovative interpretations. for example, a tapestry of a legendary land uses modern dance language to reinterpret a traditional painting, enabling audiences to appreciate the essence of ancient art and experience the unique charm of modern artistry. such creative endeavors broaden the channels for cultural dissemination and inspire new artistic directions. in conclusion, cultural heritage theater creation seeks a balance between preserving historical cultural connotations and meeting the aesthetic demands of modern audiences. while it faces challenges, it also brims with opportunities and creativity. through its unique forms of expression and cultural depth, it paves new paths for the integration of relics and modern art, becoming an important medium for promoting innovative development of traditional culture. as technology and artistic methods continue to evolve, cultural heritage theater creation will play an increasingly vital role in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 260 published by scholink inc. cultural transmission and artistic innovation, bringing audiences more profound and enriching cultural experiences (enzo, valbusa, & buscema, 2021). 5. future prospects for cultural heritage theater creation cultural heritage theater creation, as a unique form of combining historical culture with modern art, demonstrates strong cultural appeal and communicative power. in the future, as society’s demand for the transmission and innovation of traditional culture grows, the prospects for cultural heritage theater creation will become even broader. first, the rapid advancement of technology offers creators more means and possibilities for expression. the application of technologies such as virtual reality (vr), augmented reality (ar), and artificial intelligence (ai) can help recreate historical scenes and cultural imagery more vividly, allowing audiences to immerse themselves in the cultural stories and historical emotions embodied by relics. by blending technology and art, cultural heritage theater creation will become more multidimensional and immersive, broadening the audience’s perception and emotional resonance. at the same time, the future development of cultural heritage theater must emphasize exploring diverse forms of expression. each cultural relic carries unique cultural and historical contexts, requiring adaptable and flexible modes of expression. a tapestry of a legendary land, for instance, combines dance, music, stage design, and other artistic forms to showcase the artistic essence and cultural connotations of a panorama of rivers and mountains. this multidimensional approach enhances the work’s cultural appeal, enabling audiences to appreciate and understand the historical value and contemporary significance of relics from multiple perspectives. in the future, more diverse artistic forms—such as theater, film, and cross-disciplinary performances—can be integrated with cultural relics to further enrich their artistic presentation and amplify their cultural impact. cultural heritage theater creation must also focus on fostering deeper interaction and cultural resonance with audiences. modern audiences increasingly seek not just visual enjoyment but emotional connection and cultural identity. cultural heritage theater should enhance the emotional bond between audiences and relics through more interactive and participatory expressions. for example, audience-participatory performances and interactive exhibitions can deepen their understanding and appreciation of the cultural meanings of relics, fostering deeper cultural transmission and resonance. such engagement and interactivity will help bring cultural heritage from the past into contemporary reality, leaving an indelible impression on audiences. additionally, the future of cultural heritage theater creation requires greater international collaboration and exchange, telling chinese stories and promoting the country’s rich cultural heritage worldwide. collaborating with international artistic groups and introducing diverse cultural perspectives can showcase the depth of relics’ cultural significance while fostering cross-cultural exchange and understanding. in a globalized cultural context, cultural heritage theater serves not only as a window for presenting traditional culture but also as a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 261 published by scholink inc. platform for enhancing cultural understanding and exchange. through continuous innovation and development, it is poised to connect cultures and exhibit cultural confidence, bringing forth unique artistic charm with an eastern flair. in conclusion, the future of cultural heritage theater creation is full of opportunities and challenges. by integrating technology and art, exploring diverse forms of expression, fostering deep audience engagement, and expanding international cultural exchange, cultural heritage theater will continue to thrive, offering new possibilities for the transmission and innovation of traditional culture. it is not only a modern expression of cultural heritage but also an artistic bridge linking history and the future, promoting the transmission and development of china’s rich cultural heritage in the new era (zhang et al., 2021). 6. conclusion cultural heritage theater creation, with its unique artistic expressions, transforms static historical relics into vibrant stage art, offering new paths for the transmission and modern expression of traditional culture. taking the dance-poetry drama a tapestry of a legendary land as an example, the creators achieved emotional resonance and cultural communication with modern audiences through figurative transformation and poetic contextualization of a panorama of rivers and mountains, revitalizing the ancient masterpiece on stage. through meticulous dance performances and stage presentations, the production not only faithfully reproduces the painting’s aesthetic atmosphere but also profoundly interprets the spirit of cultural transmission and innovation. although cultural heritage theater creation faces challenges such as balancing history with modernity and achieving artistic innovation while remaining faithful to cultural heritage, it demonstrates unique communicative and cultural appeal through the integration of technology and art, diverse forms of expression, and enhanced audience interaction. as a platform for showcasing traditional culture, it also promotes cultural exchange and strengthens cultural confidence. in the future, ongoing technological innovation and artistic exploration will continue to open new avenues for cultural heritage preservation and dissemination, ensuring that traditional culture shines even more brightly on the stage of the new era, making greater contributions to the preservation and development of china’s cultural heritage. references enzo, g., valbusa, g., & buscema, m. (2021). detection of an autism eeg signature from only two eeg channels through features extraction and advanced machine learning analysis. clinical eeg and neuroscience, 52.5, 330-337. francesca, a. et al. (2021). the automatic recognition of ceramics from only one photo: the archaide app. journal of archaeological science: reports, 36, 102788. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 262 published by scholink inc. jordi, l., hueto, f., & subirana, b. (2020). covid-19 artificial intelligence diagnosis using only cough recordings. ieee open journal of engineering in medicine and biology, 1, 275-281. li, c. c. et al. (2022). nonenzymatic autonomous assembly of cross-linked network structures from only two palindromic dna components for intracellular fluorescence imaging of mirnas. acs sensors, 7.2, 601-611. liu, c. k. et al. (2023). biological glue from only lipoic acid for scarless wound healing by anti-inflammation and tgf-β regulation. chemistry of materials, 35.6, 2588-2599. liu, j. j. et al. (2021). reliability of ai-generated magnetograms from only euv images. nature astronomy, 5.2, 108-110. saman, g., pizzi, a., & hajihassani, r. (2022). a study of concept to prepare totally biosourced wood adhesives from only soy protein and tannin. polymers, 14.6, 1150. sankar, p. r. et al. (2022). a novel triboelectric nanogenerator based on only food packaging aluminium foils. materials letters, 310, 131474. sanskar, h. et al. (2022). a novel approach for detection of covid-19 and pneumonia using only binary classification from chest ct-scans. neuroscience informatics, 2.4, 100069. zhang, t. et al. (2021). retracted article: selective inheritance of target genes from only one parent of sexually reproduced f1 progeny in arabidopsis. nature communications, 12.1, 3854. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper capitalism, colonialism, morality renovation in john keats’s isabella or the pot of basil zhiting shen1* & dan cui2* 1 undergraduate student of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 postdoc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china; doc of british and american literature, school of foreign languages of northeast normal university, changchun, jilin, china; professor, dean of institute of international language and culture, leader of comparative literature and cross-culture discipline, jilin international studies university, changchun, china; doc of literature, college of foreign languages, yanbian university, yanji, jilin, china * dan cui, corresponding author, e-mail: 492439188@qq.com * zhiting, shen, e-mail: 1561942954@qq.com received: april 4, 2022 accepted: april 14, 2022 online published: april 24, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n1p1 abstract this paper aims to interpret the capitalist economy and class polarization in john keats’s narrative isabella. the authors analyzed primitive accumulation of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, the division of social status and consciousness between bourgeoisie and proletariat, bourgeois ideological crisis, namely the bourgeoisie. meanwhile, the authors endeavor to interpret the aesthetic poetic solutions that keats tentatively found to realize the bonding of lorenzo and isabella and the salvation of the transcendental soul, in order to reveal the inhuman exploitation of the capitalist mode of production and keats’s criticism of the moral decay of the bourgeoisie. instead of complaining and lamenting about the misery and degradation, john keats pinned high expectation onto the salvation power of greek civilization and british poetry. keywords john keats, capitalism, colonialism, morality, salvation 1. introduction john keats is one of outstanding romantic poets in 19th century, although his literary peak career only spanned over four years, he complemented the excellency in the history of english romanticism with his long classic narratives, sonnets and odes. isabella (1818) as one of the five long narratives, together www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 2 published by scholink inc. with endymion (1818), the eve of st. agnes (1819) hyperion (1819) and lamia (1820) demonstrates keats’s remarkable poetic achievement. a friend of keats, richard woodhouse, once spoke highly of keats after endymion being published in 1818 with his critic sensitivity by asserting that such a genius had not appeared since shakespeare and milton and pinpointed keats’s poems contained more beautiful things and more beautiful verses, fewer whims and bad tastes. in short, he deemed readers would find more beautiful hopes than shakespeare’s works (colvin, 1917). actually, either in lyrics or narratives, keats endeavored to create a particular aesthetic sense and such trait is so remarkable that carves him as the representative figure of aesthetics obsessed solely in the imaginative shelter while leaving alone the responsibilities for society full of turmoil and upheavals, which have been long supposed to be taken by literature in general and poetry in particular. with the researches conducting in-depth, his non-political gesture or even apolitical escapist image has been partially abandoned, though not every critic has unanimously contended that keats illustrated partially political involvement in writing or was inclined to apply his poetic works to exert comments on the real social issues or practical policy debates as the other major romantic poets were or as yeats among victorian poets. conclusively, keats’s political thinking has been handled diffidently by scholars (heinzelman, 1988, p. 160). luckily, the trend of transcending over the text in development of literary theories, there emerged a number of thoughts, perspectives and theories containing the gender studies, cultural studies and post-colonialism (orientalist outlook) etc., which offers new angles for the researchers to reexamine keats’s political involvement and they have sensed the political tone in keats’s poetry writing. some of keats’s critical autobiographers including amy lowell, walter jackson bate, andrew motion, finney and roe, just name a few, have attempted to explore his embedded political-critical stands in certain poetic circumstances, and even such disclosure has not been only confined to his early poems and but transcends them over to parts and patches in other of his typical narratives. nigel leask asserted the imperial anxiety existing in keats’s writing, though without in-depth explanation since it was not his focus for analysis (leask, 1992). as one of the typical keats’s narratives, isabella, or the pot of basil embodies keats’s distinguished speculation over political issues, as for which, the irish dramatist bernard shaw first noticed keats’s implied critical commentary writing of capitalism in stanzas xiv-xvi of intensive reflection of certain issues ranging from the class segregation, the capital possession to capital exploitation that can be deeply elaborated in das kapital by karl marx (heinzelman, 1988, p. 161). however, shaw did not go further on this and thus left it potentially open for the latter related researches. obviously, a great number of critical essays have come out demonstrating various studies on isabella, including the aesthetic appreciation, gothic exploration (smith, 1974, pp. 306-308), female symbolism (lagory, 1995, pp. 321-342) , female figure portraying, sexuality(cui & li, 2018) and national identity exploration (cui & li, 2019) etc., all of which involves the social-interrelated perspectives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 3 published by scholink inc. as a matter of fact, john keats exposed a series of key aspects in this narrative: the segregation between two classes: lorenzo as the lower working class and her two brothers representing the aristocratic-to-be-capitalist class, the lack of workingman’s rights by exposing the severity working load and disgusting working environment, the exploitation of people and capture of wild beasts over other far-away lands, the capital accumulation through colonizing eastern countries implied by sending lorenzo out for the so-called ambiguous errand. by such poetic composition, keats illustrated his fury and indignation over the social evilness, social inequality, moral degradation, abandoning of the peak of human civilization represented by the greek artistic achievements, for which keats lamented most. thus this poetic and imaginative description echoed, reflected, responded and evidenced the concerns that karl marx expatiated in his das kapital, in which, he sharply criticized the cruelty and repressive impact of capitalism on human beings and social construction and penetrated in depth how the primitive capital had been accumulated illegally and immorally and indignantly commented that “capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt” (capital vol. i—chapter thirty-one 828-829). marxist fundamental thoughts on the relationship of economy can be summarized as follows by raman selden: “it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it” (selden, p. 88). his clearly statement fundamentally shows marxist efforts put into the engagement of poem writing with the real world. that is, marxist interpretation of class, society, consciousness etc., are handy for us to interpret the pertinent issues of bourgeois operative mechanism and to judge the moral degradation reflected in the social economic productive procedures. 2. usurping: primitive accumulation of capital and lending and borrowing system 2.1hebrew’s usury keats portrays their eagerness and enjoyment in occupying much material wealth and possession by describing their pride in the “marble founts”, “orange-mounts” and “redlined accounts”. isabella’s two brothers are very wealthy through possessing much financial belongings, and readers cannot help wondering where their possessions accumulated from. in fact, john keats comes up with three possible modes: inheritance, trade and colonization. on the one hand, they probably inherited many possessions from their ancestors, which is depicted in the verse “enriched from ancestral merchandise” (keats, p. 193). it reveals their identity as the descendants from the landlords of feudalism. also, keats shapes them as exiled hebrew cain by god when they are found out to be the murderers of lorenzo (keats, p. 205). in fact, if it is interpreted together with the origin and character of hebrews, it is reasonable to assume that their ancestors were originated from usurer figures of the ancient time www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 4 published by scholink inc. associated with the jewish image represented by shakespeare’s shylock featured by his greed and desire for money. the wealth left by their ancestors can be inferred from the historical development that their ancestors accumulated their wealth through usury. first, before the emerging of the capitalist mode of production, usurer’s and merchant’s capital appeared in medieval western europe. usury capital derived from the loan system that was initiated by the ancient hebrews. for medieval christians, usury was a sin,which is described from new testament: “but love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the highest” (luke, p. 6, p. 35). jesus himself exhibited a distinctly anti-usury attitude when he cast the money-lenders from the temple, while the sermon on the mount revealed strongly anti-wealth sentiments as well (hassan & lewis). it is extremely unjust and particularly unethical for the poor, and therefore christian doctrine hindered the usury from developing nationwide. naturally, the jews had often been deputed for their christian king usury, since it was a highly lucrative trade. influenced by old testament, jews shared a common and distinguished attitude towards money that in their mind was believed to be their earthly god. however, such pose has always been sharply criticized in the real life and literary works as well. in shakespeare’s merchant of venice, when the honest antonio cannot afford to pay back his debts, he has to be cut off a pound of flesh to make up for shylock as promised. marx comments shylock in the “contribution to the critique of hegel’s philosophy of right: introduction” by saying “a shylock, but a servile shylock, it swears upon its bond, its historical, christian-germanic bond, for every pound of flesh cut from the heart of the people” (cohen,1982) . similarly, keats cast strong criticism over the two brothers’ hebrew-like greed and desire. 2.2 marx’s surplus value thirdly, a significant way of capital accumulation-surplus value, deserves the attention, that is, the exploitation of working class by capitalists. keats did not directly depict the surplus value, but he did delicately depict the blood and hollow eyes of the workers after the capitalist whipping (keats, p. 193). the working environment is torched mines and noisy factories (keats, p. 193). in keats’s criticized tone, the capitalists are portrayed “half-ignorant” (keats, p. 193) and they only “turn an easy wheel” (keats, p. 193) to torture the labor workers. keats adopts a simple language to satirize capitalists that greedily absorb the blood and sweat of working-class. we can associate the wheel with the steam engine that represents the major commercial production tool of that time, thus echoing the industrial revolution in britain in the early 19th century: the prosperity of good industrial development prospects behind untold cruelty and blood and tears under the steam engine. it is of great significance to explain workers’ suffering and capitalists' inhumanity through marx's surplus value ethics. the “noisy factories” and “easy wheel” remind the readers of epoch changing and shaking movement: the industrial revolution represented by the machine invention and mass production. in 1776, james www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 5 published by scholink inc. watt improved the original steam engine with his watt steam engine, together with coal, iron and steel, is conceived as the four main factors contributing to the accelerated development of technology. the above four main natural resources belong to natural capital, which cannot bring profits to capitalists directly, but the products produced by natural capital can bring profits. further, keats’s description of “many all day” emphasizes the lengthy of working time. capitalists own the means and products of production but do not possess the labor of the laborer. if a person sells labor and life indefinitely, it means that the person is owned by the capitalist, and as a result the society will return to slavery system, which contradicts against the capitalist democratic concept of “freedom” and “equality”. keats’s description of capitalist exploitation is still “set sharp racks on workers” (keats, p. 193). since capitalists don’t own the workers, however, their labors belong to the capitalist under the supervision of capitalism based on the claim laboring power is temporary dominated by capitalists (marx, 1865). therefore, capitalists can only combine workers with the means of production and obtain surplus value by purchasing the labor of workers. the process of creating surplus-value is the production process of surplus value, which is the main aspect of capitalist production process. the rate of surplus value is the rate of labor exploitation. in the industrial revolution, two ways are mainly adopted to produce surplus value. one is to extend the working hours. since the necessary working hours of workers are unaltered, the longer the working day is, the longer the remaining working time will be and then the more surplus value the capitalist extracts from the workers, the higher the surplus value is gained. in addition to lengthening working hours, capitalists also try to increase the laboring intensity of workers, so that workers consume more intellectual and physical energy to produce surplus value. keats, by depicting the “hollow eyes” of the exploited workers, attempts to convey how much pressure those miserable workers had to bear. karl marx uses two formulas to express the rate of surplus value: m’=m/v and m’=s/v. both of these formulas, in different forms, represent the extent to which capitalists exploit workers. the vision of workers’ “hollow eyes” probably does not precisely indicate which specific operation adopted by two brothers to force them to work, but if combined with the industrial revolution in keats’s epoch, both of two ways were probably adopted for producing profits. through the understanding of the process of borrowing and the role of capital, it is not difficult to find that money capitalists, like other capitalists, also gain surplus value. according to the third volume of “das kapital”, in addition to currency possessing use value, money also possesses use value as capital to perform functions. capital as a means of producing profit capital has become a commodity. loan capital, as a commodity, is given by the money capitalist to the industrial capitalist to put into production. while the capital flows back to the borrower again, it is not only the capital itself, but also the balance generated by the capital over the value of the capital itself, which we call interest. two factors are sufficient to illustrate the role of loadable capital in promoting the capitalist economy. on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 6 published by scholink inc. the one hand, the money capitalist, like the industrial capitalist, needs to constantly acquire surplus value so that the borrower can continue to lend to the industrial capitalist. on the other hand, loan capitalists lend capital for the sole purpose of obtaining interest, which urges them to invest their capital in industries and enterprises with large profits, high income and large accumulation (capital volume iiichapter xxi: interest bearing capital, pp. 230-241). marx claimed that the capital of the usurer existed long before the capitalist system itself and it is an early and primitive form of capital (cohen, 1982). early money capital, that is the capital of usury, promoted the development of primitive capitalism. it echoes that the brothers’ jewish ancestors’ lending allowed them to acquire the wealth left by their ancestors, which they utilized to develop their industry. 3. primitive accumulation of capitalism-overseas colonization 3.1 lorenzo’s disappearance as a matter of fact, besides the internal way of wealth accumulation, another key way for the britain to become an empire is due to the overseas colonization of british empire, which also constitutes the key part of exposure. while the two brothers managed to convince their younger sister about reasonable absence of lorenzo with excuse of sending on errands by taking “ship for foreign lands” and isabella was seemingly assured and ceased enquiring directly about lorenzo’s trace though constantly expected him to come back, readers would wonder why she could accept such an absurd excuse for the moment. if the historical background is dragged into consideration, it becomes understandable because the colonization and overseas trade were coming into being and turned to be popular during the end of 18th and starting of 19th century, with which keats could not be unconcerned or uninfluenced. while taking the sense of historical situation into consideration (t. s. eliot’s stand) when interpreting keats’s poems, readers tend to understand why isabella’s brothers could successfully deceive their younger sister temporarily. for one thing, with the new discoveries of the new world and the shipping route to asia, the world market had developed rapidly, so that capitalism needed more large-scale commodity production. secondly, the emerging bourgeoisie conquered overseas colonies by force, massacred local residents, looted gold and silver and carried out commercial wars. all of the colonial operations and measures contributed greatly to the development of capitalism in britain. the primitive accumulation of capital gives the evidence that the history of bourgeoisie evolution aims for and is driven by the overseas plunder. the fundamental reason is that the continuous development of the capitalist mode of production, which separates the means of production from labor, so that the labor of workers is transformed into labor employed by capitalists, and the means of production are transformed into capital of capitalists. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 7 published by scholink inc. 3.2 the evidence in keats’s colonization also keats implies other benefit-the medicine and fear-epidemic the empire took through colonization besides capital accumulation. the colonized medicine and cholera epidemic influenced the entire britain as well. individually, keats received medical knowledge and training in his early apprenticeship under the custody of abbey. so it is natural for the poet to be more sensitive to this aspect and interweaves into his writing. however, broadly speaking, in view of his interest in the orient and other romantic poets and novelists in general, it sounds reasonable for him to transplant some indian contexts into his writing and as a result, he pinpoints the indian medicine, say clove as a typical one to cure indian infecting cholera in 1817. so keats would have been following the news of indian cholera in the early months of 1818, before he completed isabella. after beheading lorenzo and taking his head back chamber, isabella kept his head under warm indian clove (keats, p. 193) in basil. when isabella’s brothers deceived her with the plot that lorenzo had been sent to “foreign lands” to cater to their overseas business, their acknowledged connection with the subcontinent suggests that lorenzo might have been sent into the centre of the epidemic. isabella is right to worry about “dungeon climes” (keats, p. 198) in this context, given the powerful association between the tropical climate and cholera in british imagination at this time (hessell, 2018, p. 214). 4. class segregation of capitalism 4.1 tragedy of class while reflecting over the segregation of two lovers by death, a series of factors are to be attributed and investigated, among which, the class segregation is depicted in view of space opposition and place dislocation. the thick depiction is given to isabella and lorenzo’s hierarchical space separation. the beloved couple lived under the same roof, but they couldn’t meet each other at will or enjoy meals at the same table. lorenzo could only catch a sight of isabella “from her chamber-window” (keats, p. 190), so this window has become a noticeable symbol of class estrangement. lillan nayder once interpreted that window performs the most socially conservative function—the segregation of two classes, thus indicating that upper class is entitled to the privileges out of the reach of the lower class and the consolidation of the social order. it is the window that physically and metaphorically divides the public from private and male from female as well as upper class from the lower class (lillian, 2006, p. 189). such a space description echoes the intention that keats sets his tragic story in florence, italy, a state representing the freedom in view of social atmosphere, cultural atmosphere, etc in contrast against london, britain, which in keats’s mind, is a state suppressing the free thoughts and artistic pursuits. therefore, keats reiterates the cruelty and brutality of such social inequality by portraying the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 8 published by scholink inc. commonly existing phenomenon to illustrate his own indignation and desperation. while isabella was born into a long-history, aristocratic-to-newly-rising bourgeois family, lorenzo served the physical turmoil and errands as the family servant without possessing any financial fortune. in fact, lorenzo was the hired worker under exploitation without any financial possession and was disguised and belittled by the bourgeois. besides, the two elder brothers tried every possible means to marry their sister to the wealthy noble family for the sake of adding their wealth and influence instead of caring to her future happiness. fundamentally, such great distinction in class is rooted in different sources of income. on the basis of the formation of the capitalist mode of production, there emerged three classes in modern society: wage workers, capitalists and landowners (marx, 1863-1883). further, different sources of income are blamed on the growth of the capitalist mode of production, which separates the means of production from labor, so that the labor of workers is transformed into labor employed by capitalists, and the means of production are transformed into capital of capitalists. capitalists extract surplus value from labor in terms of profits through capital, and workers obtain their disposable income in the form of wages or salary that is only necessary to reproduce their labor for further exploitation. consequently, the occupiers of the financial possession tend to control the consciousness. by contrast, the lower-class workers live in deplorable conditions on meager wages, exhausting themselves and constantly producing products for capitalists, which makes the lower classes victims of the capitalist boom. people of underclass are “hands within the capitalist machinery, providing the grist for the mill of capital accumulation” (clark & foster, p. 382). due to their low social status, they not only have no basic living security, but lack the necessary psychological security as well. 4.2 charles dickens’s capitalist society therefore, keats, by revealing the distinction between the exploiter and exploited, criticizes the capital-oriental social demoralizing trend and fulfill his responsibility as an intellectual. it is quite similar to some other typical poets and writers before and after him. william blake laments over the tragic fate of the young chimney sweeper exploited by the rich. also, shelley proclaims the slaughtered rebelling workers in his massacre writing. thomas gray assaults the british power-holding politicians are busy with arguing for the luxury and controlling, while putting aside the welfare of those unknown primitive innocent peasants in his elegy writing. charles dickens truthfully reflects the misery of the lower working class, such as his description of a remote place in the centre of england: “scrooge noticed another world in england. in a remote place, the ways were foul and narrow, the shops and houses wretched, the people half naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offenses of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth and misery” (carol, p. 94). in oliver twist, dickens frequently takes time out from the plotline to ridicule the middle class's opinion of the poor. in the story, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 9 published by scholink inc. the poor were thought to be in great need of workhouses, echoing what marx writes in das kapital as an increase in “death by starvation” among the workers of the city in london (stearns & burns, 2011). likewise, keats conveys his concern and care for the poor and laments over the efforts that both innocent young lovers endeavored to take to transcend the class in vain. 5. moral decaying of the bourgeoisie through inspecting the distinction between two classes, keats aims to seek out the solutions instead of complaining about the current bizarre situation. he accused of the morality loss of the bourgeoisie, that is, isabella’s brothers are “enriched from ancestral merchandise” (keats, p. 193). furthermore, they were more proud of their financial possessions reflected in keats’ introspectively, rhetorically paralleling questions, “why were they proud” of their “marble founts” , “orange-mounts”, “red-lined accounts?” (keats, p. 194), which exposes their strong desire for occupying the materialized wealth. their consciousness of “class difference” and “desire for money” are not created in their mind, but influenced by the epoch spirit. it is essentially the advent of capitalism that shaped their thoughts and consciousness, which thus becomes the newly generated consciousness that permeating the whole society. in other words, such consciousness deriving from the dominant higher class will eventually evolve into the general social superstructure (with the economy as the basis) that administrates the social norms and standards, with the case of isabella’s brothers as a typical example since their greed is embodied in the “red-lined accounts”, which is more sweet than the greek arts and here thus stems out the contrast between the fulfillment of wealth and spiritual barrenness of the elites of upper class, for which keats laments most. such series of rhetorical questions are exclaimed by the fury keats out of his anxious of declination of aristocratic morality level. in analysis of literature and superstructure in “a contribution to the critique of political economy”, marx compares the ancient greeks who created civilization to normal children. the charm the art has doesn't conflict with the primitive character of the social order from which it had sprung (marx, pp. 335-337). in other words, it is precisely because greece is in a period of underdeveloped productivity, there is no excessive “division of labor” of capitalism, so there is no phenomenon of unlimited development of commodity production and productivity. and when the development of productivity exceeds the limit that society can accommodate, the society will collapse eventually. the limit that society can accommodate is brutally trampled by bourgeois society. so when the capitalist society emerged, people gradually reduced their enjoyment of art, and thus paid more attention to how to produce more commodities and how to increase consumption. moreover, their closer attention to the content of “red-lined accounts” reflects the bourgeoisie’s fascination and worship of commodities and money. this is also the manifestation of the fetishism theory proposed by karl marx in das kapital. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 10 published by scholink inc. 6. poetry to be the salvation for entire capitalist society 6.1 salvation conscience instead of blindly blaming them, keats attaches the importance of poetry as the ultimate salvation. in the end, he weaves isabella sentimentally seeking for the pot containing lorenzo’s head into the everlasting song that is spread for generations to review the narrative, shed tears for the beloved and blame the cursed. keats was influenced by christianity and religion since he was young, and this influence ran through his poetry creation. obviously, salvation is embodied in isabella. the christian doctrine of redemption is “the question of how christ fulfilled the mission of saving the world”, that is, the world was freed from the bondage of sin and regained freedom. the original sin itself must lead to the hope of salvation and a way out. keats’s salvation and way out are the remedy for isabella and lorenzo’s love and murdering by his two brothers, namely the resurrection after death and the resurrection of the soul in faith and poetry writing. furthermore, the shakespearian manner is also reflected in his salvation. john keats acknowledged shakespeare not only as one of his greatest literary models but as his good genius “guiding him” in his own poetic enterprise (white, 1987, p. 7). therefore, it is meaningful to study and discuss the religious redemption and keats’s “resurrection”. after lorenzo was killed, keats described such a soul out of the body: “ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win, it aches in loneliness—is ill at peace” (keats, p. 197). the return of the soul after lorenzo’s death is one of keats’s redemption of conscience. after his death, he didn’t retaliate against his master, but sought warmth from isabella. when lorenzo appears in front of isabella, he “unthread the horrid woof/of the late darken’d time” (keats, p. 199). it reminds one of a similar metaphor in shakespeare’s venus and adoni whenvenus “unweaves the web [retracts her indictment of death] that she hath wrought” (boyar, 1972/1973, p. 164). the significance of the return of the lorenzo’s dead spirit is worth exploring. this is in line with zĕzĕk’s “return of the living dead”: the dead returns because they have not been properly buried. isabella brought lorenzo’s head back, put it and nourished it in the basil flowers pot with selfless cultivation, highlighting the disappearance of the physical distance and physical time, the eternity of psychological distance and psychological time. 6.2 cultural redemption the ultimate inquiry and concern will eventually meet with faith, since life is endless suffering, faith may have an extraordinary direction. the basil flowers pot was finally stolen by two brothers, they realize their guilt and thus exile. this means that lorenzo’s murder has been vindicated, and the exile is the “redress” for their murder. this plot echoes the first murder in the bible, cain’s murder of his brother. he was punished by god and sent to another land. but punishment is not considered as the way of giving up. instead, it is but holding on to some hope, that is, sort of repentance. keats’s inquiry www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 11 published by scholink inc. into human sins was conducted under the guidance of god. moreover, this is also the embodiment of “murdering crime” in western philosophy. when the basil flowerpot was stolen, isabella, instead of seeking revenge onto her two brothers, kept asking for the whereabouts of the flowerpot until she died. after death, the soul did not give up love with lorenzo, their love story was heard throughout the city in bleak songs: “o cruelty, to steal my basil pot away from me!” (keats, p. 205). keats leaves her at the conclusion of the poem singing a “sad ditty” (keats, p. 205). similarly, after adonis’ death, venus sings a “woeful ditty” (boyar, 1972/1973, p. 164). isabella’s song is similar to that of returning of lorenzo’s spirit and even their physical death, and both are seeking for their love for eternity. therefore, it illustrates keats’s pinning high expectation onto the salvation power of poetry, thus embodying the inheritance from greek peak of civilization as the salvation for human beings as a whole. 7. conclusion nothing is absolutely fair or beautiful, which is why keats devoted the social inequality and vaunted pride in such a tragic love affair, and also tried to extricate oppression through the salvation of transcendence and exile. isabella as well as his other collections lamia, the eve of st. agnes were published in the same year. these late poems were more mature in writing than the poems created in the earlier period, and can better demonstrate keats’s unique creation style. acknowledgement i would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere gratitude towards my supervisor dan cui, the dean of institute of international language and culture at jilin international studies university, for her academic rigor, inspiring instruction, penetrative guidance and patient tolerance, which has benefited me tremendously. i would also like to express my gratitude to my senior student, jiayu peng, for her academic assistance and certainly my parents for their everlasting supporting and encouraging me in my academic pursuing. references boyar, b. t. (1972). keats’s “isabella”: shakespeare’s “venus and adonis” and the venus-adonis myth. keats-shelley journal, 21, 160-169. cohen, w. (1982). the merchant of venice and the possibilities of historical criticism. elh, 49(4), 772. cui, d. (2019) “anxiety and transcendence: a study of john keats’s writing of identities”, ph. d dissertation. dickens, c. (1962). a christmas carol. new york: scholastics book services. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 12 published by scholink inc. forman, m. b. (2010). the letters of john keats. watson press. hessell, n. (2018). romantic literature and the colonized world: lessons from indigenous translations. springer. lagory, m. (1995). “wormy circumstance: symbolism in keats’s ‘ isabella’”. studies in romanticism, 321-342. leask, n. (1992). british romantic writers and the east: anxieties of empire. cambridge: cambridge university press. lillian, n. (2006). the threshold of an open window’s transparency, opacity, and social boundaries in aurora floyd. in k. harrison, & r. fantina (eds.), victorian sensations: essays on a scandalous genre (p. 189). columbus: the ohio state university press. marx, k. (1968). selected works [of] karl marx and frederick engels (vol. 1). progress. marx, k. (1969). wage-labor and capital and value price and profit (1865). new york: international co. marx, k. (1859). translated by nahum isaac stonea contribution to the critique of political economy, 335-337. marx, k., & fredrick, e. (ed.). (1887). s. moore, & ed. aveling (trans.), capital, volume i. progress publishers, moscow, ussr. marx, k. e., & friedrich (eds.). (1894). capital volume iii (p. 52). international publishers, ny. selden, r., widdowson, p., & brooker, p. (2013). a reader’s guide to contemporary literary theory. routledge. sidney, c. (1917). john keats: his life and poetry, his friends, critics, and after-fame (chapter v, pp. 130-135). retrieved june 8, 2011, from https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36356/pg36356-images.html#page164 smith, l. z. (1974). the material sublime: keats and “isabella”. studies in romanticism, 299-311. stearns, a. e., & burns, t. j. (2011). about the human condition in the works of dickens and marx (p. 5). clcweb: comparative literature and culture, 13(4), 10. white, r. s. (1987). keats as a reader of shakespeare. a&c black. retrieved from https://search.ecnu.cf/extdomains/books.google.com/books/about/keats_as_a_reader_of_shakesp eare.html?id=kd2tawaaqbaj note(s) note 1. das kapital, also known as capital. first edition in english of das kapital was overseen by engels and translated by samuel moore and marx's son-in-law edward aveling. this edition only contains book i. although engels had already published the german edition of volume ii in 1885, he https://en.wikisource.ahmu.cf/wiki/author:nahum_isaac_stone www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 13 published by scholink inc. states in the preface, that a translation of it without volume iii would be incomplete; the german edition of volume iii did not appear until 1894. note 2. benjamin bailey met keats in early march 1817, shortly after keats’s volume was came out. he introduced his friend messrs taylor to keats in order to help keats to publish his works. messrs taylor was the editor as well as publisher of the london magazine. he had an intimate friend richard woodhouse, who was a accomplished solicitor at a high position. taylor then introduced the talented poet john keats to woodhouse. keats’s new friendships with benjamin bailey, john taylor, and richard woodhouse were thus formed. woodhouse started to collect keatsiana, documenting as much as he could about the poetry. note 3. “marx/engels collected works” contains marx's economic essay “wage labour and capital”, which was published in the neue rheinische zeitung in april 1849. frederick engels edited and translated his article into english. in the article, marx pointed out that when the labor of the laborer begins, the labor force no longer belongs to him. he could sell his future labor-that is, to undertake the obligation to complete a certain job within a certain period of time. he hires out or sells his labor power, but this labor power has grown up with this person and is inseparable from it. labor-power is a very peculiar commodity in capitalist society. it has the characteristics of being a value creation force and a source of value. moreover, if handled properly, its source of value will exceed its own value. note 4. when capitalist start to make a product, they initially put spend money on two inputs: constant capital and variable capital. constant capital (v) is the amount of capital invested in raw materials and labor materials. variable capital (v) is the amount of capital used to purchase labor. at first, the accumulation of capital (c) is constant capital plus variable capital: c=c+v. therefore, to determine the intensity of capitalist exploitation of workers is to calculate the rate of surplus value. the rate of surplus value (m') is a ratio of surplus value (m) to necessary labor time (v).the equation is : m' = m/v. working day has two parts: one is necessary time(s), another one is surplus labor time(v) which produces value for capitalists. besides, the rate of surplus value can also be expressed by the ratio of surplus labor to necessary labor, or the ratio of surplus labor time to necessary labor time: m'= s/v. note 5. this paper is the periodical research result of project on “the anxiety and transcendence of john keats’s individual identity construction” sponsored by national social science foundation of china (21fwwb015); of project on “a study of the construction of john keats’s national identity” sponsored by the fellowship of china postdoctoral science foundation (no: 2021m700496); of project on “a study of the john keats’s national identity writing” sponsored by social science foundation of jilin province; of project on “a study of english major course system construction with value shaping based on ‘global village’ as the foreign language lab” sponsored by the academy of foreign language teaching attached to the institute of higher education of china www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1 2022 14 published by scholink inc. (no:21wyjyzd08); of project on “a study of routes applied to cultivate the inter-cultural competence of english major students” (no: gjjx20201130). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 41 original paper body narrative and affective translation: an exploration of humanistic discourse identity in postwar science fiction films ruifeng wu 1* 1 faculty of drama, film and television, jilin university of arts, changchun, china * ruifeng wu, faculty of drama, film and television, jilin university of arts, changchun, china received: july 12, 2025 accepted: july 24, 2025 online published: august 10, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p41 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p41 abstract in the post-world war ii era, when film technology has been undergoing rapid innovation and society’s concern for human survival and ethical and moral issues has been increasing, science fiction films have been widely favoured by audiences because of their attitude towards survival and imaginative power. such works present a profound exploration of body narrative through visual effects, based on humanistic discourse and care, and using the advantages of body expression to closely link affections in physical and metaphorical space, thus facilitating the translation of affections and reshaping the in-depth dialogue with the audience. at the same time, through the video narrative that conveys aesthetic meaning, provokes profound cultural reflection and builds human consensus, it satisfies and expands the value of social significance. by analyzing how post-war science fiction films effectively use humanistic discourse to achieve social communication and identification with the audience, the article provides a new perspective for similar film creation and theoretical research. keywords post-war science fiction cinema, body narrative, affective translation, humanistic discourse, identity 1. introduction physical expression and affective communication are important factors in the construction of audio-visual elements of film, and through the intervention of humanistic ideas, the expression of story and plot around the characters will become a necessary means to attract and link the audience. in the 1960s, scholars of film theory in the western world carried out in-depth discussions around textual narrative and semiotics, and formally opened up the study of film narrative while integrating the elements of film expression. the study of film narrative was formally opened while integrating the elements of film expression. as an important genre of film art, the formation and development of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 42 published by scholink inc. science fiction film is closely related to the evolution of film narrative theory and the innovation of filming technology. it is worth noting that the humanistic ideology embedded in this genre can be traced back to its origins—georges méliès directed the first science fiction film in the history of cinema, a trip to the moon (1902). in the process of narrative evolution and development of pre-war science fiction films, a number of landmark works were gradually formed. metropolis (1927) profoundly reveals the predicament of human society under industrial civilisation, and innovatively incorporates the visual metaphor of the body element; with the gradual infiltration of the humanist trend in the narrative, science fiction films with pessimistic colours, such as king kong (1933) and frankenstein (1931), began to emerge, and through the narrative motifs of the loss of control of the body caused by scientific experiments, these works refract the body’s loss of control, and reflect the humanist concept of the body as a whole. these works reflected the deep concern of the society about technological alienation through the narrative theme of the loss of control over the body caused by scientific experiments. during the post-war boom era of science fiction films, phenomenal works such as 2001 a space odyssey (1968), star wars (1977), and wandering earth (2019) condensed visual effect technology into a unique audiovisual grammar through the extreme exploration of physical aesthetics, relying on an efficient industrialised production system. this not only set the tone for the industrialised production of science fiction genre films, but also pushed the humanistic core of science fiction films into a new era of deep development through groundbreaking narrative innovation and worldview construction. nowadays, in the process of transmutation of academic theories, research scholars are trying to clarify the interaction and identity relationship between works and audiences through the extension of research thresholds and transformation of research perspectives. some scholars of aesthetics research, through the continuous exploration and expansion of the function and structure of film narrative, have worked out a set of theoretical paradigms for film narrative and reception aesthetics, that is, on the basis of bodily representation, they have systematically summarised the laws of bodily narrative and summarised the methods of translating emotions in the process of conveying them, and systematically integrated them into the framework of humanistic discourse. based on the ontology of classic science fiction films, this study will integrate interdisciplinary social science theoretical approaches to carry out systematic analyses, providing a novel observation perspective and useful reference for film theory or industry practitioners. 2. body narrative: dimensional expansion of discursive space in science fiction film in the narrative development of science fiction films, from the fantasy of human exploration of the unknown in the early 20th century to the reflection and criticism of human nature in the 1980s to the rise of post-humanism in the early 21st century, from a trip to the moon (1902) to 2001: a space odyssey (1968) to her (2013) and so on, these works have always been centred on the themes of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 43 published by scholink inc. human survival and humanism. the humanistic discourse emphasises the dignity, value, potential and self-actualisation of the individual, among others, thus chaining together the individual evolution of the human race (maslow, 2021). in the creation of video art, individual dignity, value realisation and potential development have achieved the construction of the spiritual field and the extension of the symbolic system of symbols through the dual perspectives of physical narrative and affective representation, while science fiction films, through the insightful observation of the future landscape of human civilisation, organically link the humanistic discourse system in a more artistically tense form, and reveal the penetrating power of philosophical thinking in the weaving of light and shadow. the science fiction film, through its profound view of the future of human civilisation, organically connects the discourse of humanism in a form of greater artistic tension and reveals the penetrating power of philosophy in the weaving of light and shadow. 2.1 narrative schema roaming and resonance in terms of the conceptual construction of body narratology, research scholars have formed a theoretical system with empirical validity through multi-dimensional exploration and practical verification. based on the theoretical framework of classical narratology, daniel punday, a renowned researcher in narrative theory, has keenly revealed the subtle difference between the individual body and the universal body through the systematic explanation of the construction mechanism of narrative image and narrative mode. he has skilfully placed this discovery on the dual layers of history and storytelling, and deeply explored its spiritual and cultural connotations, successfully linking the complex social contexts and diversified socio-cultural influences of his time with the unique responses of the body in different situations. in his book narrating the body: towards a narratology of the body, he mentioned that “in order to make the body meaningful through narrative, it is necessary to systematically distinguish it from non-bodily things. this initial, non-semantic distinction is the basis for all subsequent narrative choices”. the source of all this is the drive of the living body to pursue its desires and explore its results. people are not interested in bodies that have lost their lives, but the reason why meaning still exists in these bodies is the significance they are given to participate in the thrilling story in order to achieve their purpose (wang, 2023). the film 2001 a space odyssey (1968) has a great deal of body narratives and manages to break through the superficial body meanings to explore more derived meanings. the birth of the star child at the end of the film is the climactic stage of the film’s body narrative representation, in which director kubrick expresses confidence in human evolution and the infinite possibilities of an ideal future. from the beginning of the film orangutan’s unconscious body behaviour, and thus transferred to the space satellite evolutionary process, fully demonstrated the power of the human species leap forward show, the audience can deeply feel the full awakening of self-consciousness, marvel at the pace of human rapid and determined, until the end of the dave in the state of witnessing their own bodies at various stages, and then to the creation of the star child, a new, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 44 published by scholink inc. beautiful longing for the survival of the space once again for the audience to bring the hope of desire, in the journey of exploring the unknown constantly looking for mysteries and opportunities, performance of the film to bring the audience of historical reflection and future reference. the film wandering earth (2019) vividly tells the magnificent epic of mankind, who, faced with the desperate situation of the destruction of the solar system, joins hands to launch the earth wandering plan and bravely pursues a new world of existence. in the film, liu peiqiang defended the future of mankind with his life with fearless courage and firm conviction, and his heroic choice before his death was like a bright star that illuminated the journey of hope. this scene not only adds a profound affective colour to the whole story, but also inspires and satisfies the audience’s infinite feelings for life, courage and hope, leading them to step into this interstellar adventure together, and to feel the magnificence and shock that transcends life and death. in contrast to narratological theories in a general sense, punday considers the body to be part of narrative and narratology (wang, 2023). firstly, he delves into the ways in which the body is integrated into the story and how it acts as a strong narrative endogenous force that drives the plot forward progressively. secondly, he explores in detail how the body narrative theory assists the audience to understand the expression and deconstruction of the body in the narrative. in short, this theory provides the audience with a profound and valuable perspective of narrative interpretation. it is in this way that punday constructs a different way of research from classical narratology, opening the door to post-classical narrativism. in contrast to the previous structured character paradigm, he insists that characters are grounded in the level of storytelling, and uses the body as a research incision to analyse the current and historical environment. after reconstructing the structural iconography of the characters, the characters become more full-bodied, their affective expressions more delicate and diversified, and their polysemous qualities become more and more obvious. the film double body (2022) tells a story of cloning that transgresses ethics. after sarah receives the news of her terminal illness, she decides to clone herself using the then sophisticated cloning technology, aiming to alleviate the pain of her loved ones and friends, but after the miraculous recovery, the realities of the two existences have changed drastically. the clone gradually brings goodwill in terms of affective value to her boyfriend and mother, and the gradually imbalanced ethical environment in which the clone makes up for the flaws of her own body and conspires to murder it, becoming the survivor. the changes and dislocations of the body in the story make the audience worried about the survival environment of the original body, and the clone’s complete sense of making up for the defects also puts both bodies into a whirlpool of human rights and affective struggles. the open ending of the film is a reasonable explanation for the breakthrough of the narrative paradigm, and the survival of whatever body triggers speculation about its various endings. harvey dent, the righteous prosecutor in the film batman—the dark knight (2008), represents social justice, but after suffering a series of blows, he gradually falls into darkness www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 45 published by scholink inc. and becomes a contrasting double-faced man. director nolan’s elaborate design here is for the body image design of the character in the play, half of the burnt out horrible facial bones and the other half of the intact face, forming a sharp contrast. the multiple meanings of the character’s image are well sketched out, and his inner struggle and rebellion show the subtlety and delicacy of the character’s design. 2.2 symbolism and metaphor in the discursive space of body narrative film discourse space is a narrative environment constructed around the time and space of characters’ physical existence, characters and relationships. in the film’s narrative environment, it is impossible to detach from the character’s internal and special cultural background controlled by the ideological elements, and different elements also carry different expressive meanings, such as the character’s reaction under exploration, loneliness, dilemma, captivity, and freedom. for this reason, the director constructs a virtual space with symbols, metaphors and other ideological functions to interact with the viewers through the means of visual and auditory media. in his book story and discourse: the narrative structure of fiction and film, renowned theoretical scholar seymour chatman innovatively divided the narrative structure into story and discourse, and for the first time clarified the basic concept of “discursive space”. his theory is mostly related to the actual or fictional space where the narrator is located in the spatial field, and includes the consideration of perspective and location, still in the environmental factors, the influence of the nature of the environment on the existence of the environment, and indirectly conveys the shaping of the environment on the characters of the story and its symbolic and metaphorical role to the viewer, indicating the narrator’s narrative care for the viewer (chatman, 2013). the film the butterfly effect (2004) tells the story of evan, a male protagonist on a time-travelling journey, who constantly alters the events of the past in an attempt to free himself and his sidekick from a bad fate. through the superpowers of the main character, evan, the audience is able to witness him build a whole new parallel universe in a spectacle perspective. in the midst of his travelling through the past. the body as a medium of time travelling is a metaphor for the fact that human development cannot escape the influence of the past, and as the protagonist, his arrival in the world will bring irreversible effects to his family and partners. just like the title of the film, the butterfly effect, when evan discovers that he has to fold his own arms in order to reduce the effects to a negligible level, his body seems to be intertwined with his destiny at the moment, which makes the audience think about the free will under the unfairness of destiny. a central theme in the film blade runner 2049 (2017) is the profound descriptions and metaphors of the body. for example, the protagonist k, a chain 9 replicant, is given a normal human lifespan and false memories, yet his emotions are deliberately suppressed. however, as the plot develops, k gradually awakens and begins to show his true emotions and self-awareness, and he learns to rebel against human control and make humane choices at critical moments. by depicting the physical differences between real humans and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 46 published by scholink inc. replicants, the film subtly introduces a deeper reflection on human self-identity, freedom and the meaning of existence. the controllability and limitation of physical functions not only reflect the control of humans over the replicants, but also metaphorically represent the human race’s exploration of self-identity, free will and the value of existence. through this series of metaphors, the film shows the pursuit of human beings for the realisation of their self-worth and the possibility of their way of existence, and triggers the audience to reflect deeply on the nature of human beings and their future development. 3. affective translation: affective indications in the juxtaposition of communication and reception science fiction film provides a unique video narrative field for the construction of humanistic discourse. the body, as a figurative representation of individual existence, and emotion, as an endogenous quality of the subject of consciousness, together constitute the core ideological elements in the narrative system of science fiction films. in the smooth communication and acceptance of emotion, the image as the only and key field, how to successfully communicate the story and the director’s intention into the affective mode that the audience can accept and enjoy seeing, and to become the affective factor that makes the audience moved, has also become a question worth exploring in the process of “communication acceptance”. 3.1 concrete conveyance of intent and emotion andré bazin states in what is cinema: “the objectivity of photography endows the image with a compelling power that no painting can have ... photography is uniquely able to reproduce the object as it is in its facsimile. the most realistic painting can give us a better idea of the original appearance of the depicted object, but, however eloquent we may be, it will not, in the end, have the extraordinary power of photography to win our complete confidence” (bazin, 2017). through a careful comparative study of painting and photographic imagery, bazan gained a keen insight into the unique fascination that images exhibit in conveying affective and meaningful values. this charm is reflected in the fact that images possess a special infectious power, which can easily win the trust of viewers and make them uncontrollably devote themselves to the story world constructed by the images, eager to unveil the mystery hidden behind the pictures. bazan’s discovery provides a new perspective for us to understand the deep value of video art, and also has a profound impact on the field of video creation. the famous film theorist jean mitri once mentioned in aesthetics and psychology of cinema, in response to the viewpoints of literature and image on the conveyance of emotion: “cinema is first of all (by nature) a means of expression ... we can express concepts through emotion and by using this emotion, while in the language of words in the language of words, we are using concepts and expressing emotions through them”. in short, the characters and things that are placed in the frame of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 47 published by scholink inc. the scene by the director are determinants of ideality (mitry, 2012). the film mars rescue (2015) constructs a story of rescue interwoven with the social ethics of real human beings in a spectacle perspective. in the film, mark watney playfully refers to his “farmyard manure” plan when he is planting potatoes, and this optimistic attitude continues throughout the film, conveying the message that even in the toughest of times, humans can still maintain hope. in addition, nasa scientists succeeded in bringing him back to earth through innovative plans and tireless efforts, and this transnational co-operation also demonstrates the spirit of unity in the face of common challenges. due to the realism of the film’s scene reproduction and the assumed visual environment, matt damon, through his highly immersive expression, allows the audience to almost immerse themselves in the film, resonating with the protagonist’s burgeoning hope for survival. the film is closely centred on survival in extreme environments, teamwork and cross-cultural and cross-border support, and demonstrates the great power of human social emotions. the film batman—the dark knight (2008) is a superhero-style expression of the exploration and desire of human nature under the real social status quo, setting the characters tightly around the social background, showing the grasp of the environment on human nature and change, so that the viewer is plunged into the inner vortex of the human nature crisis. harvey dent was originally the symbol of hope in gotham city, known as the “knight of light”. however, after his girlfriend, rachel, is killed by the joker, he falls into madness and becomes a “two-faced man”. his transformation allows the audience to see that even the most righteous person in a dark society can go dark under extreme circumstances, and successfully reveals the fragility of human nature and the complexity of morality, thus firmly grasping the audience’s thinking, the accumulation of emotions and the connotation of human nature in the film in a montage-style audio-visual approach to bring the plot to a climax, and ultimately to the “last-minute rescue” mode to mobilise the audience. “the complexity of human emotions is constantly visualised and conveyed in the language of images. the complexity of human emotions is constantly visualised and conveyed in the language of images. a number of ingenious ideas have also demonstrated director nolan’s intention for the script to reflect on society. 3.2 the audience reception concealed within the affective perspective in the long process of the evolution of film theory from classical to modern, the continuous shift of research objects reveals the broadening of the dimension of film aesthetics, and affect theory is one of the theoretical foundations of this shift. the affective theory serves the potential audience of a work, and how to transform the implicit affect into a reasonable degree of acceptance is precisely the reasonable answer of the image to the audience’s acceptance. the theory was first proposed by the theorist spinzano, who understood the affective movement as the strain of the body, which would result in the strength and limitation of the power of physical activity. later, deleuze further elaborated the affectus as a philosophical concept of subjectivity generation and gave the basic definition of “affectus”: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 48 published by scholink inc. the continuous flux of the force of being or action, i.e., the flux of emotions in human behaviour, cognition and social interaction. deleuze refers to the concept of the affective-image in motion-image and distinguishes it from the perceptual-image and the action-image. through close-ups and subconscious zooming in on faces, different faces convey one or more affects, each individual has its own affective “specificity”, which is expressed with fluidity, such as gestures, words, attitudes, and so on, and this creates an “ambient atmosphere” that suggests an affective movement. the “ambient atmosphere” created in this case shows that the affective movement is not visible in itself, but it is felt by us in the transmission of emotions (kai, 2024). in the film cosmic exploration editorial (2021), stemming from the inner impulses and desires dissected by his daughter’s suicide, tang zhijun’s thirst for cosmic exploration becomes more and more obvious. in this seemingly absurd journey of exploration, the constant breakthrough of common knowledge allows for the externalisation of emotions and gives the audience the ability to generate affective feelings, transmitting the inner world of the group of characters through subconscious behaviours, which results in affective and collective upliftment and resonance. the affective core of the film star trek (2014) is the story of love and commitment between a father and daughter. in the film, cooper’s actions are always driven by his love for his family and his daughter, whether it is travelling through a wormhole or exploring a new planet, in order to be reunited with his daughter. the depth of human nature in the film through the expression of emotions that transcend geographical limitations, focusing on exploring the greatness of human love and affection between the intersection of space and time under the vision of science fiction. in the unknown space of the universe, emotions are indeed transmitted, and on cooper’s journey to explore a new future, cooper in the parallel universe looks far away from his daughter in reality, erecting an affective corridor in the two unseen spaces of the universe. the continuous improvement and expansion of affective aesthetics has provided important theoretical support for the development of receptive aesthetics. reception aesthetics is still an important research shift in film studies, which establishes the audience’s central position in film art and gradually becomes the main body of film interpretation and re-creation, which provides certain theoretical support for postmodernism and the transformation of art cinema and even commercial cinema since the new century. in “literary history as a challenge to literary theory”, robert yao si firstly put forward the entry angle of “anticipatory vision” to the reader-centred aesthetics of reception. the audience at the receiving end naturally needs to form a certain cultural foundation, which also depends on the current development of a particular cultural society. in today’s global socio-cultural development and the integration of film culture, we are witnessing a wave of discussion around avant-garde themes, rapid technological advances, and the gradual development of cultural diversity and inclusiveness. as the audience’s cognitive and learning abilities increase, their acceptance is steadily growing. in response to the ever-expanding aesthetic preferences of young viewers, directors are working to make notable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 49 published by scholink inc. efforts in the innovation of subject matter and the updating of technological tools (yaoes & holaber, 1987). the film inception (2010) adopts a non-linear narrative structure with a relatively complex timeline, constructing a suitable narrative environment for the design rationality of multiple dreams. cobb is a dream thief, and the film tells a story of dream thievery and self-redemption from the perspective of a science fiction spectacle. director nolan embeds a resonant world of great aesthetic interest and mystery through rational imagination and adaptation. in the curved and folded world, in the weightless layering of dreams, the explanations and reasonable confessions of different environments all allow the audience to successfully and unobtrusively enter into this visually-realised dream world. the love story between cobb and his wife mel runs throughout the film. their love has both a deep affective foundation and complex emotions arising from misunderstanding and guilt. cobb eventually achieves inner redemption by completing his mission and facing his past head on. the theme of love and redemption paired with a quest that crosses reality and fantasy inevitably makes one’s heart ripple. the film upholds the audience’s curiosity and imagination about dreams, and under a rational worldview, the body becomes the central vehicle for harnessing dreams. the amorous nature of human nature, the fight in the dream, the slip into the edge of the subconscious, the fall to awaken the previous layer of the dream, etc., all of these are to meet the audience’s “vision of expectation” under the intersection of dream and reality, the human nature and the psychology of the repeated game and full of science and technology and the future of the reasonable imagination. the remarkable affective match has created enough attraction for science fiction art, which coincides with the audience’s expectation. 4. identity construction: the referential meaning in the mapping of humanistic thought and social discourse diversity in the interactive field of physical narrative expression and affective kinetic transmission, the process of identity construction, as the core dimension of science fiction film art expression, constitutes the core mechanism for science fiction films to achieve interaction with the audience and complete the transmission of value and affective resonance. freud pointed out in his early research on children that “identity is the process by which an individual psychologically and affectively imitates and assimilates the traits or behavioural patterns of others and makes them part of his own personality” (freud, 2011). in fact, identity can also help individuals to establish affective connections with others, learn social norms and behavioural patterns, and gradually improve the ego to achieve the process of self-construction. since then, the famous theorist althusser has proposed the theory of interrogation mechanism in ideology theory, which influences the individual’s self-perception and self-regulation of social behaviours through the process of summoning or questioning in the form of “material practices” or media. repetitive and characteristic symbolic systems, such as cinema, are important forms of interrogation of the individual. michel foucault, a renowned theorist of the same period, also had a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 50 published by scholink inc. theoretical articulation that intersected with post-structuralism and philosophy. in his article “the utopian body”, he mentions that body identity is the basis of self-knowledge and that utopian environments can also cause alienation of the individual (michel foucault, 2016). contemporary science fiction films focus on the reconstruction of human values in a heterogeneous space, showing the adaptation of the body to the cyber environment and the fusion of consciousness and the mechanical body. these works explore the conflicting dilemmas of technological alienation and humanistic ethics through the existential field of blending reality and fiction, persistently knocking at the core proposition of civilisation evolution. the film avatar (2009) tells the story of jack salek’s identity crisis on the planet pandora and his dilemma of identity, while as a human, he has to make a difficult choice between his own body and the identity of the alien race, the na’vi. the film divergent (2014), on the other hand, constructs a human world equally divided into five factions, with the protagonist tristan having an infinite struggle after discovering that he has lost his factional identity. second, the utopian body is also a fantasy and a quest. the film big fish (2003) incorporates fantastical elements into the expression of love and dreaming, reflecting the main character edward’s fantasies and longings for the good life he aspires to. the film hunger station (2019) criticises human indifference by setting the setting in a restricted social class, and reveals the limitations of the process of physical aspirational pursuits through the lens of science fiction. “in any case, one thing is certain: the human body is the primary actor in all utopias” foucault, in relation to the body for identity and pursuit, demonstrates the imagination of a beautiful space and a beautiful existence, while the science fiction film successfully hooks up the spatial existence with the imagined identity, pulling the audience into just the right setting, and by attaching consciousness to the audiovisual expression, it is perfect for the audience. by attaching consciousness to audiovisual expression, it perfectly provides a reasonable environment for the construction of discursive bridges (foucault, 2016). the diverse discursive identifications made in science fiction films are not just expressions of ideology or desire, but also the export of real-world moral discipline and consumer values tied to the worldview constructed in the film. in discipline and punish, foucault proposed the concept of “panoramic exhibitionism”, exposing emotions and morals, the body and the environment to natural surveillance, which is a kind of potential discipline, and the cinema and the cinema audience seem to be the natural place to satisfy the audience’s voyeuristic fetish and complete the discipline under the panoramic exhibitionism (foucault, 2012).the film the hunger games (2012) takes place in a fictional futuristic world about a new home for mankind after it has been destroyed by a great war. the country suffers from harsh authoritarian rule, despite a boom in smart high technology. each year, 24 men and women must be selected from 12 districts to become “contestants” in a life-and-death reality show, as well as “consumer goods” for pleasure, fighting each other to survive within a given surveillance area. in the film truman’s world (1998), there is also such a “panoramic view”. “instead of being self-perpetuating www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 51 published by scholink inc. and wearing away any of its essential features, the panoramic open-view model is destined to spread throughout the entire social organism” (foucault, 2012). in the film, the collective loss of control and the resultant punishment form a perfect hidden “prison wall”, which calls on every social participant to respect the individual moral discipline and legal order. as a unique art category and propaganda tool, science fiction film is a film genre based on the logic of human society, imagining the future and reflecting the reality, in which the contradiction is the right to control the body, and through the individual’s reaction and expression, it builds a natural place of enquiry for the audience in front of the screen. the film a clockwork orange (1971) tells the story of alex, a teenage hoodlum who, along with his brothers, causes trouble and ends up in prison undergoing rehabilitation and special experimental treatments in a morally bankrupt, crime-ridden and violent society set in a specific time and place. after undergoing extreme behavioural modification therapy, alex is forced to develop an internal standard of good and evil that is diametrically opposed to his previous one. the film is filled with surreal elements and scenes of erotic violence, reflecting director kubrick’s profound conception of dystopian time and space and physical elements. in such an unfettered and chaotic society, alex moves from this “open-air prison” to the real “panoramic prison”. the film is full of unabashed confessions about bodies and behaviours, transmitting the most direct and absurd image patterns. through witnessing these extreme behaviours objectively, the viewer’s moral scrutiny and value measurement successfully invokes the viewer’s inner self to examine his or her own behaviours and moral concepts. the metaphor of social reality is also quite profound. in the real-life panorama prison, alex is “panoramically watched” from the moment he enters, handing over his belongings and being meticulously physically examined, exposing himself to a field of surveillance and discipline. “the force of norms seems to permeate the discipline ... which is both a pragmatic requirement and a result of metrics” (foucault, 2012). as foucault mentions in his book, normative discipline and normative force create formal equality and allow for “normative punishment” to appear more effective. while facing the recognition or acceptance of normative admonition under society goes against the original order. through the recognition of the order and the communication of that recognition to the audience through the screen, the potential for a reciprocal reaction between the text and the reader’s emotions becomes more intense. the body is not only a carrier of human needs and emotions, but also a carrier of social discourse and cultural power. foucault once mentioned that “the core of the struggle is shaped by the different forces of struggle that act on it” (foucault, 2012). the objectification of the body under today’s reflection is also a kind of reverse regulation of the body by the consumer culture of the society, which is the embodiment of the diverse communication of the image discourse. in the film truman’s world (1998) with the rise of consumer culture and the growing social demand for entertainment, the public’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 52 published by scholink inc. curiosity about the fresh medium spawned a desire to peek into truman’s life under the film’s packaging. the audience in front of the film witnesses the public’s desire to pry into and manipulate truman’s life in the film, and the reflection on the situation and identity generated by the film shows that under the affective attack, the society’s “inquiry” for the individual, and in the process of the protagonist’s counter-struggle, the strong affective resonance of the power, culture, social morality, and media morality is exposed to the sunlight in the eyes of the public, receiving the “call” from the individual, and the “call” from the public. in the process of the protagonist’s counter-struggle, his strong affective resonance exposes the dark side of power, culture, social morality and media morality to the sunlight, and he accepts the profound examination and independent thinking of the “struggling force” under the eyes of all, and defends the freedom of the body and the emotion from his own position. 5. conclusion after the rapid development of science fiction film since the second world war, through the discourse system centred on the humanistic idea, the innovative intervention of body narrative and the image mode of affective interaction, conveyance and identification have been further developed, and at the same time consolidated the interactive relationship between the film and the audience, and the affective resonance between the two on top of the humanistic discourse has, to a certain extent, pushed forward the paradigm transformation and innovative development of science fiction film. the affective resonance between the two on the basis of humanistic discourse has, to a certain extent, promoted the paradigm transformation and innovation of science fiction films. no matter where we are at home or abroad, no matter how the society changes or how the topic is extended, human beings’ pursuit of science and technology and fantasy never stops, and with the deepening of the exploration of the unknown, people gradually find the physical and affective identity boundaries in the creation of sci-fi films, and at the same time try to carry out in-depth excavation and interpretation. relying on the precise weaving of the narrative structure and the organic implantation of common values, the audience can touch the temperature of the characters, confirm the value of individual life in the resonance of the crossing, and find the spiritual coordinates in the narrative of destiny and commonwealth perhaps this is the ultimate password for science fiction video art to break the communication barriers of human civilisation with the light and shadow poems. perhaps this is the ultimate code for science fiction video art to break the communication barrier of human civilisation through light and shadow poetry. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 53 published by scholink inc. references bazin, a. (2017). what is cinema (cui junyan, trans.). beijing: commercial printing house. chatman, s. (2013). story and discourse: narrative structure in fiction and film (xu qiang, trans.). renmin university of china press. foucault, m. (2012). discipline and punishment (liu beicheng & yang yuanying, trans.). shanghai: sanlian bookstore. foucault, m. (2016). lives of the infamous (wang min’an, ed.,trans). beijing: peking university press. freud. (2011). the ego and the self (lin duan, zhang ruomin & chen weiqi, trans). shanghai: shanghai translation publishing house. kai, y. (2024). generation and diffusion—the concept of affective action in deleuze’s film theory. journal of beijing film academy, 211(7), 15-24. maslow, a. (2021). motivation and personality (li jingwen & zhu xingyuan, trans.). beijing: cultural development press. mitry, j. (2012). film aesthetics and psychology (cui junyan, trans.). nanjing: jiangsu literature and art publishing house. wang, q. (2023). research on the theory of daniel panday’s body narrative. unpublished master’s thesis. liaoning university, shen yang. yaoes, h. r., & holaber, r. c. (1987). acceptance aesthetics and acceptance theory (zhou ning & jin yuanpu, trans.). shenyang: liaoning people’s publishing house. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 38 original paper analysis and research on the open access policy system of institutional repositories in chinese and foreign universities zong liang 1* 1 library, university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai, china * zong liang, library, university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai, china received: june 24, 2024 accepted: july 7, 2024 online published: july 26, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p38 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p38 abstract formulating a complete and comprehensive open access (oa) policy is conducive to the healthy and orderly development of institutional repositories. through investigating the oa policies of a total of 30 universities in china, the united states and the united kingdom, the author analyzes the policy contents from aspects such as the purpose of oa, deposit policy, usage policy, copyright policy and fund sponsor policy, and draws enlightenment in the formulation of oa policies. chinese universities should gradually promote the implementation of mandatory oa policies according to their own characteristics; formulate a scientific and comprehensive policy system by providing detailed policy interpretations and term explanations; formulate personalized oa policies according to the disciplinary characteristics of universities and the characteristics of the knowledge base; and add the oa policy content of the fund project sponsors related to the university in the policy to facilitate the reasonable use by the authors. keywords open access, colleges and universities, institutional repository, open access policy open access (oa) refers to the free and unrestricted access to the scientific knowledge produced by humans (zhang, 2017). as a brand-new academic publishing and communication model, it has been promoted and popularized worldwide, promoting the free dissemination of academic achievements in various countries. the institutional repository (ir) was generated under the background of the open access movement and is a digital resource library used to centralize, preserve, and facilitate users to obtain the research achievements of academic institutions. with the development of science and technology and the increase of the need for academic exchanges, the institutional repository has entered a period of vigorous development. according to the statistics of the authoritative open access www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 39 published by scholink inc. repository directory open doar, as of november 2023, there have been 5910 institutional repositories registered in this platform (open doar, 2023). among them, there are 818 in the united states, and the number of institutional repository registrations ranks first in the world; there are 270 in the united kingdom, ranking forth; there are only 66 knowledge bases registered in this platform in china, and it is still in the early stage of development. many scholars in china have conducted in-depth research from aspects such as the construction mode, functional services, and application practices of institutional repositories. deng jun (deng, 2010) explained the mode characteristics of three well-known foreign knowledge bases and put forward the optimized choice strategy for the construction of domestic institutional repositories. ma jianxia (ma, 2010) by analyzing the needs of the stakeholders of the institutional repository, put forward the trends in content construction and service design of the knowledge base. li honggang and others (li & tang, 2020) based on the construction practice of the institutional repository of nankai university, put forward a feasible plan for the construction of knowledge bases in universities. however, there is relatively little research on the open access policy for knowledge bases. the open access policy has guiding significance for the construction and implementation of institutional repositories. a complete and comprehensive open access policy is a powerful guarantee for the healthy development of institutional repositories. in countries such as the united states and the united kingdom, where open science is relatively advanced in development, major well-known universities or their subordinate units have successively formulated oa policies, which has greatly promoted the construction of institutional repositories in universities and colleges and promoted the exchange and dissemination of academic achievements. this paper investigates the oa policies of institutional repositories in chinese and foreign universities, summarizes and sorts out the investigation results, analyzes and summarizes the inspirations for the construction of the oa policy system of institutional repositories in chinese universities, in order to provide reference and basis for the construction and development of the repositories. 1. research objects and methods in the “leiden ranking2023” released by the center for science and technology studies of leiden university in the netherlands in 2023, 1411 universities in 65 countries around the world were included. among them, the top three countries in terms of the number of universities are: 273 in china, 206 in the united states, and 64 in the united kingdom. according to the ranking of open access-related statistical data in the leiden ranking, the top 10 universities in china, the united states, and the united kingdom were selected, and the oa policies of these universities were collected from the website of the registry of open access repository mandates and policies (roarmap), an international registration institution, for detailed analysis and comparative research. among them, since the number www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 40 published by scholink inc. of universities registered in roarmap in china is relatively small, only 3 universities in hong kong, the author used the online survey method to check the official websites of each university and its library in turn according to the ranking, and collected the oa policies and some basic information of the institutional repositories of the following universities. the 10 universities in china are: peking university (a1), shandong university (a2), wuhan university (a3), nanjing university (a4), dalian university of technology (a5), xiamen university (a6), university of hong kong (a7), jiangsu university (a8), nanjing tech university (a9), hong kong university of science and technology (a10); the 10 universities in the united states are: harvard university (b1), johns hopkins university (b2), california state university (b3), university of pennsylvania (b4), cornell university (b5), columbia university (b6), duke university (b7), pennsylvania state university (b8), massachusetts institute of technology (b9), university of california (b10); the 10 universities in the united kingdom are: university of oxford (c1), university college london (c2), university of cambridge (c3), imperial college london (c4), university of manchester (c5), university of nottingham (c6), university of birmingham (c7), university of sheffield (c8), university of leeds (c9), cardiff university (c10). it can be known from the statistical results that the amount of open access data of the institutional repositories of universities in china is relatively large, and the reason may be that the number of knowledge bases in the same unit is relatively small. in this way, resources are relatively concentrated and stored, and the scope of inclusion of academic achievements is relatively broad, which is beneficial to the data retrieval, deposit, sharing and use of scientific researchers. the construction of institutional repositories in the united states and the united kingdom is both in a leading position in the world. the effective time of the oa policies of universities in the two countries is mostly before 2013. cornell university in the united states even formulated relevant oa policies as early as 2005. the exploration and practice of open access by these universities in the past ten years or so have effectively promoted the development of the open access movement and played an important role in the policy formulation and resource construction management of the open access institutional repository. 2. analysis of the contents of university oa policies analyze and compare the specific contents of the collected oa policies, including the purpose of open access, deposit policies (stored content, version requirements, submission policies, preservation policies, withdrawal policies), usage policies (metadata usage, full-text usage, unrestricted usage), copyright policies (copyright statement, authorization license, embargo restrictions, responsibility attribution, privacy policy), and funder policies. the policy situations of the 30 universities are shown in table 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 41 published by scholink inc. table 1. statistical situation of the oa policy contents of 30 universities u tp o deposit policy usage policy copyright policy pf s sc vr sp rp ep mu ftu uu cs al er la pp a1 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ a2 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ a3 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ a4 √ √ √ √ √ √ a5 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ a6 √ √ √ √ √ √ a7 √ √ √ √ √ √ a8 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ a9 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ a10 √ √ √ √ √ √ b1 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ b2 √ √ √ √ √ b3 √ √ √ √ √ √ b4 √ √ √ b5 √ √ √ √ √ b6 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ b7 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ b8 √ √ √ √ √ √ b9 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ b10 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ c1 √ √ √ √ √ √ c2 √ √ √ √ √ √ c3 √ √ √ √ √ c4 √ √ √ √ √ √ c5 √ √ √ √ √ √ c6 √ √ √ c7 √ √ √ √ √ √ c8 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ c9 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ c10 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 42 published by scholink inc. annotate: u: universities; tpo: the purpose of oa; sc: stored content; vr: version requirements sp: submission policy; rp: retention policy; ep: exit policy; mu: metadata usage ftu: full text usage; uu: unlimited usage; cs: copyright statement; al: authorization license er: embargo restrictions; la: liability attribution; pp: privacy policy; pfs: policy of fund sponsors it can be seen from table 1 that the oa policies of universities in china almost all have clear explanations and regulations on the content, submission, withdrawal policies of stored resources, as well as the use of metadata and full text. most universities have issued relevant policies for the copyright protection of oa resources, responsibility attribution, and the privacy protection of authors; some universities in the united states have particularly put forward requirements for the version and embargo period of resources, but most do not have specific submission and use policies, and have not made relevant explanations for responsibility attribution and the privacy of authors; in the oa policies of british universities, the vast majority have explained the purpose and significance of this action of oa, and put forward clear version requirements and embargo period limitations. most universities have no restrictions on the use of resources and have also provided the oa requirements of fund project sponsors. 2.1 the purpose of open access among the 30 universities investigated by the author, most of them introduced the purpose and significance of open access in the preface part of the policy, mainly covering the following four aspects. the first is to collect and preserve the academic and intellectual achievements of the university‟s researchers and spread them as widely as possible; the second is to provide a series of services for the academic research and academic exchanges of researchers, including archiving, management, publishing, retrieval and open sharing, etc.; the third is to maximize the demonstration and improvement of the academic reputation and influence of the university and its scholars globally to promote academic development; the fourth is to conduct in-depth mining and analysis of various achievement data to realize the data association between universities, scholars and achievements, show the research directions and progress of various disciplines, and promote the mutual understanding of researchers in the same field. some universities also mentioned copyright protection in this part. for example, the oa policies of harvard university and the university of california in the united states believe that by formulating strategies, authors can more easily retain extremely extensive rights of use and reuse without having to give up their rights when reaching an agreement with the publisher. in view of the sharp increase in the cost of online journals and databases, some universities believe that open access and open educational resources can help improve the affordability of the school and solve the crisis of the rising www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 43 published by scholink inc. subscription cost of academic resources, such as johns hopkins university and pennsylvania state university in the united states. 2.2 deposit policy 2.2.1 stored content the stored content in the university knowledge base is mainly the works and achievements with teaching or research value generated by the faculty or students of the university. in the oa policy of shandong university, the above academic resources are divided into three levels: core level, extended level and associated level. core-level resources include publicly published journal papers, conference papers, monographs, translations, compilations, patents, etc.; extended-level resources include master‟s and doctoral dissertations, preprint articles, scientific and technological reports, academic reports (ppt), research reports, learning objects, data sets, working documents, non-text resources etc.; associated-level resources include the resources already available in other systems of the school, including teachers‟ courseware, online open courses, moocs, excellent courses, lecture videos etc. most university knowledge bases can accept various types and formats of content, such as documents, images, videos, multimedia exhibitions, etc., but generally all the achievement content must be uploaded in digital form. the university of nottingham in the uk requires that if it is not possible to store the open access version of the full paper, a publication record should be created in the knowledge base and a link to the version held externally should be provided. 2.2.2 version requirements the knowledge base of the university of sheffield in the uk has given four classifications for the version of the work submitted by the author, as follows. (1) submitted version also known as the preprint version, it refers to the version of the article or chapter that has been submitted to the publication but has not yet undergone peer review. it may be available online through a preprint server, but since it has not been accepted for release by the publisher, it is called the “submitted version”. (2) author-accepted manuscript also known as the post-print version, accepted version, and the author‟s final copy, it is the version of the article or chapter that has been accepted for release. it includes the changes made after peer review but has not yet been copied, edited or formatted by the publisher. this version is usually in the form of a word document. if an article is created using the publisher‟s template, it may look similar to the published version but does not contain the doi, volume and page numbers. (3) record version also known as the published version, the final version, which has been copy-edited and typeset by the publisher and may not include the volume and page numbers. (4) online published version also known as the “online first” on cnki. after the article is determined to be accepted through peer review and before the completion of the paper journal publishing process, it is uploaded to the first-release platform. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 44 published by scholink inc. most of the knowledge repositories of universities in china do not have specific requirements for the version of the papers submitted by the authors, but generally, the default is the final published version. the oa policy of the hong kong university of science and technology has relevant instructions: the stored content includes but is not limited to working drafts, submitted versions, accepted versions and published versions. harvard university designates the stored version as the author‟s final version after peer review, that is, the accepted version, which not only includes the text content but also should include all the charts in the manuscript; with the consent of the publisher, the knowledge base can also store the record version of the article and provides the terminological explanations for the above versions. the university of pennsylvania requires the version stored by the author to include the first three types, duke university, johns hopkins university and the university of california designate the article provided by the author as the electronic copy of the final version, and the oa policy of columbia university declares that no editorial decisions will be made about the content in the knowledge base, that is, the works do not need to undergo peer review before entering the academic sharing area. the universities of oxford, imperial college london, nottingham, leeds, birmingham and sheffield in the uk require the author to provide the accepted version or the final version after peer review, and the university of manchester requires the journal articles and conference records stored to be the final version, while the knowledge base of cardiff university can accept the content storage of the first three versions. 2.2.3 submission policy the submission policy in the oa policy mainly declares the identity and rights of the submitter. the work can be submitted by the author himself or an authorized agent of the author (such as a research secretary, a subject librarian, an administrative staff member of the department etc.). most of the above universities require this, and only the hong kong university of science and technology and university college london in the uk propose that the work can only be directly deposited by the university‟s researchers, and the author can only submit his own work for archiving, while only harvard university and columbia university among the 10 universities in the us mention the identity of the submitter, and the coverage is relatively wide. the author has the rights to claim, copy, transform and reprocess the stored works, and wuhan university provides a specific claiming and submission process. some universities have put forward requirements on the oa mode of the work, that is, the green policy of open access through the knowledge base and the golden policy of open access through the journal. for example, harvard university in the us believes that the golden policy limits the freedom of researchers to choose the place of submitting works, requires paying more and more author-side fees for oa journals, and is not conducive to the multi-directional development of academic genres, so it requires the author to adopt the green policy. imperial college london and the university of birmingham in the uk provide both green and golden routes and explain that the peer review and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 45 published by scholink inc. release processes of the two routes are the same, but the school supports green open access more and encourages the authors to self-archive the published and unpublished works in the knowledge base as much as possible. 2.2.4 preservation and withdrawal policy as can be seen from table 1, among the 20 universities in china and the us, the oa policies of 12 universities have corresponding regulations on the preservation and withdrawal of the works in the knowledge base, and another 7 universities are involved in one of them. the policy contents of these two aspects are as follows: generally, it is promised that the work will be retained in the institutional knowledge base indefinitely, a permanent identifier and a permanent web address url will be given, and the content in the knowledge base will be managed sustainably to ensure that users can access the content information of scientific and technological achievements for a long time; in specific circumstances, it is possible to withdraw from the knowledge base by submitting a removal application and stating the reasons for withdrawal, but all the original entry records of all withdrawn content, including all the original metadata (identifier/url of the project), will be retained indefinitely and continue to provide open access to users. 2.3 usage policies for the purposes of archiving, preservation, and academic research, the user‟s use of the achievements in the institutional knowledge base generally includes replication and transformation, or reprocessing them and making them publicly available online. in this process, the specific usage principles are divided into metadata usage policies and full-text usage policies. most universities in china have given detailed descriptions of the two usage policies. when the submitter stores the achievements, it is required to submit the metadata, source, and format describing the achievement at the same time. users can use this metadata for free, and only need to provide the link or oai identifier of the metadata record when using it. when using the full text of the achievement, the user must provide the author, title, detailed bibliographic information, hyperlink or url of the original metadata page, and cannot modify its content in any form. generally, the non-profit purpose is the premise of the usage policy, but in the oa policy of the hong kong university of science and technology, it is proposed that “as long as the oai identifier or the link of the original metadata record is clearly provided, the metadata can be reused in any media without permission, and there is no need to be for a non-profit purpose”. for the use of metadata or full text of academic achievements in the knowledge base of foreign universities, there are mostly no unified restrictions, or relevant policies are put forward in the copyright authorization and licensing part. for example, columbia university reminds users that they should first confirm whether a certain work is protected by copyright, and then download and use the work reasonably according to the license terms and conditions selected by the copyright owner. cardiff www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 46 published by scholink inc. university simply mentioned that any full-text materials in the knowledge base are available to the public and can be accessed indefinitely. 2.4 copyright policies 2.4.1 copyright declarations and authorization licenses there are three situations regarding the copyright ownership of institutional knowledge base resources: first, the copyright belongs to legal persons or institutional organizations; second, the copyright belongs to the author; third, the copyright belongs to the publisher (li, 2012). generally, the institutional knowledge base platform does not require the author to transfer the copyright, but only requires compliance with the submission license agreement, and this is no exception for university knowledge bases. academic achievements that are publicly released for the first time in the knowledge base can be republished without restriction. before submitting the work, sign the creative commons (cc) agreement online with the knowledge base. the cc agreement allows the author to choose different combinations of rights to declare the authorization method of his work and reduce the risk of copyright infringement. for example, shandong university provides authors with two relatively open submission license agreements. one is attribution-non-commercial use-no derivatives, that is, the author owns the copyright of the work and allows anyone to use the work for non-commercial purposes without making any modifications, conversions, or derivative works based on the work while keeping the inherent attribution of the work; the other is attribution-non-commercial use-same way sharing, that is, the author owns the copyright of the work and allows anyone to use the work for non-commercial purposes under the premise of keeping the inherent attribution of the work. if it is changed, converted, or created based on the work, only the derivative work can be released under the same license agreement as this agreement. in the oa policy of the university of hong kong, it is required that the knowledge base data can be publicly provided to visitors under the license of creative commons-attribution-non commercial (cc by-nc). harvard university‟s requirements in terms of authorization licenses are relatively more relaxed, believing that “the grant of rights should be as extensive as possible”, while limiting it to “non-exclusive rights”. in february 2008, the oa policy mentioned in the knowledge base of the faculty of arts and sciences of harvard university: “the license granted by each faculty member is a non-exclusive, irrevocable, paid, global license, which can exercise all the rights related to the copyright of each of his academic articles in any medium and authorize others to do so as well, provided that the sale of these items is not for profit. some institutions that follow this model have abandoned the proviso of „not for profit‟. if your institution can do it, we suggest you do it. this will give the institution the rights required to authorize works covered by the cc-by policy.” this policy reflects the true meaning of open access and can achieve the purpose of wide dissemination and communication to the greatest extent. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 47 published by scholink inc. the massachusetts institute of technology uses the cc agreement to provide selective licenses, and the author can freely allocate and release some rights in the copyright law. the most open licensing policy is the attribution license. under this policy, the work can be distributed anywhere or modified according to the specific needs of others without changing the inherent attribution, and the author can disseminate his research results to the greatest extent. 2.4.2 embargo period limitations many publishers allow the authors to save the accepted version or published version of their publications in the institutional knowledge base or other academic sharing platforms, but require that the full text (descriptive information of the work can be provided, but the file cannot be downloaded) not be publicly provided before the specified time period, and this time period is called the embargo period (or confinement period). regarding the release policy during the embargo period, most knowledge bases of domestic and foreign universities have relevant requirements. in the oa policies of chinese universities, it is generally proposed that before the end of the embargo period of the publisher or funder, public open access to the submitted content will not be provided. however, visitors to the knowledge base of shandong university can obtain a copy of the achievement through channels such as doi, the shandong university academic resources discovery system, or the author‟s email; the hong kong university of science and technology requires that the achievement not be stored before the end of the embargo period. in the oa policies of american and british universities, it is considered that the author can specify the embargo period during the storage process according to his own choice or at the request of the publisher, usually 6 months or 12 months, and some universities can extend it to 24 months. johns hopkins university stipulates that the author can submit the final version at any time and specify the end date of the embargo, and the knowledge base system will release the thesis file at the appropriate time, and at the same time, visitors can use the sherpa romeo database to search for the embargo period of different journals. 2.4.3 responsibility attribution and privacy policies the institutional knowledge base provides the website platform and achievement content for visitors, while the use of the website and the risks related to the content should be borne by the users themselves. when any direct, indirect, special, accidental, secondary, punitive, exemplary, or other damages occur due to the content of the knowledge base, it is generally the responsibility of the user himself. most of the domestic university knowledge bases declare that any copyright infringement is the sole responsibility of the author. the regulations of the hong kong university of science and technology are relatively more rigorous and comprehensive: any act of copyright infringement is entirely the responsibility of the author/achievement submitter; if the knowledge base receives proof of copyright infringement, the relevant academic achievements will be immediately deleted. among the knowledge www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 48 published by scholink inc. bases of the 20 foreign universities investigated, only the university of california has relevant responsibility descriptions and restrictions. users generate a large amount of information and data during the process of registration, login, and access to the knowledge base. the university knowledge base has the obligation to protect the user‟s privacy and not disclose it at will. this policy is reflected in the oa policies of many universities in china and the united states. for example, the libraries of universities such as peking university and wuhan university, as the maintainers of the knowledge base platform, any personal information collected during the process of providing content access will be subject to the relevant confidentiality regulations of the school and the internet privacy part in the relevant policies. columbia university uses the library‟s record confidentiality policy to protect the data of the knowledge base platform and has described in detail the user information collected and saved by the platform, including the user ‟s identity information, ip address, statistical reports created by the user, and statistical information collected using analysis software etc. 2.5 policies of fund sponsors among the chinese, american and british universities investigated by the author, the 10 universities in the uk all have introductions to the oa policies of different fund project sponsors. the key points of the policy mainly include the author‟s standards, types of publications, copyright licenses, the duration of the embargo period, and the payment conditions and sources of funds for the article processing charge (apc). among them, university college london, imperial college london, the university of nottingham, and the university of birmingham provide brief summaries of the oa policies of some major research sponsors to help researchers comply with their rules and obtain relevant fees such as apc. other universities list the main research projects currently funding the school and provide their relevant links to facilitate researchers to query the terms and conditions of apc. for unlisted sponsors, their open access requirements can be queried through the sherpa juliet database. 3. insights 3.1 implementing mandatory oa policies since the beginning of the open access movement, mandatory oa policies have been increasingly recognized in the academic community, promoting the development in directions such as oa publishing and the construction of institutional repositories (li, qiu, & xiao, 2014). the data in roarmap shows that currently there are 76 countries implementing mandatory oa policies, and the partial statistics of china, the united states and the united kingdom are as follows: in the united states, there are 90 universities and their sub-institutions and 12 fund sponsors that adopt mandatory www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 49 published by scholink inc. oa policies; in the united kingdom, they are 95 and 23 respectively; in china, they are 4 and 1, and there are no universities and funds implementing such policies in the mainland. when universities formulate mandatory oa policies, it is conducive to promoting and incentivizing the self-archiving of academic achievements of their own researchers, and actively submitting them to the institutional repository to enrich the resources of the repository. following the countries with more advanced open science processes such as the united states and the united kingdom, in the oa policies of universities, mandatory language and measures are adopted in the name of the university to formulate provisions to promote the open access movement, such as the mandatory open rule of theses in this university, and the fund sponsors can require that the academic papers they fund be made freely available to the society (feng & liu, 2017). encourage but do not require teachers to publish articles in oa journals and help them understand the difference between storage in institutional repositories and publication in oa journals. in addition, there must be certain difficulties in the comprehensive implementation from the encouraging policies to the mandatory policies. universities can, according to their own characteristics, take colleges or other sub-institutions as pilot units to gradually promote the implementation of mandatory oa policies (li, qiu, & xiao, 2014). 3.2 formulating a comprehensive oa policy with popular science the ultimate purpose of the oa policy of the institutional repository of universities is to promote the open access of the academic achievements of the university‟s researchers, and to promote academic exchanges and the sharing of achievements. the basis for achieving this goal is to improve the researchers‟ awareness of open access and deepen their awareness of the necessity of the open access movement. therefore, it is very necessary to deeply interpret the national open science policy, give detailed explanations to the professional terms in the oa policy, reduce the concerns of researchers, answer the objections of the author group and eliminate potential storage obstacles. for example, the oa policy of the university of sheffield gives detailed explanations to the open access terms, including article processing fees, article versions, digital object identifiers, embargo periods, gold-green policies, types of repositories, etc.; johns hopkins university is committed to building its knowledge base into an open and transparent knowledge sharing institution, and has announced the policy history and the composition of the scholar group participating in the discussion and the specific process of obtaining approval in the oa policy. according to the statistical results in table 1, it can be seen that the oa policies of most of the 10 domestic universities have relatively complete systems, such as the policies of the institutional repositories of peking university and shandong university covering relatively comprehensive contents. however, in the process of online research on the institutional repositories of domestic universities, it is found that the construction of many institutional repositories is not yet mature, and there is no complete open access policy formulated, or only problem explanations are carried out in the frequently asked www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 50 published by scholink inc. questions (faq) module, and there is no separate policy page or file. therefore, in the construction of the knowledge base of universities, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the formulation of the oa policy. 3.3 formulating individualized oa policies for universities the policies of universities in the united states and the united kingdom more consider the specific situations and disciplinary characteristics of each school. although some policies are formulated using the policy tools of opendoar, individualized operations are also set according to actual needs (liu, liu, & ma, 2019; lang, 2014). in october 2012, harvard university released the “good practice for university open-access policies” written by suber p and shieber s, which provided a reference for the policy formulation of the institutional repositories of universities (shieber s & suber p, 2013). many universities have established their own oa policy systems for institutional repositories based on this guide and added individualized sections. the form of the policy formulation of the institutional repositories of universities in china is relatively single, and the contents of most policies have extremely high similarity. for example, the policy contents of peking university and jiangsu university are almost exactly the same, and the policy forms of the 10 universities investigated are basically the same mode, lacking the reflection of the individual characteristics of universities and institutional repositories. the oa policy of the institutional repository of universities should not only cover all levels of open access to form a comprehensive policy system, but also reflect the disciplinary characteristics and individual characteristics of the university‟s knowledge base to avoid being uniform. therefore, the oa policy of universities can draw on, refer to or use policy tools for formulation, while also considering the needs and characteristics of the university. 3.4 increasing the oa policy content of relevant fund project sponsors at present, the formulation of oa policies in china is mainly based on universities, and most fund sponsors have no requirements or make relevant regulations on the open access of research results. only the national natural science foundation of china has issued a statement that since may 2015, it has started to use the “national natural science foundation basic research knowledge base” to collect the full texts of research papers of funded project achievements and provide open access to the public to disseminate the cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements in the field of basic research (national natural science foundation of china, 2015). at the same time, the oa implementation rules of this knowledge base have been released, including the contents of inclusion, submission and use, system operation, intellectual property rights and disclaimer. from the open access experience of other countries, with the development of the open access movement, scientific research institutions and fund project sponsors will also actively participate in the formulation of oa policies, and ensure the wide dissemination and sharing of scientific research www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 51 published by scholink inc. achievements by limiting the use methods of scientific research funds, and promote the diversified development of the main body of open access policies. therefore, in the oa policy of the university‟s knowledge base, the policy content or links of relevant domestic and foreign fund project sponsors of this university can be added to facilitate the authors to be familiar with the relevant policies before applying for this funding and make rational use of them. 4. conclusion open access, as a newly emerging scientific and policy concept globally, has attracted certain attention in china, but still needs to be further enhanced. on the basis of improving the attention, awareness and participation of scientific researchers in open access, soliciting the opinions of relevant departments of the school and the dominant disciplinary groups, considering the key points of the school‟s development, and formulating a scientific, comprehensive and perfect open access policy system will help accelerate the construction of institutional repositories in universities and colleges and meet the urgent needs of scientific researchers for open science. references deng, j. (2010). research on the construction mode of institutional repositories. library and information service, 54(6), 112-116. feng, p., & liu, q. (2017). research and analysis on the mandatory open access policy in japan. library and information service, 61(4), 31-39. lang, q. (2014). research on the construction of the policy system of institutional repositories. information theory and practice, 37(7): 23-27. li, g., & qiu, x., & xiao, m., (2014). research on the mandatory open access policy of foreign universities. journal of university libraries, (3), 39-43. li, h., & tang, q. (2020). analysis of the difficulties in the construction of institutional repositories in higher education institutions—thoughts based on the practice of the construction of institutional repositories in nankai university. library construction, (s1), 84-87. li, n. (2012). solution strategies for the copyright problem of resources in institutional repositories. library construction, (7), 1-5. liu, l., & liu, w., & ma, w., et al. (2019). research on the open access policy of institutional repositories in british universities. information theory and practice, 42(3), 171-176. ma, j. (2010). trends in the content construction and service design of institutional repositories. information theory and practice, 33(09), 23-27. national natural science foundation of china. (2015, may 20). the policy statement of the national natural science foundation of china on the implementation of open access for scientific www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 52 published by scholink inc. research papers of funded projects. retrieved march 6, 2024, from http://if.nsfc.gov.cn/statement open doar. (2023). open doar statistics. retrieved from https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/view/repository-by-country/ shieber s, & suber p. (2013, september 30). good practices for university open-access policies. retrieved february 20, 2024, from https://www.docin.com/p-1647180993.html zhang, w., & zhang, q., & gao, b. (2017). research on the open access repository policy of german universities. journal of university libraries, (2), 75-80. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 31 original paper how improper recycling of used products impact the environment in global south wenxuan xu 1* 1 china tiesiju civil engineering group real estate development co., ltd., hefei, china * wenxuan xu, china tiesiju civil engineering group real estate development co., ltd., hefei, china received: july 5, 2025 accepted: july 15, 2025 online published: july 31, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p31 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p31 abstract recycling is beneficial for society as it can reduce the consumption of nonrenewable materials and help preserve the environment. however, some countries of the global south seem to be encountering improper recycling, which has damaged the environment. the article studies how the improper recycling of used products impacts the environment in ghana, india, and other developing countries. keywords improper recycling, environment, global south, climate change recycling has been a popular topic and movement these years. more people and more organizations choose to recycle their products. proper recycling can decrease energy consumption and natural sources and reduce pollution to the environment. therefore, many countries’ governments set some policies to encourage companies to recycle and publish some laws to ask individuals to recycle in their daily lives. for example, german policymakers asked producers to take responsibility for their packaging wastes. germany has the highest recycling rate globally, about 56.1% (parker, 2020). however, recycling also takes some burden on humans and the environment. many developing and underdeveloped countries do not have enough funds and advanced technologies to recycle appropriately, so they usually recycle in the wrong ways. improper recycling can release pollution into the environment and not benefit the world. because all countries in global south are developing and even underdeveloped counties, the inappropriate recycling are more and always causes many environmental problems in global south. the south in global south is not a geographical notion, and it does not mean the countries located in south hemisphere. global south is more likely a political and economic concept. global south primarily refers to the countries which are developing and underdeveloped, which is an alternative way www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 32 published by scholink inc. to define “third world” (world population review, 2022). world population review (2022) stated that “these countries are those who tend to have unstable democracy, are in the process of industrializing, and have historically frequently faced colonization by global north countries (especially by european countries)”. according to global south countries 2022 in world population review, many economy-well countries are still in global south: china, qatar, and the uae. many people and many countries in the global south like to burn the discarded products in public, bury the wastes in the landfill and use the wrong machines to recycle materials. these recycling methods are very harmful to the environment and the health of humans. because of the less economic and social development, workers there are often not educated well, and companies usually do have strict regulations on recycling. if workers use metal recycling machines to recycle plastics, it must decrease the efficiency of the devices and consume more energy (vogel, 2015). many fuels, such as oil and natural gas, are unrenewable. so, humans should not recycle inefficiently. the improper use of machines also can cause damage to the equipment (vogel, 2015). repairing machines cost a lot of money and need variable energy. non-standard operations also can put workers in danger because the power of devices sometimes can make people die. burning the discarded products and burying the used products in landfills can contaminate the soil and water. water is an important source to sustain the life of humans and keep the sustainability of nature. soil is also an essential source for humans to grow foods and fruits. the polluted air can cause people to have lung diseases. therefore, improper recycling can have many negative results in the global south and worldwide. there are many improper methods to recycle discarded products in different global southern countries. india has to recycle many plastic wastes from the world every year. agbogbloshie in ghana is a significant destination for electric waste. because of the massive population in china, there are many used textile products in china. the environmental conditions in these countries are not good. china, ghana, and india ranked in the second half of 180 countries in the 2020 environmental performance index. china got the best score in these three countries, only at 120 out of 180 countries. india and ghana were both in 168th place, and the epi scores of both countries were 27.6. denmark got the highest epi score: 82.5 (epi, 2020). therefore, there is a significant difference between the well environmental and badly environmental countries. improper recycling is a big reason making these countries experience poor ecological conditions. india is a south asian country with a large population, and india is also an essential country in the global south. the high technology and economy have positive development these years. however, the pollutions and living conditions in india are still severe. india needs to recycle many plastic products every year. unlike in germany, the recycling method of plastic products in india is improper and dirty. germany is a large recycling country in the global north, and the technique for germen to recycle plastic products is better and cleaner. there is a low-energy pet plastic recycling process in northern www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 33 published by scholink inc. germany. veolia, an environment company, can give plastic bottles a second life, which is likely “cradle to cradle” (veolia, 2022). veolia (2022) stated that “one billion bottles a year are recycled for further food use”. plastic recycling in germany releases less pollution into the world, and it makes fewer impacts on the environment. the reuse of plastic bottles also can save the raw materials from nature. however, about 79 percent of plastic waste in india gets into the land, water, and ocean, and 12 percent of the plastic waste gets incinerated (manorama, n.d.). these recycling methods are harmful to the environment. the large population is a critical reason india cannot recycle well. the education and energy resources are limited, so not every indian can get an equal opportunity to learn. they lack the knowledge of recycling wastes properly, especially plastic wastes. most indian do not know what the results of burning and burying the wastes are. kaur (2014) stated, “india was an agrarian nation and still major part of our economy is based on agriculture”. therefore, india has insufficient techniques and funds to develop and use the high technology for recycling plastic wastes. incinerating and burying plastic wastes are the easiest and cheapest ways for indians to recycle. the workers do not need to be educated, and the company does not need to buy many devices. however, burning plastic waste in public is a significant source of air pollution (verma, vinoda, papireddy, & gowda, 2016). the burning process can release many toxic substances into the environment, such as dioxins, furans, and mercury, and these substances are also harmful to the vegetation and humans (verma, vinoda, papireddy, & gowda, 2016). verma, vinoda papireddy, and gowda (2016) reported that “burning of plastic wastes increases the risk of heart disease, aggravates respiratory ailments such as asthma and emphysema and cause rashes, nausea or headaches, and damages the nervous system”. burying the plastic wastes pollutes the soil and ocean, influencing the quality of food and water for humans. overall, there are many negative influences on indians to burn and bury the plastic wastes in public. the indian government has noticed the importance and impact of improper recycling. in 2016 and 2018, their government published the plastic waste management rules. in 2021, they announced an amendment about single-use plastics, which recommended some proper ways to recycle plastic products (manorama, n.d.). however, laws are not always the best way to solve the problems, especially regarding recycling. the government needs to solve the issues from the bottom. implemented education to indian people, and making more people know the importance of proper recycling plastics is more efficient. agbogbloshie is a city in ghana, and many media introduced this city as an “e-waste dump”. between 1960 and 1965, the gdp of ghana increased by 50 percent because of the national industrialization. industrialization makes more people leave from rural places to accra, the large city in ghana (lewblank, 2016). the new migrants lived in the slums in accra, and they started to receive the used e-wastes from the developed countries, such as the usa, japan, and europe. gradually, agbogbloshie www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 34 published by scholink inc. in accra became the major destination for electric devices (lewblank, 2016). lewblank (2016) reported that “in the years following the first e-waste, the korle lagoon, located inside agbogbloshie, became one of the most polluted bodies of water on the planet, with levels of toxins 100 times the acceptable amount”. the vast number of e-wastes leads the media to name this place “e-waste dump”. the only way for residents in agbogbloshie to recycle electronic wastes is to burn them. they put the wastes like a mountain in public and burn the rubbish with fire, and then the children can get into the dumps to collect the metals. many metals form used e-wastes are valuable and reusable. the electric companies can buy the metals from these residents to produce new products and use metals in other ways to make money. however, these children are constantly exposed to these toxic substances and air for six dollars per day (lewblank, 2016). yeung (2019) stated that “burns, back problems, and infected wounds are common ailments among these workers, as well as respiratory problems, chronic nausea, and debilitating headaches—brought on by the hazardous working environment and toxic air pollution”. the health and living conditions in agbogbloshie are poor and awful, and people can even see acidic gusts of smoke there. the air pollution from agbogbloshie also spread to other places in ghana, which can even cause a global health crisis (yeung, 2019). with the development of technologies, more people are using electronic devices. most people choose to throw the electronic wastes directly, and the ships will take the wastes to agbogbloshie. there are many poverty issues in ghana, especially for children. 1.2 million households in ghana cannot supply enough food to children, and cholera also makes many people to experience the sickness (hamby, 2018). corruption is a major problem for ghana’s government, and it can hinder foreigners from investing in ghana. most incomes of ghana are from the sale of cocoa, and there is no other profitable way for ghana to make money (bmz, n.d.). therefore, many adults and children must burn the e-wastes in agbogbloshie, and this job can help them have food for a living. the ghanaian government published some rules to regulate the e-waste in ghana, which are available from 2016 to 2023. the ghanian government issued a law to help the ghanian ministry of environment to enhance collaboration with other government agencies to regulate the activities of private companies and non-governmental organizations. the government also gave some support for the private companies to recycle appropriately. exchange and advisory services noticed the problems in agbogbloshie, and they were trying to transit to a more regulated recycling site for agbogbloshie (spitzbart, n.d.). however, 95 percent of recycling activities in ghana are informal. therefore, it is difficult for the government to regulate well. the ghanian needs to improve the living conditions and make more ghanian get education. these are the fundamental and efficient methods, like india and many other countries in global south. corruption is a severe element hinder the development of the country and the ghanian government needs to solve. the ghanian government not only needs to regulate the problems of e-waste recycling, but also the issues of corruption. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 35 published by scholink inc. china is a large developing country located in east asia, and it is also an influential entity in global south and even the world. because of the opening and revolution in the 1980s, china turned from an agricultural country to an industrial nation. the pollution and industrial wastes are much more than before. although the techniques of recycling wastes are more advanced than in many developing countries, the issue of pollution is still severe in some chinese regions. because of the large population, many electronic wastes, plastic wastes, and textile wastes are recycled each year in china. textile waste is the most apparent problem in the chinese recycling industry. bloomberg (2020) reported that “in a country that makes more than 5 billion t-shirts a year, there is a stigma to wearing old or second-hand clothes and millions of tons of garments are discarded every day”. chinese people have many unwanted and used clothes, and no one wants to sell and buy these clothes. therefore, most chinese choose to throw these used clothes to the dump directly, and the rubbish station burns and buries these used clothes after collections. however, throwing is not the best solution for textile waste recycling. most chinese people like to buy fast fashion products, such as uniqlo and zara. the style and price of these products are cheap and popular, and it reinforces the issues of chinese textile waste. there is only about 1percent of used clothes recycled every year (bloomberg, 2020). although most clothes are made of clean materials, such as cotton and fibers, these materials do not have toxic substances to the environment and humans, but clothes can release carbon while producing and recycling. bloomberg (2020) reported that “the fashion industry accounts for around 10% of global carbon emissions, more than is produced by all flights and maritime shipping combined, according to the ellen macarthur foundation”. carbon emission is an essential reason for global warming these years. variable carbon emission increases the impact of the greenhouse effect. the incinerating of textile wastes in china can also boost the greenhouse effect. rising temperatures and climate change are obvious in china these years, and they increase the health risk of the chinese. the heatwave exposures for chinese increased by about 4.51 days compared with the average number from 1986 to 2005, and the heatwave-related deaths increased by 92 percent in china (cai, zhang, ai, bai, & bao, 2021). climate change also can increase the disasters from nature. in sichuan province, people are threatened by flood, drought, and wildfire exposure in liaoning and jilin (cai, zhang, ai, bai & bao, 2021). the impacts of recycling in china are not obvious as in india and ghana, but most people concerned for the effects in the future. recycling textile products like clothes cannot make many profits for chinese companies. the used clothes are also hard to prove health and safety, so organizations and individuals are unwilling to use the second-hand clothes (bloomberg, 2020). wearing strangers’ second-hand garments is also a shame to most chinse, so the market of use clothes is tiny in china. chinese people are more likely to buy old electronic devices and books. the recycling and garbage sorting regulations are not forcible in china, so it may increase the costs of recycling textile wastes for companies. there are many garbage sorting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 36 published by scholink inc. bins in chinese cities, but most people just throw the clothes with other trash, such as kitchen and domestic waste. the lack of knowledge on garbage sorting and recycling probably is also why the chinese government recycles textile products hard. the chinese government has already noticed the problems of textile waste and its negative influences. china is a member of the paris climate agreement, and the goal of the chinese government is always significant to decrease the greenhouse effect. china has already reduced coal consumption, and china achieved nine of the 15 quantitative targets in 2015 climate commitments (stalley, 2021). the chinese government has published some more serious rules to regulate recycling. in shanghai, the citizens are asked to use garbage sorting bins correctly. the police can give the tickets to people who do not use these bins correctly. some chinese companies and organizations also have plans to collect the used and old clothes for people living in poorer countries. the companies and organizations export some high-quality used clothes to some african countries, and the export of used clothing rose from 1 percent in 2010 to 6.4 percent in 2015 (bloomberg, 2020). because the education system is mature now, more people know the importance of recycling and donate their old clothes to companies and organizations. students can study the impacts of pollution and the benefits of recycling correctly in school. the recycling bin of old clothes has become more widespread in each chinese community. with the development of the economy, many countries in global south choose to avoid importing waste from developed counties. china likes to import some wastes from the usa and recycle these wastes to satisfy the demands of the industry before. however, china banned the import of plastic waste from other countries in 2017, forcing many developed countries to find new places to export waste (wen, xie, chen, & dinga, 2021). the living conditions and environments are not good enough in china these years, and importing waste is essential for the harmful environment. china already has many wastes from local people, and most waste ends up in landfills. the volume of solid waste imported from other countries was 45 million tons before the ban, said the chinese government minister (rapoza, 2020). these solid wastes are burdening the chinese government and citizens, and they can contaminate the water and soil, and the landfill’s capacity has its maximum. therefore, the chinese government needed to ban waste imported from other countries. the economic development helped chinse no longer need to import waste for money. the main goal of the chinese government is to keep good living conditions and a proper economy increasing, so importing waste is not a good choice for china now. malaysia is a developing country located in southeast asia, and most malaysian origins are from china. malaysia has a similar culture and norms to china, and it became a popular destination for waste after the chinese government banned waste import. however, the malaysian government is trying to avoid importing some unofficial wastes from developed countries. malaysia stated that they had already sent 267 containers of illegal plastic waste back to their original countries since 2019 (reuters, 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 37 published by scholink inc. china’s ban is a direct reason for countries like malaysia to stop importing waste from developed countries (lee, 2019). the economy of malaysia also has a good score these years, and the malaysian government focuses on protecting the local environment more. the government wants to have sustainable development, and the living condition should not be destroyed in malaysia (lee, 2019). however, malaysia permitted some waste imports from the usa on march 14, 2021. the malaysian environment ministry stated that these wastes were clean and licensed. therefore, these wastes do not need to be shipped back. chen, nath, chong, foo, gibbins, and lechner (2021) stated that “in asia, the percentage of plastic in solid wastes generated in malaysia is second only to the philippines. significantly, by 2018, malaysia produces more than 0.94 million tons of mismanaged plastic wastes per year”. the environmental issues are severe, and the growth of the population is fast these years in malaysia, so the malaysian government needs to stop waste import thoroughly. not only china and malaysia tried to ban the wastes imported from the countries in global north. rapoza (2020) indicated that “reports last month of returned british recyclables from sri lanka, thailand, the philippines, malaysia, and turkey—to name a few—show that these countries want out of the garbaged goods trade”. all these countries are from global south, and the emerging market nations are trying to send the trash back to the original countries. the government of sri lanka companies that some containers from the uk are unrecyclable and exceed the maximum amounts, so they returned 21 containers in october (rapoza, 2020). in vietnam, the government stopped issuing more licenses to import waste and regulated the illegal waste shipments. the debris caused many vietnamese ports to be crowded, and about 6000 containers of waste need to be handled (reuters, 2018). like china, vietnam imported wastes to make raw materials for the paper, plastic, and steel industries. however, the vietnamese government also realized the waste only benefited the waste processors but not the environment and every vietnamese (reuters, 2018). because the costs of factories increased in china, more companies chose to move the factories to vietnam. the factories not only take the money to vietnam but also take the pollution to this developing country. one foreign steel plant contaminated vietnamese coastal water, and many vietnamese citizens were angry. more developing countries in global south realized the importance of the environment, so they were trying to increase the efficiency of recycling old products and stop importing wastes from developed countries. the improper recycling of wastes can negatively influence the country, especially in the environmental industry. burning the wastes can release toxic substances into the air and impact the health of humans, and most workers must suffer lung disease because of exposure to toxic air. burying the wastes in landfills can contaminate the soil and water. soils and water are important sources for humans to have healthy and clean food. if the soils and water are contaminated thoroughly, the food will be dirty. these recycling methods also increase the consumption of unrenewable metals because some metals from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 38 published by scholink inc. e-wastes can be used many times. the countries in global south need to suffer these problems more than the developed countries in global north. many developing countries must import waste to make raw materials and earn money from the waste. although some economy-well countries, such as china and malaysia, have tried to increase the efficiency of recycling products and have banned the wastes imported from developed countries. the efforts of minor countries are strenuous to improve the environment and living conditions for the whole global southern world. educated workers and efficient governments are essential factors to keeping sustainable and making the environment suitable. in a word, improper recycling of waste is a global issue, and the countries from both global north and global south need to take responsibility for waste. references bloomberg. (2020, october 18). china’s next problem is recycling 26 million tons of discarded clothes. bloomberg. retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-10-18/china-s-big-fashion-problem-is-recycling26-million-tons-of-used-clothes bmz. (n.d.). good prospects and big challenges. federal ministry for economic cooperation and development. retrieved from https://www.bmz.de/en/countries/ghana/economic-situation-38968 cai, w., zhang, c., zhang, s., ai, s., bai, y., bao, j., chen, b., chang, n., chen, h., cheng, l., cui, x., dai, h., danna, b., di, q., dong, w., dong, w., dou, d., fan, w., fan, x., … gong, p. (2021). the 2021 china report of the lancet countdown on health and climate change: seizing the window of opportunity. the lancet public health, 6(12). https://doi.org/10.1016/s2468-2667(21)00209-7 chen, h. l., nath, t. k., chong, s. et al. (2021). the plastic waste problem in malaysia: management, recycling and disposal of local and global plastic waste. sn appl. sci., 3, 437. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-021-04234-y environmental performance index. (2020). 2020 epi results. epi. retrieved from https://epi.yale.edu/epi-results/2020/component/epi hamby, m. k. (2018, august 22). top 10 facts of resiliency about poverty in ghana. the borgen project. retrieved from https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-of-resiliency-about-poverty-in-ghana/#:~:text=overcrowdin g%20and%20homelessness%20are%20some,of%20inside%20toilets%20in%20homes kaur, r. (2014, february 24). is stopping india to become a developed country?—india. my india. retrieved from https://www.mapsofindia.com/my-india/india/what-is-stopping-india-to-become-a-developed-cou www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 39 published by scholink inc. ntry#:~:text=india%20was%20an%20agrarian%20nation,irrigation%20that%20is%20highly%20u npredictable lee, y. n. (2019, january 25). malaysia, following in china’s footsteps, bans imports of plastic waste. cnbc. retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/25/climate-change-malaysia-following-china-bans-plastic-waste-i mports.html lewblank. (2016, may 16). agbogbloshie. atlas obscura. retrieved from https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/agbogbloshie manorama. (19ad). plastic waste management in india. manorama yearbook. retrieved from https://www.manoramayearbook.in/india/special-articles/2021/10/19/plastic-waste-management-i n-india.html parker, t. (2020, november 13). from austria to wales: the five best recycling countries in the world. ns packaging. retrieved from https://www.nspackaging.com/analysis/best-recycling-countries/ rapoza, k. (2020, november 29). china doesn’t want the world’s trash anymore. including “recyclable” goods. forbes. retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/11/29/china-doesnt-want-the-worlds-trash-anymore -including-recyclable-goods/?sh=26bf6cca7290 reuters. (2018, july 26). vietnam to limit waste imports as shipments build up at ports. reuters. retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-waste/vietnam-to-limit-waste-imports-as-shipments-b uild-up-at-ports-iduskbn1kg0kl reuters. (2021, april 6). malaysia sends back over 300 containers of illicit plastic waste. reuters. retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-environment-plastic/malaysia-sends-back-over-300-c ontainers-of-illicit-plastic-waste-iduskbn2bt1yt reuters. (2021, march 31). malaysia permits import of us plastic waste after it passes new un treaty test. new york post. retrieved from https://nypost.com/2021/03/31/malaysia-permits-import-of-u-s-plastic-waste-shipment/ spitzbart, m. (n.d.). environmentally sound disposal and recycling of e-waste in ghana. giz. retrieved from https://www.giz.de/en/worldwide/63039.html#:~:text=in%20ghana%2c%2095%20per%20cent,a re%20open%20to%20unskilled%20workers www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 40 published by scholink inc. stalley, p. (2021, november 7). china’s climate change record: beijing tends to meet its targets, but sets the bar too low. the conversation. retrieved from https://theconversation.com/chinas-climate-change-record-beijing-tends-to-meet-its-targets-but-set s-the-bar-too-low-172138 up to us. (n.d.). germany, a plastic recycling hub in europe. up to us. retrieved from https://www.up-to-us.veolia.com/en/recycling/germany-plastic-recycling-hub-europe#:~:text=tha nks%20to%20a%20low%20energy,recycled%20for%20further%20food%20use verma, r., vinoda, k. s., papireddy, m., & gowda, a. n. s. (2016). toxic pollutants from plastic wastea review. procedia environmental sciences, 35, 701-708. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proenv.2016.07.069 vogel. (2019, july 15). what happens when the wrong things go into recycling? vogel. retrieved from https://www.vogeldisposal.com/vogel-disposal-news/what-happens-when-the-wrong-things-go-int o-recycling-4022 wen, z., xie, y., chen, m. et al. (2021). china’s plastic import ban increases prospects of environmental impact mitigation of plastic waste trade flow worldwide. nat commun, 12, 425. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20741-9 world population review. (2022). global south countries 2022. world population review. retrieved from https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/global-south-countries yeung, p. (2019, may 29). the toxic effects of electronic waste in accra, ghana. bloomberg. retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-29/the-rich-world-s-electronic-waste-dumpedin-ghana communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 112 original paper symbiosis and evolution: reconstructing the digital publishing landscape based on innovation ecosystem theory qiuhua guo 1 & yunyin huang 1 1 university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai, china received: october 10, 2025 accepted: october 22, 2025 online published: november 7, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p112 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p112 abstract digital publishing companies generally face the challenge of insufficient innovation momentum during the transformation process. the innovation ecosystem is an innovation paradigm with the concepts of “resource sharing, value co-creation, diversified symbiosis, and collaborative innovation”. it is an emerging driving force for innovative development. this paper integrates the innovation ecosystem theory from management discipline into the field of digital publishing, examines the historical trajectory and progression of the theory by conducting a systematic literature review, and constructs a theoretical framework of the innovation ecosystem. with symbiosis and evolution as the core, the innovation ecosystem reconstructs the development landscape of digital publishing from an ecological perspective, and provides theoretical support for solving the innovation problems of digital publishing in terms of innovation concepts, organizational relationships, and innovation momentum. keywords digital publishing, social sciences, innovation ecosystem, symbiosis 1. introduction in recent years, with the comprehensive layout of the digital china initiative and the continuous advancement of the national cultural digitalization strategy, china’s digital publishing industry has demonstrated strong growth momentum. according to the “2023-2024 annual report on china’s digital publishing industry” released by the chinese academy of press and publication, the overall scale of china’s digital publishing industry reached 1,617.968 billion yuan over the past year, representing an increase of 19.08% compared to the previous year. while the digital publishing industry demonstrates a positive development trajectory, it still faces numerous challenges that require urgent resolution. the main manifestations include: a shortage of talent in emerging publishing formats, insufficient r&d investment, weak digital copyright protection capabilities, insufficient innovation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 113 published by scholink inc. capabilities, inadequate data resource development and management practices, and inconspicuous benefits from digital transformation etc., which restrict the continuous innovation of the digital publishing industry. continuous innovation refers to the process of enterprises continuously launching innovative projects and realizing innovative economic benefits for a considerable period of time, emphasizing the sustainability of innovation in terms of time, effect growth and development. for the development of digital publishing, to achieve continuous innovation is to enhance the momentum of innovation and have a steady stream of innovation driving force. innovation ecosystem is regarded as an emerging driving force for innovation development, which is a dynamically coordinated structure dominated by a common value proposition and composed of innovation activities of diverse participants. much like a natural ecosystem, it continuously evolves through feedback loops with the external environment, thereby driving enterprises to pursue sustained innovation. enhancing the innovation momentum in digital publishing is an internal requirement for the industry to improve its quality and efficiency. by building an innovation ecosystem, digital publishing firms can gain a perpetual source of innovation impetus. empowered by such ecosystems, digital publishing field may present a new landscape characterized by greater diversity, openness, intelligence, and integration. 2. literature review 2.1 research on digital publishing in 2011, the former general administration of press and publication of china first defined the concept and characteristics of digital publishing, stating: “digital publishing is an emerging publishing format resulting from the integration of the publishing industry and high-tech, characterized primarily by the digitalization of content production, management processes, product forms, and networked dissemination channels”. the digital publishing industry is an emerging publishing format born from the integrated development of the publishing industry and digital technologies, such as media technology, network technology, and display technology. in research on the development of digital publishing, how to enhance innovation capacity and secure sustained momentum for innovative development has become an urgent issue requiring attention in the current digital publishing landscape. based on a review of literature related to innovative development in digital publishing from 2023 to 2025 retrieved from the cnki database, this study identifies several key research focuses in the innovative development of digital publishing enterprises. these include: first, studies on high-quality development of digital publishing; second, research on the deep integration and development of digital publishing; third, investigations into new business models and formats in digital publishing; and fourth, examinations of how generative artificial intelligence technologically empowers digital publishing. these studies have explored approaches to fostering innovation in digital publishing from various www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 114 published by scholink inc. perspectives—including national strategy, industrial structure, production factors, and digital technology—laying a solid theoretical foundation for innovation studies in this field. however, against the backdrop of rapid global economic development and increasingly blurred industrial boundaries, there is a growing need to examine digital publishing through the lenses of dynamic development and ecological evolution. 2.2 research on innovation ecosystem the theory of innovation ecosystem originates from the field of management science. it emphasizes that grounded in shared value propositions, ecological subjects are driven to continuously engage in innovation activities through mechanisms such as openness, dynamic interaction, and symbiotic evolution. this process progressively enhances the vitality of the ecosystem and secures a sustained driving force for innovation. the origin of the innovation ecosystem can be traced back to the first half of the 19th century. the national innovation system is the earliest theoretical source of the innovation ecosystem. in 1841, german economist friedrich list proposed the “state system”, which is a combination of state proprietary factors and political economy, which believed that the german government should establish a state system to promote the development of modern german industry and economy in the case of obvious backwardness in german industry. later, british scholar alfred marshall proposed the concept of “agglomeration”, suggesting that clustering generates effects that stimulate innovation (carlino et al., 2007), bringing together similar or complementary companies in an area can not only trigger competition but also promote mutual learning, thereby stimulating innovative behavior. entering the 20th century, schumpeter (1934) first proposed the concept of “innovation” in his theory of economic development, clarifying the close connection between economic development and innovation. further building on this, lundvall (1985) pioneered the concept of “innovation systems”, arguing that innovation involves complex cooperative relationships and is the result of interactions among multiple actors within a system. since schumpeter introduced the concept of “innovation”, research in this field has excessively emphasized innovative activities themselves while gradually neglecting their social context and historical conditions. consequently, when examining japan’s rapid post-war economic growth in the latter half of the 20th century, freeman (1987) proposed the concept of the “national innovation system” to describe japan’s successful catch-up. he defined it as a network of public and private sector institutions whose activities and interactions determine the development, introduction, refinement, and diffusion of new technologies. building on this concept, nelson (1993) conducted further research on national innovation systems, comparing and analyzing different systems and constructing a general model for their analysis. cooke (1992) criticized this model, emphasizing the importance of regions and arguing that interactive learning between regions could significantly enhance innovation efficiency, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 115 published by scholink inc. thereby introducing the concept of the “regional innovation system”. however, with the rapid development of internet technology and the deepening of economic globalization, innovation activities gradually transcended national and regional boundaries. the concepts of “national innovation system” and “regional innovation system” were called into question, leading some scholars to propose “cluster innovation systems” and “sectoral innovation systems” as alternatives that are not constrained by geographical space. in his work the competitive advantage of nations, porter (1990) introduced the concept of “clusters”, describing them as geographic concentrations of interconnected companies and institutions in a particular field that foster innovative behavior through competition and collaboration. porter’s approach of using industrial clusters to analyze the competitive advantages of nations or regions gained widespread acceptance in academia. meanwhile, malerba (2002) proposed the concept of “sectoral innovation systems”, suggesting that market and non-market interactive learning processes within sectoral systems can generate new technologies and products. social context and economic development have propelled research on innovation ecosystems. after the 1990s, the rapid expansion and sustained growth of silicon valley in the united states prompted scholars to explore innovation from an ecological perspective, leading to increased focus on the innovation ecosystem. over the past two decades, research on innovation ecosystem has sustained growing academic interest. continued to grow, and the research has gradually radiated from developed countries such as europe and the united states to developing countries, and its ecological concept has been widely recognized by the world and has become a theory of great concern in the 21st century. in the context of business management applications, moore (1993) was among the first to propose using the natural ecosystem as a metaphor for understanding the complex innovation environments in which enterprises operate. he argued that firms should not be viewed merely as members of a single industry but as part of ecosystems spanning multiple industries. iansiti and levien (2004) further proposed that only by adopting mutually beneficial and symbiotic strategies can enterprises maintain the coordination and stability of the innovation ecosystem. building on earlier views, adner (2006) proposed that an innovation ecosystem is a synergy mechanism through which firms collaborate to integrate their products into unified customer solutions. adner (2010) focused on the innovation ecosystem itself, positing that a firm’s innovation is closely related to its environment and other ecosystem members. through synergy mechanisms, enterprises interact with other members to create value that no single enterprise could achieve alone. an innovation ecosystem is a system that continuously self-reconfigures, self-emerges, and self-evolves in response to changes in the external environment to achieve sustained growth and value creation. currently, with the rapid development and widespread application of digital technologies such as internet technology, big data, and artificial intelligence, innovation ecosystems are undergoing a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 116 published by scholink inc. digital transformation of their actors, structures, institutions, and functions. today, digital transformation has become pivotal to the continuous evolution of innovation ecosystems, making the exploration of their driving mechanisms under this context a research frontier. 3. theoretical framework 3.1 innovation ecosystem theory the innovation ecosystem model is a paradigm that emerges from platform-based networks, gathering innovative forces through shared value propositions. within this system, participants spontaneously engage in resource sharing and collaborative co-creation centered around common value ideals, with the goal of achieving collective innovation and value generation. the core principles of the innovation ecosystem are symbiotic collaboration and dynamic evolution. drawing an analogy to natural ecosystems, the innovation ecosystem transposes concepts such as communities, matter, energy, and information into the operational mechanisms of the innovation process—encompassing innovation actors, innovation resources, and the innovation environment. this forms a symbiotic and evolving system that continuously stimulates innovation activities, ensuring their stability and sustainability. as a new paradigm for driving innovative development, the innovation ecosystem provides sustained momentum for digital publishing by integrating the innovation activities of diverse actors and creating synergistic effects. furthermore, the industrial characteristics of digital publishing—namely its openness, deep integration, and ecological nature—dictate that research in this field increasingly requires an in-depth exploration from an ecological perspective. existing practices have demonstrated the feasibility of digital publishing enterprises constructing innovation ecosystems. by building such ecosystems characterized by multi-actor collaboration, enterprises have achieved boundaryless growth and sustained innovation. 3.2 symbiosis theory although the innovation ecosystem theory is still an emerging concept in the field of digital publishing, the symbiotic logic it embodies is widely referenced and applied in media studies in the form of symbiosis theory. innovation ecosystem theory represents a further development of symbiosis theory, as symbiosis theory provides a robust theoretical foundation for digital publishing enterprises to construct innovation ecosystems. the term “symbiosis” originates from greek. in 1879, the german mycologist heinrich anton de bary first introduced the concept of symbiosis, pointing out that due to survival needs, two or more organisms depend on and interact with each other in certain patterns, forming a symbiotic relationship of coexistence and co-evolution. the concept of symbiosis expanded from biology to economics and social sciences in the mid-20th century, with symbiotic theory gradually extending to industrial symbiosis and industrial ecosystems. this theoretical framework has been widely applied to publishing studies, generating multidisciplinary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 117 published by scholink inc. explorations in international communication, media convergence, digital transformation, and corporate integration. notably, due to the interdisciplinary nature of digital publishing, symbiotic theory has found particularly extensive application in this field, thereby providing substantial theoretical foundation for constructing innovation ecosystems in digital publishing enterprises. 4. discussion currently, the innovation ecosystem theory has been widely used in the research of regional innovation and industrial innovation. applying the innovation ecosystem theory to the innovative development practices of digital publishing will help digital publishing enterprise transform their innovation concepts and build collaborative partnerships, which helps them strengthen their position within the ecosystem and sustain a steady flow of innovation drive. the innovation ecosystem, with symbiosis and evolution at its core, reconstructs the developmental landscape of digital publishing from an ecological perspective. it provides theoretical support for addressing innovation challenges in digital publishing through transforming innovation paradigms, reshaping organizational relationships, and acquiring sustained driving forces for innovation. 4.1 symbiosis: transforming innovation concepts from the perspective of enterprise innovation strategy, the innovation ecosystem theory is conducive to guiding digital publishing enterprises to transform their innovation concepts. in the context of the rapid development of platformization, the most important form of competition today has changed from competition between enterprises to competition between platforms and platform ecosystems. therefore, digital publishing companies need to change their innovative concepts. the innovation ecosystem theory guides the transformation of business strategy from simple joint operation to collaborative and systematic cooperation, from product competition to platform competition, and from independent development of enterprises to symbiotic evolution. under the guidance of innovation ecosystem theory, digital publishing companies no longer regard themselves as a single closed organization, but openly evolve symbiotically with the entire ecosystem, creating value that cannot be created by a single enterprise. digital publishing companies should make full use of digital technology, platforms, and artificial intelligence to build an open and diverse ecosystem, include stakeholders and value creators in their own ecosystem, and develop symbiotically with the entire ecosystem. 4.2 synergy: building collaborative partnerships the innovation ecosystem theory facilitates the establishment of symbiotic, co-evolutionary, open, and collaborative organizational relationships for digital publishing enterprises. in an era where industry boundaries are increasingly blurring and the boundaries of innovation urgently need to be broken, digital publishing enterprises must seek new organizational forms to drive the integrated development of publishing. the innovation ecosystem represents a dynamic coordination structure, steered by a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 118 published by scholink inc. common value proposition and composed of the innovative activities of diverse participants. its innovation process is characterized by self-organizing properties and continuously evolves through feedback loops with the external environment, thereby supporting enterprises in sustaining innovation. innovation ecosystem emphasizes non-contractual, interdependent governance relationships. its self-organizing nature stems from the shared goal of value creation among ecosystem members, along with their interconnected, interactive, and interdependent complementarities. the complementary combinations generated by these multilateral dependencies possess a potential value-added effect, capable of infusing enterprises with diverse innovative vitality. grounded in this theory, digital publishing enterprises need to build mutually beneficial and symbiotic relationships around a common value proposition. by leveraging shared values as a bond, they can engage in value co-creation and value sharing, ultimately achieving collaborative innovation among diverse actors. 4.3 evolution: cultivating ecosystem-driven momentum from the perspective of the source of innovation driving force, the innovation ecosystem arises from the ecology itself, and ecological power is the most important endogenous driving force of digital publishing enterprises. the interconnection and mutual constraint of various elements in the ecosystem require the symbiosis and co-prosperity of various innovation subjects, which leads to the ability of the innovation ecosystem to continuously evolve, continuously promote the growth of dominant new species, and constantly transcend itself. just as natural ecosystems have ecological characteristics such as openness, diversity, integrity, and stability, which jointly promote the symbiotic evolution of ecosystems, innovative ecosystems also gain the power of continuous evolution, development and progress from their ecology. the innovation ecosystem is conducive to digital publishing enterprises to promote the continuous innovation activities of ecosystem subjects through openness, dynamic interaction, symbiosis and co-evolution, so as to continuously enhance the ecological power, enable members to gradually benefit from ecological advantages, and enhance the consistency of the ecosystem, promote the high-order evolution of the ecosystem, so as to maintain the vitality of the system and obtain continuous innovation driving force. 4.4 connection: forging open ecosystem network digital publishing possesses strong connectivity. compared with traditional publishing, it is primarily characterized by the digitization of content, management processes, and product forms, as well as the network-based dissemination channels. as a digitally empowered form of publishing, digital publishing achieves cross-boundary integration through digital technologies such as 5g, big data, and artificial intelligence. furthermore, digital publishing exhibits distinct ecological attributes. it interacts with numerous ecological elements, forming a symbiotic and co-evolutionary ecosystem. the digital publishing industry has developed different value chains around various stages—content production, technology www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 119 published by scholink inc. operation, and product marketin—which interweave and develop synergistically, collectively driving the evolution of the digital publishing ecosystem. the development model of multi-agent collaboration and symbiosis, along with the deeply integrated cross-sector development formats, endows the digital publishing ecosystem with features such as openness, complexity, diversity, dynamism, collaboration, and self-organization. these ecological characteristics create a natural foundation for digital publishing enterprises to build an innovation ecosystem. within this dynamic and open system, digital publishing and various ecological elements depend on each other and co-evolve, working together to achieve the overarching goal of innovation. 5. conclusion digital publishing enterprises need to construct an innovation ecosystem to address their transformational development and innovation momentum issues. from an academic research perspective, the interdisciplinary integration of digital publishing with multiple disciplines and fields represents a developmental trend in the field. transformational development, deep integration, copyright issues, and technology application in digital publishing have become key research foci. these research areas have long transcended the boundaries of traditional publishing studies, necessitating multidisciplinary approaches to digital publishing research. currently, there are relatively few studies examining digital publishing innovation from an ecological perspective. this research draws on the theory of innovation ecosystems from management science to provide a ecological perspective for digital publishing innovation studies. based on the literature tracing and sorting out the theory of innovation ecosystem, this paper points out that innovation ecosystem can reshape the digital publishing landscape in terms of changing innovation concepts, building collaborative organizational relationships, building continuous innovation driving forces, and building open ecological networks, providing an ecosystem perspective for solving the problem of innovation dynamics in digital publishing. however, the exploration of digital publishing innovation ecosystems in this paper is limited to theoretical deduction. future research should employ specific methods such as case studies and data analysis to provide practical evidence for the development of digital publishing. references adner, r. (2006). match your innovation strategy to your innovation ecosystem. harvard business review, 84(4), 98-148. adner, r., & kapoor, r. (2010). value creation in innovation ecosystems: how the structure of technological interdependence affects firm performance in new technology generations. strategic management journal, 31(3), 306-333. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 120 published by scholink inc. carlino, g. a., chatterjee, s., & hunt, r. (2007). m.urban density and the rate of invention. journal of urban economics, 61(3), 389-419. cooke, p. (1992). regional innovation systems: competitive regulation in the new europe. geoforum, 23(3), 365-382. freeman, c. (1987). technology policy and economic performance: lessons from japan. london: pinter. iansiti, m., & levien, r. (2004). strategy as ecology. harvard business review, 82(3), 68-126. lundvall, b. a. (1985). product innovation and user-producer interaction. industrial development research series, 31. aalborg university press. malerba, f. (2002). sectoral systems of innovation and production. research policy, 31(2), 247-264. moore, j. f. (1993). predators and prey: a new ecology of competition. harvard business review, 71(3), 75-86. nelson, r. (1993). national innovations systems: a comparative analysis (p. 541). new york: oxford university press. porter, m. e. (1990). the competitive advantage of nations.john wiley & sons, ltd. schumpeter, j. a. (1934). the theory of economic development. journal of political economy, 1(2), 170-172. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 67 original paper the school leadership is a key to break the higher education iron triangle through borderless distance education: the case of unisa in addis ababa ethiopia melese mekasha woldeyes1* 1 mekane yesus management and leadership college, addis ababa, ethiopia * melese mekasha woldeyes, mekane yesus management and leadership college, addis ababa, ethiopia received: april 26, 2019 accepted: may 8, 2019 online published: may 14, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n2p67 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n2p67 abstract this paper examines the role of cross-border distance education institutions in providing access to quality postgraduate education in ethiopia, using the south africa university (unisa) as a case study. it draws on the appropriate school leadership for the development of distance education, and it further explores the potential of a distance education program delivery system in an ethiopian context. in addition, the study explores the policy gap between conventional and distance education in relation to international postgraduate distance education. two instruments were used to gather relevant data, namely: interviews and document analysis. theoretical framework developed through three key elements: access, cost and quality were used as tools of analysis. keywords access, cost, quality, higher education, delivery mode, distance education, distance education generations, qualitative, school leadership, method, quality assurance, conventional education, student support services 1. introduction/background like other complex human activities, leadership might be difficult to pin down. it might even be unwise to narrow it unnecessarily. nonetheless, a working definition can provide a useful frame of reference. in this regard, hersey, blanchard and johnson (1998, p. 91) defined leadership as “the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation”. leithwood and riehl (2003) on their part also noted that, at the core of most www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 68 published by scholink inc. definitions of leadership are two functions: providing direction and exercising influence. leaders mobilize and work with others to achieve shared goals. this definition has several important implications towards traditional and distance education leadership. higher education, without appropriate leadership it is meaningless to rise the quality issues and low costs to be achievable within traditional systems of higher education which is based on classroom teaching and learning mode. expansion is now the defining trend in the worldwide development of higher education. some scholars have predicted that by 2020, 40% of the global workforce will be knowledge workers with a need for tertiary qualifications mannan (2009). the world bank, which made basic education its priority in the 1980s and 1990s, has changed its focus towards the development of higher education. this is an indication that higher education is getting precedence in the contemporary knowledge based economy. this, in turn, requires countries that have not yet developed their higher education systems to do so. indeed, there is evidence suggesting that developing countries want to join the knowledge society by following the example set by developed countries, where age participation rates in higher education of 40% to 50% are now perceived as necessary for sustained and sustainable development kanwar (2009, p. 30). according to mannan (2013), national policies on the millennium development goals (mdgs) emphasise the need for expansion of the education system, which focuses on the conventional method of delivery of basic education and tertiary level services in building human and social capital. however, today, it is further seeking and explaining the role of open and distance learning (odl) as an intervening strategy to break the conventional business as usual and in doing so providing access to quality higher education services and dissemination of information and knowledge that affects personal and community life of individuals became vital especially in developing countries. it is widely acknowledged that the traditional face-to-face education method is no longer the only means of accessing higher education. an alternative means has been devised in response to a demand for access to higher education. an ever-growing world population; an increase in the complexity of all aspects of life; increasingly higher education requirements for almost all types of jobs; accelerating change in nearly all occupations and jobs; and the special educational needs of disadvantaged and minority groups have all put pressure on the pursuit of an alternative means of access to higher education. distance education found to be an alternative means to reach the higher demand for higher education. however, without effective and quality school leadership this will not be realised. globally, higher education has been expanding over the last few decades and, according to altbach et al. (2009), it has struggled to meet demands. according to a unesco (2003) report, many countries have experienced higher rates of expansion and increase in student enrolment than anticipated. however, access to higher education in many developing countries including ethiopia compromising the quality issues. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 69 published by scholink inc. 2. method a qualitative research design will be used in this study. in particular, a case study will be employed. stratified and purposive sampling techniques will be used to select the research site and potential respondents. the study will delimit to unisa (addis ababa) in ethiopia. unisa was selected as a case study because it is one of the largest universities in the world which provides higher education opportunities by means of a distance mode to local, national and international students. it is also one of the leading educational institutions in africa with a high number of postgraduate students compared to other private universities in africa. 2.1 the diagram of higher education iron triangle theoretical framework will be developed through these key elements (variables for provision of quality distance higher education especially, the postgraduate level. access quality cost figure 1. theoretical framework developed through the above variables, access, quality and cost as described above in the theoretical framework summary, our premise is access to higher education via distance education is good and cost-effective. but it is not enough to conclude on the premises of access, however, distance education needs to provide a flexible source of quality postgraduate education as well cost-effective. we show that although unisa provides access to postgraduate distance education, further studies are needed to ascertain the coherence, efficiency and impact aspects of the quality. suppose the necessary day-to-day organizational conditions in the operation of unisa as a cross-border distance educational institution is provided; these conditions might be formal and informal: formal conditions refer to the official structure, arrangement of policy framework, and the quality enhancement procedures; for example, the formal condition includes curriculum designs, administrative and academic support and course materials preparation and assessment methods; informal conditions might include the relationship of staff among themselves and students to student’s interactions. the study shows that these conditions give rise to the quality postgraduate studies for the learners in ethiopia. furthermore, we theorize that the following quality issue in higher education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 70 published by scholink inc. needs to be understood in general conditions as follows. 3. discussion across the globe, it is an accepted fact that competitiveness is the nature of a knowledge market economy, in responding to this reality, quality education and training programs have been at the center of the national education agenda of many countries. according to campbell and rozsnyai (2002) recommended that, in the field of higher education, quality should be considered to be a notoriously vague, slippery concept. this simply suggests that it is not possible to find a universally accepted and comprehensive definition of quality in higher education. therefore, defining the term quality in the contemporary higher education is challenging. vroeijentijn (2006) points out that the concept quality has been subjected to various ambiguous interpretations. quality as fitness for purpose, meaning conformity with an institutor’s mission as well as capacity to fulfill customers’ requirements, is the principal perspective that is upheld by scholars with eyes of stakeholders. this way of thinking is obviously of paramount importance to external stakeholders (harvey, 2006). quality as transformation refers to the classic notion that sees quality in terms of change in the learners from one state to another. 4. results quality is usually connected to the concepts of efficiency and effectiveness. although, the concept of quality does not have a universally accepted definition, many scholars consider quality in education in terms of what the system is all about and what the system offers the learners. in education, quality is determined by three crucial elements, namely: inputs, process and outcomes. input, includes the key players: the learners and the academic and administrative staff members, who have the necessary skills and facilities for teaching and learning; process consists of the various teaching and learning activities; and the outcomes are the graduates and their required skills and training. given the constraints of resources that many governments face in meeting the demand for higher education, distance education is seen as an alternative mode of delivery in providing access to quality higher education. in particular, in developing countries, including ethiopia, distance education providers, such as unisa, offer educational opportunities for rural-based communities and marginalised groups, who would, otherwise, not have been able to access higher education. however, without effective leadership the above objectives will not be materialized. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 71 published by scholink inc. acknowledgement i am indebted to the following groups of people and individuals who also positively contributed towards this study: the academic and administrative staff of the department of educational management and mlc my sincere gratitude also goes to the ethiopian federal ministry of education senior officials who participated in my research and higher education relevance and quality agency leaders. i offer further thanks to the addis ababa university institute of educational research centre, ignou academic and administrative staff members at the addis ababa branch. and further for this journal publishers. references allen, i. e., & seaman, j. (2012). changing course: ten years of tracking online education in the united states. sloan consortium\po box 1238, newburyport, ma 01950. altbach, p. g., reisberg, l., & rumbley, l. e. (2009). trends in global higher education: tracking an academic revolution. unesco. bogale, s. (2006). higher education in ethiopia: the higher education strategy centre. retrieved june, 2006, from hes harvey. (2006). defining quality, assessment and evaluation. higher education, 18(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.1080/0260293930180102 kanwar, a. (2009). breaking higher education’s iron triangle: access, cost, and quality commonwealth of learning cc by sa. knight, j. (2006). higher education crossing the border: a guide to the implications of the general agreement on trade in services (gats) for cross-border education. paris, unesco. mannan, a. (2013). role of open and distance learning in accelerating outcomes of the millennium development goals. mills, d. (2006). those who can….? teaching as a postgraduate. in n. gilbert (ed.), from postgraduate education journal to social scientist: a guide to key skills. london: sage. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781849209182.n10 moe (ministry of education). (2003, 2007). education statistics annual abstract. addis ababa: federal democratic republic of ethiopia. moe. (2011/2012). ministry of education annual abstract. addis ababa. federal democratic republic of ethiopia. musisi, n. (2003). uganda. in d. teferra, & p. g. altbach (eds.), africanhigher education: an international reference handbook (pp. 611-623). bloomington, indiana, usa: indiana university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 72 published by scholink inc. nganga, g. (2014). university regulator slams growing inequality: the global window on higher education. australia, university world news, issue, 00332. nwuke, k. (2008). the private provision of higher education in ethiopia: growth, challenge, and prospective. council for the development of social science research in africa, united nations economic commission for africa, addis ababa, 6(1), 71-94. perraton, h. (2000). open and distance learning in developing world. published, london: rutledge pityana, n. b. (2004). distance education in africa: dome challenges and perspectives. paper presented at the annual conference of nadeosa: the potential of mixed mode delivery, st john’s college, johannesburg. vroeijenstijn, t. (2006). similarities and differences in accreditation: looking for a common framework. paper delivered at a workshop on the establishment of european consortium for accreditation (eca). the hague. retrieved from http://www.fibaa.de/ger/downlo/similarities & differences.pdf communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 29 original paper analysis of video media management mode from pear video tian cheng 1* 1 guizhou minzu university, guiyang, guizhou, china * tian cheng, guizhou minzu university, guiyang, guizhou, china received: june 17, 2024 accepted: june 30, 2024 online published: july 24, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p29 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p29 abstract nowadays, the way of video communication has undergone great changes, the public has rarely watched videos through traditional tv, and the market users have been constantly divided. tiktok, kuaishou, micro-vision quickly occupied the short video market, b station occupied the video hegemon seat, “love youteng” three long-term in the long video industry top position. in this context, major tv stations and video media production teams have tried to transform and upgrade video media. pear video is a short video platform in china so far, focusing on short information video and doing very successful in the field. from the current model of pear video, we can study and analyze the trend of video media management. keywords pear video, video media, informative short video, new media platform in october 2020, ren lifeng, president of watermelon video, said in sanya that medium video refers to videos that are 1 to 30 minutes long, and many authoritative provincial short video competitions limit short video lengths to less than 3 minutes. to sum up, the short video mentioned in this paper refers to the video of no more than 3 minutes, and the medium video refers to the video of 3 to 30 minutes; a long video is one that is more than 30 minutes long. 1. the current media environment the age of media convergence has arrived. with the popularity of mobile phones and other mobile terminals, as well as the development of science and technology such as internet communication, the cost and threshold of producing and disseminating information content are constantly lowered, and the way users receive information has also changed. today, traditional tv viewers have gradually shifted to mobile terminal users such as mobile phones. in august 2023, china internet network information center (cnnic) released the 52nd statistical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 30 published by scholink inc. report on the development of the internet in china, saying that as of june 2023, the number of internet users in china has reached 1.079 billion, of which the number of mobile phone internet users reached 1.076 billion, accounting for 99.8%, and the proportion of tv internet access was only 26.8%. the number of online video users has reached 1.044 billion, accounting for 96.8% of the total internet users, while the number of short video users has also reached 1.026 billion, accounting for 95.2% of the total internet users. at present, many netizens‟ first news is obtained through mobile phones, which are from major new media platforms such as weibo, wechat public accounts, and douyin short videos. for example, pear video has caused netizens to discuss the events of “changshu child labor” and “the most beautiful „moonlight family‟ principal” on weibo. in the form of communication, the traditional mode of disseminating information from the transmitter to the audience has gradually changed to the audience producing content and disseminating to the audience itself, and the transmitter itself is also the audience, just as the largest information source channel of pear video is its widely distributed global group of photographers. in the field of video media, the word “audience” is gradually replaced by the word “user”, and the traditional single audience is gradually disappearing and gradually transforming into a diversified user. however, tv news still exists today, and video media on new media platforms and traditional tv video media are different in various aspects such as interaction and communication channels. in terms of interaction, the interaction between the messenger and the user is greatly enhanced today, and the user can express his own views under the news at any time. under each video of pear video, there is a user comment area, and this is difficult to meet on traditional tv programs, because the carrier of information transmission—tv determines that there must be a distance between him and the audience. although the tv audience can interact with the messenger by scanning the qr code at the bottom of the tv screen, due to the reasons such as long time and less response, in most cases not too many viewers are willing to scan the code, unless the scan has a major attraction to the audience, such as the spring festival red envelope, but this situation is difficult to achieve in the traditional video. on mobile terminals such as mobile phones, as long as there is a network, users can comment on the video programs they watch on the new media platform anytime and anywhere, and the messenger can reply anytime and anywhere, thus achieving a good interactivity. just as each netizen can comment on a single video posted by pear video, each pear video creator can also reply to each netizen‟s comment, so as to achieve good interactivity, which is not done by traditional video media, at least for the moment. relatively speaking, the interaction of traditional video media is far less than that of new media broadcast on new media platforms such as mobile phones. from the perspective of communication channels, the video media communication channels on new media platforms such as pear video are particularly rich, and all major new media platforms such as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 31 published by scholink inc. weibo, wechat public number and wechat video number can have complete communication. the traditional video media transmission channel is mostly television, although today on mobile phones and other mobile terminals can also watch, but the number of people who get these messages from mobile phones and other mobile terminals is not very rare. in terms of communication content, traditional video programs have a long time, although the content is complete, most video media are miscellaneous but not fine, and some video media are even more inadequate. in the past, the audience had a small number of choices and a narrow range of choices, which could only be passively accepted. however, in today‟s new media era, the number of users‟ choices has been greatly increased, and the range of choices has been greatly broadened, and users can even produce and disseminate video media by themselves. at this time, users prefer the kind of short video that has a long time, a prominent focus, and can form a good interaction with themselves, such as the news review program “anchor said joint broadcast”. in terms of production cycle, traditional video production costs are high, the cycle is long, professional video media production team received the task of video production, the need for planning, division of labor, this period will involve huge manpower and material resources. however, on new media platforms such as pear video, video photographers are all over the world, at the scene of the first event, and even sometimes themselves are news parties. when the news happens, the photographer only needs to communicate with the news gatekeeper. after the two sides agree on the shooting opinions, the photographer can immediately shoot at the scene of the event, and if there is any problem, he can report it to the news gatekeeper in time, thus greatly shortening the production cycle of video media and effectively reducing the production cost of video media. in the choice of platforms, pear video, tencent news and other major platforms cooperate with each other, no longer take the traditional road of a single platform information release channel, they share information, people‟s daily, xinhua news agency and other mainstream media have also settled in pear video, tiktok and other short video platforms, in the way users prefer to spread short videos to users. guanzi said, “the people‟s granaries are sufficient, clothes and food, in order to take into account etiquette, pay attention to honor and shame,” which is to say, a certain material basis is the guarantee of development. if video media wants to continue to exist and develop, then it must realize revenue. from the perspective of economic benefits, traditional video media such as tv stations have poor benefits today, which is already a sunset industry, and their benefits are far less than new media platforms such as pear video. in the face of these new situations, if the traditional video media programs do not take the road of transformation and innovation, do not seek new changes, then they will gradually lose the user market, and it is difficult to have long-term development, and will gradually be abandoned by the market. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 32 published by scholink inc. short videos produced by new media platforms such as pear video can meet user needs and fit user preferences, and can achieve considerable development in the future. 2. pear video mode pear video is a new news and information short video platform created by qiu bing, the former ceo of thepaper.cn, who led the traditional media newspaper team to join the short video industry. it was officially launched on november 3, 2016. at the beginning of its establishment, pear video put forward the slogan of “global photographers, co-creation” and defined itself as “a short video platform focused on providing in-depth edited aggregated content and exclusive original reports” (hu, 2019). the “pugc” (professional user generated content, also known as “ogc”) model has developed rapidly. after combining with pear video‟s own situation, this model is specifically manifested as pear video uses global photographers to collect information short video content materials. after post-production by the news gatekeeper, the short information video was formed, and a mode of “photographer + news gatekeeper” co-production of short information video was explored (xue, 2020), and popular videos such as “real shooting of changshu child labor industry: squeezed youth” were continuously launched, which quickly gained market favor. three months on the line, the number of daily active users exceeded the million mark, and quickly obtained the first round of financing. as an information short video platform, pear video has its own operation and management mode. 2.1 three content source channels pear video material sources can be roughly divided into three major channels. the first is the camera system all over the world, the second is the third-party organizations such as xinhua news agency and cctv news, and the third is pear video‟s own professional content production team. compared with ordinary photographers, the latter two have strong professional competence and high-level video shooting and production equipment, which is a stable source of high-quality short videos. however, although ordinary photographers do not have strong video production capabilities and equipment, they were once the main video channel source of pear video, their large base, large population, wide distribution, closer to the first news scene, when the news occurs, fast, timely and effective news information shooting. you can communicate with news gatekeepers anytime and anywhere to improve the efficiency of short video shooting. from the video uploaded by the photographer, it covers various life scenes such as families, villages and streets, including public places such as bus stops and schools, involving various social fields such as environmental protection, culture and sports. zhao yang, deputy editor-in-chief and vice president of pear video, said in april 2020 that pear video‟s core customers have reached 70,000, covering 525 major international cities and more than 2,000 domestic districts and counties across seven continents. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 33 published by scholink inc. 2.2 good news gatekeepers in the process of creating and releasing short information videos, news gatekeepers are never absent. pear video has a huge camera system, but the camera is mixed, they shoot and upload videos, sometimes difficult to distinguish between true and false, sometimes do not have news points, sometimes the picture is too rough. the photographer application qualification is simple, only need to apply to become a photographer in the corresponding page of the pear video app and upload their id card photo, email, alipay account, you can become a photographer, to report. once the video uploaded by the photographer is adopted, an information short video can generally be paid 200 to thousands of yuan, and there is a photographer bonus list before 2020, with a first prize of 10,000 yuan, a second prize of 2,000 yuan, and a third prize of 1,000 yuan. driven away by money, it is inevitable that some photographers will upload fake videos. in order to better manage photographers and publish and disseminate excellent video content, pear video independently developed a management system called “spider”, which integrates editing, auditing, publishing, photographer management, rights management, label management, payment management and other functions. in addition, pear video also for each individual photographer to establish a personal “photographer file”, for each individual photographer certification, territory, grading, verification, data and other management, and has a “photographer blacklist”, confirm the upload of false video of the photographer “a false veto” system, forever lift the photographer agreement, no longer included in the photographer system (hu, 2019). for the video material uploaded by the photographer, pear video has a “third trial system”. the first audit is the review of editors where the photographer belongs. these editors are generally department heads in the region where the photographer is located, responsible for managing all the photographers in the region, communicating directly with them, and reviewing the authenticity and news of the content, that is, “territorial management”; the second audit shall be conducted by the overall chief editor and the responsible editor, who shall be responsible for reviewing the value of event communication, examining the local media‟s reports on the video uploaded by the photographer and the attitude of the local authorities to grasp the risk of video communication, reviewing whether the video characters, time, events and places are compressed, splicing or stolen from other platforms, and conducting video editing and text editing. at the same time, the short video manuscript fee prediction; the third audit is the final audit, which is responsible for the re-audit of the finished short video of information to be released, reviewing the correlation between the logic of the video clip and the text, reviewing whether the transmitted video is objective and neutral, whether it causes misunderstandings, and understanding the risk of the final transmission of the video, and making a communication-oriented prediction, which is carried out by the editor-in-chief and director (hu, 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 34 published by scholink inc. the news gatekeeper is not missing, can effectively ensure the pear video output of high-quality video, although the pear video main 3 minutes of information short video, but there are also a lot of 8 minutes of information in the video, such as the interview “interview < six people > director luo fei: why the chinese passengers of titanic were forgotten”. 2.3 take the initiative to assume social responsibility of professional ethics pear video entrepreneurial team from the traditional media, they retain the traditional media news people “an iron shoulder bears justice” professional ethics. in 2020, when the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic broke out, short videos became the third largest source of information for people to understand the epidemic in addition to text and tv. pear video, as the head platform of short video information, has become the main content provider of short video epidemic reports by recording and disseminating videos in a systematic and multi-dimensional way (xue, 2020). as an information short video head platform, at the time of the outbreak of the epidemic, pear video editorial department entered an emergency state, established the editorial guidelines of “scientific, true, accurate and public welfare”, and guaranteed a 24-hour emergency response. in the face of the report of the epidemic, pear video defines that it should not be an information competition, but should reflect the public welfare, effectiveness and public attributes of the news information platform, and cooperate with the government, society and the people to fight the epidemic (xue, 2020). pear video also retains goodwill for ordinary people. in the face of sudden changes in society, pear video has also repeatedly extended a helping hand to help many patients who lack money to see a doctor, and has spread many videos such as “46-year-old farmer suddenly suffering from leukemia, has been a volunteer for 5 years”. in addition, from december 2020 to may 2021, pear video and easy chip together to implement the “firefly plan” to help more sick groups who are difficult to cure due to poverty. 2.4 transformation and upgrading according to the actual situation pear video has always insisted on doing quality content, with the slogan “global photographers, co-creation” as the slogan, almost every year in the content upgrade. at the beginning of the establishment of pear video, with “exclusive political audio-visual news information” as the main content direction, it is also in this period, shooting and released the “real shooting of changshu child labor industry: squeezed youth” short video, which caused a social uproar. in february 2017, pear video suffered a report, and the relevant departments ordered it to rectify. in the case of limited interviews and qualifications, pear video has changed its main content from the main current politics to “focus on young people‟s lives, thoughts and feelings”, to be “a platform to convey the voice of china by telling stories”, and to position the goal as “to do the best looking information short video”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 35 published by scholink inc. in october 2018, qiu bing, the founder of pear video, announced that pear video would sink to second—and third-tier cities, opening the construction of a sinking photographer network and the “3km information circle”. since 2017, pear video has been constantly adjusting its content creation direction every year. pear video continues to transform and upgrade, and the content is constantly optimized, which can gradually attract users with high-level and high demand for spiritual culture and enhance their user stickiness. 2.5 pear video existing problems although pear video is currently a very successful information short video platform in china, it is not perfect and has its own problems. due to limited qualifications and other issues, pear video does not have its own investigative reporting column. although there are many interviews, micro-documentaries and other relatively in-depth content, but the lack of investigative reports, resulting in this information short video platform is not very perfect. when the public wants to watch in-depth reporting and investigative video media, they still have to return to traditional tv news programs. secondly, there are many homogenized contents. short video is still in the market tuyere, many enterprises, units have to build their own short video platform, market grab, want to seize the cake. the southern press launched “n video”, and the beijing news and tencent news cooperated to jointly launch the “we video” information short video project. pear video although the production of high quality content, but in the face of homogenization competition, he can not do a dominant, the lack of their own user traffic, he had to share a part of the market to other platforms. in addition, pear video set up too many columns, miscellaneous but not fine. according to incomplete statistics, pear video has 12 channels such as “new knowledge”, “sports” and “life”, and hundreds of columns such as “time difference video”, “first-hand video”, “global shooting” and “boss broadcast”. in addition, pear video‟s “pear guiyang” and other columns have long stopped, but they are not merged with other columns and still exist independently. column too much, miscellaneous and not fine, let people dazzling. 3. the future management trend of video media the analysis and research of pear video management mode can explore the future trend of video media management. first, the production team behind each video media will combine its own positioning and carry out “intensive cultivation” content production of video content. if its own positioning is not clear, then the direction of video media production content is not clear, and it will be difficult to develop in the future. traditional tv programs will not be cancelled, but their producers will increase or decrease the programs according to the specific situation, and will gradually eliminate the video programs with low www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 36 published by scholink inc. ratings and serious homogenization, and most news reports will be released to other platforms in the form of short information videos. the video programs that they retain will develop towards high-quality and quantitative development, such as in-depth reports and investigative reports. video media on new media platforms will be more diversified. there are pear video, n video, “we video” etc. mainstream media such as people‟s daily are also constantly launching their own video columns, and tiktok has attracted a large number of mainstream and private media platforms to settle in. they will continue to develop in the direction of short and concise, typically characterized by short time, accurate dissemination users, and less information content, such as pear video‟s “first hand video”, beijing news and tencent news‟s “we video” project. this will also make video content present a trend of two distinct levels, long videos are mostly in tv media, short and medium videos are mostly on new media platforms. second, photographers will become the main source of material for video media. whether it is the mainstream media xinhua news agency and other platforms, or pear video and other new media platforms, have their own camera system, there are a lot of information short videos, the first source channel is the camera. this will further lead to homogenization of content in both new media platforms such as pear video and traditional tv media. in june 2019, pear video platform issued a video titled “roommates of others! college students learn their craft to become tony, and free haircuts for roommates for 2 years”, which successively triggered follow-up and similar reports on media platforms such as red star news, china news service, and anhui satellite tv. according to the theory of supply and demand, there are too many video media producers, but there are too few news events, and the supply of video media producers has far exceeded the number of news events. this will lead to fierce competition among major media platforms, and they will continue to transform, optimize and upgrade. third, media platforms will continue to attract financing, and advertising revenue will remain the main source. pear video has now obtained 4 rounds of financing, and has also opened a special column such as “private car” in the advertising business. fourth, video media will continue to change with technological advances. nowadays, the speed of science and technology development is getting faster and faster, which will lead to various video media teams constantly encountering new situations, new problems, and new challenges. the arrival of the 5g era has triggered a new round of reorganization and reshuffle of news media, and video media will continue to be presented to the public with new and more in line with the characteristics of the times. fifth, the core of the story will not change easily. no matter how science and technology develop, in the future, the role of “news gatekeeper” in video media will not be lacking, and traditional video media and new media platforms will have a strict censorship system for video. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 37 published by scholink inc. in addition, the media will continue to actively assume social responsibilities and maintain a basically consistent attitude towards incidents involving public interests. 4. conclusion with the progress of science and technology, the media environment is constantly changing, and the era of media convergence has already come. the reason why pear video can develop rapidly and achieve success at the moment is that the team behind him has seized the air of the times and is on the wind in the wave. so far, pear video still has news gatekeepers, and this role will continue to exist in the future. combined with the current era environment, as well as the development of pear video, we can clearly see that in the future, the video media management model will be very different from the traditional period, will change with the change of science and technology, will continue to seek new changes, but no matter how the development, “news gatekeeper” will exist for a long time. references hu, l. (2019). the dilemma and path of news short video platform—taking pear video as an example. audiovisual, 05(013). xue, c. y. (2020). analysis on the content production mode of pear video. news world, 04(019). xue, x. l. (2020). pear video war “epidemic”: interpretation of short video play in records. media, (05), 44-45. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper analysis of news source selection in the digital age: a case study of micro-platforms operated by people’s daily and southern weekly songhua zhang 1* & wangwei 1 1 school of media, guizhou minzu university, guiyang, china * songhua zhang, school of media, guizhou minzu university, guiyang, china received: march 28, 2024 accepted: april 15, 2024 online published: april 30, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n1p1 abstract this study employs content analysis to compare and examine the selection of news sources in the micro-platforms of mainstream media, people’s daily, and urban media, southern weekly. it attempts to interpret the impact of the digitalization process on the content production practices of different news media in china. the research reveals that in the digital era, media attributes and platform regulations are direct factors influencing the selection of news sources in news production. this transformation has significantly altered traditional news content production. official news sources remain the primary choice for news media in producing content in the digital age. additionally, grassroots news sources, representing the general public, are gradually incorporated into various types of reporting, demonstrating a trend towards democratization. keywords news sources, digital news, news production, content analysis 1. introduction news source stands as the primary criterion for gauging the legitimacy of news production practices. throughout the course of media development history, news media have formulated relevant rules and standards for news source selection to ensure the legitimacy of news production and reporting processes (reich, 2011). in the realm of traditional journalism, the authority of news sources guarantees the authority of the news industry. however, with the advent of the digital age, significant changes have occurred in this regard. on one hand, empowered by digital technologies, the scope of information sources in the public sphere has rapidly expanded through the collaboration and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. networking of news production, leading to the emergence of a plethora of online whistleblowers and self-media journalists who have become the primary providers of social events and breaking news. this has, to some extent, resulted in a phenomenon where the media is “reverse pressured” by news sources based on online popularity during the reporting process (peng, 2019). on the other hand, digital technologies have empowered the subjects of news production, presenting a landscape where everyone becomes a potential media outlet. this exponential increase inevitably intensifies news competition, breaking the norms and ethics of traditional news reporting in the production of digital journalism. consequently, the rules and standards regarding news source selection in the news industry are no longer strictly adhered to. 2. the arrival of the digital news era with the flourishing development of digital technology, the news industry has entered the digital age. according to the 53rd statistical report on internet development in china released by the china internet network information center (cnnic), as of december 2023, the number of internet users in china reached 1.092 billion, with an internet penetration rate of 77.5% (china internet network information center, 2024). in the internet environment, the expansion of the internet user base has diversified the information producers, presenting a scenario where everyone becomes a media outlet, and individuals have become news reporters, granting more freedom to news production and dissemination activities. however, this has also brought about certain negative impacts, especially with the openness of internet platforms. the competition for user attention between professional and non-professional media has intensified, leading to both entities broadening the scope of news source selection. this has resulted in a trend of declining credibility for news media and public institutions. scholars argue that this is a direct consequence of the global wave of populism brought about by the empowerment of the masses through technology (klein, & robinson, 2020). therefore, the process of digitalization not only changes the external form of news and the news industry but also alters the internal logic and mechanisms within the news industry. 3. the meaning and importance of news sources a news source refers to where the viewpoints, facts, and related discourse of news come from, in other words, the “provider” of news materials (li, 1989). news sources determine where journalists obtain information and what type of information they acquire. they are the lifeline of journalists’ work; without news sources, journalists cannot conduct interviews (carlson, 2009). as recorded in the “chinese practical dictionary of journalism”, “news sources are the authentic and reliable basis for news. they can be governments, political parties, organizations, companies and their spokespersons, qualified and authoritative individuals, or eyewitnesses to events. in the case of journalists conducting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. on-site interviews, the journalists themselves are the news sources” (zhang, 2016). foreign scholars believe that news sources are an important tool for the public to understand the news industry and social life, and their existence and use can verify the bias of news media towards social rights (carter, 1958). in the 1980s, interviewing became one of the common ways for news media to obtain information sources in the reporting process, marking the formal transition of the news industry from the party newspaper model to objective reporting. on the one hand, this reflects the news industry’s desire to break free from the constraints of partisan newspapers and gain the right to freely choose news sources. on the other hand, it reflects the aspirations of journalists as a group to assert their subjectivity in the process of news reporting (schudson, 2001). the news industry attempted to institutionalize news interviewing activities and the system of news source selection, repositioning news as a “professional culture”. the most significant feature of this culture is its widespread acceptance by society and the public, possessing a certain degree of autonomy (singer, 2007). therefore, journalists’ selection and use of news sources have always been regarded as important reference criteria for practicing the concept of journalistic professionalism. the authority of news sources to some extent determines the authenticity and objectivity of news reporting, further strengthening the legitimacy of the news industry. at the same time, as the authority of the news industry continues to increase, the selection of news sources in news content production can in turn consolidate the status of the identities behind the news sources, such as government officials, corporate entities, experts, and scholars. their authoritative aura will be infinitely magnified with the increasing authority of the news industry, thereby placing the discourse resources in society under the control of the news industry (manning, 2000). 4. research design 4.1 research objects this study selects news reports published on wechat and weibo by two major chinese media outlets, people’s daily and southern weekly. as digital technology continues to evolve, wechat and weibo have become significant channels for the circulation of digital news and for audiences to receive digital news. therefore, examining these platforms is valuable for understanding the digitalization of china’s news ecosystem. wechat and weibo serve as vital channels for the daily reception of digital information by the public, making them significant for studying how the news industry selects sources in the digital age. wechat primarily facilitates the circulation and dissemination of digital news through official accounts, linking content producers, operators, and receivers, relying on its robust online social features to enable networked transmission of news information. weibo, known for its personalized information production and timeliness in information dissemination, utilizes “trending topics” as a direct channel to enhance its public attributes, displaying more interaction, timeliness, and openness www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. compared to traditional public spheres, often playing a crucial role in media sourcing and shaping public opinion. from the perspective of digital information flow, both wechat and weibo meet the public’s diverse information reception needs. wechat official accounts, divided into subscription and service types, operate similarly to traditional newspaper subscriptions, requiring users to subscribe to receive information, which is then further disseminated to non-subscribers. although wechat official accounts have limitations in news content production, such as closedness and delay, they serve as important intermediaries for disseminating opinionated and interpretative content. weibo’s anonymity, openness, and strong timeliness allow it to convey information to the public promptly, attract attention, and quickly gather public feedback, thereby rapidly shaping social discourse. however, its fragmented information dissemination is more suited to covering breaking and trending news. currently, all media organizations in china have integrated wechat and weibo into their operations, tailoring their news content production to the features of each platform. 4.2 research questions this paper uses content analysis to study the news sources used by people’s daily and southern weekly in their wechat and weibo postings, focusing on three types of news reports: political, social, and disaster news. based on this, it explores the current use and trends in news source selection by the news industry in the digital age, delving into the profound implications of news sources in the news ecosystem during digitalization. the specific research questions are: q1: what are the characteristics and conventions of news sources chosen by different media for the same news event across different platforms? q2: what are the characteristics and trends of news sources chosen by different media for different news events across platforms? q3: which news sources appear consistently across different platforms, media, and news events, reflecting the stability of news source selection tendencies in the digital age? 4.3 sample selection and analysis the study primarily selects samples from hot topics in china’s public discourse over the past two years, divided into three categories of report types, each involving three hot events. 1). political reports: the 20th party congress, the winter olympics, the national people’s congress. 2). social reports: the tangshan assault incident, the fengxian octuplets case, the hu xinyu incident. 3). disaster reports: the zhengzhou floods, the eastern airlines crash, the sichuan-chongqing heatwave. based on these considerations, the study manually collected data on the coverage of these nine hot events by people’s daily and southern weekly, producing detailed statistical tables (chang, yang, & wang, 2022). in sample analysis, the paper primarily relies on the scholarly distinction between www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. “information sources” and “content sources”. information sources refer to the channels and methods news media use to obtain news during production, while content sources are the original providers of news content. drawing on previous work, information sources are further divided into interviews, matrix media, social media, other media, press conferences, and notices, while content sources include national leaders and government officials, experts, industry personnel, media institutions, companies, event participants, eyewitnesses, and commentators. additionally, the study conducted a statistical analysis of the presentation forms of news sources in the news report samples. 5. research findings this study gathered a total of 564 news reports from wechat official accounts and weibo, consisting of 175 information sources and 328 content sources. corresponding data visualizations were created, as described below: 5.1 number of reports and news sources on both micro-ends in the 1970s, communication scholars maxwell mccombs and donald shaw introduced the “agenda-setting” theory in their book “the agenda-setting function of mass communication”. they posited that mass media, by setting certain topics, can change how people perceive events or opinions, and even influence the level of audience attention. while mass media cannot directly determine people’s views on a particular event, under the deliberate provision of information by media institutions, people’s opinions and attitudes may change following the media’s agenda-setting and the frequency of its coverage. as times have changed, the audience’s demand for information has shifted from a simple, mirror-like reflection of objective facts to a “pseudo-environment” form of information representation, resulting in the audience being influenced to some extent by the “opinion environment” created by the mass media. under this premise, this paper investigates the coverage of nine types of hot events by the two news media on micro-platforms. the number of reports can reflect the different levels of attention paid by different media on different platforms to various events, indirectly indicating the frequency of news source usage on different platforms. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. table 1. number of reports on 9 hot events by two media on two micro-clients news category news events number of reports on wechat public accounts number of weibo reports people’s daily southern weekly people’s daily southern weekly current affairs reports the 20th national congress of the cpc 16 12 25 19 winter olympics 46 24 76 54 the 2023 two sessions of the npc and the cppcc 8 9 16 21 social reports tangshan beating incident 7 8 10 8 feng county eight-child woman incident 4 5 6 5 hu xingyu incident 6 5 9 7 disaster reports heavy rain in zhengzhou 11 15 14 19 china eastern airlines crash 13 21 15 16 high temperatures in sichuan and chongqing 7 9 6 12 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. table 2. two media reports on two micro-ends9news sources of hot events news category news events wechat public account reporting news source weibo news source information source content source information source content source people’s daily southern weekly people’s daily southern weekly people’s daily southern weekly people’s daily southern weekly current affairs reports the 20th national congress of the cpc 7 5 5 6 8 3 5 9 winter olympics 18 8 9 8 21 9 9 8 the 2023 two sessions of the npc and the cppcc 2 3 8 10 3 4 10 13 social reports tangshan beating incident 4 2 11 18 5 3 6 6 feng county eight-child woman incident 1 2 13 7 2 3 4 3 hu xinyu incident 4 4 5 3 2 4 3 2 disaster reports heavy rain in zhengzhou 5 7 10 28 1 3 8 15 china eastern airlines crash 9 6 11 18 3 3 8 10 high temperatures in sichuan and chongqing 3 2 9 16 2 4 5 9 in this study, a total of 564 news reports were collected from the wechat official accounts and weibo platforms of both media houses. as seen in table 1, both people’s daily and southern weekly featured a higher number of political reports, particularly focusing on major national events such as the 20th party congress and the winter olympics, while also adequately covering social and disaster news (table 1). furthermore, it was found that the number of reports on the weibo platform for all three categories exceeded those on the wechat official accounts. firstly, from the platform perspective, the weibo platform allows unrestricted posting of articles, where any topic related to the reports can be treated as a news point, enabling convenient news reporting and rapid formation of public opinion. secondly, from the audience perspective, users are more inclined to search for information on weibo, where they can directly access the “trending” section to learn about the day’s hot topics and participate in user interactions promptly. hence, as illustrated in this graph, regardless of whether it’s mainstream www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. media or local urban newspapers, the volume of reports on weibo for all three categories surpasses that on wechat official accounts. table 2 shows that people’s daily and southern weekly used both information and content sources in their news reports on wechat official accounts and weibo (table 2). 5.2 two micro-client information sources this study gathered 175 information sources from the wechat official accounts and weibo of people’s daily and southern weekly, and detailed data visuals were created accordingly, as shown below: table 3. the information sources of 9 types of hot events reported by 2 media wechat public accounts information source current affairs reports social reports disaster reports information source proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion interview 22.22% 21.40% 27.21% 22.22% 12.50% 17.65% 35.30% 53.33% 43.75% 25.87% matrix media 17.05% 15.20% 16.25% 11.11% 25% 17.65% 17.65% 6.67% 12.49% 16.52% social media 20.00% 13.37% 16.30% 22.22% 12.50% 17.65% 11.76% 6.67% 9.38% 18.48% other media 29.62% 36.53% 28.61% 11.12% 37.50% 23.52% 29.41% 13.33% 25.00% 26.09% conference and notice 11.11% 13.50% 11.63% 33.33% 12.50% 23.53% 5.88% 20.00% 9.38% 13.04% table 3 presents the statistics of information sources for the three types of reports on the wechat official accounts of the two media outlets. in general, both media favor other media and interviews as the primary sources of information on wechat, accounting for 26.09% and 25.87% respectively, ranking first and second. social media and matrix media follow, with 18.48% and 16.52% respectively, while press releases and announcements are used the least, at only 13.04% (table 3). in political reporting on wechat, other media and interviews are the most utilized information sources, at 28.61% and 27.21% respectively. information from social media (16.30%) and matrix media (16.25%) are nearly identical, differing by only 0.05%. press releases and announcements are less commonly used as sources, accounting for just 11.63%. for people’s daily’s wechat account, aside from other media (29.62%) and interviews (22.22%), social media (20%) and matrix media (17.05%) are also significant secondary sources. southern weekly’s wechat account tends to rely more heavily on other media for political reporting, at 36.53%, significantly higher than the other four types of sources. in these reports, the use of social media (13.37%) and press releases (13.5%) is relatively balanced. in social reporting, the usage proportions of the five types of information sources on wechat are quite www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. similar, with other media and press releases used more than the other three types. people’s daily’s wechat account frequently uses press releases and announcements (33.33%) as information sources in social reports because when social events occur, they quickly generate public opinion. facing the loud public discourse, as a mainstream media outlet, it promptly retransmits authoritative reports from relevant organizations or units, as well as news conferences, to clarify the truth and guide public opinion and emotions appropriately. in contrast, southern weekly’s wechat account in social reports often chooses other media (37.50%) as the main source, swiftly retransmitting information from national authoritative media like cctv to effectively guide public opinion, with a relatively even use of the other four types of sources. in emergency reporting, interviews are the preferred information source on wechat, accounting for 43.75%, followed by other media at 26.09%. the proportions of matrix media and press releases are similar, at 18.48% and 13.04%, respectively, while social media sources appear least frequently, at just 6.52%. both media outlets tend to select interviews as the primary source in disaster reporting on their wechat accounts, with southern weekly using interviews to a greater extent, at 53.33%, significantly higher than people’s daily’s 35.30%. as a local urban media focusing on public welfare, southern weekly utilizes interviews to directly engage with eyewitnesses, participants, and commentators during disasters to gather more information about the incident and convey it promptly to the audience and the public. additionally, people’s daily’s wechat account uses press releases and announcements less frequently (5.88%) in disaster reporting, while southern weekly’s use of matrix media and social media (6.67% each) are the least frequent. table 4. information sources for nine hotspot issues reported by two media outlets on weibo weibo information source statistical chart information source current affairs reports social reports disaster reports information source proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportio n interview 25.00% 37.50% 29.17% 11.11% 20.00% 15.79% 33.33% 30.00% 31.25% 26.51% matrix media 12.50% 6.25% 10.42% 22.22% 20.00% 21.05% 16.67% 10.00% 12.50% 13.25% social media 25% 18.75% 22.92% 22.22% 10.00% 15.79% 0.00% 10.00% 6.25% 18.07% other media 31.25% 25.00% 29.16% 11.11% 20.00% 15.79% 16.67% 30.00% 25.00% 25.30% conferences and notice 6.25% 12.50% 8.33% 33.34% 30.00% 31.58% 33.33% 20.00% 25.00% 16.87% table 4 displays the statistics of information sources for three types of reports on the weibo platform for both media outlets. on weibo, interviews (26.51%) and other media (25.30%) have the highest www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 10 published by scholink inc. percentages, showing a minimal difference between them, indicating that these are commonly used sources on weibo. social media and press releases and announcements are relatively balanced, accounting for 18.07% and 16.87% respectively, while matrix media is used the least, at only 13.25%. in political reporting on weibo, similar to the wechat official accounts, interviews and other media are the primary sources, with nearly identical percentages of 29.17% and 29.16%. however, the use of social media as a source is higher on weibo, at 22.92%, due to the inherent characteristics and rules of the weibo platform. news reports on weibo also effectively link matrix media and utilize press releases and announcements as sources, accounting for 10.42% and 8.33% respectively (table 4). in social reporting on weibo, press releases and announcements are the most used sources, at 31.58%. this reflects weibo’s approach to major social emergencies, where it quickly disseminates official press releases and announcements as the main sources to accurately guide public opinion. additionally, weibo leverages matrix media (21.05%) to enrich its news production. other sources, including interviews, social media, and other media, are used equally, each accounting for 15.79%. in disaster reporting, matrix media (12.50%) and social media (6.25%) are the least utilized, positioning them on the fringes, while the usage of other sources remains more balanced, all above 20%. both people’s daily and southern weekly tend to prefer interviews as a source, with respective usage rates of 33.33% and 30%. moreover, people’s daily shows a high reliance on press releases and announcements, whereas southern weekly depends more on other media as a source. 5.3 micro-platform content sources this study gathered 328 content sources from the wechat official accounts and weibo of people’s daily and southern weekly, and detailed data visualizations were created accordingly, as shown below: table 5. content sources for 9 types of hot events reported by two media wechat official accounts wechat public account content source statistics chart content source current affairs reports social reports disaster reports content source proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion national leaders and government officials 50.00% 40.67% 45.65% 24.14% 21.43% 22.81% 20.00% 16.13% 17.39% 25.64% experts and scholars 10.18% 33.33% 26.09% 17.24% 19.75% 21.05% 6.67% 16.13% 13.04% 10.46% industry personnel 9.09% 8.33% 0.70% 10.34% 7.14% 0.77% 13.33% 12.90% 13.04% 10.77% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 11 published by scholink inc. media organizations 9.09% 0.00% 4.35% 3.45% 7.14% 5.26% 6.67% 6.45% 6.52% 5.64% companies 4.55% 5.17% 4.35% 3.45% 5.25% 1.75% 10.00% 3.23% 5.43% 4.10% event participants 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 90% 14.29% 10.53% 16.67% 25.81% 22.83% 13.85% witnesses to the event 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 10.34% 10.71% 10.53% 13.33% 11.29% 11.97% 8.72% event commentators 9.09% 12.50% 10.86% 24.14% 14.29% 19.30% 13.33% 8.06% 9.78% 12.82% regarding the overall content sources used on the wechat official accounts of both media outlets in the three categories of news reports, the media tend to select national leaders and government officials (25.64%), and experts and scholars (18.46%) as the primary content sources. the aim is to ensure the authoritativeness of the news reports and the credibility of the news media, while less frequently using media institutions (5.64%) and corporations (4.10%) as direct content sources. in political and social reports, both media’s wechat platforms favor authoritative news sources over non-authoritative ones. the people’s daily wechat account ranks national leaders and government officials as the most frequently used sources across all three news categories, with respective proportions of 50%, 24.14%, and 20%. moreover, it does not utilize eyewitnesses or participants in political reporting, whereas in social and disaster reports, it more frequently includes commentators (24.14%) and participants (16.67%). this reflects that the media’s use of news sources is influenced by the type of news report. southern weekly’s wechat account also ranks national leaders and government officials as the primary sources in political and social reports, at 41.67% and 21.43% respectively. however, in disaster reporting, its usage of participants (25.81%) far exceeds other sources, reflecting southern weekly’s core values of justice, conscience, compassion, and rationality, and indicating that in the digital age, media source selection is still influenced by the media’s own characteristics (table 5). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 12 published by scholink inc. table 6. content sources for 9 hot event categories reported by 2 media on weibo weibo content source statistics chart content source current affairs reports social reports disaster reports content source proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion people’s daily southern weekly type proportion national leaders and government officials 25.00% 20.00% 20.37% 23.08% 25.23% 20.83% 28.57% 20.59% 23.64% 21.81% experts and scholars 20.83% 23.33% 22.21% 15.38% 9.09% 12.50% 9.52% 8.82% 9.09% 15.79% industry personnel 12.50% 6.67% 12.96% 15.38% 9.09% 12.50% 9.52% 5.80% 7.27% 9.02% media organizations 4.18% 10.00% 7.41% 7.71% 12.50% 4.17% 0.00% 2.94% 1.82% 4.52% companies 8.33% 3.33% 5.56% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 4.76% 8.82% 7.27% 5.26% event participants 20.83% 10.00% 16.67% 15.38% 18.78% 16.67% 14.29% 23.53% 20.00% 17.29% witnesses to the event 0.00% 10.00% 5.56% 15.38% 7.13% 20.83% 23.82% 14.71% 10.18% 13.53% event commentators 8.33% 16.67% 9.26% 7.69% 10.10% 12.50% 9.52% 14.71% 12.73% 12.78% for both media outlets on the weibo platform, as with the wechat official account platform, national leaders and government officials are the primary content sources, constituting 21.81% of usage. other categories such as event participants, experts and scholars, eyewitnesses, and commentators also feature prominently, with percentages above ten: 17.29%, 15.79%, 13.53%, and 12.78% respectively. in contrast, industry personnel, companies, and media institutions are used less frequently, occupying the most marginal positions with 9.02%, 5.26%, and 4.52% respectively. in political reporting, national leaders and government (20.37%) and experts and scholars (22.21%) remain the most frequently used sources, reflecting a continued reliance on authoritative news sources. for social reporting, both news media do not use companies as a source at all, with a relatively balanced use of other news sources. in disaster reporting, aside from national leaders and government officials (23.64%), eyewitnesses (23.82%) and participants (23.53%) are extensively used by both people’s daily and southern weekly on weibo, indicating that the use of authoritative and non-authoritative sources is constrained by media attributes and platform rules (table 6). 6. conclusion and discussion this paper aims to outline the overall landscape of news source selection and usage in the news industry in the digital age through content analysis of “micro-platform” reporting by people’s daily and southern weekly. firstly, from a platform perspective, the selection of information sources on both wechat and weibo is balanced and aligns with the news production patterns in the digital age. on wechat, aside from interviews and other media being heavily utilized, other sources are also appropriately used, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 13 published by scholink inc. particularly social media, showcasing the platform’s integration of original and curated content. in terms of content sources, both wechat and weibo utilize authoritative sources such as national leaders and government officials, and experts and scholars, to enhance the authoritativeness of news reporting. additionally, both platforms pay considerable attention to non-traditional sources like event participants, eyewitnesses, and commentators, especially evident in social and disaster reporting, reflecting a higher degree of trust in traditional authoritative news sources on these platforms. secondly, from a media institution perspective, people’s daily and southern weekly display clear differences in source selection. as a mainstream media outlet, people’s daily has inherent advantages in accessing official sources represented by national leaders and government officials. in contrast, southern weekly, as a local urban media, faces certain constraints in accessing authoritative sources. especially in political reporting, when major policies are announced or significant meetings held, mainstream media can access government information firsthand. in contrast, local urban media like southern weekly rely on rebroadcasting from other media or official announcements from government departments, occasionally using social media accounts as supplementary sources in disaster reporting, significantly lagging behind mainstream media in terms of timeliness. lastly, from a reporting type perspective, political reporting primarily relies on official news sources, while social and disaster reporting tend to favor non-official sources. according to content sources on wechat, both people’s daily and southern weekly predominantly use authoritative sources like national leaders and government officials in political reporting. however, in disaster reporting, besides heavily utilizing governmental sources, both also extensively use participants as primary news sources. while data analysis supports these conclusions, it is challenging to generalize about news source selection in the digital age due to ongoing technological evolution and the manual nature of data collection from wechat and weibo, which may include errors such as duplicates or omissions. nonetheless, this study’s findings suggest: first, that news production in the digital era still predominantly relies on government as the leading news source to ensure report authoritativeness; second, that non-elite sources such as the general public are increasingly featured in social and disaster reporting, reflecting a shift towards democratization in news source selection; and third, that media characteristics and platform rules directly influence news source selection in digital news production. references carlson, m. (2009). dueling, dancing, or dominating? journalists and their sources. sociology compass, 3(4), 526-542. carter, r. (1958). newspaper “gatekeepers” and the sources of news. public opinion quarterly, 22(2), 133-144. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 14 published by scholink inc. chang, j., yang, h., & wang, y. (2022). news sources in the digital age: composition, trends, and implications. future communication, 29(06), 28-38, 133. china internet network information center. (2024). report on the development statistics of china’s internet network. retrieved from https://www.cnnic.net.cn/n4/2024/0322/c88-10964.html klein, e., & robinson, j. (2020). like, post, and distrust? how social media use affects trust in government. political communication, 37(1), 46-64. li, s. (ed.). (1989). dictionary of new disciplines and new knowledge (p. 84). china international broadcasting press. manning, p. (2000). news and news sources: a critical introduction. new york: sage publications. peng, b. (2019). research on the reverse agenda setting of social media audiences to traditional media. contemporary communication, (5), 110-112. reich, z. (2011). source credibility and journalism: between visceral and discretional judgment. journalism practice, 5(1), 51-67. schudson, m. (2001). the objectivity norm in american journalism. journalism, 2(2), 149-170. singer, j. (2007). contested autonomy: professional and popular claims on journalistic norms. journalism studies, 8(1), 79-95. zhang, h. (ed.). (2016). new compilation of contemporary media news writing (p. 98). beijing polytechnic press. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 274 original paper the study of social gaze in salome and its enlightenment for contemporary college english majors hu yi 1 & cai huilin 1* 1 school of english, jinlin international studies university, changchun city, jilin province, china * cai huilin, corresponding author, e-mail: caihuilin@jisu.edu.cn received: october 31, 2024 accepted: november 16, 2024 online published: november 28, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p274 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p274 abstract this paper takes oscar wilde’s tragic masterpiece “salome” as the primary analytical object, delving deeply into the enlightening insights that the social gaze depicted in the play offer to contemporary undergraduate students majoring in english literature. by employing the framework of gaze theory, it meticulously analyzes the intricate relationships among gender, power dynamics, and identity construction within the narrative. through this analysis, the paper uncovers the profound challenges and resolute resistance displayed by female characters to the oppressive gaze of male authority, shedding light on the enduring relevance of wilde’s work in the context of contemporary gender studies and cultural critique. keywords salome, social gaze, power, feminism 1. introduction social gaze, as a cultural phenomenon, not only reflects the social attitudes and perceptions towards a certain group or individual, but also shapes and constrains their behavioral patterns and identity to a certain extent (dong, 2021). in salome, female characters, notably salome herself, are persistently subjected to the scrutinizing gaze of men, which invariably influences their destinies, decisions, and actions. this gaze transcends mere observation; it embodies a manifestation of power and poses a significant challenge to women‟s self-perception and subjectivity. this study endeavors to delve into the insights offered by the phenomenon of social gaze for contemporary english majors through an exhaustive examination of its manifestations in salome. in particular, the research will be carried out in the following aspects: firstly, the analysis of the specific manifestations of the social gaze phenomenon in salome, including male gaze on women, female www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 275 published by scholink inc. resistance to the gaze, and the power and cultural factors behind the gaze etc.; secondly, the exploration of the impact of social gaze on women‟s self-perception and subjectivity, and how to seek self-expression and identity in the gaze; and lastly, combining with the actual situation of contemporary society, analyzing the implications of this phenomenon on contemporary english majors‟ self-perception and subjectivity. finally, the analysis of how english majors can maintain independent thinking and critical thinking in the face of social gaze in light of the actual situation of contemporary society. 2. gaze theory and contemporary cultural criticism gaze is a visual mechanism through which the subject directs attention towards the object. gaze theory originates from an emphasis on visual perception. the subsequent classifications and explanations of gaze theory are delineated by various scholars and theoretical perspectives: 2.1 psychoanalytic school within this framework, freud introduced the concept of “scopophilia”, considering gaze as an integral part of sexual instinct, positing that voyeurs derive satisfaction from peering into others‟ secrets. conversely, lacan explored the role of gaze in the process of subject formation from psychological and psychoanalytical viewpoints, asserting that gaze plays a significant role in shaping one‟s identity. 2.2 the school of power and surveillance among them, foucault emphasized the importance of gaze as a mechanism for exerting power and conducting surveillance. his concept of panopticism elucidates how the gaze can extend and consolidate power through visual means (foucault, 2007). according to foucault, gaze is not a merely an act of observation, but also functions as a social control mechanism, which compels individuals to self-regulate under potential observation, thereby manifesting the omnipresence of power. 2.3 feminist school feminist scholars have applied gaze theory to gender studies, particularly in relation to the phenomenon of gendered gazes in film and media. mulvey introduced the concept of male gaze theory, highlighting that female images are often depicted as visual objects for male audiences in films and media, thereby reinforcing gender inequality (wang, 2021). furthermore, feminist scholars have critiqued the gendered power inherent in these gazes, arguing that they serve not only as visual acts, but also as tools for social control and cultural construction. these gazes perpetuate gender inequality by objectifying women and reducing them to mere objects. 2.4 postcolonial and racist school postcolonial and racist scholars have employed gaze theory to examine race and ethnic relations, unveiling the role of gaze in racial discrimination and ethnic oppression. they argue that the gaze marginalizes specific groups or individuals as “the other” through visual means, thereby reinforcing the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 276 published by scholink inc. dominance and power dynamics within mainstream society. this phenomenon of gaze not only manifests between individuals, but also pervades social institutions and cultural practices. the diverse perspectives and interpretations collectively encompass the intricacy and diversity of gaze theory, which is extensively employed for deciphering the covert dynamics of power and mechanisms of subject construction in visual culture, feminism, and postcolonialism. 3. the interplay of power and desire this section commences with a comprehensive discourse on desire: in salome, the intertwining of desire and power is evident, propelling the narrative‟s progression. power provides the potential for fulfilling desires, while desires compel individuals to strive for power and exploit it. salome uses her beauty and charisma as manipulative tools against king herod and others, effectively harnessing her desires as instruments of authority. king herod, on the other hand, flagrantly abused his power and transgressing moral boundaries and disregarding beliefs to satiate his own cravings. 3.1 herod’s authority and salome’s desires as a ruler, herod possessed ultimate authority, wielding it absolutely and determining the fate of others. throughout the play, he exploits his power to fulfill his own desires, yet this very power corrupts him, cultivating an increasingly authoritarian and brutal demeanor. his dominion not only underpins his reign but also embodies male desire. consequently, under the male gaze, salome becomes both a victim and an object of scrutiny, ultimately resulting in the subjugation of women. salome harbors a twisted infatuation for john, driven by an intrigue in the enigmatic and forbidden aspects of him, yet is also tinged with a craving for dominance and authority. “your body is white, like the lilies of the prairie where no one has ever been”; “your hair is like grapes, like bunches of black grapes hanging down from the vines of idoma ...... like the giant fir trees of lebanon”. she aspired to satisfy her inner desires and vanity through acquiring john‟s head. salome attains power by ingratiating herself with herod, encompassing this desire is an aspiration for supremacy. the intertwining of herod‟s authority and salome‟s desires is intricately connected. herod‟s power affords salome the opportunity to fulfill her desires, which in turn exert influence on herod‟s actions and decisions. salome strategically employs her beauty and charisma to gain access to herod. herod then subsequently utilizes his power to satisfy her own aspirations. driven by his authority, herod, fulfills salome‟s demands; however, this very act ultimately leads to his downfall. 3.2 herodias’ desire for revenge and strategies for utilizing power herodias‟ desire for revenge against john stems from john‟s public denunciation of her relationship with herod. john‟s words and actions threatened herodias‟ position and reputation in the court and made her a target. as a result, herodias harbors a deep hatred for john, and she longs to borrow the power of the king to achieve revenge against him. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 277 published by scholink inc. to secure her revenge, herodias skillfully leveraged her power, position at the court, and king herod‟s favor. during the climax of the dance, she orchestrated a display of salome‟s beauty and charm in front of king herod, aiming to manipulate his emotions and decisions. subtly, she arranged for salome to make a seemingly harmless request to herod: the granting of john‟s head as a reward. however, herodias‟ plan for revenge did not bring her true fulfillment or peace. instead, her actions lead to more tragedy. salome‟s descent into madness as a result of receiving john‟s head ultimately led to her destruction. and king herod lost his dominion because of his abuse of power and fulfillment of salome‟s demands. 3.3 salome‟s love desire and abuse of power salome‟s desire for love is mainly reflected in her infatuation with john. this infatuation is fueled by a profound curiosity about the unknown and the forbidden, coupled with a relentless pursuit of purity and holiness. in her perception, john stands apart as a unique individual, “i believe he is as pure and noble as the moon”. his purity and holiness captivate her heart, leading her to fall deeply for him. she eagerly desires to be near him, to comprehend him, and even to possess him. however, john sees her as “the daughter of babylon” and “the daughter of sodom”, and his coldness and rejection of her makes her desire for love even more twisted and intense. in her pursuit of love, salome inevitably involves the abuse of power. she uses her influence and herod‟s favor for her to achieve her own ends. this is not only a deprivation of john‟s life, but also an abuse of herod‟s power. salome ultimately fulfills her desire getting john‟s head. 4. construction and deconstruction of gender roles a complex and subtle social dynamic can be observed in the interweaving of power and desire. power and desire, which are often interdependent and mutually influential, jointly shape the rules and order of society (zhong, 2010). in the game of power, desire often serves as the driving force that pushes people to fight for and control, and in the process of desire fulfillment, power often becomes the tool to achieve this goal and means. however, when turning our attention to the construction and deconstruction of gender roles, we will find that the intertwining of power and desire plays a crucial role in it. the construction of gender roles is not only a process of socialization, but also a result of the interaction between power and desire. in this intricate dance, men and women are assigned distinct social expectations and role definitions, often rooted in the underlying structure of power arrangements and the manifestation of societal desires. 4.1 subversion of the female role the construction of the role of salome completely breaks the stereotypical image of women. the dominant discourse in the past was patriarchal, and women have long been in a state of subordination and disembodiment (liu, 2006). in the stereotype, women are usually depicted as weak, dependent and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 278 published by scholink inc. submissive, but salome is a woman with strong personal will and independent spirit. she dares to challenge male authority and strives for her independent personality. not only does she use her beauty and charm to influence king herod‟s decision-making, but she also dares to make a direct request to him, “give me john‟s head”, even to the point of going to extreme lengths to achieve her goal. this challenge and rebellion against male power makes salome a characterization with a strong feminist spirit. 4.2 complexity of male characters the male characters in salome consist mainly of king herod and john. the construction of their roles is mainly reflected in their inner turmoil and contradictions as well as their relationships with the surrounding characters and environment. the complexity of gender roles, on the other hand, is reflected in the construction of the character of john. his image as a pure and noble prophet forms a stark contrast with salome and king herod. he is firm in his principles and beliefs, rejecting salome‟s temptation when she says “allow me to kiss it lightly” with “go away! daughter of babylon”, “do not speak to me”, and “i hear only the voice of the lord”. he might sympathize with her situation or feel helpless and saddened at her madness. the complexity of john‟s attitude toward salome makes his character even deeper. the complexity of the male characters not only advances the plot but also deepens the themes and meanings, showing the complexity and diversity of human nature. 5. embodiment of gaze in salome from the in-depth study of the gaze theory and contemporary cultural criticism, it can be learned that gaze, as a cultural phenomenon and a theoretical tool, holds unique value in revealing and critiquing societal gender roles and power structures. it uncovers the intricate power dynamics and desire projections underlying the act of observing, providing a new perspective for understanding contemporary cultural phenomena. when applying the theory of gaze to the analysis of salome, gaze emerges as a multifaceted tool. it serves not only as a vital means of shaping character relationships and propelling plot development but also as a profound means of uncovering gender roles, power dynamics, and entangled desires. through the intricate dance between the gazer and the gazed, it highlights women‟s vulnerable position within societal power structures and their struggles, resistances, and awakenings under the male gaze. therefore, from the perspective of the gaze theory and contemporary cultural criticism, it is possible to understand the specific embodiment and deeper significance of gaze in salome more deeply. this not only enables a better reading of the work, but also provides new ideas and methods for exploring contemporary cultural issues such as gender, power, and desire. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 279 published by scholink inc. 5.1 the gaze and the shaping and challenging of gender roles the gaze, serving as a mirror of gender power relations, deeply exposes the self-awakening and rebellion of female characters under the scrutiny of males, along with the shaping and challenges posed to gender roles throughout this process. as pointed out by foucault in “discipline and punish”, power is constantly in a state of flux, and where there is oppression, there is bound to be resistance. when women issue a gaze, they place themselves in a position of agency and subjectivity, therefore, this becomes a confrontational strategy for women to turn the tables, and also poses a challenge and subversion to this power mechanism. despite the objections of the crowd, salome insisted on seeing john, who was imprisoned in the underwater dungeon, and her gaze upon john is a result of her subjective choice. despite john‟s ignorance and curses towards salome, salome still scrutinizes his body carefully and employs lengthy lyrical descriptions, “his body again was like lilies, snow, roses, sunshine and the bright moon; his hair was like bunches of grapes, cedars and the long night; his mouth was like a red hoop, a pomegranate, a red horn, a dove‟s claw, a hunter‟s foot, coral and vermilion; and his voice was fine wine”. salome‟s gaze is always colored by the “male gaze”, and john‟s body takes on strong feminine overtones. the feminized portrayal indicates that salome has perceived john as a passive object, meant to be admired and to fulfill others‟ desires. at this juncture, john‟s spiritual status, which represents the patriarchal society, has been completely discarded, and he has been relegated to a status as lowly as that of a woman, which carries a strong irony. despite being a male, john is portrayed in a feminized manner, and salome, as a female, engages in a masculine gaze. to a certain extent, this inversion of gender relations also signifies salome‟s defiance. 5.2 the connection between gaze and consumer culture salome, as the central character of the story, becomes the focus of attraction and control with her beauty, talent, and mystery. her presence is akin to a precious and scarce resource, avidly pursued and longed for by all who encounter her. king herod‟s obsession with her and her mother herodias‟ exploitation of her as a pawn for vengeance further underscore her status as a highly valued commodity. her fate and choices are manipulated by power and desire, just as commodities are circulated and exchanged in the market. other characters in the story also exemplify the equivalence of roles and commodities. for instance, the head of prophet john, a holy and pure figure, becomes an object of salome‟s desire in the story. his death and the exchange of his head highlight the human pursuit of power and desire, and also demonstrate the extreme pursuit of material goods and the fulfillment of desires in a commodity society. 5.2.1 the desire-driven factor from salome‟s point of view, her obsession with john exemplifies the profound impact of desire on individual emotions. this obsession transcends mere admiration or worship, embodying an extreme www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 280 published by scholink inc. pursuit of beauty, purity, and mystery. in her eyes, john the prophet is not merely a man; he is a symbol of perfection, an irresistible „work of art‟ that she must possess. to a certain extent, her behavior can be seen as a form of extreme consumerism, where she sacrifices everything she possesses in pursuit of this beauty. second is king herod‟s desire for salome. as a symbol of power and status, herod‟s desire primarily lies in possessing power and beauty. his admiration for salome‟s beauty and talent gradually transformed into a profound longing to possess her, dreaming of integrating her into his harem and making her his own. this desire propelled him to make a sequence of irrational decisions, even defying his own moral principles and beliefs. herod‟s behavior reflects the general pursuit of beauty, power, and status in the society of that time, as well as the excessive pursuit of materialism and pleasure in the consumer culture. 5.2.2 the pursuit and consumption of beauty in salome, beauty is given a very high value, and at the same time becomes an object of pursuit and consumption. salome‟s beauty becomes the key to attracting others and even changing her fate. the pursuit and appreciation of beauty by other characters also reflects the general recognition and consumption tendency towards beauty in the society at that time. whether it is king herod, the young syrian officer john, or the audiences captivated by her beauty, their pursuit of beauty is not only a recognition of salome‟s personal charms, but also a microcosm of the general recognition and consumption tendency towards beauty in the society at that time. at that time, beauty was given a high social value; it is not only a symbol of personal charm, but also a hallmark of social status and power. people saw beauty as a form of capital that could be possessed and flaunted, which inadvertently promoted the commodification and consumption of beauty. 5.2.3 the intersection of the gaze and consumer culture the gaze in salome is a form of viewing with a strong sense of purpose, often accompanied by the operation of desire and power. salome‟s gaze on john the prophet is not only an appreciation of his external beauty, but also an obsession with his pure and mysterious temperament. this gaze not only reflects her inner desire, but also mirrors the definition and pursuit of beauty prevalent in society at that time. similarly, king herod‟s gaze on salome reflects more of a possession of power and fulfillment of desire. he hopes to control and possess salome‟s beauty through his gaze, which is essentially a form of consumption behavior, fulfilling his desires through visual possession (wang, 2009). consumer culture, on the other hand, is expressed in salome as the pursuit and consumption of beauty. the characters in the story, whether they are salome, herod, or other roles, are all influenced by consumer culture in their behaviors and choices. they pursue beauty, power, and pleasure, and these pursuits are evident in their consumer behaviors. for instance, salome sacrifices her life to attain the beauty of john the prophet; herod violates his morals and beliefs in pursuit of salome‟s beauty. he www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 281 published by scholink inc. begs salome to dance for him and even promises to give her everything she wants. “whatever you want, i will give it to you”. when salome offers to take john‟s head in exchange for the dance, despite his inner struggle, king herod ultimately chooses to fulfill salome‟s demand, saying, “give her whatever she wants”, which undoubtedly poses a significant challenge to his personal morals and beliefs. these consumer behaviors reflect the prevailing social attitude towards the pursuit of beauty and consumption at that time. the interplay between gaze and consumer culture in salome manifests in several ways. first, the gaze itself is a consumer behavior that satisfies individual desires through the appropriation of beauty. at the same time, the gaze also promotes the formation and development of consumer culture, which makes people pay more attention to the external manifestation of beauty, thus promoting the commodification and consumerization of beauty. secondly, consumer culture also influences the way and purpose of gaze in turn. in the context of consumer culture, people‟s pursuit of beauty is more explicit and direct, which also makes the gaze more purposeful and targeted. consumer culture fosters the pursuit of individuality and differentiation, catering to people‟s unique aesthetic and emotional needs. this trend is also reflected in “salome”, where salome‟s pursuit of john is a pursuit of individuality and differentiation. 5.3 the connection between the gaze and visual culture the gaze is a pivotal concept within visual culture. in this context, it is regarded as a distinctive mode of perception that transcends a mere glancing at visual objects. rather, it encompasses a viewing behavior that is laden with profound cultural, social, and psychological implications. characterized by intense concentration, extended duration, and meticulous scrutiny, gazing serves as a lens through which the intricate relationship between the observer and the observed can be unraveled. this viewing mode also elucidates the cultural, social, and psychological mechanisms that underlie this relationship. in salome, such cultural, social, and psychological connotations of the gaze are fully demonstrated. for example, salome‟s gaze on john the prophet is not only an appreciation of his external beauty, but also an obsession with his pure and mysterious temperament. this gaze reveals salome‟s inner desires and pursuits, while also reflecting the societal definitions and pursuits of beauty at that time. similarly, herod‟s gaze upon salome embodies more of a possession of power and the fulfillment of desire. this gaze reveals herod‟s desire for salome‟s beauty and his wish to fulfill his power and desire by possessing her. secondly, in visual culture, the gaze is not only a way of viewing, but also a cultural practice and social act. through gazing, people can establish connections, express desires, pursue power, and in the process shape their own identities and statuses. in salome, the gaze between characters not only reveals their relationships and desires, but also reflects the power structures and values of society at that time. through the gaze, people can express their identities and statuses, and at the same time be gazed and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 282 published by scholink inc. judged by others. finally, there is a mutual influence between gaze and visual culture. in the process of gazing, people interpret and judge visual objects based on their own cultural, social, and psychological backgrounds, which will further influence the formation and development of visual culture. in salome, the gaze between the characters not only reveals their relationship and desires, but also reflects the cultural, social, and psychological background of the society at that time, which in turn further influences the manner and outcome of the gaze. 5.4 the gaze and the construction of individual identity in the second sex, simone de beauvoir pointed out that women are not born, but rather constructed as an inferior gender under male domination. under the patriarchal system, women‟s bodies are subjected to the gaze of men and confined within the family sphere; women‟s minds are compelled to accept cultural indoctrination under male authority and are stripped of their right to speak. when women are gradually awaken from the nightmare of the male-dominated social power structures woven by men, their self-consciousness demands that they strongly aspire to break free from the gender cage constructed by men and break out of gender relations dominated by male authority, attempting to reposition their gender roles and reconstruct their ethical identities. 6. reflections on the phenomenon of the gaze 6.1 the subtle relationship between the gaze and power in contemporary society, the gaze has gone far beyond the simple act of watching; it is deeply embedded in the network of power relations. michel foucault‟s theory of the panopticon uncovers the gaze as a symbol of power: even if the watcher is not present at all times, the watched individual still disciplines themselves due to the implied gaze. this invisible power control has become a universal principle guiding social operations, which not only defines gender, class, and cultural identity but also profoundly influences individual behaviors and choices. 6.2 the gaze’s shaping and reflection on gender roles as a social evaluation mechanism, the gaze shapes stereotypes of gender roles through constant visual examination. under the male gaze, women are often expected to embody fragility and beauty, while men are labeled as courageous and independent. this gaze mechanism not only limits the diversity of gender expression but also contributes to the solidification of gender stereotypes. in the face of the impact of consumerism and visual culture, it is especially crucial to maintain rationality and independent thinking. english majors, in particular, need to develop strong critical thinking skills to uphold their autonomy in cross-cultural communication, enabling them to deeply understand and critically analyze cultural phenomena, while resisting the influence of external gazes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 283 published by scholink inc. 7. enlightenment of the gazing phenomenon for contemporary college students 7.1 enlightenment of the gazing phenomenon on the cognitive level of contemporary college students in an era where the phenomenon of gazing is increasingly prevalent, contemporary college students are confronted with a flood of information and visual stimuli. to effectively address this challenge, cultivating critical thinking becomes particularly crucial. gazing is not merely a simple visual act; rather, it encompasses complex social, cultural, and psychological dimensions. moreover, cultural backgrounds and individual psychological differences also influence the way gazing is perceived and interpreted, leading to the same gazing behavior having different meanings in the eyes of different individuals. in the era of information explosion, college students need to learn to filter, analyze, and evaluate the information they receive. 7.2 enlightenment of the gazing phenomenon on the behavioral level of contemporary college students the widespread adoption of social media has led to a notable increase in the phenomenon of gazing. behind social media interactions such as likes and comments, there frequently exists a scrutiny and evaluation of individuals‟ images by others. this scrutiny can have significant impacts on college students, with excessive attention to feedback potentially resulting in anxiety, low self-esteem, or vanity, which in turn may affect the authenticity and health of their social behavior. in the realm of academic research, it is crucial to maintain an open mindset and avoid being unduly influenced by personal biases, societal opinions, or prior research findings. regarding the emotional challenges posed by the gazing phenomenon, college students are advised to focus on establishing healthy emotional relationships and fostering emotional independence, recognizing that personal value is not exclusively defined by external opinions. by cultivating healthy emotional connections and seeking emotional support, students can effectively mitigate the stress associated with gazing. references chen, g. n. (2013). the construction and deconstruction of salome‟s subjectivity. foreign literature studies, 2, 52-60. dong, y. z. (2021). the construction of women‟s subjective position in the threshold of “gaze theory”—taking richard strauss‟s salome as an example. explorations in music, 4, 135-144. han, h. n. (2004). being “stared at” and “expelled”: female university students‟ examination of the image of women in the media. modern communication (journal of beijing broadcasting institute), 3, 99-100. li, y. g., & wu, y. f. (2019). self-identity in mirroring and gazing: an analysis of contemporary “selfie” culture. fujian tribune, 11, 133-138. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 284 published by scholink inc. liu, s. (2006). the “disciplinary gaze” in gender formation. journal of fujian financial management cadre college, 6, 43-46. liu, s. x. (2023). the concept of the gaze in foucault‟s critique of power. western journal, 1, 156-159. foucault, m. (2007). discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. beijing:life-reading-xinzhi sanlianshubian. sun, b. y., & sui, n. x. (2024). the flowing gaze: the flux of gender power in the discourse of the body. journal of shangqiu normal college, 40, 99-103. wang, x. w. (2015). gaze pleasure—the visualization tendency of consumer culture. art and literature for the masses, 2, 262-263. wang，r. (2021). gendered discourses of viewing positions—a new and expanded exploration of the mulveyan gaze. beauty & times, 7, 115-118. zhang, j. j., & zheng, y. (2021). criticizing the image of women in the media in the context of the “gaze” theory. journal of hunan university of humanities,science and technology, 5, 34-39. zhao, j. q. (2023). visual relationships and the gazed body in salome. journal of jinzhong college, 4, 85-89. zhong, y. b. (2010). the gaze: viewing as power. art observation, 6, 112. note 1: this article is the phased research result of jilin international studies university, “the study of social gaze in salome and its enlightenment for contemporary college english majors” (jwxsky2024b027). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 38 original paper research on the construction and application of a precision service platform for pharmaceutical knowledge based on media convergence to serve industry groups and the public jin li 1 , xi ma 1 , yu liu 1 , tingting tao 1 , wenyan ren 1 , & xiaoyong zou 1 1 journal center, chongqing university cancer hospital, chongqing, china received: january 3, 2025 accepted: january 31, 2025 online published: february 25, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n1p38 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n1p38 abstract this paper aims to introduce in detail a precision service platform for pharmaceutical knowledge built upon the resources of the “china pharmacy” journal. this platform leverages artificial intelligence technology to achieve intelligent generation, integration, and dissemination of pharmaceutical knowledge. the paper first elaborates on the development background, purpose, and significance of the platform, and then conducts a comprehensive analysis of the platform’s core functions, technical implementation, operational effects, and future prospects. through this platform, pharmaceutical knowledge is more widely and precisely disseminated to the public, enhancing the public’s pharmaceutical literacy and health awareness. it provides an important reference for the deep integration of traditional publishing and digital services for scientific journals. keywords precision service for pharmaceutical knowledge, artificial intelligence, media convergence, online version of “china pharmacy”, platform construction 1. introduction with the rapid development of information technology and the widespread popularization of the internet, media convergence has become an inevitable trend. as an authoritative journal in the field of pharmacy, the “china pharmacy” journal actively responds to the national call for promoting the deep integration of publishing and fully utilizes its rich pharmaceutical resources and professional editorial team. by combining new media and artificial intelligence technology, it has launched the online version of “china pharmacy” and built a precision service platform for pharmaceutical knowledge on this basis. the construction of this platform not only provides a professional academic exchange platform for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 39 published by scholink inc. pharmaceutical researchers but also popularizes pharmaceutical knowledge to the public in a more understandable and diverse form, enhancing the public’s pharmaceutical literacy and health awareness (publicity department of the cpc central committee, 2022). 2. development background and purpose 2.1 development background 2.1.1 implementation of the healthy china strategy the implementation of the “healthy china” strategy proposed at the 19th national congress of the communist party of china is an important strategic arrangement made by the party central committee with comrade xi jinping at its core, based on the people’s demand for a better life and aiming to comprehensively improve the people’s health level and promote their healthy development. it provides a specific implementation plan for building a healthy china in the new era. the implementation of the healthy china strategy puts forward new requirements for the development of the pharmaceutical field, namely, the need to popularize pharmaceutical knowledge more widely and precisely, and improve the public’s health awareness and self-care ability (li, liu, ma et al., 2022). 2.1.2 rapid development of the pharmaceutical industry the pharmaceutical industry is a knowledge-intensive industry with rapid knowledge updates. with the constant changes in diseases, upgrades of viruses and bacteria, and the emergence of new technologies and applications for medicines, the demand for pharmaceutical knowledge among pharmaceutical workers and the general public is increasing. however, traditional print media can no longer satisfy the public’s demand for constantly updated pharmaceutical knowledge. therefore, utilizing new media and artificial intelligence technology to achieve intelligent generation, integration, and dissemination of pharmaceutical knowledge has become an inevitable trend in the development of the pharmaceutical field. 2.1.3 development trend of media convergence in the era of all-media development, media convergence has become an inevitable trend. the integration of traditional and new media not only broadens the channels of information dissemination but also improves the efficiency and coverage of information dissemination. for the pharmaceutical field, leveraging the power of media convergence can present pharmaceutical knowledge to the public in a more vivid and intuitive form, enhancing the public’s acceptance and understanding. 2.1.4 urgent need for digital transformation as a professional scientific journal, the “china pharmacy” journal actively responds to the national call for promoting the deep integration of publishing and is committed to integrating pharmaceutical professional resources with new media. through digital transformation, it can not only provide a platform for publishing professional academic papers on new pharmaceutical technologies and drug www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 40 published by scholink inc. applications for pharmaceutical researchers but also effectively integrate and utilize resources to popularize them to the public, bridging the gap between pharmaceutical experts and the general public. 2.2 development purpose the purpose of this project is to build a precision service platform for pharmaceutical knowledge based on the resources of the “china pharmacy” journal, combined with new media and artificial intelligence technology. through this platform, the intelligent generation, integration, and dissemination of pharmaceutical knowledge can be achieved, meeting the personalized needs of different user groups. at the same time, through precise push, the precision and efficiency of science popularization services can be improved, contributing to enhancing the public’s pharmaceutical literacy and health awareness. 3. core functions of the platform 3.1 intelligent review and editing processing 3.1.1 efficient submission and review system the platform utilizes artificial intelligence technology to construct an efficient submission and review system. this system can handle a large number of science popularization manuscripts, conduct preliminary evaluation and screening through natural language processing and machine learning algorithms. editors can quickly judge the quality and academic value of manuscripts based on the system’s preliminary review suggestions, thereby significantly shortening the review cycle and improving the accuracy and fairness of the review (duan, li, ma et al., 2020). 3.1.2 academic misconduct detection and ai semantic plagiarism check to ensure the originality of manuscripts, the platform integrates artificial intelligence-based academic misconduct detection and ai semantic plagiarism check functions. these functions can quickly detect duplicate content and the percentage of plagiarism in manuscripts, effectively maintaining the rigor and fairness of academic publishing. 3.1.3 auxiliary technologies for text, image, audio, and video in the editing and processing stage, the platform is equipped with auxiliary technologies for text, image, audio, and video. these technologies can automatically identify and correct typos, grammatical errors in manuscripts, and provide intelligent editing suggestions for text, images, audio, and video. by integrating the black horse proofreading system and the shanfeng reference system, the platform further improves the accuracy and standardization of editing, achieving full intelligent processing from submission to editing. 3.2 intelligent publishing 3.2.1 automatic format conversion and layout through the intelligent publishing system, manuscripts can automatically undergo format conversion and layout, quickly generating publishing versions suitable for different media platforms (duan, zou, li www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 41 published by scholink inc. et al., 2021). this not only saves a lot of manual layout time but also ensures the consistency and professionalism of the published content. 3.2.2 multi-platform publishing the platform supports publishing on multiple media platforms, including the china pharmacy website, china pharmacy mobile website, official wechat platform, weibo, the pharmaceutical policy cloud classroom platform, and apps. through multi-platform publishing, the platform can expand its audience reach, improve dissemination efficiency, and make pharmaceutical knowledge more widely accessible to the public. 3.3 intelligent generation of science popularization products the platform utilizes ai video production technology to automatically generate high-quality pharmaceutical science popularization videos from science popularization texts and journal articles. these videos present pharmaceutical knowledge in a vivid and intuitive form, enhancing the public’s acceptance and understanding. at the same time, through video dissemination, the platform can attract more users to pay attention to pharmaceutical knowledge and promote the science popularization work in the pharmaceutical field to a higher level. a schematic diagram of the platform’s core functions is shown in figure 1. figure 1. a schematic diagram of the platform’s core functions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 42 published by scholink inc. 3.4 precise push 3.4.1 user profile construction the platform constructs user profiles by analyzing users’ browsing history, reading habits, and interest preferences. through user profiles, the platform can more accurately understand users’ needs and interests, providing strong support for precise push (li, zou, & duan, 2020). 3.4.2 precise push service based on user profiles, the platform can select domestic and foreign journal readers and targeted general authors as dissemination objects and push matching science popularization content. the service records push behavior, tracks viewing rates and citation situations, and statistics on the number of articles published by the audience, themes, platform distribution, and reading habits. through precise push services, the platform can improve the precision and efficiency of science popularization services, meeting the personalized needs of different user groups. 3.5 comprehensive evaluation 3.5.1 multi-dimensional evaluation system the platform combines a multi-dimensional evaluation system to comprehensively evaluate published manuscripts based on multiple indicators such as academic content, topic innovation, click-through rates, reposting and forwarding volumes, and online voting numbers (li, 2025). through the multi-dimensional evaluation system, the platform can more objectively evaluate the quality and influence of manuscripts, ensuring the authority and professionalism of the platform’s content. 3.5.2 excellent work selection and incentives the platform regularly selects excellent works and provides corresponding incentives and honors to the authors. through the excellent work selection and incentive mechanism, the platform can encourage the creative enthusiasm of excellent authors and improve the quality and influence of the platform’s content. 4. technical implementation of the platform 4.1 digital network publishing technology 4.1.1 html5 and javascript technology the platform’s webpage interface adopts html5 as the standard and is programmed using the javascript programming language. through html5 and javascript technology, the platform can achieve diverse content presentation forms, displaying different effects based on different display tools. 4.1.2 audio and video processing technology the platform utilizes audio and video processing tools such as adobe premier pro cc 2018 and adobe photoshop cc 2018 to edit, dub, and add subtitles to science popularization videos. through audio and video processing technology, the platform can produce high-quality pharmaceutical science popularization videos, improving the viewing experience and dissemination effect of the videos. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 43 published by scholink inc. 4.1.3 electronic journal production technology the platform adopts the fangzheng academic publishing cloud platform’s xml intelligent production service arrangement and then uses flip pdf professional to produce electronic journals. electronic journals not only facilitate online reading and downloading by users but also improve the dissemination efficiency and coverage of journals. 4.2 editorial and publishing technologies for scientific journals 4.2.1 column planning and manuscript organization the platform leverages the expertise of scientific journal publishing professionals to plan columns and organize manuscripts. through column planning and manuscript organization, the platform ensures the academic and professional quality of the content, meeting users’ knowledge needs. 4.2.2 process control the platform implements process control in editing by compiling and enforcing the “manual for editors and publishers of the online edition of china pharmacy”. through process control, the platform ensures the standardization and efficiency of editing work, improving the speed and quality of manuscript processing. 4.2.3 three-review and three-proofreading system the platform strictly enforces a three-review and three-proofreading system to ensure the quality and accuracy of the content. through this system, the platform promptly identifies and corrects errors and deficiencies in manuscripts, enhancing the readability and credibility of the content. 4.3 artificial intelligence technologies 4.3.1 natural language processing and machine learning algorithms the platform utilizes natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to conduct preliminary evaluations and screenings of manuscripts. through these technologies, the platform can more accurately assess the quality and academic value of manuscripts, improving the accuracy and fairness of the review process. 4.3.2 intelligent recommendation system the platform employs an intelligent recommendation system to push more precise and personalized pharmaceutical knowledge to users based on their browsing history and preferences. through this system, the platform enhances users’ learning interest and efficiency, further improving the platform’s science popularization and outreach efforts (table 2). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 44 published by scholink inc. table 2. technical components and roles in the precision service platform for pharmaceutical knowledge technology description role in the platform html5 & javascript webpage interface standard and programming language enables diverse content presentation forms and interactive features. audio & video processing (e.g., adobe premier pro cc 2018, adobe photoshop cc 2018) tools for editing, dubbing, and adding subtitles to videos produces high-quality pharmaceutical science popularization videos. electronic journal production (e.g., fangzheng academic publishing cloud platform, flip pdf professional) xml intelligent production service and pdf conversion tool facilitates online reading, downloading, and dissemination of electronic journals. column planning & manuscript organization expertise in scientific journal publishing ensures academic and professional quality of platform content. process control (manual for editors and publishers of the online edition of china pharmacy) standardized editing workflow ensures standardization and efficiency of editing work. three-review & three-proofreading system quality assurance process ensures content accuracy and readability. natural language processing & machine learning ai-based evaluation and screening improves accuracy and fairness of manuscript www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 45 published by scholink inc. technology description role in the platform algorithms reviews. intelligent recommendation system ai-driven content recommendation provides personalized and precise pharmaceutical knowledge to users. 5. platform operation results 5.1 publishing overview since its launch, the platform has achieved significant publishing results. as of june 30, 2022, it has published 18 issues (quarterly collections), with a total of over 470 original reports or articles, including approximately 30 episodes of science popularization interviews and educational videos. the total number of reads and shares has exceeded 1 million. the platform effectively bridges the gap between medical and pharmaceutical professionals and the general public, promoting the dissemination of pharmaceutical knowledge. 5.2 editorial board formation and academic conference organization 5.2.1 editorial board formation in july 2019, the online edition editorial center of china pharmacy assembled the first editorial board of the online edition of china pharmacy through online public recruitment of volunteers. after further expanding the team in 2020, the editorial board now comprises over 80 members, including experts and outstanding young pharmaceutical workers from medical institutions at all levels nationwide, providing expert support for the academic quality of the online edition. 5.2.2 academic conference organization the first meeting of the first editorial board of the online edition of china pharmacy, sponsored by the china pharmacy editorial and publishing center, was held in hangzhou on november 28, 2020, and the second meeting was held online on december 10, 2021. the meetings facilitated academic exchanges and discussions on topics such as pharmaceutical service practices, clinical rational drug use, and the development of pharmaceutical science popularization, providing valuable guidance for the future development of the online edition and the establishment and improvement of its talent pool. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 46 published by scholink inc. 5.3 social benefits 5.3.1 enhancing public pharmaceutical literacy and health awareness the platform primarily targets grassroots medical personnel and the general public to promote, educate, and popularize pharmaceutical knowledge, playing a crucial role in improving residents’ medication knowledge and guiding the public to use medications scientifically, rationally, and economically. through the platform, the public can more easily access pharmaceutical knowledge and enhance their self-care abilities. 5.3.2 guiding rational drug use among special and chronic disease populations the platform guides special populations and those with chronic diseases on the rational use of medications through promotions on pediatric medication, medication use during pregnancy, and medication for cardiovascular diseases. these promotional contents not only enhance medication safety awareness among these populations but also promote communication and trust between patients and healthcare providers. 5.3.3 providing information sharing channels for pharmaceutical professionals the platform interprets the latest pharmaceutical policies, delivers cutting-edge pharmaceutical information, and collects rare cases of adverse drug reactions for medical and health workers. through the platform, pharmaceutical professionals can stay informed about industry trends and policy changes, enhancing their professional competence and service capabilities. 5.3.4 receiving industry recognition and honors since its launch, the platform has received widespread praise and recognition from peers. in 2019, the online edition of china pharmacy won the chongqing 2018 excellent digital publishing project award, becoming the only scientific journal media to receive this honor. additionally, the china pharmacy editorial and publishing center has received honors such as the “special contribution award for combating covid-19 by chongqing digital publishing units” and the “chongqing excellent digital publishing enterprise”. 5.4 economic benefits although the copyright of the online edition of china pharmacy belongs to chongqing university cancer hospital, a public welfare institution that cannot engage in market operations according to regulations, the platform still possesses certain advertising effects and economic growth potential from an economic perspective. the platform can bring advertising effects to enterprises in terms of promoting medications, rational medication use, pharmaceutical economics, medication sales, or medication efficacy rankings, facilitating brand building and market promotion for pharmaceutical companies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 47 published by scholink inc. 6. platform case study—the online edition of china pharmacy 6.1 overview of the online edition of china pharmacy the online edition of china pharmacy is an innovative attempt by the china pharmacy journal in the new era. as the foundation of the precision pharmaceutical knowledge service platform, the online edition of china pharmacy was established in 2018 and is regularly published on platforms such as the china pharmacy website, mobile site, official wechat, weibo, the pharmaceutical policy cloud classroom platform, and app. adhering to the principle of “navigating medical and health care, safeguarding medication use for the public”, the platform features special columns such as “pharmaceutical frontiers”, “humanistic pharmacy”, “pharmacists talk about medications”, “public health”, “home medicine cabinet”, “pharmacy vision”, and “typical cases”, targeting hospital pharmacy departments (pharmacy divisions), various levels of personnel working in community pharmacies (drugstores), and the general public as its readers (li, shu, & zou, 2025). 6.2 core functions and applications of the online edition of china pharmacy 6.2.1 generation and dissemination of science popularization content the online edition of china pharmacy leverages artificial intelligence technologies to realize the intelligent generation and dissemination of science popularization content. by integrating pharmaceutical professional knowledge and new media resources, the platform transforms abstruse pharmaceutical knowledge into easily understandable and diverse science popularization content. simultaneously, through multi-platform publishing and precision push services, the platform widely disseminates science popularization content to the public, enhancing public pharmaceutical literacy and health awareness. 6.2.2 establishment of an academic exchange platform the online edition of china pharmacy not only provides a professional academic exchange platform for pharmaceutical researchers but also promotes information sharing and cooperation among pharmaceutical professionals. through the platform, pharmaceutical professionals can stay informed about industry trends and policy changes, participate in academic discussions and exchange activities, and enhance their professional competence and service capabilities. 6.2.3 meeting user needs and providing personalized services the online edition of china pharmacy achieves precise understanding of user needs and provides personalized services by constructing user profiles and utilizing an intelligent recommendation system. the platform can push more precise and personalized pharmaceutical knowledge to users based on their browsing history and preferences. simultaneously, the platform offers functions such as online q&a and interactive messaging, facilitating communication and interaction between users and experts. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 48 published by scholink inc. 6.3 operation results and impact of the online edition of china pharmacy 6.3.1 operation results since its launch, the online edition of china pharmacy has achieved significant results. the platform has published a total of over 500 original reports or articles, including approximately 30 episodes of science popularization interviews and educational videos, with a total number of reads and shares exceeding 1 million. the platform effectively bridges the gap between medical and pharmaceutical professionals and the general public, promoting the dissemination of pharmaceutical knowledge. 6.3.2 social impact the social impact of the online edition of china pharmacy is extensive and far-reaching. the platform not only enhances public pharmaceutical literacy and health awareness but also promotes information sharing and cooperation among pharmaceutical professionals. simultaneously, the platform has received widespread recognition and praise from the industry, making significant contributions to the development of the pharmaceutical field. 6.3.3 economic benefits although the online edition of china pharmacy cannot directly engage in market operations, its advertising effects and economic growth potential cannot be ignored. the platform can bring advertising effects to enterprises in terms of promoting medications and rational medication use, facilitating brand building and market promotion for pharmaceutical companies. 7. challenges faced by the platform and countermeasures 7.1 challenges 7.1.1 technological challenges the construction and application of the precision service platform for pharmaceutical knowledge involve the integration and application of multiple technologies, including digital network publishing technology, scientific journal editing and publishing technology, and artificial intelligence technology. the integration and application of these technologies require professional technical support and talent guarantee, posing high requirements for the platform’s technical strength and innovation capability. 7.1.2 content challenges pharmaceutical knowledge covers a wide range of fields and is complex in content. how to present this knowledge to the public in a comprehensible and diverse form is a significant challenge. meanwhile, with the continuous development of medicine and pharmacy, pharmaceutical knowledge is constantly updating and changing. the platform needs to continuously update and improve its content to meet user needs. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 49 published by scholink inc. 7.1.3 user challenges different user groups have varying needs and interests. how to meet the personalized needs of different user groups is an urgent problem to be solved. at the same time, users’ usage habits and preferences are constantly changing, and the platform needs to continuously adjust and optimize its service strategies to improve user satisfaction and loyalty. 7.2 countermeasures and suggestions 7.2.1 strengthen technology research and development and talent cultivation the platform should strengthen technology research and development as well as talent cultivation to enhance its technical strength and innovation capability. by introducing and cultivating professional talents, strengthening technology research and development, and cooperation, the platform can continuously improve its technical level and service quality. 7.2.2 optimize content production and dissemination strategies the platform should optimize its content production and dissemination strategies to improve the readability and dissemination efficiency of its content. by integrating high-quality resources, innovating content forms, and strengthening multi-platform publishing, the platform can enhance the attractiveness and influence of its content. at the same time, the platform should strengthen cooperation and exchanges with pharmaceutical companies and research institutions to jointly promote the popularization and dissemination of pharmaceutical knowledge. 7.2.3 improve the user service system the platform should improve its user service system to enhance user satisfaction and loyalty. by building user portraits, providing personalized services, and strengthening user feedback and interaction, the platform can deeply understand user needs and preferences, continuously optimize its service strategies, and improve service quality. at the same time, the platform should strengthen brand building and market promotion to enhance its popularity and reputation. 8. future prospects of the platform 8.1 optimize the generation and dissemination process of popular science content in the future, the platform will continue to optimize the generation and dissemination process of popular science content to improve the readability and dissemination efficiency of its content. by introducing more artificial intelligence technologies and new media resources, innovating content forms and dissemination methods, the platform can make pharmaceutical knowledge more vivid and intuitive for the public. 8.2 improve user experience and satisfaction the platform will focus on improving user experience and satisfaction by optimizing interface design, strengthening interactive functions, and providing personalized services. at the same time, the platform www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 50 published by scholink inc. will strengthen communication and exchange with users, promptly understand their needs and feedback, and continuously optimize its service strategies and improve service quality. 8.3 strengthen cooperation and exchange with international publishing groups the platform will actively strengthen cooperation and exchange with international publishing groups to enhance its visibility and influence overseas. through cooperation and exchange activities with internationally renowned publishing groups, the platform will jointly promote the international dissemination and popularization of pharmaceutical knowledge. at the same time, the platform will learn from international advanced experience and technical means to continuously improve its technical strength and service quality. 8.4 promote innovation and development in the pharmaceutical field the platform will actively promote innovation and development in the pharmaceutical field and contribute to improving public pharmaceutical literacy and health awareness. through strengthened cooperation and exchange with pharmaceutical companies and research institutions, the platform will jointly promote innovation and development in the pharmaceutical field. at the same time, the platform will pay attention to industry trends and policy changes, timely adjust and optimize its service strategies and directions, and provide strong support for the development of the pharmaceutical field. 9. conclusion the research on the construction and application of the precision service platform for pharmaceutical knowledge provides important references for the deep integration of traditional publishing and digital services of scientific journals. through intelligent means, the precise generation, integration, and dissemination of pharmaceutical knowledge not only improve the precision and efficiency of popular science services but also promote innovation and development in the pharmaceutical field. in the future, the platform will continue to serve as a bridge and link, contributing its own strength to the popularization and dissemination of pharmaceutical knowledge. at the same time, we also expect more scholars and experts to join the research in this field and jointly promote the prosperity and development of the pharmaceutical field. references duan, s. y., zou, x. y., li, j. et al. (2021). serving industry groups based on integrated development—development and practice of the “pharmaceutical policy cloud classroom” platform. chinese journal of scientific and technical periodicals, 32(11), 1403-1410. li, j. (2025). research on optimization strategies of artificial intelligence algorithms for the integration and dissemination of pharmaceutical science popularization knowledge. scientific journal of technology, 7(1), 45-55. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 51 published by scholink inc. li, j., liu, y., ma, x. et al. (2020). a brief discussion on the path of integrated development of traditional and digital publishing for academic journals. scientific consulting, 48, 20-22. duan, s. y, li, j., ma, j. et al. (2020). reflections on holding online academic conferences on medical specialties amidst the pandemic—a case study of “china pharmacy” journal. editorial journal, 32(6), 677-681. li, j., shu, a. q., & zou, x. y. (2025). research on the core themes and development trends of new media editorial talent cultivation in the era of media integration and digital publishing. china media technology, 1, 111-114, 127. li, j., zou, x. y., & duan, s. y. (2020). practice and reflections on enhancing the dissemination capacity of scientific journals through media integration—a case study of “china pharmacy” journal. journal of sichuan cadre correspondence college (sichuan vocational college of cultural industries), 1, 28-32. publicity department of the cpc central committee. (2022). implementation opinions on promoting the deep integration and development of publishing [eb/ol]. retrieved april 24, 2022 from http://www.news.cn/book/20220428/c81d86691ed2476dba67494827a51bd3/c.html communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 17 original paper outstanding beauty: study of publicity translation and cultural diplomatic value in the internationalization of domestic cosmetic brands qing li 1 & dan cui 2* 1 school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 professor, dean of institute of international language and culture, leader of comparative literature and cross-culture discipline, jilin international studies university, changchun, china; doc of literature, college of foreign languages, yanbian university, yanji, jilin, china * dan cui, corresponding author, e-mail: summerelephant@126.com received: november 14, 2024 accepted: december 20, 2024 online published: january 18, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n1p17 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n1p17 abstract this study delves into the translation strategies employed in the export process of chinese-style cosmetics, with a primary focus on how these strategies facilitate cultural communication. emphasis is placed on ensuring accurate and culturally adaptive translation of product packaging, which plays a pivotal role in establishing and maintaining brand cultural identity in international markets. in particular, the proposal of naming lipstick shades after literary works—linking both chinese and western literary traditions—demonstrates a novel approach to fostering cross-cultural exchange through product exports. additionally, marketing strategies are explored, showcasing how this differentiation not only enhances cultural relevance but also strengthens consumer emotional connections. case studies of timage and proya serve to evaluate brand performance in cross-cultural communication, offering valuable insights for the international promotion of chinese-style cosmetics. the findings of this study suggest innovative directions for combining translation and marketing strategies to further cultural exchange and brand growth globally. keywords cosmetics, translation, chinese style, literary works, cultural communication www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 18 published by scholink inc. 1. feasibility of integrating daily chemical brand exports with cultural communication in 2024, china’s personal care industry demonstrated its robust growth potential. reports indicate that the upward trend in 2023 was primarily driven by content-driven e-commerce on short video platforms like douyin (china version of tiktok), where the integration of content and shelf display further accelerated the industry’s expansion. at the same time, global acceptance of chinese culture has significantly increased, with chinese elements making their mark across various fields, including film, music, beauty, and fashion. against this backdrop, the question arises whether domestic cosmetic brands can further penetrate international markets and serve as bridges for cultural exchange. in alignment with the nation’s “dual circulation” strategy, the export of chinese personal care products not only fuels industry growth but also paves a new path for global cultural dissemination, revealing promising potential for the future. daily chemical products permeate various aspects of life, serving as an important medium for individuals to express their lifestyle philosophies and showcase personal taste (gan hongwu et al., 2023). consumers’ aspirations for a “refined” life vary, driving comprehensive upgrades in the daily chemical industry. currently, major international daily chemical enterprises, such as l’oréal, procter & gamble, unilever, and estée lauder, have established a presence in multiple countries and are widely praised by consumers. with the continuous evolution of consumer demand, new niches, brands, and products are emerging in the market, presenting numerous opportunities and challenges for industry development (yinglan yao, 2022). in the context of increasing competition and a growing variety of products, the substantive differences between offerings have become less apparent to the public. to stand out and gain consumer favor, effective marketing promotion and product repositioning are essential. therefore, in the exploration of exporting domestic daily chemical products, the construction of a differentiated product image is crucial. in recent years, “eastern aesthetics” has gradually become a buzzword, capturing the attention of international audiences. an increasing number of individuals are beginning to explore eastern aesthetics, with chinese aesthetics as a key component, giving rise to various cultural products and concepts, such as hanfu, cheongsam (also known as qipao), traditional chinese medicine, “chinese makeup”, and chinese philosophical concept “unity of heaven and humanity” (guo xin, 2022). the author argues that eastern aesthetics and traditional chinese aesthetics can serve as cultural concepts that, through the export of corporate brands, enter the international arena, thereby achieving cultural dissemination. translation is one of the crucial elements in the marketing of product exports (a. a. gureeva et al. 2017). taking the successful experience of shanghai jahwa group’s brand herborist in the european market as an example, the following analysis will be conducted: herborist opened its first overseas flagship store in paris in 2015, having entered the french market as early as 2008. with its philosophy of herbal beauty based on traditional chinese medicine, it became www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 19 published by scholink inc. the first chinese beauty brand to enter the sephora flagship store on the champs-élysées. the brand subsequently expanded into several european countries, establishing a presence in the mainstream skincare market overseas. the herborist flagship store in paris faced challenges in promoting herbal skincare. to solve the problem, the brand downplayed the concept of traditional chinese medicine and shifted its focus to emphasize philosophy and chinese aesthetics, communicating with western consumers through familiar cultural symbols while maintaining its core brand identity (note 1). this highlights that herborist, as a successful chinese cosmetics brand in the international market, has made substantial efforts in product marketing strategies and brand image construction. in its cultural outreach to western consumers, herborist adopted approaches that align with western perspectives for product promotion and presentation. this strategy effectively reduced communication barriers stemming from cultural conflicts and stereotypes, thereby demonstrating the viability of personal care brands in facilitating cultural dissemination through overseas sales (estrader joaquin et al., 2024). 2. brief discussion on the export promotion translation of domestic cosmetics and the feasibility of integrating chinese cosmetics exports with cultural exchange 2.1 the communication function of translation in product exports ideal translation is essential for the export of cosmetics, as it not only enables brands to convey their brand philosophy accurately in cross-cultural communication but also helps avoid misunderstandings and distortions of information. during the export process, the translation of packaging, concepts, and functionalities is indispensable, especially for specialized products, which must balance their original essence with the understanding and acceptance of the target market (fu binbin, 2015). flawless translation allows consumers to better grasp the functions and benefits of products, thereby enhancing the purchasing experience. cultural adaptability is particularly crucial in translation, as it helps brands resonate with consumers across different cultural contexts, creating the enhanced market acceptance and the increased market share subsequently (catalin mihail barbu, 2011). furthermore, cosmetics exports can serve as a means of promoting cultural exchange. this paper will briefly explore the relationship between the exchange of eastern and western literary arts and the packaging of cosmetic products, aiming to investigate the feasibility of facilitating cultural dissemination through product exports. 2.2 the export promotion translation of domestic cosmetics and skincare products 2.2.1 cosmetics category cosmetics encompass various types of makeup, including base makeup, eye makeup, lip makeup, and facial cosmetics. surveys indicate that many domestic makeup brands exhibit diverse naming styles for their product shades within their ranges of cosmetics, each showcasing unique characteristics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 20 published by scholink inc. 1) base makeup products taking the base makeup product “four elements balance foundation” (note 2) from the chinese cosmetic brand florasis (note 3) as an example, we can compare its product information descriptions on the chinese taobao flagship store and its english official website. the shade n20, named as “warm yujing”, is inspired by the traditional chinese symbol “jade purity vase” (which is called “yujing vase” in chinese), conveying concepts such as “warm colors” and “smooth as jade”, skillfully highlights the advantages of the foundation product. the english website translates it as “jade”, maintaining the jade imagery. similarly, the shade l20, named “cold, moon and clean” is translated to “moon” in english. 2) lip makeup products taking the lip product “judydoll water-light lipstick” (note 4) from the domestic youthful makeup brand judydoll (note 5) as an example, we can compare the shade descriptions on its chinese taobao flagship store and english official website. the shade number 09 is named “chi yu hui” in chinese, with a note stating “hawthorn color”. in the context of traditional chinese culture, “chi” signifies a fiery red color, allowing local consumers to quickly associate it with the product’s hue and characteristics. to cater to the overseas market, the english website names it “hawthorn”, referencing a familiar fruit in western culture. this approach avoids the cultural barriers associated with a direct translation of “chi” while preserving the natural imagery of the color. by studying the color preferences of different countries and integrating cultural symbolism, brands can optimize product shade names and translation content. this approach preserves chinese cultural elements while aligning with the aesthetics and values of local consumers. it is evident that brand translation must take into account the cultural perceptions of the target market. 2.2.2 skincare products with traditional herbal ingredients as translation examples the global demand for natural skincare products is on the rise, and traditional chinese herbal skincare products are gaining attention in the international market. however, accurately translating herbal ingredients into english remains a challenge (wang tiantian, 2017). descriptions of skincare ingredients should be concise and clear, highlighting their fundamental benefits while avoiding complex terminology. additionally, the naming of herbal ingredients should minimize any sense of mystery, focusing on conveying positive meanings and cultural symbols to facilitate smoother exports and enhance public acceptance. 1) case study i taking florasis’s “four elements balance foundation” (note 3) as an example, the product contains herbal ingredients such as ganoderma, ginseng, and scutellaria baicalensis. ganoderma is translated as “reishi”, which, while accurate, lacks cultural context. ginseng, known as the “king of herbs”, symbolizes health and vitality, a meaning retained in its translation as “panax ginseng”. overall, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 21 published by scholink inc. florasis has achieved a balance between maintaining the characteristics of traditional herbs and meeting the demands of the international market. emphasizing the efficacy of its herbal ingredients, florasis integrates traditional chinese medicine with modern skincare needs. the translation strategy highlights the concepts of nature and health, aligning with the international market’s preference for natural skincare products. this illustrates that in the export process, translation must not only convey linguistic information but also consider the cultural practices of the target market (lv meizheng, 2023). 2) case study ii inoherb (note 6) focuses on herbal skincare, and its translation strategy is particularly crucial in promoting traditional chinese herbal products. the brand widely incorporates herbs such as angelica, ganoderma, and white peony. in translation, inoherb combines literal translation with supplementary explanations. for example, angelica is translated as “angelica sinensis”, with its beauty benefits explained in the description; ganoderma is translated as “ganoderma lucidum”, emphasizing its antioxidant and immune-boosting properties. while this strategy enhances consumer understanding of the products, the cultural symbolism of white peony (paeonia lactiflora) is not fully conveyed in english. when we translate traditional herbs such as “angelica”, functional descriptions are adopted to simplify complex cultural backgrounds while maintaining their traditional essence. this demonstrates that in cultural export translation, it is essential to simplify difficult-to-understand cultural terms while ensuring that the translation is accurate and precise. 2.3 conception and exploration of connections between makeup shade naming and literary arts currently, the naming of makeup shades has become increasingly diverse, surpassing traditional color classifications. many brands infuse their shade names with rich cultural connotations (wang qian, 2023). for example, mac’s (note 7) matte lipstick shade #646, named as “marrakesh”, which derives from arabic, meaning “reddish”, referencing the city’s walls built from ochre-colored rock. this gives the shade a unique cultural background and regional symbolism, thus vividly illustrating its color characteristics. lip products, particularly lipsticks and lip glosses, have become essential for many women due to their portability and daily use (xu hao & nie wenjing, 2022). using names from literary works for lipstick shades can add depth and uniqueness. by placing a shade name and a qr code on the packaging, consumers can scan to access summaries, analyses, and links to purchase or read the related works online. this strategy enhances the perception of lipsticks as cultural symbols, enriching them with significance and appealing to consumers’ tastes. by imbuing lipstick shades with cultural connotations from literary works and introducing a consumer feedback mechanism, product uniqueness and translation accuracy can be enhanced. a discussion www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 22 published by scholink inc. platform, such as a website or app, could be established for users to share connections between lipstick shades and literary works. topics could revolve around color representation, such as “what color best represents this work?” this not only sparks consumer interest but also provides feedback on the quality of literary translations. consumers’ associations reflect their understanding of the translations, aiding translators in reflecting and improving their work, thereby creating a cycle of “reading—feedback—improvement” that gradually enhances translation quality and optimizes literary and cultural exchange. 2.3.1 selection of literary works this exploration focuses on the international dissemination of chinese culture and sino-western cultural exchange, selecting chinese and western literary works (specifically english and american literature) as research subjects. given that the target market is primarily female and relates to everyday products like lipsticks, the chosen works should convey positive themes, including female independence, romanticism, and strong female protagonists. below is a detailed analysis of examples and ideas for the selection of literary works. 1) examples of selected western works the scarlet letter, a classic novel by nathaniel hawthorne, explores topics such as the female independence and struggles, etc. hester prynne, the protagonist, wears the scarlet letter “a” as a symbol of shame in a 17th-century puritan society due to adultery. however, her resilience and courage lead to societal respect. the writers of the paper suggests naming a deep, rich burgundy shade after the novel, symbolizing stability and tension, reflecting hester’s complex inner world and strength in an oppressive society. this color embodies her emotional turbulence and unwavering determination, transforming into a symbol of power and hope, showcasing her struggle and silent dignity. 2) examples of selected chinese literary works half a lifelong romance is a classic novel by chinese author eileen chang, telling the tangled love story between gu manzhen and shen shijun. the two deeply love each other but are cruelly separated by the pressures of reality. years later, despite their lingering feelings, they cannot return to the past. through this work, chang explores the complexities of human nature, the helplessness of love, and the societal constraints on individuals, deeply examining the conflict between personal emotions and social environments. the title “half a lifetime” can be used to name a soft and melancholic rose brown shade. this tone is gentle and deep, embodying warmth while exuding tranquility, which is much like the complex emotional entanglement between gu manzhen and shen shijun. rose brown is neither too vibrant nor too cold, symbolizing the indescribable regrets and missed opportunities present in the novel. it hints at manzhen’s deep affection and resilience, while also implying the story’s irretrievable sense of fate—subdued yet elegant, representing the tenderness in love and carrying the weight of time. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 23 published by scholink inc. 2.3.2 specific implementation process description firstly, assign literary titles to lipstick shades and attach a qr code. consumers can scan the qr code to access a brief introduction of the literary work. thus, consumers not only purchase lipstick but also become potential readers, actively engaging in online discussions. on the discussion platform, readers can share their interpretations and insights regarding the work. subsequently, the brand collects readers’ opinions or insights and provides them to the translator. the translator reflects on their translations based on readers’ understanding of the work, assessing whether it faithfully conveys the original text. following this, the translator revises the translation according to the feedback and uploads a new version for readers to review again, creating a virtuous cycle of “reading-feedback-improvement”, thereby continually enhancing the quality of the translation (see figure 1). figure 1. the “reading—feedback--improvement” cycle flowchart (this figure is a self-created cycle flowchart by the author, based on the specific implementation process regarding the connection between lipstick shade naming and chinese and western literary arts.) 3. cultural diplomacy in marketing and export: case study of proya and timage 3.1 introduction to proya group and its subsidiary brand timage proya, founded in 2003 and headquartered in hangzhou, china, specializes in the research, production, and sales of skincare and cosmetics. emphasizing “scientific skincare for natural beauty”, the brand integrates modern technology with natural ingredients, offering a diverse range of products including basic skincare, advanced treatments, and cosmetics. proya actively pursues international expansion, continually entering overseas markets and enhancing brand visibility through international exhibitions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 24 published by scholink inc. and cultural exchanges. the brand also adheres to green production practices, focusing on social responsibility and actively participating in environmental and philanthropic initiatives. proya’s marine element skincare products focus on natural marine ingredients, offering deep nourishment and repair. utilizing effective components such as deep-sea algae, marine minerals, and collagen, these products provide exceptional moisturizing, antioxidant, and anti-aging benefits. the range includes cleansers, serums, and creams, integrating marine essences into skincare through advanced extraction techniques, helping the skin regain health and vitality. this series is well-received by consumers, highlighting the brand’s expertise in innovation and natural skincare. timage is a high-end cosmetics brand under proya, with the philosophy of “artistic makeup, masterful craftsmanship”. it integrates eastern aesthetics with modern technology to create fashionable and culturally rich makeup products. the product line includes foundations, eyeshadow palettes, and lipsticks, with designs that incorporate eastern elements, featuring exquisite packaging and a high-quality feel. the brand emphasizes detail and user experience, actively promoting an international strategy to spread eastern aesthetics globally through international beauty exhibitions and cross-border e-commerce. 3.2 proposed marketing strategy recently, short videos showcasing overseas street experiences with hanfu have gone viral, attracting widespread attention. domestic viewers express pride and joy in witnessing hanfu’s presence on the international stage, feeling that traditional culture’s charm is being rediscovered. international viewers are impressed by hanfu’s exquisite designs and rich cultural connotations, sparking significant interest in traditional chinese clothing. such hanfu experiences not only help more people understand and appreciate hanfu but also play a positive role in facilitating cultural exchange between china and other countries, promoting the global dissemination and recognition of chinese traditional culture. in these hanfu experience events, many influencers cleverly integrated personal care product promotions through short videos, increasing awareness of these products’ benefits. the author believes that combining experience with product endorsement can attract consumers and satisfy their curiosity while effectively promoting the products, achieving a dual effect. for proya’s ocean-based skincare products to successfully enter the international market, a correct marketing strategy must be formulated. currently, the international skincare market is flooded with products featuring natural oceanic ingredients, such as estée lauder’s algae essence and lancôme’s deep-sea microbiome skincare series. relying solely on scientific ingredients in products is insufficient to successfully attract customers. therefore, referencing the successful international expansion of herborist, creating differentiation is more likely to garner consumer favor. this proposed strategy draws inspiration from overseas street hanfu experiences, aiming to create a unique brand differentiation through concepts such as national style aesthetics, hanfu, qipao, chinese www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 25 published by scholink inc. traditional culture, and chinese makeup. by combining proya’s distinctly national style cosmetic brand timage with hanfu and other traditional clothing and makeup experiences, the strategy not only provides customers with a unique service experience but also promotes the products in the process. the service experience will be recorded as v-logs and published on short video platforms like youtube and tiktok, accompanied by explanations of relevant chinese culture, including historical anecdotes, to disseminate chinese culture in a format appealing to western audiences, while providing links for product purchases or contact information for further engagement. the combination of online short videos and one-time offline experiences abroad allows foreign customers to engage with different cultures without incurring the high costs of airfare, capturing their curiosity and encouraging consumption. as the makeup experience line matures and gains popularity, proya can gradually introduce its skincare product line into the experience promotions, further expanding brand influence and market reach. 3.2.1 rationale and purpose of strategy design as a brand focused on eastern makeup, timage’s products have lower daily practicality and usage frequency among western customers. however, to create brand differentiation, one-time experiential consumption serves as a breakthrough. this novel experience attracts customers, generating interest while facilitating cultural exchange—such as explaining the origins of a particular hanfu style and sharing related historical anecdotes. additionally, timage can enhance its cultural depth by combining lipstick shade names with literary works. each lipstick shade can represent a unique color while resonating with characters, scenes, or imagery from classic chinese or english literature. for example, the shade “dream of the red chamber” can evoke imaginations of chinese classical literature, while “jane eyre” may inspire reflections on female independence. through this approach, timage not only provides beauty products but also sparks consumer interest in literary works, endowing colors with deeper cultural significance. during the experiential service process, in addition to promoting timage’s makeup products, there can be an integration of proya’s skincare promotions. while timage focuses on makeup, proya’s skincare products can fill a market gap, and promoting both will not conflict. although eastern makeup is less frequently used in western markets, skincare products have broader applicability. for example, proya’s ocean-based skincare products can be combined with chinese traditional culture to emphasize the natural ocean ingredients contained in the products, such as deep-sea algae and marine collagen, which provide both hydration and antioxidant benefits. to enhance the selling points, narratives about ancient chinese reverence for and utilization of the ocean can be integrated, including stories from ancient maritime culture and legends about beauty, such as the mermaid legend from the loong palace of the east china sea, da ji and ocean pearls, and xi shi and river clam essence (note 8). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 26 published by scholink inc. through this cultural association, the uniqueness and appeal of the products can be strengthened. to ensure the effective dissemination of cultural output in overseas markets, corresponding translation strategies must be optimized simultaneously. for instance, during product promotion, precise cultural translation can preserve the essence of traditional chinese culture while making it easily understandable and acceptable to foreign consumers (yueying wang & juncheng meng, 2024). particularly for naming lipstick shades, referencing the cultural background and literary works of the target market allows for more resonant expressions in translation, ensuring the accurate conveyance and dissemination of cultural imagery. additionally, proya needs to focus on external packaging design, transitioning from modern styles to more refined designs that embody eastern aesthetics. such packaging not only attracts customers’ attention during the experience but also enhances visual appeal during daily use, increasing the product’s shareability among consumers. exquisite eastern-style packaging can draw in more potential customers, boosting brand awareness and market competitiveness. 3.2.2 online marketing strategy 1) tiktok live streaming sales regular live streaming sales events will be conducted on tiktok, featuring hosts dressed in hanfu or showcasing timage’s chinese-style makeup. by demonstrating product effectiveness through live trials and explanations, viewers gain a direct understanding of the products (wang fangxian, 2024). during the livestream, the host will share stories from traditional chinese culture, enriching the content and enhancing viewer interest and recognition of the products. interactive segments will be included to answer audience questions and conduct prize-based quizzes or raffles, fostering viewer engagement. additionally, exclusive offers and limited-time discounts will be provided during the livestream to encourage immediate purchases and boost sales conversion rates. 2) vlog release record the dressing experience of hanfu and product usage process as a vlog, showcasing the entire experience, including makeup application, wearing hanfu, and outdoor presentations to attract viewer interest. the vlog will incorporate explanations of the origins, historical background, and related stories of hanfu styles, such as the mermaid legend from the east sea loong palace. through cultural sharing, viewers will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of traditional chinese culture. the vlog will be published on major video platforms like youtube and tiktok, leveraging their extensive user bases to expand promotional reach. purchase links and contact information for timage and proya products will be included in the video description or comments section, facilitating direct purchases or inquiries. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 27 published by scholink inc. conclusion this paper explores how translation and marketing strategies work together to achieve cultural diplomacy through the export of chinese cosmetic brands. first, from the perspective of translation strategies, accuracy and cultural adaptability are crucial. in cross-cultural communication, brands must ensure that their product descriptions not only convey functional advantages but also skillfully incorporate chinese cultural elements. through precise language conversion, the cultural connotations embedded in product introductions are highlighted, thereby enhancing international consumers’ recognition and interest in chinese culture. brands like timage and proya have demonstrated innovation in this regard, successfully shaping a unique cultural identity through refined linguistic design and accurate conveyance of cultural symbols. moreover, marketing strategies further enhance the cultural communication effect of these brands. by integrating literary works, the brands not only strengthen their cultural positioning but also provide consumers with more diverse emotional connections. this differentiated market strategy elevates products beyond mere personal care items, turning them into mediums of cultural exchange, which further boosts their international competitiveness. in conclusion, translation strategies play a leading role in cosmetic exports, not just by converting language but by ensuring the accuracy and effectiveness of cultural dissemination. the effective complement of marketing strategies enables brands to secure an advantageous position in the global market. future research can explore how to more effectively combine translation and 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(2022). analysis of china's beauty brand marketing strategy and sales model. in proceedings of the 6th international conference on economic management and green development (part 1) (pp. 10-18). pace university. yin, m. y. (2024). key factors in cultivating english translation talents from a cross-cultural communication perspective. science friends, (09), 74-75. yue, q. (2023). market swot analysis on l’oréal beauty company. in proceedings of the 2nd international conference on economic administration and information systems (eais 2023) (pp. 99-103). department of marketing, university of south carolina. zhang, j., & lu, d. c. (2024). influencing factors and configurational pathways for the dissemination of traditional chinese medicine culture: an empirical analysis based on willingness of overseas audiences. science communication, (09), 162-164. zhang, s., & zuo, b. x. (2015). translation strategies for traditional chinese medicine from the perspective of skopos theory. academic theory, (27), 97-98. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 29 published by scholink inc. notes note 1. the content is a summary by the author, referencing the pr newswire article “herborist: embracing eastern aesthetics to promote global expansion—herborist’s first overseas flagship store opens in the heart of paris”, published in 2015. note 2. the “four elements balance nourishing foundation” from florasis is a foundation that combines traditional herbal ingredients with modern technology, aiming to provide a natural and even skin tone while also offering skincare benefits. note 3. florasis, a cosmetics brand under hangzhou yige enterprise management group co., ltd., was established in 2017. it focuses on integrating traditional chinese aesthetics with modern technology to create chinese-style makeup products. note 4. the judydoll water-light lipstick emphasizes a hydrating and luminous makeup finish, offering moisturizing benefits for the lips. it blends rich colors with moisturizing ingredients to provide long-lasting shine and comfort for the lips. note 5. judydoll, a chinese cosmetic brand established in 2011, focuses on youthful-style makeup products. the brand combines fashion trends with innovative design to offer affordable products that appeal to young women. note 6. inoherb, a well-known chinese herbal skincare brand established in 2000, focuses on combining traditional herbal medicine with modern skincare technology to create natural products suitable for various skin types. the brand upholds the philosophy of “herbal skincare”, striving to integrate traditional chinese herbal culture into its skincare offerings. note 7. mac cosmetics, founded in 1984 in toronto, is a leading professional makeup brand known for its diverse color range and commitment to inclusivity. note 8. the east sea loong king, daji, and xishi are all figures from ancient chinese mythology and historical legends, representing ocean mythology, iconic female characters in classical literature, and historical figures, respectively. note 9. this thesis is the study result of the project on “outstanding beauty: study of publicity translation and cultural diplomatic value in the internationalization of domestic cosmetic brands” in the china college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship program. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 15 original paper social media marketing strategy in chinese musical theatre industry yexiaxin xu1* 1 college of media and literature, chongqing university, chongqing, china * yexiaxin xu, college of media and literature, chongqing university, chongqing, china received: october 9, 2023 accepted: october 15, 2023 online published: october 21, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n4p15 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n4p15 abstract the usage of social media in the context of musical theatre marketing continues to grow. more and more musical theatre production companies in china are using social media tools such as weibo to provide various services and interact with customers. in an effort to help understand how the current musical theatre industry conducts social media marketing and the future development direction, this paper describes a case study which applies content analysis to examined posts on weibo sites of five top musical theatre production companies: seven ages, shanghai culture square, musicals, focustage, and amazing musicals. the results provide insights into the characteristics of social media marketing strategies of musical theatre production companies and changes after covid-19 pandemic. the study results add to the rapidly evolving field of social media within the musical theatre industry marketing context. moreover, it advocates for an active role for the musical companies to explore and actively participate in the customer and musical fan communities on social media. keywords musical theatre, theatre experience, social media marketing, parasocial interaction 1. introduction the percentage of enterprises use social media for product marketing, customer relationship maintenance, consulting and after-sales service continues to increase. originally, social media is only an optional online marketing channel, but now in the era of pandemic, industries are adapting to and exploring the new possibility of commercial marketing in the network space. 1.1 social media the definition of social media has always been a challenge due to the variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services. some early researchers referring to social media as social networks or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. social networking services in the mid-2000s (boyd, & ellison, 2007). a more recent and detailed definition was proposed by filo et al. (2015) who defined social media as ‘‘new media technologies facilitating interactivity and co-creation that allow for the development and sharing of user-generated content among and between organisations (e.g., teams, government agencies and media groups) and individuals (e.g., customers, athletes and journalists)’’. people worldwide establish extensive connections through the deep engagement of social media platforms. increasingly, social media are largely considered by modern business as promising platforms to conduct the promotional activities as to effectively communicate with the targeted customers (kohli et al., 2015). 1.2 social media marketing according to dwivedi et al. (2015), social media marketing could be defined as ‘‘a dialogue often triggered by consumers/audiences, or a business/product/services that circulate amongst the stated parties to set in motion a revealing communication on some promotional information so that it allows learning from one another’s use and experiences, eventually benefitting all of the involved parties”. tuten and solomon (2015, p. 21) stated that ‘‘the utilization of social media technologies, channels, and software is to create, communicate, deliver and exchange offerings that have value for an organization’s stakeholders”. 1.2.1 marketing in musical theatre industry according to dwivedi et al. (2015), the vast majority of social media studies were observed to be within the marketing area. this study mainly focuses on social media marketing in the field of musical theatre industry. 1.2.2 broadway marketing at the old times, marketing broadway shows must be as much about advertising the show itself as it is about offering opportunities to purchase tickets, and a premium ticket brokerage was the middleman, between the producers and the audience, the role musical theatre marketing still plays today. since the first broadway musical theatre tickets were sold online in 1996, musical theatre producers have gradually incorporated the internet into their marketing campaigns (macdonald, 2017). especially with the development of social media, the marketing strategy of the musical theatre industry has also been adjusted to have more interact with audience online. vogel and hodges. (2006) clarified that there are three areas of theater marketing: advertising, promotion (often called marketing), and publicity. he also discussed the importance of cast appearances on television shows and having star names attached to the cast. as stated, “we know we can’t give away a ticket to a bad show, yet if a production is hot, people will pay premium prices, especially for special limited shows or hot new shows in their first few months”. also, “the online brand experience begins the storytelling that ticket buyers will experience at the theatre, and social media platforms allow musical fans and spectators to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. participate in musical theatre marketing, promoting individual musicals through online activities and helping marketers to expand a community of ticket buyers” (macdonald, 2017). thus, fan-generated contents on social media are ultimately providing free advertising for a commercial musical product. ackman, n. (2017) explored how hamilton, a broadway hit musical can be marketed using social networking, viral marketing and online advertising providing content for fans, creating a significant online presence, and keeping people engaged. he concluded that “hamilton’s creative, marketing, social media, and advertising teams ensured that fans had access to original content, in the form of projects like the pbs documentary, book, and #ham4ham shows. much of their marketing efforts promoted these products rather than tickets to the show itself; in fact, the advertising team had to do remarkably little because the show survived greatly on word of mouth. hamilton fans continue to engage on social media with the official accounts, cast members, and other fans and have built a community, aided by karns, hamilton’s account runner. thus, the hamilton fans may be counted on to purchase broadway, west end, and national tour tickets to see the show, despite the difficulty of obtaining tickets”. another study has explored the continuing diversification of musical theatre fandom of a musical called dear evan hansen via social media and the interactive ways in which productions harness fan engagement. the musical’s producers and marketing team frequently invite interaction around the musical’s core mantra, ‘you will be found’. these interactions can benefit fans by potentially eliciting feelings of social inclusion that may be experienced as empowering (rush, 2021). 1.3 musical marketing in china in china, market-oriented musical theatre companies have gradually rose in the early 21st century, which is also the time of the rise of social media. with more and more people engaged in social media platforms, musical theatre producers began to focus on the operation of social media accounts to promote their products. but unlike the united states, market-oriented musical theatre production started very late, only a very small number of people are familiar with this form of stage performance, so the marketing of musical products is very difficult both online and offline. however, this situation was changed by a variety show called super vocal. this show presents many excellent musical actors who perform some of the songs from classical musicals which draw a lot of attention nationwide. this foreign performance art was introduced to more audiences in china and attracted many fans into the theater to watch the plays. the musical theatre market was more active than ever before. this is the time when chinese musical theatre producers realized the business value of musical fandom, and they started to put effort to interact with online users (mostly young people) and try to turn these fans to theatergoer. since the spreading of covid-19 pandemic, theaters have been closed from time to time, resulting in a huge loss of profits for musical companies. using social media for product marketing and managing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. relationship with fans and audiences is an effective way to turn around the company. because the live performance was stopped, the musical company was unable to provide actual products, so they need to create experiences to meet consumer expectations by providing content, creating a significant online presence, and keeping people engaged. thus, understanding the ways in which musical companies can preserve the intimate relationship qualities offered by social media while still meeting consumer expectations amidst the escalating volume of interactions has become essential. labrecque, l. i. (2014) proposes that parasocial interaction (psi) theory may be used as a theoretical lens for designing successful social media strategies. labrecque’s study provides evidence of psi’s role in the development of positive relationship outcomes. it reveals that this sense of feeling connected with the brand goes beyond the interaction itself and drives increased feelings of loyalty intentions and willingness to provide information to the brand. musical is a highly experiential product and people can only get a complete viewing experience when they enter the theater. therefore, how to make the audiences get the best experiences and satisfaction through online social media is also a difficulty. this study sought to examine the efforts of five musical theatre companies’ social media marketing, compare the changes of their social media marketing strategies before and after the pandemic, and their main obstacles in interacting with fans and audiences. while scholars have discussed many broadway shows and their digital marketing success, whether these can be applied to the marketing of chinese musical market remains to be verified. because the scale of china’s musical market is far smaller than that of the united states, and there is a lack of popular original musical production like hamilton. this study will explore the current situation and problems of social media marketing of chinese musical theatre from the perspective of musical production companies and hope to offer marketers some guidance for fostering relationships in social media environments. to be specific, this paper explored the questions as follow: 1) what are the characteristics of social media marketing strategies of different types of musical companies? 2) what are the changes in the social media marketing of musical companies after the pandemic? 3) how do musical companies interact with the fans and audience on social media? 2. method 2.1 data collection data for this study were collected via go through five top musical production companies’ official social media accounts on weibo (note 1). content analysis will be used in this study. based on the chinese social media platform weibo, this study chooses five musical theatre companies’ official accounts to analyze their contents in a certain www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. period of times. these companies are seven ages, shanghai culture square, musicals, focustage and amazing musicals. they were chosen based on their market shares according to a report on the top 30 chinese musical theatres in 2019. their social media influence and recent activity were also considered. table 1 shows some basic information of the top five musical theatre production companies, and how many followers they had on their social media sites (note 2). table 1. basic information of the top five musical theatre production companies company name start time business scope production follower seven ages 2012 localized production of foreign musicals + introduction of original foreign musical man of la mancha, avenue q, how to succeed in business without really trying, the sound of music, les choristes, cinderella, next to normal, matilda (original) 122k shanghai culture square 2011 localized production of foreign musicals + production of original chinese musicals spring awakening, maybe happy ending, fan letter, my bucket list, rachmaninoff, romeo and juliet, the throne and the poetry 100k musicals 2015 production of original chinese musicals + localized production of foreign musicals teddy & friends, the moon and sixpence, the bad kids, the long night, the fiction, flames, the letters, mr sunshine’s grocery, tick tick boom, vincent van gogh, rock of ages 76k focustage 2018 localized production of foreign musicals black mary poppins, flowers for algernon, mia famiglia, santa lucia 50k amazing musicals 2018 production of original chinese musicals pink ladies, what if, one fine day, light keepers 38k 2.2 procedures to answer the research questions, this study conducted a social media content analysis for the weibo sites of the top five companies by following two phases. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. first, this study collected quantitative data from their individual social media sites such as number of followers, number of postings, comments, reposts and likes in april. 2022. in this month, shanghai was lockdown due to the spreading of omicron, and theaters are largely shut off. social media is the best channel for musical theatre company to rely on to promote their product. so a lot of online activities were hold during these times to manage the relationship with the fans, connect the producers, actors to the audiences. then, to compare the changes of social media marketing and user engagement before and after the covid-19 pandemic, musical companies’ posts during february 2019 is chosen to represent the times before pandemic. at that time, the variety show super vocal was popular and just finished broadcasting, which led to a lot of discussion on social media. people started to learn about this live performance art more than ever before. it’s a huge success for that show to expand the market for musical theatre industry, and many of the show participants were later joined the musical theatre industry which brought a lot of fans to watch plays in the theater. therefore, the musical producers were paying more attention to use social media to manage the fan relationship and enlarge the potential audience. secondly, this study applied text mining to analyze the text messages posted on their weibo sites in order to discover new knowledge and patterns, and to acquire a deeper understanding of how the five musical production companies are using social media in practice. for the above reasons, this study used the posts collected between april 1, 2022 and april 30, 2022 as the sample for text mining. the posts were saved into excel spreadsheets for analysis. the text mining process includes multiple steps. firstly, raw data was transformed into a usable format, mainly by cleaning, segmenting words and counting out high-frequency words. subsequently, text mining techniques were used to examine the data sets in order to gain insights about companies’ social media activities. rostcm6 was used to explore and extract key concepts, generate categories, and help to quickly gain insights from the textual data. by pre-processing, applying text mining, and evaluating the mining results and recognize actionable information, to identify new knowledge including patterns, issues, and themes from the collected social media data. 3. result 3.1 phase 1 this study collected quantitative data from their individual social media sites such as number of followers, number of postings, comments and likes, frequency of posting, posting and response time. below is the trend of posts numbers in april, 2022 for the top five musical companies: namely seven ages weibo site (https://weibo.com/7ages), shanghai culture square weibo site (https://weibo.com/shculturesquare), musicals weibo site (https://weibo.com/u/5542720743), focustage weibo site(https://weibo.com/u/6582303814), and amazing musicals weibo site https://weibo.com/u/6582303814 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. (https://weibo.com/u/6641891098). 275 posts were collected from the five weibo sites in total. among them, seven ages’ weibo site had the largest number of posts; 130 messages were posted on their site. focustage posted 45 messages, shanghai culture square and musicals both posted 40 messages, while amazing musicals posted 20 messages. figure 1 shows the number of messages posted on the five weibo sites in different days in april. as illustrated in the figure, the reason for the disparity is that the five musical companies had different events and special activities such as live stream, luck draw at different days. figure 1. trend of posts numbers in april for the top five musical production companies figures 2-6 show the number of reposts, comments, and likes posted on the five companies’ sites in different days in april. typically, the user engagement reaches the peak when the companies announce a new production and casts, upload videos, or start a live stream involved popular musical actors. in total, seven ages received 739 reposts, 1189 comments and 2433 likes; shanghai culture square received 206 reposts, 177 comments and 991 likes; musicals received 3591 reposts, 901 comments and 7695 likes; focustage received 2097 reposts, 5946 comments and 7222 likes; amazing musicals received 842 reposts, 392 comments and 1935 likes during the month of april in 2022. overall, focustage had a higher level of engagement than its four competitors in terms of comments. but musicals received more reposts and likes than others did. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. this study compared the average posts and user interactions (reposts, comments, likes) of each company before and after the covid-19 occurred. the purpose is to find out whether there is any significant change in the use of social media by musical companies and their user engagement. in this study, t-test was used to analyze the significance of sample differences between february 2019 and april 2022. the study found that the pandemic has no significant impact on the number of posts (t = -1.37, p = 0.208>0.05) and user interactions (t = 0.815, p = 0.439>0.05) of musical companies. in order to further test the change of user interaction volume of each company, this study collected the average reposts, comments, and likes of each company in february 2019 and april 2022, and made an independent sample t-test on these data (see table 2). figure 2. seven ages’ user engagement trend in april, 2022 figure 3. shanghai culture square’ user engagement trend in april, 2022 figure 4. musicals’ user engagement trend in april, 2022 figure 5. focustage’s user engagement trend in april, 2022 figure 6. amazing musicals’ user engagement trend in april, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. table 2. independent sample t-test result average repost average comment average like seven ages before 131 67 233 after 10 16 20 t 2.344 1.816 3.537 p 0.023* 0.074 0.001* shanghai culture square before 54 34 44 after 8 6 25 t 1.161 1.158 2.091 p 0.258 0.26 0.045* musicals before 942 881 1111 after 109 35 208 t 1.983 3.678 3.592 p 0.066 0.002* 0.002* focustage before 31 27 42 after 70 198 172 t -1.243 -0.856 -1.816 p 0.219 0.396 0.075 amazing musicals before 12 9 15 after 56 26 97 t -1.933 -1.46 -1.962 p 0.072 0.163 0.064 *indicates significant at 95% confidence interval. the study found that there were significant differences in the average number of likes of seven ages, shanghai culture square and musicals before and after the pandemic (t1 = 3.537, p1 = 0.001<0.05; t2 = 2.091, p2 = 0.045<0.05; t3 = 3.592, p3 = 0.002<0.05). also, there were significant differences in the average repost of seven ages (t4 = 2.344, p4 = 0.023<0.05) and in the average comment of musicals (t5 = 3.678, p = 0.002<0.05). there was no significant difference in the rest. this shows that, in general, the covid-19 has no significant impact on the social media utilization and user participation of musical companies. at the same time, this study also found that the user engagement of the top 3 companies seven ages, shanghai culture square and musicals showed a downward trend, while the user engagement of focustage and amazing musicals showed an upward trend. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. 3.2 phase 2 this study applied text mining to the text collected in order to discover new knowledge and patterns. as there were no criteria available to compare the social media content of the musical companies, this study combines the textual data from the five companies to discover main shared themes first. after themes were established, then examine and compare the detailed efforts of the five companies. the summary of the five themes and results of the text mining are listed below. (1) musical related introduction a major theme was found is musical related introduction and knowledges share (around 24%). the companies would share the scripts, songs, and characters of classic musical dramas, introduce theater customs, theater seat layout, share video clips of stage performance. for example, seven ages has a fixed topic column #musical treasure chest#, and shanghai culture square has #little-known facts of drama# to share anything about musical theatre. focustage also connect the theme of the musical drama with social topics. one of their shares is about a song “in the name of love” from the musical “flowers for algernon”. they wrote, “#flowers for algernon## world autism awareness day# ‘look at this colorful world with your heart, you will find figure 7. photo of seven ages’ post with #musical treasure chest# introducing important awards in the theater industry figure 8. photo of shanghai culture square’s post with #little-known facts of drama# sharing knowledge about ghost light on the theater stage since the 19 century www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. love everywhere’. we hope everyone can feel the power of love”. (2) casual socialization posts this study noticed that the posts (around 17%) sometimes are holiday greetings, wishes for an early end to the epidemic, and casual chat, which creates a friendly socialization atmosphere. in other words, the musical companies were trying to make their online presence on weibo more like an online community or a circle of friends. table 3. examples related to casual socialization posts topics examples holiday greetings #all souls’ day# cherish and remember forever. they live in you. on the first day of the holiday, wish you all keep the health code! wishes for the end of the pandemic please take care of yourself and look forward to our reunion in the theater as soon as possible. although we can’t meet during these days, but the pandemic can’t stop the hearts of missing each other. casual chat good morning! is the musical you recently saw a tragedy or a comedy? follow me to bathe in the sunshine on this warm spring day. (3) ticket purchase and refund information some messages were related to the musical theatre ticket purchase and refund such as recent performance arrangement, cast adjustment, ticket purchasing channel. due to the spread of covid-19 in shanghai in april, theater performances were suspended, so many performance delay announcements and explanation of ticket refund methods were included. (4) feedback on customers’ purchase this study also found that a few messages were responses to customers’ reviews and experiences after watching a performance. for example, seven ages regularly selects some of those for display. (5) company and online activity the musical companies also posted messages about company and online activity information such as open new official account, live stream, lucky draw, membership activities, actor recruitment information, which accounted for nearly 35% of the total initial messages they posted. there were many live stream activities in april including musical actor performance experience sharing, online live action role playing games, music radio, etc. based on analysis and observation, these activities seemed effective strategies to engage the weibo audiences. finally, this study examined the messages that were re-tweeted the most. they all were messages posted by musicals. the post with the largest number of reposts is about a neighborhood concert www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. initiated by a musical drama actor cooperated with the company under the circumstance of community epidemic prevention and control. 4. discussion the results reveal that the five musical production companies are actively in social media and have committed substantial resources for their social media efforts. the examined data show that they were committed to providing delightful experience for their customers. for example, during the lockdown, many performances were canceled, and the customer service staff of musicals responded to customers’ demand for ticket refund and exchange quickly. all companies attach great importance to the introduction of company and online activities. because the epidemic has made offline performances impossible, online activities have become the main way of interaction. compared with other companies, seven ages and shanghai culture square put more efforts in musical theatre introduction and causal social chat. the reasons behind this remains to be further studied in the future. since focustage has more performances per month, it also has the most posts related to performance cancellation and refund. on the other hand, this study also found that only focustage and amazing musicals continued to increase in the amount of user interaction after covid-19 compared with the other three companies. the user interaction volume of focustage even exceeds that of its all competitors. their social media efforts are more noticeable considering that their number of fans (7.60%) is smaller than seven ages, shanghai culture square and musicals. based on data analysis and observation, the posts related to two popular musicals mia famiglia (also known as the bistro by fans) and santa lucia produced by focustage have the highest number of likes. mia famiglia has started an immersive performance in field mode in china. in a small space that conforms to the plot design, the audience can immersively participate in the drama and greatly enhance the interaction with the actors. this mode has changed the traditional layout of the actors on the stage and the audience off the stage and has won great popularity. unlike other musicals, it is a long-term resident performance, with more and fixed performances per month, thus, the popularity lasts for a long time. the study demonstrates that the five musical production companies have made significant social media efforts to increase interaction with customers and build brands in the online communities, in the form of actively paying attention to user demands, timely reply and informing the company’s production arrangement. it is also worth noting that each company shapes its social media image into a friendly character. for example, seven ages call themselves little seven, amazing musicals call themselves little whale, and musicals conducts personification interaction with other official accounts belong to the company in the role of big brother. this way will create a friendly and interactive atmosphere. this creates a friendly communication atmosphere. in general, social media is a convenience platform for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. musical companies to develop online customer communities and fan group. however, this study only preliminarily explored the current situation of social media marketing in china’s musical industry from the perspective of musical product providers, the changes after the pandemic, and the overall characteristics of social media marketing. it did not make an in-depth comparison of the marketing strategies and effects of different companies, and it needs to be further studied in the future. 5. conclusion social media has become an important concern of many industries, so it is important to understand the marketing strategies applicable to social media. this case study analyzes the current situation and characteristics of social media marketing in china’s musical industry through content analysis and text mining. the results show that musical companies have put a lot of efforts in social media marketing. they provide social media users with information in front of and behind the stage of the musical theatre through live stream and video clips and pay attention to customer needs and feedback. not only to promote products, but also to maintain the relationship with customers and strengthen the stickiness of musical fans. all in all, social media plays a positive role in expanding the audience market in the musical industry in china. however, in this process, in addition to the role of musical companies, the contribution of the audience cannot be underestimated. future research can pay more attention to the impact of this musical community formed on social media on the musical industry marketing. acknowledgement i would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me during the writing of this paper. my deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to professor krishna jayakar, my paper advisor, for his constant encouragement and guidance. he has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this paper. without his consistent and illuminating instruction, this paper could not have reached its present form. i am also greatly indebted to professor long wei, ms. zhao lijun, who have instructed and helped me a lot throughout my studies. finally, i could not have completed this paper without the support of my family and friends, who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the paper. references ackman, n. 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(2015). sport and social media research: a review. sport management review, 18(2), 166-181. kohli, c., suri, r., & kapoor, a. (2015). will social media kill branding? business horizons, 58(1), 35-44. labrecque, l. i. (2014). fostering consumer-brand relationships in social media environments: the role of parasocial interaction. journal of interactive marketing, 28(2), 134-148. macdonald, l. (2017). connection in an isolating age: looking back on twenty years of engaging audiences and marketing musical theatre online. ibroadway: musical theatre in the digital age, 17-42. rush, a. (2021). # youwillbefound: participatory fandom, social media marketing and dear evan hansen. studies in musical theatre, 15(2), 119-132. the sound of silence. (2019). 2019 chinese musical company top30. internet weekly, (24), 12-14. tuten, t. l., & solomon, m. r. (2017). social media marketing. sage. vogel, f. b., & hodges, b. a. (eds.). (2006). the commercial theater institute guide to producing plays and musicals. hal leonard corporation. notes note 1. weibo is a chinese microblogging website, similar to twitter. it was created in 2009, and has since grown to become one of the most popular social media platforms in china. weibo allows users to post short text, images, and videos, as well as interact with others through comments, likes, and reposts. note 2. the number of fans of each company’s account continued to increase during this research, but the ranking remained unchanged. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 197 original paper research on predictive models for content popularity on social media kangchen jin1 1 fudan university, school of data science, shanghai, china received: july 31, 2024 accepted: august 26, 2024 online published: september 12, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p197 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p197 abstract in today's era of widespread social media, predicting content popularity has become a hot topic. social media is important because it affects the speed and scope of information dissemination. however, predictive models face challenges related to data sparsity, complex feature selection, model interpretability, real-time requirements, and computational resources. optimization strategies are proposed, including enhancing data preprocessing, applying deep learning and transfer learning, introducing explainable ai technologies, and optimizing algorithms and resource utilization, with the aim of improving the accuracy and efficiency of predictive models. keywords social media, content popularity prediction, data sparsity 1. introduction in the digital age, social media has become the primary platform for people to acquire information and exchange ideas. the popularity of content on social media not only affects the dissemination of information but can also have a profound impact on social opinion and public behavior. therefore, accurately predicting the popularity of social media content is crucial for marketing, public relations, and information dissemination strategies. however, there are many challenges in optimizing predictive models for content popularity on social media. this paper aims to explore these challenges and propose corresponding optimization strategies to provide a more scientific and effective solution for predicting content popularity on social media. 2. the importance of social media social media, as an emerging platform for information dissemination, plays a vital role in modern society. it not only changes the way humans acquire and share information but also profoundly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir applied science and innovative research vol. 8, no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 198 influences progress in various fields such as global politics, economics, and culture. users can publish content on social media at a very low cost, characterized by fast dissemination speed and wide reach. this convenience and broadness make social media the primary channel for information dissemination. additionally, the interactivity and immediacy of social media allow users to quickly receive feedback and comments while disseminating content, further stimulating their desire for creation and sharing. for businesses, social media has become an important marketing tool, enabling them to more efficiently reach target audiences and enhance brand influence through precise advertising and user behavior analysis. therefore, the significance of social media in modern society is self-evident, as it plays an irreplaceable role in information dissemination, social interaction, and commercial marketing. 3. challenges in optimizing predictive models for content popularity on social media 3.1 data sparsity issues social media platforms feature a diverse range of content types, and there are differences in audience groups for different content, which makes it difficult to collect sufficient data when specific types of content are disseminated to a narrow audience. furthermore, due to the uncertainty of user behavior, the attention received by the same content published at different times and locations can vary significantly. this uneven data distribution makes it challenging for models to accurately capture content popularity trends, thereby affecting prediction accuracy. data sparsity also manifests in user interaction behaviors, where different users respond very differently to content. some users may focus solely on specific types of content, making related data even sparser. during the training process, the predictive model finds it difficult to fully utilize existing data, which can lead to overfitting or underfitting. additionally, data sparsity can result in poor handling of long-tail content, which, while comprising a large portion of social media content, is difficult for models to predict effectively due to data sparsity. 3.2 complexity of feature selection and extraction the rise of social media platforms has resulted in a vast amount of content data, which comes in diverse forms such as text, images, and videos. the popularity of this content is influenced by numerous factors, including publication time, user interactions, content themes, emotional tendencies, and the keywords used. in the process of building predictive models, selecting and extracting key features from these complex and varied elements undoubtedly poses significant challenges. the diversity of user behavior in social media makes the feature selection problem extremely complex. behavioral patterns and preferences of user groups on different platforms may vary significantly, requiring us to extract features that account for these differences between platforms and identify those that are both universal and effective. however, defining and capturing these cross-platform common features is often difficult. additionally, the multimodal nature of social media content presents technical challenges for feature extraction. the processing methods and algorithms required for various data types, such as text, images, and videos, differ significantly, which increases both the complexity of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir applied science and innovative research vol. 8, no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 199 model design and the demand for computational resources. how to effectively integrate and process these multimodal data to extract features that are beneficial for predictive models is currently a hot research topic. furthermore, the correlation and redundancy among features cannot be overlooked. during feature selection, it is crucial to carefully analyze the interrelationships among features to avoid introducing excessive redundant features that could lead to model overfitting and reduced generalization capability. conversely, overlooking certain important features may result in inaccurate predictions, adversely affecting the model's predictive performance. 3.3 model explainability and transparency with the advancement of artificial intelligence technology, complex predictive models (such as deep learning models) have been widely applied in predicting the popularity of social media content. however, these complex models are often regarded as "black boxes"; although they can provide highly accurate predictions, they lack explainability and transparency. for the prediction of the popularity of content published on social media, the explainability of the model is critical, as both users and businesses need to understand the basis of the model's predictions to make more informed choices. if a model can accurately predict the popularity of content but cannot explain the reasons behind that popularity, its practical application may be limited. in marketing decision-making processes, companies often rely on predictive models to identify potential hot content to formulate relevant strategies in advance. if the model cannot provide transparent predictive grounds, businesses may become skeptical of the model's predictions, affecting the model's credibility in practice. moreover, models with insufficient explainability struggle to make effective adjustments in the face of data biases or anomalies, leading to discrepancies between predicted results and actual situations. 3.4 challenges of real-time processing and computational resources predicting the popularity of social media content typically requires short processing times to support real-time decision-making for users and businesses. however, real-time performance places high demands on the computational efficiency of the model, especially when faced with large-scale data, which necessitates even greater computational resources. in practice, social media platforms generate vast amounts of data daily, which must be collected and processed in a very short time before being fed into predictive models for computation. traditional predictive models often struggle with insufficient computational resources when handling such large-scale real-time data, leading to delays in outputting predictions and making it challenging for models to provide predictions at specified times. additionally, the requirement for real-time performance increases model complexity, necessitating ongoing updates to meet the demands of new data, thereby further escalating the need for computational resources. how to effectively utilize computational resources while ensuring real-time performance has become a significant challenge in optimizing predictive models for social media content popularity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir applied science and innovative research vol. 8, no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 200 4. optimization strategies for predictive models of social media content popularity 4.1 enhancing data collection and preprocessing techniques to address the issue of data sparsity in social media, enhancing data collection and preprocessing techniques is particularly important. by integrating data from multiple channels and platforms, researchers can enrich the data sources and reduce the information gaps caused by relying on a single data source. additionally, automated data cleaning technologies can play a key role in the data collection process, ensuring that the collected data is accurate and consistent. text analysis tools developed using natural language processing (nlp) technologies can delve deeper into the complex semantic content of social media, providing more precise input information for predictive models. when processing multimodal data, strengthening data fusion techniques, such as joint representation learning, can effectively unify the processing of different types of data, such as text, images, and videos, thereby extracting more representative features. meanwhile, data augmentation techniques can alleviate data sparsity by generating new data samples, allowing predictive models to be trained on richer datasets. by enhancing data collection and preprocessing techniques, the quality of data can be improved while providing the model with more comprehensive and accurate inputs, thus promoting more reliable predictions. 4.2 application of deep learning and transfer learning methods in recent years, the integration of deep learning and transfer learning technologies has provided an innovative solution for optimizing social media content popularity prediction models. deep learning relies on multi-layer neural network structures to automatically extract complex features from data, a capability that has demonstrated outstanding performance and strong generalization ability in multi-dimensional, large-scale data processing. particularly in environments like social media, which are characterized by vast and diverse amounts of information, deep learning models can effectively capture the influencing factors that may exist in the content popularity process, thereby enhancing prediction accuracy. however, one of the significant challenges faced by deep learning models is their substantial demand for labeled data. training effective deep learning models often requires a large amount of labeled data, which is not always readily available in many practical applications. this is especially true for emerging fields or specific social media platforms, where the acquisition of massive labeled datasets may face constraints in terms of time and resources. at this point, the introduction of transfer learning becomes crucial. transfer learning effectively reduces the reliance on labeled data by utilizing models pre-trained in one domain (source domain) and transferring their knowledge to a new domain (target domain). this method helps researchers quickly establish well-performing predictive models when labeled data is scarce. specifically, when predicting the popularity of social media content, researchers can leverage the features and patterns they have already learned and use models trained on similar tasks to boost performance on the new task. additionally, one of the main advantages of transfer learning is its flexibility. it can facilitate knowledge transfer within the same domain and also apply across different domains. this means that if a particular social media platform has content www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir applied science and innovative research vol. 8, no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 201 features similar to those of another platform, researchers can apply the learning outcomes from the former platform to the latter, enhancing the model's performance on the new platform. this knowledge transfer process not only accelerates model training speed but also enhances its generalization ability for new tasks. 4.3 introduction of explainable ai technologies and model visualization the introduction of explainable ai (xai) technologies has greatly advanced the understanding of complex models, enabling users and researchers to gain deeper insights into the predictive rationale of models. this technology can provide clear explanations and help users build trust in model outputs. users can create interpretable feature importance charts to visually identify which features play a decisive role in prediction results. this intuitive display significantly enhances users' understanding and acceptance of the model. in addition to feature importance charts, model visualization techniques are essential for understanding complex predictive processes. by graphically presenting the internal structure and decision-making processes of models, researchers can gain a clearer grasp of their operational mechanisms. this visualization not only reveals the decision paths of models but also helps researchers identify potential issues. for instance, through visualization, researchers can detect whether data is biased, whether features have redundancy, and make necessary adjustments and optimizations based on this information. this process enhances model performance while ensuring its practical effectiveness. it can be argued that the combination of xai technologies and model visualization offers greater transparency to users. in practical work, users often need to understand model prediction results to make informed decisions. efficient visualization tools allow users to intuitively grasp the predictive logic of the model, facilitating better use of these results in specific business scenarios. this improved understanding not only enhances the practical application value of the model but also increases user trust in it. furthermore, it can be asserted that ai and model visualization provide more reliable decision support for enterprises. in many industries, especially in high-risk fields like healthcare and finance, transparency in decision-making is crucial. the introduction of explainability technologies allows enterprises to demonstrate reasonableness to stakeholders during the decision-making process, thereby reducing potential legal and ethical risks. 4.4 optimization algorithms and utilization of distributed computing resources the efficient use of optimization algorithms and distributed computing resources plays a critical role in improving the performance of social media content popularity prediction models. as the number of users on social media platforms continues to expand and the volume of data increases exponentially, challenges related to real-time processing and computing resources are becoming increasingly prominent. to address these issues, researchers have begun exploring optimization algorithms to enhance model computational efficiency, thereby reducing prediction time. specifically, optimization algorithms centered on gradient descent have a crucial impact on this process. these algorithms can accelerate model convergence speed through reasonable adjustments of learning rates and optimization strategies, significantly reducing the time consumed during model training and prediction. additionally, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir applied science and innovative research vol. 8, no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 202 introducing heuristic algorithms combined with parallel computing techniques can further enhance computational efficiency in large-scale data processing. for example, by breaking down computational tasks into several sub-tasks and executing them in parallel across different processing units, researchers can quickly obtain model prediction results. this method not only increases computational speed but also provides a more flexible solution for handling complex social media data. utilizing distributed computing resources is also key to enhancing model performance. computational tasks are divided among several nodes for parallel processing, greatly improving overall computational capacity. in practice, cloud computing platforms support this process, making it more efficient. researchers can dynamically allocate computing resources based on actual needs to ensure that the model maintains good response speed even under high loads. this way, the model can process large volumes of data in a short time while adapting to changes in computational demand, ensuring a balance between real-time performance and computational efficiency. furthermore, the combination of optimization algorithms and distributed computing resources offers a new possibility for processing large-scale data. in the face of the intricate and complex social media networks, researchers can use optimization algorithms to make targeted adjustments to model parameters, while employing distributed computing architectures to conduct large-scale experiments. 5. conclusion the prediction of content popularity on social media is a complex topic that is multidimensional and dynamically changing. the optimization strategies mentioned in this text can effectively address challenges such as data sparsity, the complexity of feature selection, model interpretability, real-time requirements, and computational resource constraints. future research should continuously explore more effective data processing methods, enhance deep learning models, deepen the application of explainable ai technologies, and optimize the allocation of computational resources, further improving the performance and practicality of prediction models. with the advancement of technology and ongoing research, models predicting the popularity of content based on social media will become increasingly accurate and provide strong support in related areas. reference cormode, g. (2019). technical perspective: the true cost of popularity. communications of the acm, 62(8), 94-94. de bruine, m., giletta, m., denissen, j. j. a., sijtsema, j. j., & oldehinkel, a. j. (2019). a healthy peer status: peer preference, not popularity, predicts lower systemic inflammation in adolescence. psychoneuroendocrinology, 109, 104402. grizzard, m., lewis, r. j., lee, s. a., & eden, a. (2011). predicting popularity of mass-market films using the tenets of disposition theory. int. j. arts technol., 4, 48-60. hausmann, a., toivonen, t., fink, c., heikinheimo, v., tenkanen, h., butchart, s. h. m., brooks, t. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/asir applied science and innovative research vol. 8, no. 4, 2024 published by scholink inc. 203 m., & di minin, e. (2019). assessing global popularity and threats to important bird and biodiversity areas using social media data. sci total environ, 683, 617-623. wu, b., & shen, h. y. (2015). analyzing and predicting news popularity on twitter. int. j. inf. manag, 35(2015), 702-711. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 94 critical factors in containing covid-19: lessons from selected countries amb. dr. john o. kakonge1* 1 president, association of former international civil servants in kenya (afics-kenya) * amb. dr. john o. kakonge, president, association of former international civil servants in kenya (afics-kenya) received: august 1, 2020 accepted: august 7, 2020 online published: august 13, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n3p94 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n3p94 1. introduction the coronavirus pandemic (covid-19) has affected over 190 countries. in responding to the pandemic, countries around the world have developed their own containment strategies, with varying degrees of success: some have achieved nearly total success in containing the disease, while others have seen a constant rise in infections and deaths. the successful countries have evidenced common responses and strategies, linked in large part to a firm commitment by their leaders to confront the pandemic matched by a strong sense of social cohesion by the countries’ citizens. this paper explores five factors that have been critical to the progress achieved in containing the coronavirus in a few selected countries and their lessons for kenya and other african countries. 2. critical factors for containing covid-19 2.1 public buy-in first, before many countries went into lockdown, governments had to inform their citizens about what they were planning to do to contain the coronavirus. there were sporadic protests, but in some countries, people were not given a choice: this was the case in china, india, nigeria, south africa and elsewhere. for example, in india, many migrant workers found themselves stranded in major cities such as delhi and mumbai and unable to return to their home states and villages once public transport was suspended. according to flournoy and morell (2020), communist regimes like china boasted that they had performed better than the rest of the world because they had used a draconian approach to ensure that their citizens had no choice other than to respect the lockdown and other measures put in place to contain the coronavirus. western countries dispute this claim, arguing that china was not transparent and withheld information about its coronavirus situation. other communist countries such as viet nam and cuba followed different approaches. in viet nam, the buy-in was accepted with a sense of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 95 published by scholink inc. patriotism (alam, 2020). the country used a propaganda approach, aimed at convincing its citizens that the novel coronavirus was an enemy with whom they were at war and, to win that war, every citizen had to be patriotic and supportive of the cause (alam, 2020). in the case of cuba, the government made its citizens fully aware of the extreme danger of coronavirus disease and the consequent need to contain it (mehmood, 2020). the cuban government undertook a successful and cost-effective, door-to-door screening campaign. citizen buy-in to stringent controls was significant in new zealand (parker, 2020), uruguay (mander, 2020), viet nam (dabla-norris, guide-wolf and painchaud, 2020), and costa rica (medical press, 2020; un news, 2020). in uruguay, citizens agreed to stay at home without a mandatory lockdown. the exercise was performed smoothly without the need for police or the military to patrol the streets (mander, 2020). from these examples, it cannot be disputed that when people themselves support the government action, as was the case in uruguay, new zealand and costa rica, the process is more likely to be sustainable. 2.2 well-focused messages a second factor relates to public communications and messaging. following the release of information about the pandemic by the world health organization (who), various governments customized the information and translated it into their national and local languages, as appropriate, to enable their citizens to understand and participate in the solution. ministries of health in each country were designated as focal points for the dissemination of official information. since the outbreak of covid-19, misinformation and disinformation have been the cause of the biggest bottlenecks. in this connection, germany, kenya, new zealand, south africa, the republic of korea, uruguay and other countries have done well in terms of sharing information with the public. for example, the prime minister of new zealand has been credited with communicating with empathy the seriousness of covid-19 and why it was necessary to have a national lockdown (parker, 2020). this is also the case in uruguay (pribble, 2020) and viet nam (alam, 2020; pollack et al., 2020). the daily press briefings given by the health ministries have not only been critical in strengthening public trust, but have also helped societies to adhere to protective and containment strategies. alam (2020) also notes that, in viet nam, anyone found spreading untruthful information causing public concern and social instability has been strictly dealt with. in china, the government requested some universities to develop easy-to-understand educational materials about covid-19 and how to prevent its spread for students and the general public (wu, yu, & wang, 2020). so far, one of the biggest challenges surrounding the coronavirus has been misinformation and disinformation coming from various sources, including political leaders such as president bolsonaro of brazil and president trump of the usa. for developing countries, the way forward is to come up with bottom-up messages taking into account the level of education of each community. the examples of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 96 published by scholink inc. costa rica and uruguay (medical press, 2020), both middle-income but third world countries, are particularly instructive in this regard. 2.3 quick response third, once the coronavirus disease outbreak was announced by who, a number of countries immediately started preparations to mount a comprehensive response. for example, by 21 january 2020, viet nam had finalized risk assessments and thereafter established a national steering committee on epidemic prevention to manage the coronavirus containment measures (pollack et al., 2020). similarly, uruguay, with a population of 3.5 million people, immediately appointed a scientific commission to lead the response, including the establishment of 24 laboratories capable of carrying out tests (mander, 2020). to date, the country has carried out over 400,000 tests and, as at 11 july 2020, had 986 cases of coronavirus and 30 deaths. in costa rica, the government established a committee involving all sectors of the economy, including the private sector. this committee was responsible for rolling out the government’s coronavirus containment measures (un news, 2020). in jordan, the government not only established a committee to combat the coronavirus disease, but also declared a state of emergency including a curfew and quarantine restrictions enforced by the military (aytekin & kabakci, 2020). clearly, these positive examples indicate that the countries did not delay the decision to act once covid-19 was declared a pandemic. again, the republic of korea, uruguay, viet nam and kerala state in india (mathew, 2020) took quick decisions to stop the spread of the virus. moreover, they made good progress in maintaining low numbers of positive cases and also low death rates (beaubien, 2020). 2.4 testing and contact tracing a fourth factor understandably relates to the efficacy of testing and contact tracing. after people have been tested and found to be positive for covid-19, comprehensive contact tracing is critical. for example, contact tracing by the republic of korea has been very effective (aytekin & kabakci, 2020), thanks to efforts by the government to scale up its network of contact tracers. in addition, the government has used public communication to empower citizens to assist the health systems with contact tracing (aytekin & kabakci, 2020). in viet nam, the contact tracing system is very thorough and the government has been able to trace contacts and to quarantine citizens suspected of carrying the virus (alam, 2020). in taiwan, the country has been using mobile sims for contact tracing and quarantining contacts to avoid the risk of them turning covid-19-positive and infecting others, an approach that has proved to be very successful. other countries which have done well in contact tracing include iceland and singapore. the success of singapore has been based on the use of the national health service, police detectives and a contact-tracing application to track the spread of the virus (yea, 2020). in some countries, however, people who being tested have given incorrect contact details, making it very difficult to trace their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 97 published by scholink inc. contacts if they test positive. kenya has been confronted with this problem (kabale, 2020). other countries that have fared badly in contact tracing include brazil and the usa. testing alone, without contact tracing and isolation, has little impact. in short, thorough contact tracing can help to facilitate a targeted containment strategy and in turn save lives. 2.5 strong health-care systems fifth, the countries that are doing well so far in containing covid-19 can ascribe this success in part to strong health-care systems. according to wieler, rexroth and gottschalk (2020), germany’s success rate is a result of the county’s strong enabling environment, which includes a good public health-care system and expert scientific institutions. similarly, uruguay has fared well because of its strong public health-care system (mander, 2020). uruguay has the highest number of hospital beds per person in latin america. cuba is another country with a robust health-care system, which has complemented efforts to contain the coronavirus disease. according to mehmood (2020), cuba has a strong primary health-care system and almost 87 percents of covid-19 patients have recovered, the highest recovery rate in south america. for its part, viet nam has invested in public health infrastructure (in particular, emergency centres and surveillance systems) based on the lessons learned from the sars and avian influenza epidemics (dabla-norris, guide-wolf, & painchaud, 2020). in the case of taiwan, the success can be correlated with its innovative electronic health records system: every person in taiwan has a health identity card that all hospitals and doctors can access (emanuel, zhang, & glickman, 2020). when covid-19 hit the country, the cards were reprogrammed to support efforts to limit the spread of the disease. another instructive example is furnished by rwanda, which has a strengthened health-care system with well-coordinated prevention measures against covid-19. thanks to these, the country has been able to record zero deaths from the disease (condo, uwizihiwe and nsanzimana (2020). moreover, the national community health-care network, with the support of the private sector, has enabled the government to identify areas that need to be targeted. similarly, costa rica, which provides another good example, has a robust, universal health-care system which covers approximately 95 per cent of the population and which has assisted in containing the coronavirus disease in the country (un news, 2020). in short, countries that lack adequate health-care systems, such as brazil, india, the russian federation, south africa and other developing countries, national responses to the coronavirus disease are severely constrained. 3. challenges of inequality the five factors highlighted above share a single and important common denominator. the countries that have made good progress so far are those that have been able to reduce the inequalities between the rich and the poor. mander (2020) confirms that uruguay, for example, has been able to contain covid-19 thanks to its reduced gap between the rich and the poor. in addition, a large proportion of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 98 published by scholink inc. the uruguayan population is well educated, with the ability to understand and respect the government directives about staying at home, observing social distancing, and sanitizing and washing hands. this was achieved without any form of lockdown. in contrast, in other countries such as india, kenya and south africa, governments are struggling to contain the rising number of cases of covid-19. the areas hardest hit in those countries are the informal settlements or slums within the major cities which are home to most of the poor and illiterate population. as a rule, slum dwellers have very low incomes and lack access to government-provided social safety nets. under these circumstances, people in these settlements have found it difficult to respect government health directives—notably lockdowns—occasioned by the covid-19 pandemic. in south africa, the government had to bring in the military to enforce the lockdown. as sachs (2020) argues, the higher inequality rates in these countries mean that a larger proportion of their low-income workers, including cleaners, cashiers, guards, delivery staff, and construction and factory workers, must continue their daily work, even at the risk of covid-19 infection. widened inequality also results in more people living in crowded conditions and therefore being unable to shelter safely. the areas that suffered the worst casualties in new york and london were the poor neighbourhoods (strandberg, 2020). to make matters worse, the pandemic is further widening inequalities in many developing countries, notably those that already suffer from inept governance, corruption and social distrust. 4. conclusion the issues discussed above are all intertwined. successful countries have benefited from their adoption of a combination of some or all of the more effective response measures. no doubt the main lesson to be learned from this country comparison is that, if the war against covid-19 or any future infectious disease is to be won, countries need a well-functioning and effective primary health-care system that can identify and respond quickly to emerging health challenges, disseminate accurate and transparent public health information, and undertake testing and contact tracing in a rapid and cost-effective manner to reduce the spread of the disease. such a well-run health system will ensure buy-in from the public and offer the best chance of containing future pandemics. disclaimer the views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to afics-kenya. references alam, s. (2020). vietnam: a success story in fight against covid-19. anadolu agency (aa), 5 june 2020. retrieved july 6, 2020, from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 99 published by scholink inc. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/vietnam-a-success-story-in-fight-against-covid-19/1866670 aytekin, e., & kabakci, f. (2020). some nations have had remarkable success against virus: number of countries worldwide, including turkey, have made good progress fighting off coronavirus their own way. anadolu agency (aa), 13 may 2020. retrieved july 13, 2020, from https://www.aa.com.tr/en/latest-on-coronavirus-outbreak/some-nations-have-had-remarkable-succ ess-against-virus/1838766 beaubien, j. 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(2020). this is why singapore’s coronavirus cases are growing: a look inside the dismal living conditions of migrant workers. the conservation, 29 april 2020. retrieved july 7, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/this-is-why-singapores-coronavirus-cases-are-growing-a-look-inside-t he-dismal-living-conditions-of-migrant-workers-136959 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 52 original paper health implications of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state mustapha h. kurfi1*, abubakar i. hassan2 & justin n. ezenkiri3 1 department of sociology, boston university, massachusetts, u.s.a 2 department of physical and health education, bayero university, kano, nigeria 3 school of science, isa kaita college of education, dutsin-ma, katsina state, nigeria * mustapha h. kurfi, department of sociology, boston university, massachusetts, u.s.a received: may 1, 2018 accepted: may 17, 2018 online published: may 25, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p52 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p52 abstract this study investigated the health implications of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state, nigeria. this research adopts a descriptive survey design. the population of this study is 2,036 academic staff from thirteen institutions. a sample of 328 academic staff was drawn, using proportionate stratified sampling technique. a self-developed questionnaire (hiwrs-q) with reliability of 0.75 was used. chi-square and t-test were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. findings of this study revealed that 105 (32%) of the respondents do not experienced health implications of work-related stress while, 223 (68%) of the respondents experienced health implications of work-related stress. also, there is significant health implication of work-related stress among academic staff (p=0.001<0.05). there is significant difference in the health implication of work-related stress among academic staff based on institutional ownership (p=0.023<0.05). there is no significant difference in the work-related stress between male and female teaching staff (p=0.650>0.05). it is recommended among others that the state government should improve on the working environment and conditions of academic staff to be health-friendly, health enhancing conditions for achieving academic excellence, and sustainable productivity in the state. keywords academic, health, implications, staff, stress, work www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 53 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction stressful work related conditions are linked with many health implications among employees in developing countries such as ghana, nigeria, tanzania (harvey, 2009). in nigeria, premature death among academic staff is at its peak. such death rates are presumed to be as a result of health implications of work-related stress among workers, especially those in the academics (benjamin, 2003). similarly, findings of hinneh, kwaku and gyaki (2014) revealed that academic staff of tertiary institutions are exposed to health implications, including anxiety and general ill-health resulting from their job. at this point, egu, ogbonna, obike and obiuto (2014), termed health implication to be health hazards such as high blood pressure, heart diseases, stoke, ulcer, body pain, persistent headache and illnesses that could come as a result of work-related stress. health implications such as depression, anxiety, heart attack, eye problems, fear, headache, insomnia, miscarriages, asthma, obesity, chest pain, diabetes, and anger are common among workers due to occupational stress—which is work-related stress (communications workers of america, 2001; shute, 2007). in addition, lecturers are now battling with numerous health implications namely, ulcer, depressions, anger, high blood pressure, heart and eye problems owing to several work-related stressors commonly associated with faculty staff (tarsi, scheurs, & van, 2001; winefield & jarret, 2001; winter & sarros, 2002; tytherleigh et al., 2005; barkuizen & rothmans, 2008). this is not surprising as the higher educational sector is now regarded as a working environment that has become increasingly more stress and psychologically demanding due to multiple triggers for stress-related illness (kinman, 2001; windfield & jarret, 2001). in terms of comparison of occupational stress at workplaces, a study by the communications workers of america (2001) revealed that academic staff (lecturers) are exposed to physical illnesses such as asthma, obesity, headache and diabetes than any other groups. it further stated that job stress makes their body to break down and experience severe chest pains as they always read, write and type reading materials like lecture notes or research papers. sonja et al. (2010) studied the health and wellbeing of staff members at a tertiary institution in new zealand. the results revealed that relatively large numbers of the subjects were identified with hypertension (18.5%), stress symptoms (32.1%), job stress (36%) and emotional exhaustion (11.4%). in the same line of thought, the research of gunduluru and gunduluru (2013) whose study was on mental health status of degree-awarding college lecturers based on gender and teaching experience in rayalaseema zone, andhra pradesh, india, found that there is significant increase in mental health problems such as depression among lecturers and students. this finding is not at variance with the finding of shute (2007). health implications are extremely hazardous in that they cause and lead to many health problems such as body pains, headache, ulcers, heart palpitation, stroke, heart attack including miscarriages in pregnant women (ukwayi, uko, & udida, 2013). they further posited that several academic staff in nigerian tertiary institutions (centers of interaction; workplace for desirable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 54 published by scholink inc. changes) has been observed to report insomnia, fear, hypertension, headache, depressions, adjustment disorders (emotional stress) as a result of academic stress. the centers for disease control and prevention—cdc (1999) stated clearly that poor health and even injury persisted due to work-related stress among workers. in the same vein, auerbach and gramling (2009), added that studies conducted in countries around the world demonstrate that people can actually work themselves to death. academic staff of tertiary institutions are not exempted from the result. for example, among the numerous problems confronting organization in nigeria is the perceived poor health of some workers (ajayi et al., 2011). in addition, researchers observed that academic staff in higher institutions in katsina state are exposed to conditions that may lead to stressful condition. these include regular, sandwich and summer programmes they offer annually which tie the academic staff down. many of the attractions and advantages such as light work-load, provision of office and residential accommodations in academic environment have been eroded over the past two decades and it comes as a surprise that higher education institutions are now commonly labelled as stress factory (barkuizen & rothmans, 2008). the national commission for colleges of education (2012) stated in its guidelines that the ideal teacher-student ratio is 1:25. this ratio is no practice in tertiary institutions in katsina state. moreover, bala (2013) observed that there is an excessive work-load and increasing hours of work arising from the dearth of teachers in the institution, making teacher-student ratio to stand at 1:500, causing most students to squat on bare floor or hang on windows during lectures. these circumstances compound stress on academic staff who are working in tertiary institutions in the state and as such, it may affect their health negatively. higher institutions are now regarded as a working environment that has become increasingly more stressful and psychologically demanding due to multiple triggers for stress-related illness (kinman, 2001; windfield & jarret, 2001). in katsina state, academic staff in tertiary institutions are now subjected to stress such as meeting deadlines in submitting examination results, changes in methods and approaches of teaching, innovations such as introduction of computers, unbearable work-loads, campus militancy, accommodation problems, and many others. poor ventilation from enclosed offices, lecture and examination halls, excessive paper-work of writing lecture notes, conference papers, and administrative duties of being an examination officer, head of department and level coordinator are some of the challenges faced by academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state. these challenges may result to large number of health consequences that may affect them physically, socially and emotionally. it is against this background that this study was carried out in order to investigate the health implications of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 55 published by scholink inc. 2. research questions the authors of this article set up the following research questions, whose answers are to be provided in the course of this study: 1) do academic staff experience health implications of work-related stress in tertiary institutions in katsina state? 2) is there any significant difference in the health implications of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state based on institutional ownership? 3) will there be a difference in the health implication of work-related stress between male and female academic staff of tertiary institutions in the study area? 3. research hypotheses in line with the above research questions, and based on the reviewed literature, the trio authors of this study came up with the following research hypotheses that will be tested to be refuted or not by this research findings: h01: there is no significant health implication of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state. h02: there is no significant difference in the health implications of work-related stress among academic staff based on institutional ownership in katsina state. h03: there is no significant difference in the health implication of work-related stress between male and female academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state. 4. methods this research adopted a descriptive survey design to investigate the health implications of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state, nigeria. below are the details for the methods that the authors used: 4.1 source of data and research design to establish health implications of work-related stress among academic staff experiences in tertiary institutions in katsina state, primary data were generated using questionnaire (blaikie, 2010). the data were sourced from semi-natural social setting and descriptive survey research design was used. 4.2 population and sample the population of this study is 2,036 which consisted of all academic staff from thirteen existing tertiary institutions in katsina state as at 11th march, 2015. the target population was one thousand, six hundred and thirty nine (1,639) from five government owned tertiary institution. a sample of 328 academic staff was drawn using proportionate stratified sampling technique at 20% from each tertiary institution in the state. self-developed questionnaire named health implications of work-related stress questionnaire (hiwrs-q) of five points likert scale was used as instrument for data collection. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 56 published by scholink inc. 4.3 instrument for data collection there are 17 items on the questionnaire that assessed health implications of work-related stress. the least score is 17; the highest score is 85 while the midpoint is 34. therefore, scores between 17 and 34 are regarded as health implications work-related stress while, scores within 35-85 are regarded as no health implication of work-related stress. the questionnaire was validated by three experts in health education and two sociology. a reliability index of 0.75 was obtained. five lecturers, one from each sampled institutions served as research assistants. out of three hundred and fifty questionnaire copies administered, three hundred and twenty eight were duly filled and returned. 4.4 data analysis chi-square and independent sample t-test were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance, using statistical package of the social sciences (spss) version 20.0. 5. research findings many studies reveal that academic employees, especially those in tertiary institutions find their work stressful. importantly, these studies are not peculiar to some parts of the world—developed or the developing nations (coetzee & rothmann, 2005; kinman, 2016; tytherleigh et al., 2005; winefield et al., 2008; catano et al., 2010). many factors are responsible for the work-related stress among the academics in tertiary institutions, including but not limited to increased demands in experience, limited resources, autonomy or lack of it, inadequate support and often lack of role clarity. equally, the “massification” of higher education (kinman, 2016, p. 504), a combination of various cultural, social, and educational background, and more stringent requirement for publications, as well as more “judgmental” performance management systems (yusoff & khan, 2013). these studies are important, and have shed some light on the magnitude of the problem at macro-level analysis. but none of the studies was conducted in nigeria, and particularly in northern nigerian tertiary institutions—a region that was nearly a century late in establishing western schools, thereby leaving a majority of the people at a great disadvantaged position. this led to the region to be tagged as educationally less developed areas (elds) vis-à-vis their western and eastern counterparts (maikudi, 2013). the results of this research will therefore address this gap. in so doing, the formulated hypotheses will be discussed as follows: h01: there is no significant health implication of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 57 published by scholink inc. table 1. chi-square summary of health implications of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state health implications observed frequency expected frequency df sig. not experience 105 (32%) 164.0 42.451 1 .001 experience 223 (68%) 164.0 total 328 328.0 χ2 critical=3.841, df:1, p<0.05. table 1 above shows that 105 (32%) academic staff do not experience health implications of work-related stress in tertiary institutions in katsina state, while 223 (68%) experienced health implications of work-related stress. hence, majority of academic staff in tertiary institutions in katsina state experienced health implications of work-related stress due to exposure to work difficulties such as marking huge scripts of students in a limited time, meeting deadlines in submitting official documents, in adequate power supply and inadequate of other related facilities. the null hypothesis which stated that there is no significant health implication of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state is rejected (χ2 tab=3.841, df:1, p<0.05). hence, there is significant health implication of work-related stress on academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state. h02: there is no significant difference in the health implications of work-related stress among academic staff based on institutional ownership in katsina state. table 2. t-test summary on difference in the health implications of work-related stress among academic staff based on institutional ownership in katsina state institutional ownership n mean std. deviation std. error t df p-value state tertiary institution 192 1.73 .446 .032 2.285 326 .023 federal tertiary institution 136 1.61 .489 .042 total 328 tcritical= 1.9719, df:326, p0.05. table 2 shows that the mean value for state owned tertiary institution was greater than federal owned tertiary institutions (1.73>1.61). this means that academic staff from sate own tertiary institution in katsina state are experiencing more health implications of work related stress than those in federal institutions. it also showed that the null hypothesis which stated that there is no significant difference in the health implications of work-related stress on academic staff based on institutional ownership in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 58 published by scholink inc. katsina state is rejected (ttab=1.9719, df:326, p<0.05). hence, there is significant difference in the health implications of work-related stress on academic staff based on institutional ownership in katsina state. h03: there is no significant difference in the work-related stress between male and female teaching staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state. table 3. summary of t-test on health implications of work-related stress between male and female academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state gender n mean std. deviation std. error t df p-value male 261 1.69 .465 .029 .454 326 .650 female 67 1.66 .478 .058 total 328 tcritical=1.9719 at df=326, p>0.05. table 3 reveals that male teaching staff had mean value which was relatively greater than female teaching staff mean value (1.69 1.66). this means that male academic staff in tertiary institution in katsina state are experiencing more health implications of work related stress than their female counterparts. the table also shows that the null hypothesis which stated that there is no significant difference in the work-related stress between male and female teaching staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state is accepted (tcritical=1.9719 at df=326, p>0.05). hence, there is no significant difference in the work-related stress between male and female teaching staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state. 6. discussions the finding of this study shows that there is significant health implication of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions such as headache, insomnia, depression and many others owing to work-related stress. the result is in line with finding of nnabuife, onyeizugbe, and onwuka (2012) who revealed in their study of stress management and occupational performance among female lecturers in nigeria, that there was significant health implication of occupational stress on teaching staff of tertiary institutions. it is also congruent with the work ukwayi, uko and udida (2013) whose study was on a critical analysis of career stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in cross-river state, nigeria, which revealed that there was significant health problem of job stress on academic staff of tertiary institutions in the state. it is also consistent with egu et al. (2014), who carried out a study on managing stress among lecturers in polytechnics in south-eastern nigeria, and their finding revealed that academic staff suffered high blood pressures, as well as stroke. in the same vein, claire and lucy (2014) who studied dark thoughts: mental illness in the academia found that academic staff www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 59 published by scholink inc. battled with mental health problems, stroke and breakdown as a result of their jobs. the results of this study also agreed with atsua (2014), who carried out a research on consequences of occupational stress among academic staff of university of maiduguri, borno state, nigeria. it found out that there were reasonable health implications of job stress on academic staff of the institution such as headache (migraine), sleep disorders, back and neck pains, constant muscle tension, weight loss or gain, physical fatigue, lower immunity to colds and viruses, hypertension and heart problems. these health implications on academic staff may be due to excessive work-loads, poor and unhealthy working environment and conditions which academic staff of tertiary institutions are subjected to throughout their duration in the service. this is so because ordinarily, academic work and its environment required high precision, speed and accuracy. thus, in an attempt to maintain an optimal level on these characteristics, the body system loses normal homeostasis (equilibrium) for good health. secondly, it could be attributed to the fact that majority of the respondents are likely to work throughout their life without a leave. this is because the institutions run various programmes at different time of the year such as the regular programmes, sand-witch programmes, summer semesters and many others. furthermore, the result reveals that there is significant difference in the health implications of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions based on institutional ownership. the result has a strong relationship with the finding of oghenetega (2014), whose studied comparative job stress among teaching staff of library and information science department, university of ibadan, which revealed that there is significant difference in the health implications of job stress among the federal, state and privately owned tertiary institutions. based on the finding of this study, federal owned institutions have more strict standards or policies, enabling working environments and conditions than state owned institutions. the finding also reveals that there is no significant difference in the health implication of work-related stress between male and female academic staff of tertiary institutions. this result is consistent with this result of archibong, bassey and effiom (2010), which indicated that there is no significant difference in the health problem of occupational stress between male and female academic staff in cross-river university of technology. the result of this study also corresponded with the finding of purvanova and muros (2010), who studied gender differences in burnout: a meta-analysis, which revealed that male and female (teaching employees) experience equal health implications of job stress in higher institutions. also, the finding of omoniyi and ogunsanmi (2012), who studied stress among academic staff in south-west, nigeria, revealed that hazards of work-related stress between male and female lecturers in south-west, nigeria did not have significant difference is also consisted with the finding of this study. the finding follows after the finding of adebiyi (2013), whose study on occupational stress among academic staff of ekiti state, university, ado-ekiti, nigeria, showed that there is no significant difference in the health problems of job stress between male and female academic staff in ekiti state university. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 60 published by scholink inc. although, the finding of adeoye (2002), who studied correlates of job stress among female academics at the university of ilorin, is not in line with this finding. it shows that there is significant difference in the health implications of job stress between male and female university academic staff. this research suggests that the equality found in this result based on gender can be explained based on the tertiary institution’s ability to employ young female staff with a zeal to deliver and make changes in the present generation. additionally, the subjects opined that both sexes are exposed to the same working environment and conditions despite their gender differences. 7. conclusions based on the results of this study, the authors of this article reached the following conclusions: 1) academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state generally are exposed to health implications of work-related stress due to the nature of their job. the tertiary institutions run both regular and irregular academic programmes yearly—none stop, which further complicates the condition. 2) academic staff of state owned tertiary institutions in katsina state are more exposed to health implications than those from federal owned tertiary institutions. this can be attributed to a number of reasons, including bettering working atmosphere and conducive working conditions found in the federaland private-owned tertiary institutions compared to the state-owned tertiary institutions in the study area. 3) both male and female academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state experience the same health implications of work-related stress irrespective of their gender. further research that will focus on closely examining work-related stress factors and gender may reveal different results. but only such research 8. policy recommendations based on the findings of this study, the authors of this article offer the following recommendations with a view to ameliorate or address the conditions of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state: 1) academic unions such as academic staff union of universities (asuu), academic staff union of polytechnics (asup) and colleges of education academic staff union (coeasu), national university commission (nuc) and national commission for colleges of education (ncce) should collaborate to carry out supervision from time-to-time in tertiary institutions so as to evaluate the standards guiding tertiary institutions in katsina state and the country at large. 2) for better outcomes, it is necessary for the state government to improve on the working environment and conditions of academic staff to be health-friendly and health-enhancing conditions for achieving academic excellence and productivity in the state. this policy recommendation is not limited to the state-owned institutions of higher learning but could be extended to the federal and private institutions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 61 published by scholink inc. 3) academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state should exert their agency by remaining steadfast on pursuing their rights and advancing their welfare. this can be achieved through concerted efforts and collectively bargaining as members of academic staff union. more so, the union leaders should refrain from engaging in dirty politics that would disunite the leadership and give room for their continuous exploitation by the institution authorities. in addition, the academic staff union leadership may consult, network, and collaborate with their federal and private counterparts to identify areas of needs and possible intervention. 4) although, findings of this research do not find any significant difference between male and female academic staff in terms of work-related stress, it is highly recommended that health-oriented preferential treatment be given to female academic staff of tertiary institutions in katsina state. these may include maternity leave and adoption of baby-friendly breastfeeding centers for pregnant staff, nursing mothers, and their babies’ healthy living. references adebiyi, d. r. (2013). occupational stress among academic staff of ekiti state university, ado-ekiti, nigeria. european scientific journal, 9(4), 202-208. adeoye, e. a. (2002). correlates of job stress among female academics at the university of ilorin. the nigerian journal for guidance and counseling, 4(2), 126-139. ajayi, i. a., awosusi, o. o., arogundade, b. b., & ekundayo, h. t. (2011). work environment as correlate of academic staff job performance in south west nigerian universities. european journal of education studies, 3(1), 1-9. archibong, i. a., bassey, a. o., & effiom, d. o. (2010). occupational stress sources among university academic staff. european journal of educational studies, 2(3), 166-178. atsua, g. (2014). sources, consequences and moderators of occupational stress among university academic staff: a case study of university of maiduguri, borno state. retrieved july 29th, 2015, from http://www.academia.edu auerbach, s., & grambling, s. e. 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(2002). the academic work environment in australian universities: a motivating place to work? higher education research and development, 21(3), 241-258. https://doi.org/10.1080/0729436022000020751 yusoff, r. m., & khan, f. (2013). stress and burnout in the higher education sector in pakistan: a systematic review of literature. research journal of recent sciences, 2, 90-98. doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p52 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p52 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 85 addressing the risk factors contributing to high covid-19 infection rates in africa amb. john o. kakonge, ph.d.1* 1 president of the association of former international civil servants, kenya * amb. john o. kakonge, president of the association of former international civil servants, kenya received: october 25, 2020 accepted: november 7, 2020 online published: november 21, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n4p85 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n4p85 abstract this article argues that, to contain covid-19 in africa, a number of risk factors must be more seriously addressed in the fight against the disease, namely, understanding the interrelationships between population density and mass gatherings, sanitation and contaminated water, poverty, climate change, insufficient disease-tracking data, leadership style and ability, and corruption. all the above factors are intertwined and they need to be addressed in a holistic manner if the continent is to contain not only covid-19, but also future pandemics. regardless of other factors, as can already be seen from the experience of countries such as new zealand, strong leadership will be critical to addressing the identified risks. keywords covid-19, africa, infection rates, poverty, sanitation, corruption, leadership 1. introduction since covid-19 was first detected in december 2019 in wuhan province in china, it has spread to almost 190 countries in all regions of the world. during the last six months, the approaches to containing the covid-19 pandemic have varied from one country to another. this article explores some of the risk factors which have enabled the spread of the novel coronavirus in africa, namely, population density and mass gatherings, sanitation and contaminated water, poverty, climate change, insufficient data, the role of political leadership, and corruption. 2. risk factors 2.1 population density and mass gatherings it was thought initially that covid-19 infections would be more concentrated in densely populated www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 86 published by scholink inc. areas of the world. this, however, has not always been the case. while some analysts, such as barr and tassier (2020), argue that putting too much emphasis on urban density is a mistake, others insist on this correlation. thus, žmuk and jošić (2020), in their study of covid-19 infection in 209 countries, conclude that, in some regions of italy, france and the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, there is a correlation between population density and the spread of covid-19. similarly, some studies of the spread of higher infection rates in major us cities, compared with outlying residential areas, indicate a relationship with congested subways in cities like new york. however, hamidi et al. (2020) find that in many densely populated areas, especially major cities like new york, los angeles and chicago, higher infection rates have not occurred. in fact, according to hamidi et al. (2020), the death rates are lower in densely populated counties than in less densely populated counties. they contend that densely populated counties in the usa have greater access to healthcare facilities and social distancing interventions are better managed (hamidi et al., 2020). a further contributing factor to the apparent anomaly, as noted by florida (2020), could be that small communities and towns in the usa are often characterised by a higher proportion of nursing homes, institutions whose residents are more susceptible to the virus due to their age and health. the correlation between population density and covid-19 infection rates has been much clearer in developing countries. for example, bagcchi (2020) notes that the american findings contradict those of india and other developing countries. in india, the highest mortality rates have been in densely populated slums of the major cities of mumbai, delhi and chennai, and not in the small urban centres. florida (2020) confirms that this applies also in africa, where infection rates are higher in densely populated countries, including algeria, egypt, ethiopia, morocco and nigeria, and in certain metropolitan centres, such as abidjan, cairo, johannesburg, kinshasa and lagos, but notes that, as population densities in africa are lower than in other parts of the world, the incidence of covid-19 is also lower. this is the case in kenya. ayah (2020) notes that the densely populated cities of nairobi and mombasa have had the highest mortality rates in kenya since the covid-19 outbreak. within those cities, the worst affected areas are the overcrowded slums. this also is the case in the informal settlements (townships) of south africa. mass gatherings of people, including religious services, weddings and funerals, political gatherings and open markets, attract greater risks of coronavirus transmission. an exemplary handling of containing such transmission comes from the republic of korea, where the government demanded that the shincheonji church turn over its full membership list to enable the ministry of health to screen the worshippers for covid-19. all the members identified as positive were ordered to self-isolate. in the city of daegu, everyone was tested for the virus and individuals with the most serious cases of covid-19 were hospitalized, while those with milder cases were checked into isolation centres (thompson, 2020). thompson confirmed that the initial korean outbreak was contained within one www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 87 published by scholink inc. month. an example of poor management of potential transmission is a biotechnology leadership conference held in boston, usa, in february 2020, attended by 175 executives from all over the world (aschwanden, 2020). during the two days, participants shook hands, did not maintain social distancing protocols, and shared meals. thereafter, a number of people were infected with covid-19 (aschwanden, 2020). similar examples abound and make it clear that proper protocols as recommended by the world health organization (who) should be respected. in should be remembered that who (2015) recommends that whenever there are disease outbreaks in crowded areas, the responsible governments should address the problem through the use of risk assessment approaches. 2.2 sanitation and contaminated water another contributing factor to covid-19 infection rates is provided by polluted water, poor hygiene, and lack of sanitation. before covid-19, regular hand-washing practices were not observed by many people, especially in rural areas and urban slums in africa and other developing countries. most poor neighbourhoods within major cities in developing countries lack clean water and adequate sanitation. people cannot afford to wash their hands regularly and, in most cases, they share toilets and washing areas, which are environmentally sub-standard. poor hygiene increases the risk of contracting gastroenteritis, food poisoning, hepatitis a, influenza, the common cold, giardiasis, roundworm and threadworm. in short, improved sanitation could help many slum dwellers to avoid the possible risks associated with poor hygiene and polluted water and provide access to running water to enable regular hand-washing. the importance of hygiene and the need for water has increased since the outbreak of covid-19. for example, since march 2020, ngos, charity organizations and the county government of nairobi have been helping slum communities with clean potable water. even so, yusuf (2020) describes a slum where a landslide destroyed the single water pipe, making frequent hand washing for coronavirus prevention a challenge. unfortunately, people living in informal settlements and slums of major cities in africa and elsewhere have little means to access affordable clean water. according to un news (2020), it is recommended that african governments and partners should provide subsidized water for the duration of the covid-19 crisis to people who are poverty stricken and those affected by economic hardship. 2.3 poverty most people who are classified as being of low socioeconomic status live in overcrowded conditions. crowded living conditions reduce compliance with social distancing requirements. poverty is one of the risk factors for lower respiratory tract infections. many poor people lack medical insurance and suffer from underlying illnesses such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 88 published by scholink inc. studies such as those in the usa indicate that poor and working poor americans are most vulnerable to covid-19 (rogers, 2020). this is because they work in jobs with high exposure risks, such as home health aides, grocery clerks, and housekeepers, which put them in close contact with the public. in africa, the poor are the ones who have been hardest hit by the pandemic. protests have occurred in some african countries. for example, in the sudan, people protested over the measures implemented to contain the spread of the coronavirus which left people with a choice between death by virus or death by starvation (ostergard, 2020). this was also the case in morocco. according to ostergard (2020), in impoverished south african townships, the government had to use the military and police to enforce pandemic policies. levison (2020) stated that by 22 june 2020, the cape town area, the country’s second-most populated city, was the epicentre of the covid-19 outbreak, with about 53% of the national cumulative cases, followed by gauteng (johannesburg and pretoria) at 21%. one of the lessons from covid-19 is that the south african government now plans to reduce the density of the poverty-stricken overcrowded informal settlements. nonetheless, for the proposed measures to work, they should be implemented with the support of communities in those areas. 2.4 climate change there is a direct relationship between climate change and coronavirus infections. for instance, who (2015) maintains that climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health, namely clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter. lustgarten (2020) argues that climate change is demolishing the natural defence systems that have kept many viruses away from people. climate change is also a factor in the catastrophic loss of biodiversity caused by reckless deforestation and aggressive conversion of wildland for economic development, which, in turn, is pushing farms and people closer to the wild and opening the doors for the spread of disease. in this context, climate change therefore affects disease transmission by shifting the vectors’ geographical range and by shortening the pathogens’ incubation period. the consequences of climate change can thus fuel the spread of the coronavirus. for example, it is the poorest people who have suffered the most loss and damage resulting from climate change, including coping with the coronavirus disease pandemic during the recent floods of the nile in the sudan. the two crises, floods and coronavirus, are interdependent. there are concerns also that changing climate will bring more viral disease outbreaks. on the other hand, some people contend that although outbreaks of viral diseases may become more frequent, science may well be in a better position to deal with them (kingsland, 2020). according to lone and ahmad (2020), the high burden of infectious diseases and the arrival of the winter flu season in southern africa were some of the major factors which rendered the continent particularly vulnerable to the pandemic. they further point out that non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular conditions, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes, are common in africa and these conditions, in turn, compromise the body’s immune system and affect the severity of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 89 published by scholink inc. effects of covid-19. indeed, the majority of covid-19 infections in africa and other developing countries are found in combination with the above diseases. onyango (2020) holds that the evidence linking covid-19 to climate change is still in the initial stages, but there is consensus that respiratory viruses such as influenza are influenced by temperature and humidity and can survive longer at lower temperatures and low humidity. accordingly, it can be argued that climate change may influence the spread of a novel viral disease such as covid-19. regardless of the differing perspectives on the role of climate change and the spread of the coronavirus, covid-19 has taken the world by surprise and we should be prepared to face possible pandemics in the future that could be triggered by climate change (momaneh, 2020). 2.5 insufficient data for tracking covid-19 having credible data remains critical to the containment of covid-19. according to houreld and lewis (2020), a month after the coronavirus emerged in tanzania in april, president magufuli declared the country free of covid-19. since then, there has been no update or data on the spread of the disease in tanzania (houreld & lewis, 2020). inadequate data in many african countries make it difficult to determine the extent and impact of the disease. as explained by houreld and lewis (2020), some african governments do not wish to publicize the poor state of their health services or accept that they face epidemics. there is no question that sharing information has several advantages including for planning and management purposes, and mobilizing funding, among others. some governments have gone to great lengths to prevent information about the status of infections from becoming known, even if that has meant them missing out on donor funding (houreld & lewis, 2020). in africa, a lack of credible coronavirus data raises fears of a “silent epidemic” (houreld & lewis, 2020). bbc reporter ann soy, quoting the african union’s africa centres for disease control and prevention (africa cdc), confirmed that, as at 27 may 2020, in a continent of 1.3 billion people, only 1.3 million had been tested. based on the data available, it also appears that there are huge differences in actual cases of people affected by covid-19 and other determinants among african countries. for example, the majority of the tested and confirmed cases in eswatini, malawi, nigeria and south africa are people in their 30s (olamijuwon et al., 2020). moreover, a significant number of the people tested and confirmed positive in south africa are women, while more men have tested positive in nigeria and kenya. there is a lack of complete and quality registration and statistics, in particular on the causes of death of people. this is a big limitation for many african countries. many high-income countries can at least quantify the actual number of deaths from covid-19 (olamijuwon et al., 2020). african countries need to standardize and detail the data collected as part of their national covid-19 containment strategy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 90 published by scholink inc. 2.6 lack of leadership based on the available information, leadership style can pose another risk to the containment of covid-19. for example, some leaders have successfully taken in hand their country’s entire containment process, such as prime minister jacinda ardern of new zealand and chancellor angela merkel of germany. as the coronavirus disease spread all over africa, pierre nkurunziza, the late president of burundi, refused to apply lockdown and continued with business as usual. furthermore, he expelled the who representative and three experts on the subject. he insisted that the country would be spared through the christian faith (solomon, 2020). his sudden death just before the end of his presidency is widely attributed to covid-19, offering a salutary lesson to other covid-deniers. the tanzanian president decided to take a different approach, criticizing the public health experts and international community, thereby shutting off debate and discussion about the disease. in contrast, the africa countries that have made progress with covid-19 are the ones where the leaders have been proactive in instituting testing and contact tracing, such as ghana, kenya, senegal and south africa (solomon, 2020). in uganda, president museveni, echoing what his scientists had learned from dealing with ebola and aids, said that dealing with the most common means of transmission was the key and declared that everyone should wear masks in public as part of the fight against covid-19 (solomon, 2020). in the opinion of johnson-sirleaf (2020), credit should be given to some african women who have outdone themselves in fighting the coronavirus. for example, the mayor of freetown, yvonne aki-sawyer, has been mobilizing support across the city of freetown to deliver behaviour change messages, such as the importance of wearing masks for all citizens. in rwanda, clare akamanzi, working under the direct leadership of the president, has coordinated a massive ministry of health effort to combat the covid-19 pandemic through organized isolation centres, the sourcing of personal protective equipment (ppe) and testing kits, and by developing plans for the post-virus recovery of the economy (johnson-sirleaf, 2020). in short, there are a few things which african leaders could still do concerning covid-19: (a) during the current outbreak, african presidents or prime ministers should help to organize the national response and not leave citizens to struggle on their own. moreover, for government to respond adequately to the crisis, there should be clear guidance from the national leadership and the process should not be politicized as has happened in such countries as brazil, burundi, the usa, mexico, and tanzania, with unfortunate consequences. (b) ideally, african leaders should fight the covid-19 pandemic collectively rather than as individual countries. it is necessary for all stakeholders to join hands together in order to successfully fight the pandemic. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 91 published by scholink inc. 2.7 corruption since the covid-19 outbreak began in march 2020, a significant challenge faced by some african countries has been the procurement of high-quality ppe and other essential medical equipment at affordable prices. almost all african countries were unprepared for the pandemic, and there was competition among them and other countries, including those from europe, to procure ppe. given the financial challenges faced by most african countries, a number of their development partners and donors have come to their aid. unfortunately, the procurement of covid-19 medical supplies has been marred by corruption in many african countries. in particular, igunza (2020) notes that the kenya medical supplies authority (kemsa) misused us$ 7.8 million destined for the purchase of emergency ppe for hospitals and health workers throughout kenya. the kenya anti-corruption commission discovered that procurement laws had been broken by kemsa officials to award tenders to their friends or influential people. the investigation is ongoing, and chances are that those concerned will be arrested. every kenyan has condemned kemsa and the parent ministry of health for allowing the misappropriation of funds donated to fight covid-19. in fact, who (2020) has described corruption in the procurement of covid-19 ppe as unacceptable and likened it to murder (omboki, 2020). other examples include south africa, whose covid-19 response has also been marred by allegations of corruption surrounding its historic us$ 26 billion economic relief package (magome, 2020). president ramaphosa has launched an investigation targeting unscrupulous officials and private companies which have been involved in looting the government coffers. interestingly, ppe was being offered for sale at four times the regular price and sanitizers were being charged at us$ 5 for a half-litre bottle, almost twice the original price (magome, 2020). in zimbabwe, the heath minister was sacked in july for unlawfully procuring medical equipment valued at us$ 75 million (africa briefing, 2020). ministers have been implicated for embezzling covid-19 funds in malawi and the democratic republic of the congo (africa briefing, 2020). covid-19 scandals also have caused government officials to lose their jobs in botswana, somalia and uganda. allegations of mismanagement of covid-19 funds do not centre on africa only; other countries have also fallen foul in this regard, such as poland, whose health minister was forced to step down in august (africa briefing, 2020). the africa briefing (2020) article goes on to quote liz david-barrett of the university of sussex, who notes that “the difficult part about a crisis, is that it is much harder to differentiate corrupt behaviour from the results of genuine mistakes and rushed decisions”. whatever the case, the entrenched african culture will not change overnight, health crisis or no health crisis. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 92 published by scholink inc. 3. summary clearly, there are no simple solutions to tackling the risks discussed above that can exacerbate the spread and severity of covid-19. as noted, in some countries, residents of densely populated areas or cities appear to be at less risk from covid-19 than people living in less densely populated areas. this is not the case in africa, however. the report of the africa centres for strategic studies of april 2020 acknowledged that densely populated slums or informal settlements created conditions where coronavirus could spread quickly and undetected. african governments should, therefore, in the medium to long term, upgrade and modernize the slums in their major urban areas in order to prevent future pandemics. african governments should also consider de-urbanization, or at least encourage the expansion of smaller towns, especially in countries which have invested in devolution. very large crowds, such as those which gather in churches, political gatherings, open markets, weddings and funerals, create greater risks of transmission. the who (2015) recommends that all countries should use risk assessments and risk management to guide the planning and facilitation of mass gatherings. for now, large crowds should be avoided, or certainly discouraged, until african countries are able to contain covid-19. the issues of clean water and sanitation have been neglected across africa, particularly in the densely populated urban slums. as part of a sustainable response to covid-19, ndaw (2020) maintains that african governments should prioritize water supply, sanitation, and hygiene services. the lessons to date from covid-19 indicate that investment in the water and sanitation sector has been dismal. as regards poverty, rodriguez (2020) convincingly demonstrates the vicious circle created by disease outbreaks and poverty, resulting in a widespread decline in economic status which, in turn, leads to more disease and more poverty. epidemics worsen inequality and this, in turn, raises the cost of living, making it difficult for ordinary people to survive. climate change has been identified as a “pandemic enabler, a pandemic accelerant and a multi-pathway crisis engine” (cadham, 2020). therefore, countries should invest in the mitigation of climate change. another factor further exacerbating the risks of covid-19 is the lack of data and information on the virus and its transmission pathways. an enormous amount of research undoubtedly has been undertaken on the novel coronavirus, but unfortunately this lacks consistency across different african countries, greatly limiting its usefulness (henderson, 2020). moreover, as vestal (2020) notes, in some countries where very little testing is available, few cases are reported. consequently, this may make people believe that they are not at risk, when in fact they are. the director of the africa cdc, john nkengasong, warns that, even with good intentions, collecting quality data from african countries is not easy because experts are already stretched so thin; when this constraint is compounded by the additional burden imposed by covid-19, their task becomes even more difficult. much still remains unknown about this pandemic. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 93 published by scholink inc. by and large, the pandemic has shown that africa is able to solve its own problems. the region has resolved to produce its own ppe and other related medical supplies, rather than remain dependent on outside sources. according to devermont (2020), many of the region’s leaders have listened to their health professionals, communicated effectively and frequently with their public, and drawn on best practices from the campaigns against ebola, hiv/aids and tuberculosis. the covid-19 pandemic provides an opportunity for african countries to strengthen their anti-corruption programmes and to integrate them into the fibre of society as part of improving governance effectiveness. this, in turn, will ensure that the limited funds are not stolen or misused. in short, all these risks are intertwined, and they need to be addressed together in a holistic manner with regard not just to covid-19, but also to future pandemics. africa has been lucky so far: many experts, including the bbc news reporter andrew harding, had predicted that by now many people in africa would have died from covid-19. this has not been the case. lessons from europe, the americas and other regions indicate that there is a need for regionally coordinated strategies that are highly responsive to the specific requirements of individual nations. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and not necessarily associated with afics-kenya. references africa briefing. 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(unpublished paper). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 54 original paper a study on the video communication strategies of the ―china-russia headlines‖ account on vk platform from the perspective of framing theory youyou lin 1 1 department of russian, school of foreign languages and cultures, communication university of china, beijing, china received: july 14, 2025 accepted: july 29, 2025 online published: august 14, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p54 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p54 abstract as the global landscape undergoes profound changes, it is urgent to reconstruct the international communication structure. in recent years, china-russia relations have continued to improve, and the need to enhance the cultural export mechanism has become increasingly apparent. vkontakte, a major russian local social media platform, plays a significant role in communication with russian audiences. this study examines the top vk account china-russia headlines (crh) and applies zang’s three-tier framing theory to analyze its communication strategies. the findings reveal that the framing features include diverse subjects, authoritative sources, and a mainstream narrative tone at the macro level; the narratives tend to be conservative, structurally uniform, and short in length at the meso level; the discourse is rhetorically rich with prominent chinese cultural symbols at the micro level. however, the account still faces challenges such as significant variations in view counts and limited audience interaction. to enhance the efficacy of china’s international communication, this study proposes prioritizing audience-relevant content, integrating multidisciplinary themes, diversifying presentation formats, and fostering multi-stakeholder collaboration. keywords china-russia headlines, framing theory, new media platform, cross-cultural communication www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 55 published by scholink inc. on may 31, 2021, chinese president xi emphasized during the 30th collective study session of the political bureau of the cpc central committee that telling china‘s stories well, spreading china‘s voice, and presenting a real, three-dimensional, and comprehensive image of china are crucial tasks for enhancing the country‘s international communication capabilities. in the current era of rapidly developing new media technologies and increasingly intense international public opinion, it is of great significance to build influential and communicative new media platforms to vividly present chinese culture and enhance the national image within cross-cultural contexts. as early as 2017, the ―china-russia headlines: important news‖ account (hereinafter referred to as ―china-russia headlines (crh)‖) was launched on russia‘s vkontakte (vk) platform, co-developed by china media group (cmg) and the international news agency russia today (rt). with over 700,000 followers, it ranks among the top tier of chinese cultural outreach efforts in russia. it has become an important medium for russian audiences to hear china‘s voice and a model of cross-cultural communication practices by china‘s mainstream media on foreign social platforms. 1. research background the friendly relations between china and russia have a deep historical foundation, and close exchanges between the two countries have become an inevitable trend under the wave of globalization. as the largest country along the belt and road initiative, russia actively responds to the vision of a ―community with a shared future for humanity‖. in recent years, with the deepening of china-russia relations, bilateral interactions in the political and economic spheres have grown increasingly frequent. cultural cooperation has reached new heights, marked by initiatives such as the ―year of china-russia scientific and technological innovation‖, the ―year of china-russia media exchange‖, and the ―year of china-russia cultural exchange‖. against this backdrop, the russian public has shown growing interest in the profound and time-honored chinese culture, and the reach and influence of china‘s cultural communication with russia have steadily expanded. social media helps enhance the sense of affinity and identification in international communication, extend its coverage, and improve a country‘s global image, making it an essential arena for cross-cultural communication (luan, 2012). with the advent of 5g networks and the ai era, the rise of new media platforms has brought new opportunities for china-russia cultural exchange. according to a 2023 survey conducted by the all-russia public opinion research center, russian citizens spend an average of 4.5 hours per day browsing social media, with vk platform usage leading all platforms at an average of 129 minutes per day. notably, 77% of users prefer subscribing to news content (moscow, 2023). vk, established in 2006, has users mainly from russia, belarus, kazakhstan, and other countries. it is the largest tech company in russia in terms of user base, with more than 95% of russian internet users registered on the platform. as of february 2025, similarweb data shows that vk attracts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 56 published by scholink inc. around 100 million monthly visits, making it the largest social network in europe (similarweb, 2025). according to mediaskope, vk surpassed youtube in monthly coverage in russia by december 2024 (vkco, 2024). therefore, russia has fertile ground for new media-based cultural communication. the crh account on vk is based on a mobile multimedia application jointly developed by china and russia in 2017 and co-operated by china media group and rt (people‘s daily online, 2017). this platform symbolizes the cooperation between chinese and russian mainstream media in the new media era. to promote mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples, it integrates resources from both countries to facilitate multidimensional and cooperative communication. as of march 1, 2025, the account had reached 717,000 followers and has become a crucial channel for disseminating china‘s voice in russia. in 1973, sociologist goffman proposed the concept of framing in his seminal work frame analysis. he argued that frames are cognitive structures people use to perceive and interpret the external world. individuals rely on specific frameworks to organize, generalize, and explain their lived experiences (xiao, 2010). in the field of communication studies, taiwanese scholar zang further localized goffman‘s framework theory by proposing a three-tier framing model, suggesting that the communication process can be analyzed through macro-, meso-, and micro-level frames. the macro-level frame refers to the definition and construction of core themes or events. the meso-level frame focuses on narrative structure and format, including strategies such as storytelling structure, narrative genre, attitudinal stance, and frequency. the micro-level frame involves language and symbolic usage, including rhetorical devices, stylistic features, and textual techniques. the crh account has been operating on russia‘s vk platform for over a decade, gradually forming a relatively stable pattern of cultural communication. therefore, zang‘s three-tier framework provides a useful analytical lens for understanding how chinese imagery is constructed and communicated through its videos. this study applies the framework theory to analyze the video content posted by the account, identifying framing strategies across three levels to explore its overall video communication logic and effectiveness. 2. materials and methods the crh account publishes content in various formats, including videos, articles, and images, featuring both short-form videos and livestreams. as of march 1, 2025, the account had posted over 8,000 videos and more than 1,300 articles. given the dominant role of video content, analyzing its structure and communication effect can shed light on the effectiveness of china‘s mainstream media in cross-cultural communication with russia. this study focuses on videos published by the account on vk between january 1, 2024, and february 20, 2025. a total of 1,039 valid video samples were collected via web scraping. each sample was analyzed for its title, theme, duration, and view count. to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 57 published by scholink inc. better explore the account‘s framing strategies and cross-cultural communication mechanisms, this study uses zang‘s three-tier framework model, applying methods such as word frequency analysis, categorical coding, and data processing to examine the video content across macro, meso, and micro levels. 3. results 3.1 macro-level framing macro-level framing primarily manifests in the definition of the event‘s central theme and the thematic presentation within news coverage. such framing exerts a maximal influence on the audience‘s perception of the reporting subject. this study selects video themes, video sources, and video tonality as the focal points for analysis, thereby examining the portrayal of china at a macro-level frame. 3.1.1 video themes: emphasis on soft communication according to van dijk, every linguistic text structure contains a salient theme. the theme constitutes the core of the news, determining its central message, selection of materials, and language use. hence, this paper chooses theme analysis as the entry point for framing analysis. the 1,039 video samples were categorized into nine major thematic domains, ranked by their proportion as follows: culture, tourism, society, diplomacy, politics, technology, economy, environment, and cuisine. within each domain, specific event clusters can be further identified. figure 1. video themes the results reveal that tourism and culture dominate in terms of quantity and length, accounting for 36.4% (378 videos) and 18.3% (190 videos) of the total sample, respectively. these two themes contribute to the ―softening‖ of previously rigid and stereotypical images by presenting content characterized by affinity, vitality, and novelty. they comprehensively showcase tourism resources and portray cultural features from multiple perspectives, emphasizing emotional resonance and everyday www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 58 published by scholink inc. relevance. this approach achieves an effective ―soft communication‖ narrative that tells china‘s story in a relatable and engaging manner. besides, it shows that the tourism category constitutes the main content of the crh videos. this segment primarily shares videos of natural landscapes, highlighting diverse regional scenery and folk customs across china. unlike russia‘s predominantly continental climate, china‘s geographic configuration exhibits a more varied combination of climatic and geomorphological features, ranging from harbin in northeast china to subtropical coastal areas, from the glaciers and permafrost of the qinghai-tibet plateau to expansive coastal plains. china‘s rich and unique natural resources attract russian audiences. moreover, the channel synchronizes natural scenery presentations with the current season, including peonies blooming in spring, fish playing among lotus leaves in summer, bountiful harvests in autumn, and frost and rime in winter, eliciting emotional resonance among viewers. the culture theme centers on china‘s traditional cultural heritage, highlighting national characteristics and sharing cultural achievements. it encompasses over twenty types of traditional cultural treasures, including chinese painting, paper-cutting, traditional craftsmanship, martial arts, ancient poetry, folk festivals, dance, and opera, showcasing the unique charm of folk arts. beyond traditional cultural subjects, the videos also feature developments in contemporary chinese popular culture. additionally, eighteen videos illustrate cultural exchanges and integration between china and foreign countries, reflecting the inclusive spirit of contemporary china. table 1. “tourism” and “culture” categories and event clusters category construction content type video title tourism seasonal landscapes the great wall in colorful autumn attire water landscapes hukou waterfall: streams and rainbows wildlife ecology sichuan welcomes wintering swans hidden wonders majestic danxia landform of xinjiang grand canyon photographic perspectives time-lapse captures the moment water lilies bloom urban architecture phoenix light spectacle in xi’an’s night sky culture intangible heritage paper cutting: a millennia-old chinese art stage performance tibetan tap dance festival celebration china central television spring festival gala tradition meets modernity musician plays modern songs on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 59 published by scholink inc. ancient chime bells museum restoration preserving history: the art of restoration classical poetry immortal verses: the poems of du fu 3.1.2 video sources: predominance of official media reposts video sources, defined as the entities responsible for video creation, significantly influence the selection of content and stylistic orientation, thereby shaping the overall tone of the videos. analysis of the 1,039 video samples reveals three primary categories of sources. first, approximately 70% of the videos are reposted from official media outlets, including central media organizations such as cgtn russian channel, cmg local headquarters, and cctv news. this official sourcing ensures that the crh platform disseminates the most representative chinese voices on overseas media platforms. notably, cgtn russian channel targets russian-speaking audiences with videos featuring russian language narration, russian-speaking anchors, or russian participants. second, a portion of the videos originates from new media accounts, supplementing the official media content. these are mainly reposted from platforms such as lizhi video, farmer channel, and pear video, offering more flexible and diverse content presentation that highlights natural landscapes or aspects of everyday cultural life. third, a small number of videos are self-produced by the crh project itself. these videos employ a data journalism format to present china‘s development status by combining russian-language data visualizations, explanatory texts, and video imagery, achieving precise point-to-point communication effectiveness. a comprehensive analysis of these three video sources indicates that the crh video samples combine macro-level positioning with targeted dissemination. compared to official media, new media and self-produced videos tend to be more engaging and entertaining; relative to new media, official and self-produced videos are more closely aligned with russian audience preferences. comparative data further shows that self-produced videos, which balance both engagement and audience relevance, generally achieve higher view counts. 3.1.3 video tonality: focus on mainstream narratives articulating the mainstream narrative on overseas media platforms to showcase a refreshed image to broad international audiences constitutes a crucial content tone in global communication. economic development, political dialogue, diplomatic interactions, technological innovation, and environmental protection form the core components of the crh video series, playing a foundational role in shaping china‘s international image, conveying its official positions, and presenting its national identity. the results reveal that videos with a primary focus on political and diplomatic themes demonstrate notable dissemination effectiveness within russian audiences. for example, highly viewed samples include www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 60 published by scholink inc. ―general secretary calls for a fair world of common development at the g20‖ (views: 1,247,819), ―maria zakharova‘s memories of china‖ (views: 1,187,802), ―xi jinping holds talks with peruvian president‖ (views: 1,129,996), ―xi jinping meets putin‖ (views: 416,155), and ―promoting the ‗shanghai spirit‘: actions of the sco‖ (views: 109,518), all ranking among the top ten by viewership. russian audiences not only pay close attention to sino-russian bilateral relations but also show strong interest in china‘s performance on the international stage, with forums such as the g20 summit and the shanghai cooperation organization (sco) receiving widespread attention. further thematic analysis reveals distinct focal points that collectively compose a contemporary panorama of china‘s development. under the environmental theme, emphasis is placed on eastern wisdom regarding harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, showcasing china‘s responsible leadership role in global environmental governance. the economic theme highlights regional economic development as a microcosm, illustrating china‘s high-quality economic growth in the new era and underscoring china‘s powerful momentum as a global engine for sustainable development. the technological theme accentuates the empowerment of traditional industries through new productive forces, demonstrating china‘s efforts to build a globally leading technological industrial chain. the political theme presents the practice of whole-process people‘s democracy, articulating china‘s model of modern political civilization. the diplomatic theme emphasizes the friendly bilateral relations between china and russia. it adopts the concept of a community with a shared future for humanity as a value orientation to address new challenges in the era of globalization. figure 2. mainstream discourse word cloud www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 61 published by scholink inc. 3.2 meso-level framing zang conceptualizes meso-level framing as the structural form of news events. it involves situating the thematic content of each news report within the broader framework of the event, thereby clarifying the comprehensive narrative strategies, including narrative techniques, structures, and genres. 3.2.1 narrative techniques: generally conservative, aligned with thematic style compared with textual content, video media offers more diverse narrative possibilities. the crh account adopts a hybrid approach by integrating multiple narrative techniques across visual presentation, sound design, video editing, and thematic expression. while videos under the same theme tend to share similar narrative styles, this study selects the most-viewed and representative video samples under six major themes, including tourism, culture, technology, society, politics, and diplomacy, for detailed analysis. the selected video samples are as follows: (1) a dragon-shaped tide in the qiantang river (в реке цяньтан приливная волна создала «дракона»); (2) russian girls in intricate chinese paper-cut dresses: china‘s intangible cultural heritage (девушки из россии в резных бумажных нарядах из китая—нематериальное культурное наследие китая); (3) ai anchor alena-nana explores outer space (video by алена nana); (4) a 70-year-old chinese man rescues a drowning child in time (70-летний китаец оперативно спас ребенка из воды)； (5) xi jinping calls for building a fair world of common development at the g20 summit (си цзиньпин на саммите g20 призвал к построению справедливого мира общего развития); (6) maria zakharova shares her memories of life in china (мария захарова поделилась воспоминаниями о жизни в китае). these videos received 46,273; 136,143; 353,633; 40,240; 1,247,819; and 1,187,802 views, respectively. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 62 published by scholink inc. table 2. theme classification and narrative techniques theme category leisure-oriented themes formal themes tourism culture technology society politics diplomacy visual representation color tone warm tone chinese red aerospace blue news tone news tone news tone scenery shot aerial long shot wide + close shot wide + close shot static camera static camera static camera composition rule of thirds symmetry rule of thirds rule of thirds center composition center composition voice design voice none none ai voice natural interview speaker speaker background music folk music folk music sci-fi music pop music none none sound effect dragon roar applause mechanical sound none none none video editing duration 15–30s 30–60s 1–2min 15–30s 30–60s 3min+ format vertical horizontal horizontal vertical vertical vertical editing frequency fast fast fast moderate moderate no editing text theme subtitle none none yes yes yes yes title none yes yes none none none annotation none yes yes none none none overall, the narrative techniques employed in the crh videos can be characterized as relatively conservative. in terms of post-production, the videos are generally short and feature rapid editing. this fast-paced narrative strategy facilitates efficient information delivery within a limited timeframe, enhances narrative engagement, and increases the dynamism of the content. in terms of visual language, the videos incorporate a variety of shot types, including panoramic, medium-close, and close-up shots. each serves a distinct function: panoramic shots offer intuitive visual overviews, medium-close shots capture scene details, and close-ups emphasize emotional expression. in terms of auditory language, the videos alternate between synchronous sound, voice-over narration, background music, and sound effects, thereby enhancing the visual impact and enriching the narrative layering. textual elements, such as russian-language titles, subtitles, and annotations, are relatively concise and serve to clarify video content and reinforce the overarching narrative themes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 63 published by scholink inc. moreover, to align with the stylistic demands of different thematic categories, the narrative techniques vary significantly across content types. entertainment-oriented content emphasizes sensory stimulation, while more serious themes prioritize informational efficiency, achieving a balance between communication effectiveness and audience experience. in videos related to tourism, culture, and technology, the narrative is characterized by vibrant color schemes, diverse camera angles, dynamic camera movements, pronounced background music, and rich sound effects conveying a lighthearted and lively tone. conversely, in videos dealing with social issues, politics, and diplomacy, audiences tend to prefer content that is clear, authoritative, and structurally coherent. these videos typically feature neutral color palettes, emphasize medium-close shots of key individuals, maintain orderly composition, present clear vocal narration, and avoid background sound effects. 3.2.2 narrative structure: coexistence of linear and nonlinear modes to stimulate audience engagement narrative modes of event reporting can be broadly categorized into linear and nonlinear structures. linear narratives typically follow a chronological sequence, including beginning, development, climax, and conclusion, and include forms such as progressive (step-by-step) narration and central-thread narration. for instance, the video ―a dragon-shaped tide in the qiantang river‖ employs a stepwise progressive structure, adhering to a temporal sequence to depict the flowing process of the tide, ultimately forming a dragon-shaped landform. in addition, ―all for the people: chinese leader draws inspiration from his father‖ exhibits a central-thread narrative, where memories of the father serve as the main axis, linking together childhood events and third-party commentary to construct a coherent storyline. in contrast, nonlinear narratives abandon strict chronological progression and instead utilize techniques such as flashbacks and interjections to piece together events. this fragmented narrative style expands the space for meaning-making and often manifests as looped, modular, or scattered structures. for example, ―a russian conductor‘s first experience playing the chinese bamboo flute‖ adopts a circular narrative: it begins and ends with scenes of flute playing, while inserting interview clips of the conductor in between, thereby creating strong recall points for the viewer. in ―boy studies sugar painting for 13 years‖, a modular narrative structure is applied by alternating between the creation of two sugar paintings (one brown and one blue), visually conveying each step of the traditional folk art in a more accessible way. scattered narrative structure breaks down spatial or temporal continuity, as seen in ―woman knocks on doors one by one after detecting fire‖, where the narrative switches back and forth between the early and advanced stages of the fire, between interior and exterior scenes, and between the perspectives of dense smoke and emergency escape, heightening narrative tension. in sum, the crh project flexibly adopts diverse narrative structures, selecting the form most appropriate for each video‘s thematic focus. these strategic choices help to quickly capture audience attention and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 64 published by scholink inc. elicit emotional resonance within the constraints of short-form video. table 3. representative narrative structures and samples narrative style representative sample stepwise progressive a dragon-shaped tide in the qiantang river central-thread all for the people: chinese leader draws inspiration from his father circular narrative a russian conductor‘s first experience playing the chinese bamboo flute modular narrative boy studies sugar painting for 13 years scattered narrative woman knocks on doors one by one after detecting fire 3.2.3 narrative length: dominated by short videos, capitalizing on the traffic dividends in the current media landscape, video content is generally categorized by length: short-form videos (< 5 minutes), medium-form (5-30 minutes), and long-form (30+minutes). audiences‘ comprehension and perception of news content vary with video duration. the results reveal that crh primarily utilizes short-form video to present china‘s image. among the total sample, there are 870 short videos, 152 medium-length videos, and 18 long videos. short videos predominantly cover engaging and culturally rich topics within the cultural and social domains. examples include ―girl playing with penguin‖ (девочка забавляется с пингвином) and ―chinese math teacher teaches students to dance‖ (китайский учитель математики учит учеников танцевать). this aligns with the broader global media ecosystem, where short-form content not only defines platforms like tiktok but also serves as a major traffic driver across various social media platforms. in the current streaming era, short videos offer a compelling means of conveying targeted messages within limited time frames, catering to audiences‘ fragmented entertainment needs. the crh account effectively capitalizes on the global short-video boom, leveraging platform algorithm mechanisms to capture traffic dividends. it emphasizes the production and distribution of short-form content with high interactivity and fragmentation, thereby opening new channels for outbound communication. these efforts contribute to establishing a stable stream of cultural dissemination, facilitating the international outreach of chinese culture via dynamic and accessible short video formats. 3.3 micro-level framing micro-level frames are primarily manifested through language and symbols, including syntactic structures, rhetorical devices, and discursive styles. these elements influence the audience‘s perception of news reports on a micro level and subtly shape their value orientations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 65 published by scholink inc. 3.3.1 video titles: skillful use of rhetorical strategies in news reporting, integrating journalistic writing with literary techniques, including blending factual accuracy with artistic expression, can enhance the expressiveness, emotional appeal, and interest of the news content (chen, p. & chen, q. h., 2022). as a literary device, rhetoric can communicate discursive intentions and improve communication effectiveness in news discourse. the crh account frequently employs rhetorical strategies such as quotation, rhetorical questions, metaphor, and exclamation in its video titles. examples include: ―i remember the beautiful moments on the tibetan plateau‖, ―why must one visit china this spring?‖, ―a hidden current forms a ‗dragon‘ in qiantan river‖, and ―a stunning painting!‖ appropriate rhetorical embellishments in titles can stimulate imagination, arouse curiosity, offer visual cues, and convey emotions, thus increasing click-through rates before viewing and enhancing memorability afterward, effectively contributing to external communication with russian audiences. 3.3.2 video content: effective use of chinese symbols symbols are perceptions that carry meaning and serve as key vehicles for conveying meaning in cross-cultural communication. according to saussure, a symbol is a composite of the signifier and the signified; the signifier being the perceptual form and the signified the abstract concept it represents. their interconnection forms the basis of a shared cultural understanding (saussure, 2017). based on this theory, this study summarizes and analyzes the symbolic system across 1,039 videos from the crh account. table 4. analysis of representative symbols of china symbol type representative symbols signified meaning natural symbols panda, penguin, dolphin, dove peace & friendship, harmonious coexistence tulip, cactus, lotus, magnolia beautiful symbolism, ecological protection regional symbols xinjiang, xizang, guangxi ethnic unity, pluralistic coexistence shanghai, hangzhou, beijing, chengdu modern metropolis, livable cities mount everest, changbai mountain, salt lake natural resources, tourism resources social symbols children, elderly, hearing-impaired social security, care for vulnerable groups doctors, migrant workers, police, professional dedication, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 66 published by scholink inc. teachers everyday heroes floods, torrential rains, earthquakes united as one, institutional superiority cultural symbols paper-cutting, traditional painting, peking opera, folk music cultural confidence, heritage preservation qingming festival, spring festival, ancient poetry cultural roots, traditional values great wall, old summer palace, forbidden city civilizational continuity, national spirit economic symbols drones, ai, electric vehicles technological innovation, high-quality development high-speed rail, made in china national brand, infrastructure strength poverty alleviation, rural modernization common prosperity, livelihood improvement political symbols ciie, brics, sco opening-up, major-country responsibility people's stability, deepening reforms, chinese wisdom civilizational dialogue, solution contributions the visual symbols presented in the videos strongly reflect the image of china. through specific symbols, viewers form associative concepts that collectively construct a modern chinese image characterized by vast natural landscapes, diverse regional features, harmonious communities, and a booming economy. the recurring use of such symbols reinforces these associated concepts, thus playing a crucial role in shaping russian audiences‘ perceptions of china. 4. discussion an analysis of the three-level narrative framework reveals that the crh account has established a relatively mature content publishing system. however, the video data still exhibits significant volatility and low engagement. first, view counts fluctuate widely, ranging from over 1,000 to over 1 million per video, an inconsistency considering the account‘s follower base of over 700,000. second, engagement rates remain low, with most videos receiving only a few or no comments, and the highest number of shares barely exceeding 20. further investigation reveals the following key issues in the dissemination of video content on the crh account: first, the themes covered are broad, and the account lacks clear positioning. although the account benefits from cmg‘s extensive media resources, this also results in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 67 published by scholink inc. content redundancy. notably, there is significant thematic overlap across videos, leading to viewer fatigue. for example, many re-posted videos from litchi video focus on floral time-lapse photography, which generally attracts low viewership. moreover, the variety of content formats, ranging from news commentary and aerial footage to personal interviews, makes it difficult to establish a consistent stylistic identity, hindering the account‘s ability to foster long-term viewer loyalty among russian audiences. second, the heavy reliance on official media sources has led to a singular narrative perspective, making it difficult to achieve cross-cultural resonance from the ―others‘‖ point of view. while the account plays a key role in mainstream narrative dissemination, its propagandistic tone may feel tedious. additionally, the videos are primarily in chinese. although cgtn russian and some self-produced content include russian subtitles, the prevalence of untranslated chinese text and spoken mandarin increases the cognitive barrier for russian viewers, further discouraging engagement. third, in terms of format, the account overwhelmingly prioritizes short videos, while midand long-form content is underrepresented. while short videos are compact and engaging, and have become a popular format in the digital era, they are insufficient to showcase china‘s rich history and cultural depth fully. this results in a loss of nuanced information. in terms of structure, the narratives remain relatively simplistic. scholars have noted a positive correlation between the number of journalistic elements and the completeness of a narrative (zang, 1999). moreover, much of the content consists of re-posted material, with limited original reporting. the account tends to focus on studio-based commentary, with a lack of deep-dive segments such as live reports, on-the-ground interviews, or street vox pops, all of which could enhance interactivity and authenticity. currently, the videos on crh are categorized clearly but tend to remain thematically isolated. some experimental segments have shown promising results. for example, the five videos featuring the ai-generated virtual host ―alyosha nana‖ all surpassed 15,000 views. building on this success, future content should explore thematic integration, using emerging ai technologies to breathe new life into traditional culture and create regionally tailored ips that appeal to russian audiences. content strategies should shift from quantity to quality by localizing narratives, avoiding direct content transfer, and instead customizing material for the russian market. for instance, with the recent surge in russian tourism to sanya, content could combine local scenic resources with regional cultural elements, simultaneously promoting tourism and cultural understanding. the current over-reliance on national media sources has led to a narrow thematic range. to address this, content production should draw from both mainstream chinese media and independent creators, while fostering bilateral institutional cooperation. collaboration between chinese and russian media, such as between chinese state outlets and russian platforms like rt or local influencers, could help blend the self-represented narrative with a receptive outsider‘s perspective. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 68 published by scholink inc. in addition, shared cultural values can help bridge emotional distances. currently, most videos focus on traditional topics that may feel removed from viewers‘ everyday lives. for example, ―how to make a lantern‖ is likely to be more engaging than simply showcasing ―lantern designs‖. interactive cultural events, livestreams, and topic-based campaigns should be introduced to make chinese culture ―come alive‖ in russian social spaces. moreover, video editing and translation should aim for clarity and familiarity, adding colloquial russian annotations and reducing excessive chinese-language content to lower entry barriers. videos with emotional appeal that resonate with russian values are particularly effective. given the shared values of mutual aid, patriotism, and selflessness between chinese and russian cultures, the account should publish more videos that showcase collective assistance and community spirit. emotional connectivity can build psychological bridges and drive resonance, amplifying the overall impact of cross-cultural communication. last, due to differences in language, history, and cultural background, china‘s cultural exports often face a ―cultural discount‖. this necessitates the development of content with greater depth in both form and substance. first, the account should produce long-form, well-planned videos that provide comprehensive, multi-angle portrayals of specific topics. this would enable systematic storytelling and more effectively present a holistic image of modern china to deepen russian audiences‘ understanding. second, content should incorporate modern cultural trends, such as rock music, historical dramas, or high-speed rail innovations and olympic achievements, to broaden the spectrum of cultural narratives. blending traditional and contemporary elements can help craft chinese stories that resonate with russian viewers. finally, thematic campaigns could be launched around specific timeframes or events. for example, the spring festival gala or the asian winter games, anchored in traditional festivals or international events, can serve as windows to showcase contemporary china through the interplay of past and present. 5. conclusions as one of the earliest accounts established under the initiative of china‘s cultural outreach to russia, crh presents the modernization of chinese society through a wide range of themes. it employs diverse narrative techniques and rhetorical strategies, integrating distinctive chinese symbols to attract the interest of russian audiences. drawing upon framing theory, this study finds that, rooted in its state media background, crh has become a key channel for official communication with russian audiences. although its content aligns with mainstream discourses, it often lacks proximity and audience relevance. while the account covers a broad array of topics, it also suffers from content homogenization. over the years, it has developed a stable narrative tone, relying on fast-paced, fragmented short videos to tell chinese stories, yet remains deficient in in-depth, high-quality productions. entertaining video titles and culturally symbolic visuals continue to draw in russian www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 69 published by scholink inc. viewers, but problems such as inadequate russian subtitles and translations persist. these issues reflect broader challenges in china‘s cross-cultural communication with russia. in the era of new media, international communication faces both unprecedented opportunities and complex challenges. promoting china‘s national image through cross-cultural dissemination on new media platforms requires integrating the state media‘s grand narratives with personal ―meta-narratives‖. this entails understanding audiences‘ basic emotional needs and producing content that is emotionally resonant, rich in form, and of high cultural value. enhancing the appeal and influence of chinese media accounts targeting russian audiences depends on continuously refining communication strategies, exploring innovative dissemination paths, and expanding the boundaries of international communication. only by doing so can china truly seize discursive power amid the profound global transformations of our time. references chen, p., & chen, q. h. (2022). rhetoric and principles of newspaper headlines. journal of news research, 13(03), 146-148. luan, y. m. (2012). social media: a new battlefield for international communication. media science and technology of china, (11), 19-21. moscow. (2023). social media and messengers: engagement and preferences. retrieved july 30, 2025, from https://wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/socialnye-seti-i-messendzhery-vovlechen nost-i-predpochtenija people‘s daily online. (2017, july 4). the launch ceremony of the “china-russia headlines” bilingual client was held in moscow. retrieved july 30, 2025, from http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0704/c1002-29381147.html saussure, f. d. (2017). course in general linguistics (g. gao, trans.). commercial press. (original work published 1916). (pp. 94-96). similarweb. (2025). vk.com website analysis for june 2025. retrieved july 30, 2025, from https://www.similarweb.com/website/vk.com/#traffic vkco. (2024). пресс-релиз по результатам за 1 кв. 2024. retrieved january 20, 2025, from https://vk.company/ru/press/releases/11757/ xiao, w. (2010). on erving goffman‘s framing theory. chinese journal of journalism & communication, 32(12), 30-36. zang, g. r. (1999). news media and information sources: a discourse on media framing and the construction of reality. san min book (p. 41). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 20 original paper humanity in the light of revolution—a study of evan king’s english translation of national patriotic writer xiao jun’s village in august xinyu liu1 & dan cui2* 1 graduate student of the school of advanced translation, jilin international studies university, changchun, jilin, china 2 postdoc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china; doc of literature, professor, dean of institute of international language and culture, leader of comparative literature and cross-culture discipline, jilin international studies university, changchun, jilin, china; doc supervisor of yanbian university, yanji, jilin, china * dan cui, correspondence author, e-mail: summerelephant@126.com received: july 20, 2022 accepted: july 31, 2022 online published: august 10, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n2p20 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n2p20 abstract as one of the pivot figures of “northeastern writers”, xiao jun’s village in august is of great importance in the history of modern chinese literature, highlighting the local characteristics of northeastern china, the revolutionary “banditry”, and the romantic personal heroism, attracting the attention of chinese and western critics. the translation by american sinology researcher evan king shows attention to chinese stories and makes a unique contribution to the cultural exchange between china and the west. his translation is noteworthy, but given the differences in cultural contexts between the two countries and the subjectivity of the translator, it is inevitably full of adaptation and mistranslation. therefore, it is necessary to make a comprehensive examination of the literary style of the original work, and then propose handy translation strategies and principles for the new era: under the translation principle of truthfulness and accuracy, when translating chinese culture, it is better to integrate both the foreignisation and domestication; when it comes to local culture, it is appropriate to apply various means to compensate for the cultural default given the specific situation and keep fidelity to the original text in the translation of the novel’s literary characteristics. keywords xiao jun, village in august, evan king, a study of the english translated version www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction xiao jun (1907-1988), the pseudonym of liu honglin, was born in linghai city, liaoning province. he began to write poetry after joining the cavalry in 1925. after the mukden incident in 1931, he formally became a writer and completed village in august in 1934, which was published by shanghai rongguang book company in 1935. like razgrom written by soviet writer alexander fadeyev, xiao’s book was also inspired by a team of guerrillas and describes battles among the squads of the northeast army of volunteers and various enemies. the english version of village in august was translated by robert spencer ward under the pen name of evan king, an american diplomat then in china. it was published in 1942, prefaced and recommended by the famous reporter edgar snow. in the preface to the translated book, snow described it as “a success from the moment it first appeared” and praised the translation as faithful and “sacrifices virtually nothing”. as the first modern chinese novel translated into english that received an enthusiastic response in america (lv, 2011, p. 80), village in august is noticed in both domestic and international scholarship. an examination of the widely-indexed database illustrates that so far 21 journal essays, 7 journal reviews, and 55 dissertations on xiao jun’s works (wang & wu, 2021, p. 188) have been published until recently. these researches focus on book reviews and literary studies. understanding china through books by alison b. alessios asserts “it recounts the lives of the chinese in manchuria during invasion” (1944), and retrieving the working body in modern chinese fiction: the question of the ethical in representation by jian xu comments “village in august exemplifies nationalist literature precisely” (2004), as well as historical and cultural studies (e.g., political allegory in the 1980s: xiao jun and bai hua by paul a. cohen states xiao jun’s writing life (2008) and demons in paradise: the chinese images of russia by t. a. hsia points out that this book has spoken for both patriotism and international communism (1963). but almost none of these articles specifically deal with the translation of xiao jun or his works, but rather take them as examples. translation studies on xiao jun are also exceedingly rare. in china, an examination of the popular index database cnki (chinese national knowledge infrastructure) illustrates the domestic studies of xiao jun are mainly related to xiao hong (another famous northeastern writer and xiao jun’s former wife) and “northeastern writers”. studies are concentrating on the resistance of his works (yang, 2016), biographical studies (ge, 2012), and literary criticism studies (zhang, 2016). however, fewer studies in the translation field have been conducted, with only two studies on translation published in 2021: wang yan and wu liping’s media-translatology study on the situation of xiao jun's works in the united states and jiang lei, li biyu, and liu di’s the translation and spread situations of the literary works of the “northeastern writers” in the english-speaking world, respectively examine the status of the collection, research status, and general interest in english translations of xiao jun’s works in the united states, as well as the translation and spread of the works of the “northeastern writers” in the english-speaking countries. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. the studies on translations of village in august also focus on media-translatology, respectively from the perspectives of the translation strategy of the english translation (lv, 2011)) and the circulation in the united states (zheng, 2019). so far, rare papers have been published to examine the quality of evan king’s translation from the perspective of culture and translation and make suggestions for improvement, especially regarding cultural differences and translator subjectivity. this paper reexamines the version of evan king’s english translation given culture and the unique literary features of xiao jun’s work, and then proposes solutions for reaching the translation goals in the new era, namely to emphasize both foreignisation and domestication with slightly stressing the strategy of domestication in translating chinese culture, to use various means of compensation in translating local features, and to be faithful to the original text in translating the unique literary characteristics of the novel. finally, it also shares some insights about translation teaching. 2. the unique literariness of village in august xiao jun’s village in august has distinctive local characteristics, highlighting northeastern regionalism and folklore, bandit-like individual heroism, romantic revolutionary character and humanitarianism, self-construction from the onlooker’s angle of view, etc. while translating a literary work, translators are supposed to convey the creative style and characteristics of the author to the target language readers as much as possible. 2.1 northeastern regionalism and folklore the characteristics of xiao jun and his works are closely related to the regionalism of northeast china and the folklore of his hometown. northeastern mandarin and local customs are commonly found in his writing, such as “kang” (“炕”, as the heatable brick bed in northeast china that can keep people warm in winter) and “laoge da” (“老疙瘩”, designating the youngest child of the family) etc. besides, the custom of widow re-marriage in northeast china is depicted through the representation of the union of li qi’s widow and tang laogeda, which has been well-accepted by the public even though they were not formally married. also, the prevalent “hu zi” (“胡子”, referring to a bandit in northeastern mandarin) culture in northeastern china before the liberation is common in xiao jun’s works. in village in august, both big liu and captain eagle had been bandits, and liu mentioned: “liu zi” (“绺子”) and “guazhu” (“挂注”) (xiao, 2005, p. 20), respectively designating “bandit” and “join the gang” in argot. 2.2 “banditry” and individual heroism xiao jun was born in xianianpangou village, shenjiatai town, linghai city of liaoning province, where the people were tough and admired force, and thus there was a distinct culture of being bandits. banditry in common sense is negative, generally referring to the gangster mentality, rogue spirit, and consumerism of bandits (lan, 1993, p. 66), but the “banditry” depicted in village in august is charged more than its original significance. its connotation is revolutionary and rebelling and it reveals xiao www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. jun’s individual heroism. first, the so-called “bandits” here are not real bandits, but a resistance-japanese volunteer force constituted by several former members of the northeast army and the people, whose composition can be roughly categorized as the regular army and police brigades, former military officers, integrated brigands, secret societies of peasants, intellectuals and young students. this huge force of up to 300,000 people was not acknowledged by the official government of that time, and thus its existence highlights the characteristics of the traditional form of banditry. with poor military discipline among the officers and soldiers as well as the ruggedness and simplicity of the peasants, this force is disorganized. xiao captures the rustic qualities of this army and portrays a vivid image of “bandits”. compared with the regular red army, the northeastern volunteer force is rough, and even though lacking in unified ideology and professional military discipline as guidance, their simple sense of resistance to invasion and oppression is invaluable. these “bandits” also have some advanced thinking, understanding the principle of “soldiers kill no soldiers, but officials”, and never robbing civilians; they use vulgar language and fight bravely against the enemy with a strong sense of resistance and simple armaments. although this army is short-lived, its historical achievements cannot be neglected (jiao, 2015, p. 37). as xiao jun (2005, p. 115) gave a positive comment: “we are the vanguard. we are the vanguard of the oppressed brethren. if we do not sacrifice, who will?” although they seem to be bandit groups, they are essentially full of will to resist and revolutionary spirit. the “banditry” of xiao jun is also connected to the “revolutionary” nature, and they are mutually dependent and inseparable. born into a family lacking maternal love, into a hometown with a traditional coarse spirit, and troubled times in general, xiao jun’s brave personality was inevitably cultivated (cheng, 2010, p. 118). with his mother’s premature death, his childhood hardships, and his ill-fated life, xiao jun possesses a strong motivation to become a “brigand”, and he considers “rebellion” as the only way for the grass-rooted to fight against their unjust life. such a longing makes xiao jun’s words often demonstrate the style of “banditry”, which profoundly delivers his stubborn and unyielding heroism and the rugged, impassioned, heroic tone of his works (xiao, 2011, p. 274). the bandits at his heart illustrate the glory of heroes like robin hood, the british national folk hero, with the heroic spirit of doing righteousness and justice. 2.3 romantic revolutionary character and humanitarianism the word “revolution” is repeated more than a hundred times in the source text, indicating its importance. in this case, “revolutionary character” refers to the spirit of resistance of the people of northeast china against the landowners, manchukuo, and the japanese imperialist aggression. in the source text, xiao jun (2005, p. 151)narrates in the tone of sun er, a peasant, and describes his plain understanding of revolution as “to kill all those stinkers who have been bullying us since the times of our ancestors; to drive away all the japanese soldiers now in the three northeastern provinces, and to workfields for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. ourselves. we will no longer grow food and pay rent to feed those stinkers who take all the benefits for granted, got it?” such patriotism and strong resistance showed in the revolutionary writing of xiao jun’s literary composition (chen, 2011, p. 33), arousing the local people’s consciousness to combat the aggressive ambition of japanese imperialism, inspiring the national people to resist japan’s ruthless invasion and aggression, and exposing the japanese conspiracy to falsify public opinion and establish a puppet regime of manchukuo. such spirit deserves praise because xiao jun is just like british romantic poets byron and shelley who call on the english suppressed populace to fight against the dictatorship of the english central government. if explored deeply into the essential quality and significance of such writing, it again illustrates the guiding power of literature. even john keats is both concerned about national politics by revealing the suppressive capitalism manipulated by the ruling and upper classes (shen & cui, 2022, pp. 1-14) and the national unity by depicting the geographical features (zhang & cui, 2022),even in his dream weaving narration (peng & cui, 2021, pp. 15-26). however, due to the lack of systematic guiding thoughts and leadership, this revolutionary character has its limitations. the northeast army of volunteers has difficulty understanding the deep philosophy of the chinese revolution, and lacks professional military training, thus leading to its fundamental failure. these problems are also evident in the cases like undisciplined performances of big liu, the lack of combating competence of the elderly cui changsheng and the child liang xing, and the incomplete understanding of the land revolution by xiao ming and the peasants. besides, xiao jun’s revolutionary spirit is also romantic. he avoids directly writing the violent and bloody scenes by depicting those fights in a way that preserves the space for imagination. “the evening wind blew coolly, a beautiful twilight. with a roar, an almost brutal roar, the long, limp snake was cast aside long ago in the scream of the mouthpiece. each wheel of the machine, still turning, was the end of destiny” (xiao, 2005, p. 36). such sentences depict the whole process of a battle from its outbreak to its end. in addition, the humanitarianism conveyed in village in august gives a hallmark of xiao jun’s writing. it is reflected in xiao jun’s portrayal of the helplessness of several characters while facing fate, as seen in plots like people’s nostalgia for their hometown and peace and the series of miserable depictions of li qi’s widow after being raped. when xiao jun wrote about the revolution, he also questioned its violence. this ambivalence is especially evident after the overthrow of the landowner on the issue proposed by himself in the title of chapter seven: “is it necessary to shoot them?” on one hand, this reflects xiao jun’s humanitarian spirit—his valuing and cherishing of human life and his affirmation of human values; on the other hand, given that xiao jun himself, as an intellectual and writer, has always possessed a sense of detachment from the chinese revolution, it is not unreasonable for him to lack profound comprehension of its necessity. as liu dong (2021, p. 165) points out, xiao jun wrote about the land reform in isolation from the political position of the revolutionary army. all in all, it is quite remarkable for him to eulogize the revolutionary spirit and humanitarianism simultaneously. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. 2.4 self-construction from the onlooker’s angle of view village in august does not adopt an omniscient narrative to describe the whole revolution but adopts a limited narrative perspective (liu, 2021, p. 167) to reveal the psychological activities of each figure in a way more intimate and specific. in addition to switching the perspectives of the narrative protagonists several times, this novel also shifts the narrative stand of the nation by inserting two important characters from other countries—taro matsubara, a japanese soldier, and anna, a korean girl—to view the war of resistance against japan respectively in view of the aggressor and people whose motherland has already been occupied. what we can read are the psychological activities of the new soldier, matsubara taro, especially his questioning of the meaning of war and the sovereignty of the japanese emperor—“what is the emperor after all?” (xiao, 2005, p. 75) his gradual abandonment of morality and rationality as a nameless soldier deeply involved in a meaningless war, his wife’s sympathy for the innocent chinese and japanese people (“don’t hurt chinese women there! it’s already tragic enough!” (xiao, 2005, p. 72)), and the constant inner conflicts between her revolutionary mission on behalf of his father and the love affairs deserve our attention. xiao jun differentiates japanese civilians from japanese militarism, and he sympathizes with all the struggling of the suppressed people. his extensive empathy for almost every character, his depiction of the dilemma that women and children are involved in this tragic defense for their primary survival, and his emphasis on the principle of “soldiers kill no soldiers, but officials” all bring his humanistic concern for the realm of international humanitarianism. 3. the merits and limitations of evan king’s translation of village in august village in august translated by evan king was published in 1942. as one of the earliest translations that aid to spread the truth of china to the western world, its pioneering significance is highly commendable. the translation version was well spread in the united states and was published four times, being housed by a total of 215 libraries from 47 states (zheng, 2019, p. 62).king’s translation is easy to read, and good at creating vivid images. his language is natural and authentic, sometimes even better than the author’s artistry, for “the chinese landscapes and characters portrayed by king are even more vivid than the original” (lv, 2011, p. 82). however, it is notable that king’s translation does not closely follow up with fidelity. wang shuhuai (2020, p. 930) proposes the concept of the “cultural refraction index (cri)” to examine the cultural fidelity of the target text (tt) to the source text (st), which is calculated by this formula: the total cultural value of the st divided by the total cultural value of the tt equates cri. this essay extracts 33 chinese characteristic expressions from village in august, including culture-loaded words, northeastern mandarin, vulgar language, etc. the cri of evan king’s translation is calculated to be about 2.06, which illustrates the existence of cultural distortion in his translation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. table 1.typical examples of cri in evan king’s translation examples translation sample cultural value of translation proportion in total samples culture-loaded words 织女星 (zhinvxing) weaving girl 0 45% northeastern mandarin 绺子 (liu zi) bandit 0.5 36% vulgar language 王八蛋 (wang ba dan) turtle eggs 0.5 18% the english translation version mainly adopts the domestication strategy that is common in western translators, with free translation and rewriting as the main techniques. free translation refers to adaptation, amplification, and omission according to the text and targeted readers’ acceptance (liu & yang, 2018, p. 111). rewriting was suggested by andre lefevere (1992, p. 2), referring to translators that are manipulated by various factors and therefore usually rewrite the text. evan king primarily freely translates and rewrites by reducing the fidelity of the original text, deleting secondary information, adjusting the narrative order, modifying the diction, and adding personal understanding, which leads to a large amount of loss, distortion, and even error in the translation of st’s culture and characteristics mentioned above. in terms of the northeastern regionalism and folklore, it is a pity that king made certain typical but general mistakes (usually appeared in the non-native speakers) in translating the northeastern mandarin, barely added annotations to culture-loaded words, and “westernized” the text to some extent. it also deserves our attention that in view of the bandit-like individual heroism, romantic revolutionary character and humanitarianism, king weakened the banditry and revolutionary nature while strengthened humanitarianism and he changed several expressions of the revolution featured with de-politicization. given self-construction from the onlooker’s angle of view, there is still certainly room for idealizing king’s translation version. 3.1 the translation of the culture of northeastern china in king’s translation, a great number of chinese cultural phenomena are mistranslated, omitted, or domesticated, especially the translation of the local culture featured northeastern characteristics. xiao jun’s works are based on the northeastern mandarin, among which the nicknames of characters are the most representative, and that is tricky for king to handle. for example, it is customary in northeast china to address people according to their family ranking in the generation, like “tang laogeda” was mistranslated by king as “boil tang” for he mistook the meaning of “laogeda” as “pimple”, which is supposed to mean “the youngest child of tang family”. such translation does not conform to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 27 published by scholink inc. handsome appearance of the tang laogeda and also fails to indicate the in-depth culture. still, “li qi’s widow”, whose name is based on her husband—li qi—the 7th brother in the li family, was mistranslated as “seventh married sister who was the widow li”, resulting in a factual error. there are also several mistranslations, such as “wen mang” (“文盲”) which means “illiterate” but was mistranslated into “blind”, “guoqule” (“过去了”), euphemized expression for “passed away” was mistranslated as “cross beyond”, and other similar mistakes such as “cangying” (“苍鹰”) was translated to “fly”, which is supposed to be “eagle” etc. in addition to the mistranslation, the translation hardly adds annotations for the culture-loaded words, but just literally translated or paraphrased them, resulting in losing some cultural phenomena of northeast china. for example, “hu zi” (“胡子”), the nickname for bandits in northeastern mandarin, was simply translated as “brigand” or “bandit”, and “kang” (“炕”) is translated as “brick bed”. both translations are without any further notes from the translator, thus causing a “vacuum of sense” in the readers’ comprehension of the text and preventing them from connecting the information with the real experience. hence, adding annotations properly is necessary for supplementing the context. moreover, in village in august, xiao jun is very discreet in writing about sexual issues given the cultural taboo and skates over them. however, the translator directly and creatively added a couple of sexual descriptions between tang laogeda and li qi’s widow as well as xiao ming and anna, catering to the cultural and reading habits of westerners, which makes the text obviously “westernized”. 3.2 the translation of banditry and individual heroism in the first part of the analysis, we can see that the main literary characteristics of village in august are banditry and revolutionary nature. the former is mostly reflected in the characters’ vulgar language, rude actions, and plain thoughts, while the latter is mainly reflected in the depiction of hatred toward the enemies, combat and revolutionary practices, and the critical development of ideas. both aspects are weakened in evan king’s translation. example 1: the original text: “为日本帝国主义作走狗的满洲军阀” king’s translation: “corrupt officials who are running dogs for the japanese” most of the characters in village in august once were peasants or bandits and are rarely educated, so their expression styles and ideas are not featured with vulgarity and patriarchy (liu, 2014, p. 225). offensive words as their pet phrases are commonly adopted in the novel. in chinese culture, it’s a convention to use the image of dogs to insult someone; while in western culture, such kind of connotation does not exist. copying the images of animals in chinese offensive words is likely to confuse readers. as a result, full charged emotion conveyed by this verse has been greatly limited given the information transmitting. likely, there are expressions including “ta ma de” (“他妈的” for condemning and humiliating) is translated as “his mother’s”, “wang ba dan” (“王八蛋” for insulting) as “turtle eggs”, and “niaozhong” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 28 published by scholink inc. (“尿种” for insulting the cowardness) as “seedofurine” etc. king translated these humiliating expressions without conforming to their exact meanings. the word-for-word translation seems to inherit the meaning of chinese expressions, but in fact, they only make the readers of the translated language confused, weakening the emotional transmission and cultural connotation. in literature, sometimes curses expressed by the characters reflect their psychological activities and emotional changes, showing the figures’ personalities (huang, 1998, p. 17). in this case, the meaning of the emotions carried by these words is far greater than retaining its original form of expression. the preferred communicative effect of the translated language is supposed to allow the target readers to understand the mood of the characters and immerse themselves in the story of the novel without barriers. therefore, this paper argues that vulgar words are supposed to be replaced by similar and existing expressions in tt, which can convey the tone and alleviate the sense of exotic strangeness of the whole work. 3.3 the translation of the revolutionary nature and humanitarian the translation adapted the revolutionary writing and added humanistic writing so that the revolutionary nature of village in august is also weakened. example 2: the original text: “你没听那位司令说吗？‘富人就是穷人身上的臭虫’，只有穷人，才是穷人的好 朋友！穷人才能帮助穷人！富人们总也没有好念头在穷人身上打算的。” king’s translation: “it’s not a question of whether they’re rich or poor, or whether they follow the rules of etiquette! the question is they betraying their people into the hands of a foreign conqueror who will make slaves of their sons and grandsons, or have they the strength and the courage to try to resist?” in example 2, evan king completely changed the author’s argument over the distinction between the rich and the poor. he does not think landlords’ wealth is gained through the exploitation of peasants, and in his translation, king stresses master wang is only guilty of being a traitor instead of an exploiter. there are two issues with the landlord—oppression against tenant farmers and collusion with invaders, while king just realizes part of them. his deletion of the discussion on the contradiction between the rich and the poor tends to narrow chinese suppressive people’s struggling resistance and rebelling revolution to subvert the “the three mountains” (as the metaphors for feudalism, imperialism, and bureaucrat capitalism)”, which thus to the certain point could not reveal the feudalism enough. the method of “de-politicization” was adopted in his translation to dilute the differences in ideologies (zheng, 2019, p. 64) and to blur the different national conditions between the tt and the st. besides, due to the cultural differences, western values generally tend to focus more on individuality and humanity than on collectivism and discipline-obeying. so, it is natural for king to add several sexual descriptions, psychological descriptions, linguistic descriptions, etc. into the translation. for example, due to the strong miss for li qi’ s widow, tang laogeda committed a disciplinary mistake leading to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. the delayed retreat of the entire team, eventually resulting in the death of all three people. chen zhu’s speech in memory of the dead was intended to be a reminder of the importance of discipline considering this lesson. but the translator misses the point. he strengthened the sympathy and understanding for the dead by deleting critical words like “mistake” and even added appreciative words—“they have died bravely for our cause. bury them bravely with no tears, no doubts.” (evan, 1942, p. 206) it is emphatically different from the warning tone of chen zhu, leading to the blurring of the importance of military discipline, which on the one hand further fleshes out the characters and their feelings, while on the other hand distracts readers’ attention from the original theme of the novel—revolutionary resistance. the translator further stresses humanitarianism based on xiao jun, highlighting the charm of the characters while reducing the presence of the revolutionary writing. 3.4 the translation of the onlooker’s perspective and foreign culture example 3: the original text: “在那本来还是少女爱娇的脸上，已经提早的便刻就了辛苦的纹痕！” king’s translation: “that face had once been that of a loved and petted daughter of a comfortable bourgeoise family, but bitterness had cut deep scars into it!” in writing foreign issues, king also made certain changes that lead to mistranslations of some contents. in example 3, he added the underlined phrase “a comfortable bourgeoisie family”, which is not yet evident in the original work. in the novel narrative, anna as the daughter of the leader of the revolutionary party in korea, came to china to propagate marxism to bring about a proletarian revolution to save her fallen homeland. evan king did not explain why he changed anna’s identity from proletariat to bourgeoise, but it is clear from the translator’s subjectivity that such retranslation is in line with the cultural context of his country and brings the target readers—western readers—closer to the text. nevertheless, it is at the expense of textual accuracy, especially the ethical stance of the text, which is costly. anna’s story is meant to represent a scenario of revolutionary parties all over the world helping each other, instead of cooperation among different classes. similarly, the names of japanese characters were mistranslated, including in chapter 5 the japanese soldier “matsubara” was changed into “sekimoto”, and his wife “yoshiko” to “akihayama”. in addition to the lack of background knowledge, this is also a translation technique implemented by king: imaginatively deconstructing and reconstructing eastern issues from a western perspective to enhance readers’“sense of familiarity” (ma & li, 2021, p. 111). by replacing japanese names that are more representative and suitable to the stereotypes, king stresses exoticism to meet the readers’ reading expectations. this same technique can also be observed in other typical cases: example 4: the original text: “李七嫂的血正如一缸腾热的豆汁，唐老疙疸的每一句话，正是卤水，这 会形成一种可怜的分解！” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. king’s translation: “tang’s return to her, and the nearness of him, had made seventh sister’s blood as hot in her bosom as steaming congee in an earthen jar.” here, soy milk and brine were replaced by “steaming congee in an earthen jar” in translation version. in the original text, xiao jun portrayed li qi’ s widow as she felt her blood went solidified just like drops of brine that was added into a tank of boiling soy milk while making tofu. however, such chemical-making process of tofu may be alien to westerners; hence king applied other typical chinese phenomena to convey similar meanings. however, the substitution reduces the sudden desperation of li qi’s widow after hearing tang’s words. after analyzing the translation, we found out that the translation has limitations of its time. although it has the pioneering significance of translating chinese novels and was well-received by english readers at that time, it sacrifices much of chinese cultural connotations, even resulting in the deviation of the informative issue of st. because of the translator’s western identity, his translation aims mainly at sharing other peoples’ wwii stories rather than purposely promoting chinese culture, and in his translation, he intentionally or unconsciously appropriates western thinking and culture, and even sometimes makes mistakes that are not aligned with historical facts. according to lefevere’s interpretation of rewriting, since china’s international status, discourse power, and cultural output were all not strong enough then with a comparison with the peer western, it would inevitably result in such translations that were dominated by domestication strategy and diverged from the original work, thus leading to the loss of the textual truth and content truth. 4. principles of translation for chinese works spreading abroad in the new era translators like evan king have made great contribution to transmitting chinese novels, as important pioneers, for which we extend our sincere gratitude. while this paper aims to encourage tospread true stories of china to the world through the reintroduction of chinese literature and under such a pure and primary target, we are supposed to adhere to principle of faithfulness to the st and historical facts and implement a combination of defamiliarization, foreignisation, and domestication to retain as much of the style of the works as possible while facilitating the understanding of the tt readers. 4.1 the general characteristics of village in august and translation of chinese culture translation of chinese works is supposed to organically integrate the two means of domestication and foreignisation. the former enables to achieve a fluent and natural translation, and the latter can preserve the exotic atmosphere. when readers read foreign literature, they look forward to the novelty and charm of exotic culture in the collision of chinese and western cultures. therefore, the importance of good dissimilation is obvious, for it cannot only strengthen soft power but also enrich the reading experience of target language readers. especially, now that the “scheme of the chinese phonetic alphabet” has been recognized by the international community, china gradually replaces the old wade-giles romanization www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 31 published by scholink inc. with pinyin, helping the western society become more familiar with the chinese. for instance, david hawkes added a four-page description of the pinyin scheme in his preface of the translation of hongloumeng (《红楼梦》), which is worth learning. besides, chinese unique units should be retained, including monetary units (e. g., yuan), distance units (e. g., li), weight units (e. g., jin) etc. however, to achieve further effects and a wider range of communication, foreignizing blindly is not feasible and tends to necessarily deepen the gap. only with the cooperation of the tt subjects can we help chinese literature acclimatize to foreign environments with different institutions, cultures, and ideologies (yin & li, 2021, p. 81). from the perspective of communication studies, we should adopt a flexible communication strategy, for chinese culture is still in a developing position, and a translation strategy that combines both foreignisation and domestication with a little emphasis on the latter is required to help chinese culture spread abroad right now (wang, 2015, p. 103). 4.2 northeastern characteristics of village in august and the translation of regional culture there are a large number of northeastern mandarin and cultural phenomena in village in august. due to the existing cultural default between chinese and english, translators are supposed to adopt various compensatory means while translating cultural expressions with northeastern characteristics, including the methods of adding notes, increasing translation, domestication etc. (su, 2008, p. 176). especially defamiliarization can both keep the cultural connotation and the interest of readers (li, 2016, p. 84). when it comes to curses, proverbs, and colloquialisms in dialect, it is appropriate to use the communicative translation method to find similar expressions in the tt to convey the same effect. such as“chui hu zi dengyan” (“吹胡子瞪眼”, describing the face of rage) can be translated as “blowone’ s stop”, better than the translation of evan king’s “chewing his mustaches and staring out of glass eyes”, though vividly conveyed the literary significance but sacrifice or even ignore the underneath meaning. sometimes, the cultural division may lead to different interpretations of the same image, and a literal translation from one culture to another may cause misunderstanding among readers. for example, to avoid different understandings of “dragon” in different cultures, the word “zhen long tian zi” (“真龙天 子”, emphasizing the noble birth) can be just translated as “the emperor”. 4.3 other unique literary features of village in august and the translation of textual characteristics xiao jun’s work has distinctive characteristics of himself. in addition to the regional and folkloric nature, it also has unique literary features such as banditry, personal heroism, romantic revolutionary character, humanitarian, and self-construction from the onlooker’s angle of view. translators are supposed to consciously respect and preserve the writing style and literary characteristics of the original work. the banditry and revolutionary nature of xiao jun’s writing refer to the heroic spirit of resistance against the landowners, the manchukuo regime, and japanese imperialism. as critics evaluate, “it has a raw barrenness, as if it is unpolished, with rich intuition and sensibility” (zhao, 1986, p. 152). this revolutionary character is intertwined with the humanitarian spirit, and the conflict between the two www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 32 published by scholink inc. sometimes reflects the unique confusion of that times. either shifting the focus of the novel or blurring the historical facts can cause the loss of the original text’s character. as translators, we are supposed to respect the differences in history and positions in the translation, for the sake of truth and fact. the writing technique of self-construction from others’ perspectives in village in august has a good effect on defamiliarization, so the translator should also adopt a creative method of defamiliarization to convey the literary character (shao &wu, 2022, p. 178), facilitating the readers to truly understand and study the author’s creative characteristics. therefore, translators should use the literal translation method to be faithful to the original text and avoid adding too much personal understanding that leads to the “aphasia” of the author. 4.4 the enlightenment and requirement for translation teaching and faculty team construction through study of village in august while conducting the research on the translation of village in august, it not only finally fulfills the prescribed aim of researching the methods and strategies in translating village in august as the representative of chinese contemporary literature with typical characteristics, but also offers us a new penetrative view into the instructing and studying such literary genre for translation teaching and translation teaching faculty construction. given teaching, it is quite significant to arouse the attention of translation and english language major students to such genre and endeavor them to ponder over eternal topics and themes, including the local colorism, gender equality, imperialism, patriotism, humanitarianism, cosmopolitanism, shared future of people all over the world etc. besides, it also converts the translation instruction to retrospect over the methods particularly designed for northeast novels. in addition, it also echoes the requirement of constructing cross multi-discipline teaching faculty against new arts background, which in this particular case requires the teachers and instructors not only to master english language teaching and translation strategies, but also chinese contemporary literature knowledge and acquisition of the comparative literature of the east and west given genres, characterization, narratives, thematic analyses, western literary thoughts, approaches, theories, etc. luckily, some chinese teachers graduating with a literature-discipline master’s or even doctorate degree have acquired these capabilities and knowledge, but we cannot deny or ignore a certain number of teachers possessing either sole linguistics knowledge or translation theoretical knowledge who always find it hard to penetrate the rooted characteristics of literary texts. a series of necessary training like updating learning, training, workshops etc., are needed in addition to the values previously mentioned. also, besides the intimately incorporated literary theories, either information or knowledge of other disciplines interwoven into the literary texts is still to be explored and mastered such as politics, sociology, economy, geography, economics, medicine, etc., which proposes the challenges and opportunities for teachers specialized into translation. further, translatology itself is also a subject constituted by a systematic subjects and contents that need to be explored and investigated. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 33 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion as the main battlefield in the east of the world’s anti-racist war, china contributes a lot to the final victory of justice, and we should not only remember but also share our stories with the whole world. to sum up, this paper focuses on the literary characteristics of village in august and explored its featured “banditry”, unique revolutionary, humanitarian spirit, exotic writing, etc. in evan king’s translation of the book, he adopts a free translation approach, resulting in several changes and cultural deviations from the original text. his translation loses partial characteristics of xiao jun, northeast china, and even china, and it is sometimes against the author’s intention and historical facts. chinese translators in the new era should insist on the principle of faithfulness to the original text and historical facts. when translating chinese culture, we should take the strategy of foreignisation and domestication at the same time, and with a slight emphasis on the latter one to achieve better acceptance by readers. when it comes to local culture, we should apply various means to compensate for the default depending on the situation, and keep fidelity to the author in the translation of the novel’s literary characteristics. our current translation practice should not only facilitate the understanding of foreign readers but also maximize the dissemination of chinese culture, promoting chinese works to more countries and building a strong cultural nation with flexible communication strategies. in translation teaching, we also need more qualified teachers to cultivate students who can become comprehensive translators in the future. acknowledgment after months of efforts, i eventually completed my first academic paper. here, i would like to take this opportunity to extend my special sincere thanks to the people who help me in completing it eventually: i would like to extend my special gratitude towards doc supervisor cui dan for her professional and patient guidance since i started up with this research project. without her academic advice and persistent encouragement, the final version would not come out; i also would like to thank my senior, chen jiyijie for his valuable suggestions for the composition and revising and other peer students for their encouragement; finally, i am obliged to my family for being by my side and supporting me whole-heartedly during this difficult time. in a nutshell, i will cherish this experience of essay writing forever and continue with the translation study and practice. references andre, l. 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(2022). john keats’s geographical writing and construction of british national identity. communication, society and media, 5(1), 15-26. zhang, h. (2016). views of lu xun between mao and xiao and their differences during resistance war against japanese invasion. journal of beijing normal university (social sciences), (4), 76-89. zhao, y. (1986). a tough choice (p. 152). shanghai: shanghai literature and art publishing house. zheng, c. r. (2019). the transmission of xiao jun's village in august in the united states. international communications, (5), 62-64. note(s) note 1. this paper is the periodical outcome of project on “translation research and practice on the national revolutionary writer xiao jun’s village in august” sponsored by jilin international studies university (project no. jwxsky2022b089); of project on “a study of the geographical writing and overseas introduction and translation of ‘northeast writers group’ from the perspective of nationalities and regions”; of project on “the anxiety and transcendence of john keats’s individual identity construction” sponsored by national social science foundation of china (21fwwb015); of project on “a study of the construction of john keats’s national identity” sponsored by the fellowship www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 36 published by scholink inc. of china postdoctoral science foundation (no: 2021m700496); of project on “a study of english major course system construction with value shaping based on ‘global village’ as the foreign language lab” sponsored by the academy of foreign language teaching attached to the institute of higher education of china (no: 21wyjyzd08); of project on “a study of routes applied to cultivate the inter-cultural competence of english major students” (no: gjjx20201130); of project on “the establishment and practice of vista mode of development and transformation of english-major teaching faculty’s proficiency under new arts prospect” sponsored by chinese private higher education association(canfzg22417); of project on “the construction and practice of mode of development and transformation of foreign language teaching faculty’s proficiency in international studies of universities under multiple-discipline background” sponsored by jilin higher education association (no: jgjx2022d316);“a study of john keats’s national identity writing and forging chinese national community consciousness” sponsored by education department of jilin province. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 9 original paper transcending boundary of poetry and painting: the pictoriality of john keats’s poetry yaru wang1 & dan cui2* 1 undergraduate student of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 postdoc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china; doc of literature, professor, dean of institute of international language and culture, leader of comparative literature and cross-culture discipline, jilin international studies university, changchun, jilin, china; doc supervisor of yanbian university, yanji, jilin, china * dan cui, corresponding author, e-mail: summerelephant@126.com received: november 18, 2022 accepted: november 30, 2022 online published: january 16, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n1p9 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n1p9 abstract keats lived a short life span, but in his space of 25 years’ life, keats showed the world his remarkable talent for poetry. the pictorial nature of keats’ poetry is obvious. this paper takes the boundary of poetry and painting as the starting point, mainly studying pictorial embodiment, causes, and influences in his poems. keats’ unique sense of love, imagination, and depiction of nature is strongly reflected in the sense of color and three-dimensionality in his poems, thus achieving the effect of “reading poetry as appreciating painting” for readers. keywords john keats, romanticism, transcending the boundary of poetry and painting, painterliness 1. introduction keats lived at a time when romanticism was flourishing and art was well developed. of all the types of art, painting was one of artistic forms that are most closely associated with romanticism, and romantic poetry was an art itself, with a distinctly painterly character. poetry and painting have a long history of the association, and the two are independent of each other and closely linked as well. the development of pictorial poetry has gone through four successive periods: classical, neo-classical, romantic, and modern period. it began with lessing, a leading representative of the german enlightenment, whose aesthetic work la raccoon profoundly explores the boundaries between poetry and painting and provides the direction for pictorial poetry. mailto:summerelephant@126.com www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. 2. the evolution of painting and poetry it is well known that both poetry and painting are conventionally artistic modes and share certain characteristics. they are both “art of imitation”. this concept has been interpreted by many philosophical forefathers: aristotle in his poetics pinpointed the essential feature of art—imitation, in his perspective, poetry seems to have sprung from two causes, each of which lying deeply in our nature. imitation is our instinct nature. next, there is the instinct for ‘harmony’ and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. taine in his philosophie de l’art further interpreted simultaneously five major arts: poetry, sculpture, painting, architecture, and music (taine, 1928, p. 44).when seeking commonly shared opinions from the two, both critics consider art as are presentation of the real world. because of poetry, in particular, they agree on that the pictorial nature of poetry as produced out of artistic imagination is what the poet charges his fantasy into an image and then represents this image in front of its viewers. in the contemporary post-modernism era, classification principles of modern art, which are based on aesthetic independence and artistic self-discipline, has gradually lost their theoretical legitimacy due to the constant contradiction with the currently art development reality, and are replaced by cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary exchanges and cooperation in art, which is so-called the “crossover” of art, to borrow the current fashionable term. at present, the increasingly widespread artistic reality, such as the integration and fusion of different art disciplines and styles, and even the cooperation between art and other industries such as fashion, finance, and real estate, and the lending of strength to each other, are sufficient to show that art transcending over is no longer simply a certain art event, but an art development trend that leads the current art fashion and trend, and represents a new type of art that is different from the modern aesthetic value orientation. it represents a new type of art concept that distinguishes itself from modern aesthetic values. the prevalence of art crossover is changing the history of art development, injecting much more fresh elements into the art itself, and thus art has become a more inclusive “general art”, illustrating the possibility of breakout and rebirth in the post-modern cultural field full of pessimistic arguments about the “termination of art”, and this is just like a new kind of art revolution (chen, 2019, p. 25). in the past, art seems to possess a boundary that is always held fast, but now it is outdated. whoever keeps this boundary anymore is conservative and whoever breaks it up is new trendy (gao, 2021, p. 1). after the modern art system had been established, there was a process of continuous expansion. the establishment of this system originally depended on the combination of poetry, painting, and music together. before that, only two were combined, that is, poetry and music or poetry and painting. it is conventionally admitted that “painting” is considered as the art of space, while “poetry” being the art of time. the former is feasible for expressing objects, perceived by the eyes, with the highest law being beauty; the latter is for portraying actions, perceived by the sense of hearing. in laocoon, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. lessing proposed that poetry and painting are like two friendly neighbors who are inseparable from each other. although there are always a tentative exchanges across the border, it is undoubtedly a betrayal of their independence if they give up their respective independence and throw themselves completely into each other’s arms (lessing, 2022, pp. 102-187). painting and poetry, as two very different forms of artistic expressions, show us certain specific beauties with their specific symbols: the former depends on color, line, shape, light, etc. while the latter comes with the help of language, including the format, rhyme and rhythm, structure and narrative strategies. it was mentioned earlier that poetry and painting are both imitation arts, and when one speaks of artists imitating poets or poets imitating artists, the phrase can be interpreted from two aspects: one is that this party actually uses the work of the other party as the object of imitation, and the second is that both parties imitate the same object, while this party adopting the manner and style of the other party. however, there also exists a difference between poetry and painting in view of conception and expression. the text is a temporal, dynamic expression, while the painting is a spatial, static expression. words can deliver a temporal process while pictures can frame a momentary situation. a painting is the condensation of a poem while a poem is the extension of a painting. but when poetry and painting are intermingled, they can also reflect beauty. voltaire once articulated a beautiful contrast between the two: a painting is a kind of silent poetry, while a poem is a sound painting, which is similar to the articulation of the chinese poet of wei wang，who states that painting is a silent poem and poem, a voiced painting. why then does laocoon not wail in his engravings, but wail in poems? this can trace back to the physical pain with which the poet’s consciousness conveys the feeling of pain while the artist is not willing to follow the cliché path. for the ancient greeks, beauty was the supreme law of the plastic arts, but the purpose of art was to entertain, and entertainment was optional. keats pursues beauty in his poetry, and the principle that “beauty is truth, truth beauty” has been widely recognized, which refers to beauty as the ultimate goal of art that coincides with the greek view. keats can be said to have accomplished the transcendence over the boundary of poetry and painting, painting in poetry and poetry in painting, independent based on fusion and coexisting in the boundary of transcendence. however, some exceptional aspects are interpreted in laocoon. according to lessing’s elaboration, “painting” refers to general plastic arts, including sculpture, while “poetry” refers to literature in general. in laocoon, lessing believes that artists should avoid depicting moments at the zenith of passion in the process of creation. according to lessing, the sculptor should concentrate on the point before the climax rather than the very moment when sculpting, to ensure that the viewer is left with enough room for further imagination (lessing, 1766, p. 187). if laocoon’s wail was frozen in stone from the very start, it would appear “mundane and tedious”. both lessing’s praise of poetry and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. depreciation of painting, and the emphases on the past over the present, illustrate very strong enlightenment though possess certain limitations observed from the present perspective. bards were first a special profession in ancient celtic society, flourishing at the end of the 11th to 13th centuries, and their roots are in the musical expressions derived from the martial spirit and chivalry of the crusaders, which led to the formation and development of music. the earliest form of literature is poetry, which circulated in oral form, and the major poets were the bards (bard, gleeman, minnesinger, and minstrel). it is only after the introduction of christianity to england that some poems were recorded. the most representative literary work of this period is the english national epic beowulf, written in head rhyme (alliteration). they were geniuses and talents in their own right, and they could come from noble and rich families or lowly and poor ones. thanks to their wisdom, they created many novel stories and provided them with good food and lodges. however, they were rejected later due to the non-recognition of their values and even denied by the statement that their works could not amuse god. it was not until the 18th century in europe that serious attempt began to be made to link these three in an aesthetic sense. soon it came to five: in bartow, painting was added to sculpture, and music brought in dance, creating the union of the five: poetry, painting, music, sculpture, and dance. the crossover and synthesis of the different disciplines with each other finally developed a huge family of art (gao, 2021, p. 2). however, from the romantic movement onwards to the subsequent waves of social revolutions, there was always a constant stream of interest from the folk and lower social strata brought into art, which repetitively smashed the boundaries of the original art. but the development of romanticism also succeeded in transcending the boundaries of art, as exemplified by the transgression of poetry and painting in the poems of keats, as plato asserted that what the artists produced was mere “the shadow of a shadow”. in english romanticism, william blake has always been claimed to be one of the forefathers of english romantic poetry together with robert burns featured with scottish style. his early works are simple and clear, while his later ones tend to be more metaphysical and mystical. throughout his life, he lived a simple and quiet creative life with his wife and spent the whole of his lifespan on poetry and engravings. therefore, his works are featured by the mutual echoing of each other. blake was indeed a devoted genius “away from the world”, reminding people of another influential but “mad” genius of the 19th century—van gogh. throughout the history of the western art world, countless famous artists have painted countless works with biblical themes, but it is william blake that adopted them as a means to express his interpretation of the secular world in contrast to the ideal. by implementing a completely personal perspective, he focused more on observing life and depicting the details of life into allegorical works, which is similar to that of van gogh. blake was once seen sitting naked with his wife in the shade of a tree in the courtyard reading paradise lost, and when he saw www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. someone came, he happily compared himself and his wife to adam and eve. the content of blake’s artworks is completely different from that of other painters. he believed that all forms were perfected in poetic conception, which was not abstract and did not come from nature, but from imagination. his poems and paintings were created in his imagination, and he stated that a person who has never been to heaven in his mind and thoughts is not an artist. it is clear that blake was an artist of imaginative genius, and the ideas of genius are often infinitely fluid. is painting limited to a monotonous and tedious imitation of reality? this is a question. blake used his paintings to prove to the world that painting, like poetry and music, exists and revels in immortal ideas. as in auguries of innocence, blake composes that we can master the principle of the world in the grain of sand” and “wildflower” and thus eventually comprehends the mystery of the world. with the development of romanticism, the 2nd generation including shelley, byron, and keats also created poems, in which they search for pictoriality with the pursuit of beauty as evident under their pen. 3. john keats’s pictorial writing color is the most sensitive formal element that evokes our common aesthetic pleasure. color is generally divided into warmness and coldness, lightness and darkness, soft and hard, front and back, etc. keats is good at making use of color in his poems to create a beautiful picture for the readers, and the sense of color is evident in the pictorial nature of keats’ poetry, which will be analyzed from the following four perspectives. 3.1 writing of warmness and coldness the 1st aspect is concerned with the warmness and coldness. the color itself does not have the temperature difference between warmness and coldness, and it is the visual color that triggers people’s psychological association, which in turn produces a sense of warmness and coldness. keats makes the best use of contrast between them in order to show the sense of color in his poetry. for example, in “to autumn”, the misty season and the round ripe fruits illustrate the interweaving of white and red, and the red apples are reflected in contrast to the white foggy sky. the orange sun and the green vines also set a novel set of contrasts. keats adopts the warm and cold relationship between colors to present readers with the beauty of a colorful early autumn morning, telling them that even autumn is a season of interwoven colors and bountiful harvests. “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; conspiring with him how to load and bless; with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; to bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, and fill all fruit with ripeness to the core” (keats, 1820, p. 248) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. there are also contrasts of warm and cold colors in “ode to the nightingale”. the 1st half illustrates john keats’ concerns for the green fields and the bright red spring, for the poet’s need of drinking painfully, and then it goes into fatigue, sickness and fever, irritability, gray hair, and dark blue sky. this strong sense of color expresses the transformation of the poet’s moodwith happiness to be lost and thus pondering over life: “tasting of flora and the country green, dance, and provencal song, and sunburnt mirth; o for a beaker full of the warm south, full of the true, the blushful hippocrene” (keats, 1820, p. 232) likewise, in “ode to psyche”, the poet composes blue and silver flowers, purple buds waiting to bloom, and sapphire phoebe (diana) , by which he set the contrast in light and it shows readers a vivid painting of greek gods: “and in this wide quietness, /a rosy sanctuary will i dress” (keats,1820, p. 239). besides, in “on the grasshopper and cricket”, keats composes “when all the birds are faint with the hot sun, and hide in cooling trees, a voice will run”, “in summer luxury” and “on alone winter evening” (keats, 1817, p. 49). all of such depiction creates the hot sunlight and the shade under the trees. the hot summer day and the frosty winter night and such obvious contrast of warmness and coldness can effectively convey to readers the infinite beauty and vigorous life of nature. 3.2 writing of softness and hardness the 2nd aspect sets the contrast between soft and hard colors in poetry, which the feeling of light colors convey the sense of softness and expansion, such as light blue and cream. the hard and soft feelings of color are also related to purity, since high purity and low brightness of the color bring a sense of hard feeling, for example, black. it can also be based on the degree of objects in order to determine the hardness and softness, for the stone is black and hard, but the spring is soft and flowing. in “keen, fitful gusts are whispering here and there”, the 1st part reads as follows: “the bushes half leafless, and dry” with “the dead leaves rustling drearily”, and these look hard and cold. but the end the lyrics like “of fair-hair milton’s eloquent distress” and “of lovely laura in her light green dress” (keats, 1817, p. 46) give readers a sense of soft, gentle and elegant feeling. 3.3 writing of lightness and darkness the 3rdaspect lies in the contrast between lightness and darkness. there is an embodiment of the contrast between light and dark in “ode to melancholy”, the root-deep ebony head versus the pale and forehead, the typical opposition of black and white, as the poetry says, p. “but when the melancholy fit shall fall, sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud” (keats, 1818, p. 250). it delivers keats’s gloomy mood as changeable as the weather itself. in “to byron”, keats writes “overshadowing sorrow doth not make thee less delightful” and “with a bright halo, shining beamily, as when a cloud the golden moon doth veil”, it “through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail” (keats, 1817, p. 328). keats was 19 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. years old when he wrote this poem, and the 26-year-old byron wrote a work that moved keats very much. so keats praised him, though his opinion of byron’s poetry changed later. in addition, in “o solitude! if i must with thee dwell”, which appeared in the 1816 issue of the observer, john keats adopted a set of light and dark contrasts between a bright river and a shaded bush of branches and leaves, and with a gradual manifestation of color, the poem delivers the poet’s view of solitude: “almost the highest bliss of human-kind, when to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee” (keats, 1816, p. 45). 3.4 writing of the foreground and background color the4thaspect lies in the contrast of foreground and background colors, and the sense of it depends on different frequencies of color imaging on the retina of the human eye. generally, red, orange, yellow and other low frequencies of light color make people feel more imminent, while green, blue, purple and other high frequencies of light color make people feel more open. in fact, this is a phenomenon of optical illusion. generally speaking, warm colors, pure colors, strong contrast colors, large area colors, etc. create an intimate sense of feeling, but on the contrary, cool colors, light colors, clear colors, scattered colors, etc., possess a sense of openness. this point can be echoed with the above-mentioned color contrast between the warm and cold, since the former will make people feel closer while the latter more distant. in “to autumn”, keats in the 1ststanza writes “ to bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, and fill all fruit with ripeness to the core”, which juxtaposes the contrasting colors of the red of apple and the pale green and thus gives readers a sense of proximity. but in the 2ndstanza, the sentences like “thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep” (keats, 1820, p. 248) present the golden wheat fields and the light blue creek, which gives readers a feeling of openness and distance, just like an observer watching the hard-working people at sunrise and sunset from afar. in short, the color contrasts in keats’ poetry are strong: warmness and coldness, hardness and softness, lightness and darkness, foreground and background color, all of these are reflected in his poetry. they are not only integrated with each other and being part of his poetry, but also becoming independent of each other, with their own particularities and distinctions. the peculiarities lie in the fact that keats focuses more on the “scene” when writing about the contrast between warmness and coldness and foreground and background colors, because spring and summer will give people a warm feeling, while autumn and winter are on the cold side. subsequently, the foreground and background colors of the scenery are more likely to show readers the contrast, with the distant scene indistinct and vague and the near scene oppressive and massive. what’s more, keats focuses more on “object” when writing about the contrast between lightness and darkness and hardness and softness of colors, because objects are easier to “feel” than scenes, whether they are tactile or visual. keats has made good use of these skills to give his poems more character and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. beauty. 4. origin of keats’s pictorial writing why does keats’ poetry reflect such a strong pictorial nature? his personal experience in both his life and his poetry writing cannot be ignored essentially. initially, his self-experience offers him a chance to contact the artistic world. on october 31st, 1820, after more than a month at sea and ten days of isolation on board, keats and his companion joseph severn disembarks the gulf of naples. on that day, keats had just turned twenty-five years old. he had come to recuperate from his illnessin italy where the climate was temperate and the sea breeze fresh which appears in his poem: “oh ye! who have your eye-balls vexed and tired, feast them upon the wideness of the sea” (keats, 1820, p. 335). for the 2nd generation of romantic poets, italy was in a sense of the spiritual homeland, the birthplace of the classical tradition alongside greece and the source of the renaissance, and in the 19th century it became a mandatory stop on the grand tour of europe. byron and shelley spent much of their time here. byron also called italy “the garden of the world, the home of all art...even your weeds are beautiful, your barren riches, your ruins glorious, your ruins flawless” (byron, 1812) in childe harold’s pilgrimage. near naples, keats saw a fresco depicting the nine muses and apollo. it was already november, and there were still many flowers in bloom along the roadside, p. myrtle, laurel, cyclamen, like a garden of the god pan. keats was surprised to see roses at this time of year, so he went up to them, but found that they were no longer fragrant. he lamented, “what is a rose that has lost its fragrance?” at the place where cicero perished, keats remembered his 1stencounter with classical literature, and he was attributed by his classmates to a solid foundation in classical languages, so he chose to abandon medicine and devoted himself to his pursuit of poetry. this would have been keats’ 1stencounter with painting, and such beautiful art unfolding before his eyes gives keats an infinite vision of beauty, into which he put his future poetry. the subsequent source comes from his precursors and his peer poets. keats always admires milton, and his poetic technique possesses a miltonic flavor. milton’s poetry has been known for its pictorial nature, which exerts a profound influence on keats. keats is also influenced by spencer and he even imitates him in “imitation of spencer”, in which keats portrays the elegant and noble swan, which is as white as snow and sings to the sky with a curved neck (cui, 2019, p. 73). influenced by milton and milton’s ability to turn the most insufferable things into picturesque things, john keats transfers his commitment to the beauty in written words. for example, both milton and keats are committed to the beauty of the images in words, as exemplified by the swan in both. in milton’s writing, the white swan washes her fluffy breast on the silvery lake; she sometimes uncovers www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. her cloak-like white wings and gracefully paddles her houseboat with her paws; she also raises her strong feathers and leaves the water as if floating in the air. “knowledge enormously makes a god of me. /names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions, /majesties, sovran voices, agonies, /creations and destroying, all at once /pour into the wide hollows of my brain, /and deify me, as if some blithe wine /or bright elixir peerless i had drunk, /and so become immortal—thus the god(keats, 1820, p. 276). it is clear that poet’s desire to surpass his predecessors’ courage, determination and practice is shown. besides, keats made many friends in his life, including painter friends who are particularly close to him, and this also exerted an influence on his poetry. hayden is a painter and an intimate friend of the keats. in keats’s “to hayden”, he writes “thou hadst beheld the full hesperian shine of their star in the east, and gone to worship them i” (keats, 1820, p. 334). the great souls are said to refer to the poets wordsworth, leigh hunt, and hayden. it must be said that these three men’s appreciation of painting also invariably influenced keats’ aesthetic approach to painting. hayden’s intense pursuit of art had a profound influence on keats. convinced of the educational value of history painting to the nation, hayden dedicated his life to the creation of everlasting history paintings. on march 2, 1817, keats visited the british museum with hayden and reynolds and they walked through almost the entire elgin marble statue gallery. byron was strongly opposed to plundering of the treasures of the athenian pantheon by the british. in his travels, he had rebuked lord elgin and the british government for their banditry: they see the palm trees of the english, destroy your walls, and tear down your decaying sanctuary, but do not weep, for their eyes are exceedingly dull. while hayden argued with richard payne knight about whether the statues were roman or greek in origin, keats had long since drowned in the huge cluster of statues: serene horse heads, mutilated river gods, lapidians fighting with centaurs, etc. the treasures of the great sculptor phidias shook him:“ my spirit is too weak—mortality, weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep. and each imagined pinnacle and steep. of godlike hardship tells me that i must die, like a sick eagle looking at the sky” (keats, 1817, p. 333). the line “the sick eagle looking at the sky” in “on seeing the elgin marbles” conveys the honesty of the romantic poet and the characteristic humility of keats. although it is difficult for him to reach the high artistic level of the ancients, he can see through these fragmented sculptures the view from before the beginning of time. this poem is one of the most mature keats’ early works, and his only complete long poem, consisting of more than four hundred lines. like wordsworth’s tintern abbey, which traces different stages of spiritual growth and imaginative development. keats sees antiquities, one after another, piled up into history, which has disappeared, leaving behind reality. keats laments the artifacts and hates that no one can empathize with them, so he looks at these ghostly works with a “fragile mind”, which makes people dazzled and distressed. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. in addition to friends, his beloved also constitutes a particular origin for his composition of paintings for john keats’ life. keats lived a short life and he unfortunately was deprived of his life at the gold age of 25 in 1821. lucky for him since he met his lifelong companion—fanny, whose heart-thumping love letters also brought keats beauty and added to the pictorial nature of his poetry. keats and fannymet in spring just as a red leather diary met a stamp with a greek lyre design, and their love sprouted. keats was so excited to write these lines: “the reach of fluttering love, and make him cower lowly while i soar? no, that is vulgarism, shall i gulp wine? a heresy and schism, foisted into the canon law of love;—no,—wine is only sweet to happy men” (keats, 1820, p. 328). a light and lovely picture of spring love emerge, as if the pink cherry blossoms and the bright green branches of the trees are intertwined. in “bright star”, keats wishes to be as firm as a star but unwilling to hang high in the night sky alone. the 1sthalf of the poem is on the moor, the mountains, and the snow, creating a sense of desolation, but then immediately turns to warmth: the sweet breast and gentle breath of a lover. such warmth and coldness make the reader feel so comfortable that they cannot help continue reading. this poetry shows keats’ awareness, pursuit, and interpretation of beauty and the poetic expression and reproduction of beauty, showing that the poet places beauty at the center of his poetic beliefs and regards it as the true meaning of poetic beliefs. keats does not deny the beauty of reality, but is more attracted to the beauty of the senses. he is more interested in the beauty of sense, the beauty of greek and roman mythology, and aspires to make beauty constant through imagination (cui, 2019, p. 168). in his heart, fanny is compared to the flowers that spawn love, turning into a poem that blooms on keats’ desk. once autumn arrived, the fresh scent of melons and crops replaced the flirtatious marriage of spring. one day, keats met with a freshly harvested wheat field, which was gold and warm, superior to a large oil painting, which gave keats an urge to embrace it and kiss it as if he could have kissed fanny for thousands of times. keats thumped his heart because fanny was always new, as if he was seeing her for the first time forever. this impulse led to the later publication of “to autumn”. in this poem, the poet sits like an elf in a barn and a threshing floor, picks up wheat and crosses a stream, and watches the wine drip down in a slow line by the fruit squeeze. in this way, a small ditty is depicted in words, and finally a succession of levels into one of the most beautiful pictures of autumn in the history of english literature. 5. the significance of keats’s pictorial writing the aesthetic character of keats’ poetry is rich in its expressions of positive democratic consciousness, the pursuit of freedom, equality and true love (zhang, 2002, p. 67), which is a poetic and aesthetic close to perfection. first of all, keats’ pursuit of true beauty is constant. from the perspective of his personal life, keats’ short life was undoubtedly full of hardships and difficulties, but varied with different styles. the twists www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. and turns of keats’s journey made him persist in eulogizing an eternal ideal, which is “beauty”. his long narrative hyperion demonstrates the leading character’s fierce pursuit of the moon goddess cynthia, which is a spiritual symbol of the poet’s pursuit ofpure and genuine beauty, as a common feature of the times. keats claims the aesthetic principle of “beauty is truth, truth beauty” and this aesthetic idea of the equivalence of beauty and truth is one of the most important psychological qualities of keats as a romantic poet, which emphasizes the inevitable connection between the principle of factory beauty and things (qiu, 1992, p. 46), thus giving keats’ poetry a deeper touch of sincerity and sensitivity. the tremendous artistic power of keats’ poetry comes first from his “true feelings”—he feels the nature, the society and the glory of art with his own heart. he once expressed that he could never write anything with false feelings (oxford,1970). second, keats’ poetry is full of feelings and senses. possessing a wealth of ideas and emotions, keats possesses a keen sense of society and life. what keatsgot was precisely an artistic space full of objects and emotions, with imagery becoming indispensable. for instance in “ode to a nightingale”, keats writes “o, for a draught of vintage! that hath been/cool’d a long age in the deep-delvedearth/tasting of floraand the country green/dance, and provencal song, and sunburnt mirth/o for a beaker full of the warm south/full of the true, the blushful hippocrene/with beaded bubbles winking at the brim/and purple-stained mouth/that i might drink, and leave the world unseen/and with thee fade away into the forest dim” (keats, 1820, p. 232).here, we cannot help but admiring the poet’s taste, for his vision and color sense are so delicately developed, and his association and imagination are so dense and open. in the flow of these sensations or images, various facets and subtle tremors of keats’s mind are expressed rarely and tangibly. keats isnotin his passionate love with fanny but with quite contradictory feelings and “la belle dame sans merci”echoes such feelings. when this poem was written during that period, keats and fanny were passionately in love, and it is based on a 1424 french poem of the same name by the french poet alain chartier (1385-1430), but the original poem is centered on the “courtly love” and it is undoubtedly much deeper and darker. keats combines the seemingly contradictory themes of love and death in this single work in order to achieve a powerfully contrasting effect. there are also strong contrasts in warmness and coldness and lightness and darkness in this poem: “i see a lilly on thy brow/with anguish moist and fever dew/and on thy cheek a fading rose fast withereth too” (keats, 1819, p. 303). the white lily-like forehead corners and rose-colored cheeks are the use of color contrast, the cool color of white contrasts with the warm color of red, symbolizing death and life. secondly, some expressions including “i met a lady in the meads”, “i made a garland for her head” and “she found me roots of relish sweet/and honey wild, and manna dew” (keats, 1819, p. 303) illustrate the brightness of daily life. but in the last stanza, keats writes “i saw pale kings, and princes too/pale warriors, death-pale were they all” and “i saw their starved lips in the gloam/with horrid warning gaped www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. wide” (keats, 1819, p. 303), which symbolizes the darkness of death in sharp contrast with the previous contents. the expression “quickly withering” implies the poet’s despair. so keats’s dreams of the merci dame, and the white glowing skeleton in the darkness foreshadowed the impending disaster. the contrast between the withered reeds and the squirrel’s nest filled with food in the poem reflects the emptiness and abundance, just as the love between keats and fanny, since death and passionate love illustratethe embodiment of this contradiction. the plot of the poem is hidden, seemingly abrupt, but with an air of gloomy mystery that invites imagination. the “merci dame” in the poem became one of the synonyms for “serpentine beauty” in the literature of the 19th century european. at the time of the poem’s composition, keats was in a sweet but obstructive relationship with fanny on the one hand, and suffering from illness on the other hand (although tuberculosis had not yet been diagnosed), so the theme of love and death in the poem undoubtedly has some realistic elements, but what is more touching are the haziness, mystery and ambiguity. the picturesque writing of john keats influences his own poetic style, and his poetry also deeply influences the english literature. the influences can be mainly summarized in three categories: the rich depiction of the senses, the idealization of the middle ages, and the paradoxes about art and thought, which were generally positive and beneficial. keats mainly manifestshis influences on many english poets and their works in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. as one of the five major poets of the english romantic period, keats exerts historical importance due to three main reasons: first, in terms of the form and style of his poetry, he is the most romantic one of the english romantic poets, and his language is opulent and flamboyant in dealing with greek themes, without any restraints of greek art. keats is thus known as the goldsmith of language and the poet of poets. second, he was indifferent to the impulses generated by the social dramas and the fraternal enthusiasm of the french revolution. in his view, poetry was detached from contemporary life by going back to the past, and poetry itself should serve beauty entirely. because of this, he seems bound to stand behind his time. finally, there is a great influence on subsequent generations of poets. from the mid-nineteenth century to the twentieth century, keats had had a profound influence on many poets and artists. certainly, if we admit keats is in-depth influenced by painting, then his poems represented by “la belle dame sans merci” also offer inspiration to other artists to produce their paintings based on his writing. a large number of british painters have painted various versions of “la belle dame sans merci”, including sir francis bernard dixie, president of the royal academy of arts, john william waterhouse, a former raphaelite, arthur hughes, and flint, a scottish watercolorist, among others. although keats’s creative career lasted only four short years, it is evident from the continuous derivation of “la belle dame sans merci” over the past century that the poet’s immortal soul continues to haunt and reverberate in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. pantheon of generations of subsequent generations of artists. 6. conclusion the expression “beauty is truth, truth beauty” has been used throughout keats’ life. keats struggled for beauty throughout his life, both in his poetic writing and in his personal life. the pictorial nature of his poetry shows a certain extent of his relentless pursuit of beauty. by excelling in depicting natural scenery and the external appearance of things, expressing the sense of color and three-dimensionality of scenery, attaching importance to writing techniques, and pursuing flamboyant language, he greatly influenced the creation of lyric poetry by later generations. rich in imagination, brilliant in color, and overflowing with the desire for freedom, his poetry perfectly embodies the characteristics of western romanticism and shows the progressive tendency of anti-classicism. acknowledgement first of all, i would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude towards my academic supervisor prof. dan cui for her invaluable instruction and inspiration, her choice of this research topic, design of paper structure and framework, etc. and rigorous academic attitude. my acknowledgement also goes to my classmates, whose support and generosity influence me so much. last but not least, i must attribute all of my achievements to my family members, especially my parents， whose love always motivates me to hold on to my dreams. references alessandro, g. (2020). poetry and painting. rassegna iberistica, 113. chen, x. p. (2019). talking about the relevance of art crossing. northern light, (8), 2. cui, d. (2019). anxieties and transcendence: a study of john keats’s writing of identities. ph. d dissertation. northeast normal university. cui, d. (2020). poetry and painting transgression, greek pantheism and humanist sublimation: analysis on keats’ inheritance and transcendence of milton. studies in english literature, (01), 61-76. cui, d., & li, z. (2019). anxieties and transcendence: on john keats’ poetry belief in “bright star” and romanticism trend in the late regency period. contemporary film, (01), 166-170. dongmei, s. (2019). on the eternity of beauty again-reading john keats’s “ode on a grecian urn”. asian social science, 15(7). keats, j. (1891). letters of john keats to his family and friends. macmillan and co. keats, j. (1994). complete poems of john keats (pp. 118-194). random house inc. nancy, b. (2019). the shape of words and the voice of visual form: the symbolism of poetry and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. painting. south central review, 36(1). qiu, y. (1992). a brief discussion of keats’s aesthetics thought on poetry. journal of guangxi normal university (philosophy and social science edition), (s1), 46-50. tan, q. l. (2010).painting poetry and rewriting: a perspective on the de-romanticization of keats’ ancient greek urn in american modernist poetry. foreign literature studies, 32(02), 26-39. wang, y. (2008). the pursuit of beauty in keats’s poetry. time literature (second half moon), (03), 144-145. wang, z. y. (2014). a multi-dimensional painting of the intersection of time and space—keats’ “to autumn” and poussin’s “four seasons”. modern languages (academic comprehensive edition), (03), 94-96. zhang, y. (2002). towards a humanism of poetic aesthetics: the high integration of social-political consciousness in keats’s poetry and his poetic aesthetic. foreign literature review, (04), 67-75. zhang, y. (2016). on blake’s art of poetry and painting and its relationship with the western tradition of “poetry as painting”. foreign literature, (06), 36-45. zou, z. y. (2009). poetry is sound a painting, painting is silent poetry—the connection and communication between poetry and painting from keats’ “ode on a grecian urn”. film review, (16), 107-108. note(s) this paper is the periodical research result of project on “the anxiety and transcendence of john keats’s individual identity construction” sponsored by national social science foundation of china (21fwwb015); of project on “a study of the construction of john keats’s national identity” sponsored by the fellowship of china postdoctoral science foundation (no: 2021m700496); of projecton “a study of john keats’s national identity writing” sponsored by social science foundation of jilin province; of project on “a study of english major course system construction with value shaping based on ‘global village’ as the foreign language lab” sponsored by foreign language teaching and research council, china association of higher education (grant:21wyjyzd08); ofproject on“a study of transcending boundary of poetry and painting: the pictoriality of john keats’s poetry” sponsored by jilin international studies university;of project on “the establishment and practice of vista mode of development and transformation of english-major teaching faculty’s proficiency under new arts prospect” sponsored by chinese private higher education association(canfzg22417); of project on “the construction and practice of mode of development and transformation of foreign language teaching faculty’s proficiency in international studies of universities under multiple-discipline background” sponsored by jilin higher education association (no: jgjx2022d316); of project on“a study on cultivation mechanism of foreign language www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. high-quality students based on inter-discipline crossover and integration under value guiding” sponsored by jilin education and science leading office (wt 22143). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 131 original paper case study research, critical hermeneutics, and metacognition: create active blended learning to enhance maximum retention through original videos dr. maryann pasda diedwardo1* 1 university of maryland global campus, (umgc), largo, maryland, u.s.a.; lehigh university, bethlehem, pennsylvania, u.s.a. * dr. maryann pasda diedwardo, university of maryland global campus, (umgc), largo, maryland, u.s.a.; lehigh university, bethlehem, pennsylvania, u.s.a. received: november 6, 2020 accepted: november 14, 2020 online published: november 22, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n4p131 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n4p131 abstract during fall semester 2020, i perform case study research on a single subject (myself) to prove the hypothesis that i create a model which helps me to present metacognitive training to maximize retention for students who participate in the class weekly, who post discussions, and who are writing papers. do video lectures enhance learning and maximize retention in online classes? what are the effects on my teaching and my performance as a professor when i create a model? how do video lectures help me to present metacognitive training to maximize retention? during the during fall semester 2020, i perform case study research on a single subject to prove the hypothesis that i create a model which helps me to present metacognitive training to maximize retention for all the students who participate in the class weekly, who post discussions, and who are writing papers. i participate seven days during every study week of the eight-week online class. i showed enthusiasm for teaching, since i extended the weekly content by using my own videos based on my own writing to frame a story line that offered planning and outline, writing developmental paragraphs, writing a literary critique, and comparing two short stories. keywords retention, metacognitive, hermeneutics, pedagogy, analysis, critique, literary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 132 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction i initiated the case study research process in the fall of 2020 to study my pedagogy for english 102 literature and composition, an online course delivered in an asynchronous platform. students write two papers. create an outline, four drafts and a reflection on the writing processes. at the university of maryland global campus, i teach eight week sessions with weekly activities that are discussion posts. i also asses these each week. plus, i post the weekly writing assignment in announcement in the virtual classroom. i decided to include video lectures in announcements as an addition to my audio feedback in discussions to add more pedagogical strategies based on metacognition. during the case study, i created nine videos to extend specific topics and correlated the videos with the weekly objectives to maximize retention and reinforce learning. additionally, video recordings are asynchronous tools that provide an overview and explanation. investigating the useful social functionality of literature as well as the theoretical processes of the literary scholar regards the power of writing for cultural change. consider participants’ views and knowledge. we discuss civic values through the hermeneutic arc and prepare to study through metacognitive activities. the most important outcome of hermeneutics and metacognition in writing is cultural poetics which seeks to identify literary works as social discourses. in 2017, journal of modern education review published my article titled “implementing learning strategies based on metacognition”. to write, engage memories of readings, life experiences, and imagination. accordingly, these three patterns compose voice. based on my previous researches, i initiated a panel for the northeast modern language association convention in 2018. upon acceptance to present the papers in 2019 in washington, d.c., i contracted with vernon press to craft a book about the panel titled “critical hermeneutics metacognition, and writing”. metacognitive activities as those that help students plan for tasks by thinking about preparatory skills that the students may have before class, such as social networking. metacognitive skills also encourage students reflection on their ability to perform tasks. writing process with reflective journaling, peer discussions and peer assessments, self-monitoring and student self-assessments offer insight into their own writing process and interaction with a group. student-directed pedagogical models and 21st century pop culture themes fuse to ignite a learning community for reflection, discovery, and social networking to motivate the 21st century student. ç focus on multiple intelligence theory, life story writing, studying oral histories, writing process theory, learning paradigm and learning communities. globalization of the literary canon requires applications of the aspects of oral history traditions. my class is organized to become a learning community with a focus writing short stories as authentic assessments to develop student voices. as cultures converge in global 21st century classroom, students of multiethnic backgrounds require varied models to succeed. reading, writing, and arithmetic which served our industrial society may be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 133 published by scholink inc. enhanced by a new fourth “r” or remembrance as educational focus for the age of technology and multiculturalism. language is the basis of classrooms whether traditional, enhanced or distance. language based upon oral history can connect cultures in classrooms. students read the works of multicultural authors and create audio presentations in youtube. music, photography, art, , twitter and facebook become the new literature. stories that students create in the new literature of the social network become the new voices for a global cultural literature revolution. authentic assessment engages student writers by breaking down interior interpersonal borders. as a framework for teaching composition or introductory literature classes, the short story concentrates on the understanding of the themes of literary consciousness. a creative approach to teaching blends metacognition and hermeneutics with a concentration on social justice as a paradigm for the english classroom which resounds with tension and resolution dependent upon the silent resilience of the individual. through student-directed pedagogical model, writing class fuses into a learning community for reflection, discovery, and peer editing for student motivation and success. we actively engage students to explore archetypical universes created by current imaginative writers. mythological literary criticism and film theory as a lens into archetypes. we also engage in analysis of personal essays on identity. metacognition and a student-directed pedagogical model. through the paradigm of active learning, we engage in reading key articles by scholars in the field in blogs, wikis, web sites, books, pamphlets, newsletters, or journals or other material demonstrating techniques of close reading in order to explicate a text with terms of the literary scholar that apply to writing across the curriculum and differentiating among major literary genres to converse, to analyze, and to use cultural heritage. students possess qualities of memory based upon human everyday experiences similar to those experiences within literary works they read. i play pod casts of sample student essays that show how students recall events or conditions based upon the relationship of reading to memory. one of my students recalls her own beliefs in mercy killing and relates her heritage based upon family and cultural beliefs in the right to life. students use life story writing next to recount experiences that may help them find thesis. write for a global multiethnic and ageless audience. stories can indeed reach all readers. to write, we engage memories of readings, life experiences and imagination. accordingly, these three patterns compose voice on the written page. but writing is an essential skill needed for human dignity. through a student-directed pedagogical model, this session looks at writing classes that fuse into a learning community for reflection, discovery, and peer editing for student motivation and success. actively engage students to explore archetypical universes created by current imaginative writers focusing on mythological literary criticism and film theory. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 134 published by scholink inc. 2. method case study methodology of the case study begins on week 2 of english 102, an online course in literature and composition at the university of maryland global campus. i suggest that through videos, and the theory of blended classroom and active learning, i may gain more retention from my students of the material that i present due to repetition of the course material in a video setting. stronger and clearer model when i create and post videos into the announcements page. i also experienced balanced teaching and sustained my own capacity to reach students by using my own videos based to frame a story line that offered planning and outline, writing developmental paragraphs, writing a literary critique, and comparing two short stories. active learning i encourage high-quality training with active learning techniques such as presenting major points, defining the week’s study goals, and offering sample ideas by modeling the required activities. for example, i explain writing a literary analysis through a short video about one particular critique in my book spatializing social justice, literary critiques. correlate the video title with the weekly activities to maximize retention and reinforce learning. videos in announcements allow students to use metacognition to enhance their next writing activity. videos in announcements introduce the study week. videos are metacognitive activities which enlighten us to better writing. in fact, we promote the use of metacognition to begin the outlines and purpose, hermeneutics to approach the research, and finally, cultural poetics to see the literary work as a social discourse. closed captioned videos are also used in this study. i mention to students in the video transcript original suggestions for metacognitive planning: “read the story several times and argue something that means something to you, that you learned or that you felt or that you think the author wants you to gain—something that the author wants teach you or share with you” (diedwardo video transcript). further, i teach writing in the transcript which i also share in the course announcements: zora neale hurston was known during the harlem renaissance for her wit. her folk writing style. stephanie powell watts winner of the pushcart prize has received the southern women writers’ conferences best emerging writer award. place in the tale black death is set in orlando, zora neale hurston’s hometown. zora writes authentic expressions to define place. places serve a mythic representations. since the creator of the story uses literary imagination to craft artistically, formal study continues for me. writing about place derives from reflection. as i read excerpts from my chapter, i emphasize the study of the story and the author and self-reflection on the story (diedwardo video transcript). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 135 published by scholink inc. 3. result how do we overcome struggles that students may face in finishing weekly discussion and assignments? do original video lectures enhance learning and maximize retention in online classes? what are the effects on my teaching and my performance as a professor when i create models? how do video lectures help me to present metacognitive training? how do videos maximize retention for all the students who participate in the class weekly, who post discussions, and who are writing papers? videos in announcements allow students to use metacognition to enhance their next writing activity. videos in announcements introduce the study week. videos are metacognitive activities which enlighten us to better writing. in fact, we promote the use of metacognition to begin the outlines and purpose, hermeneutics to approach the research, and finally, cultural poetics to see the literary work as a social discourse. my teaching strategy of using videos that i create balance and sustain my own capacity to teach the course. i participate seven days during every study week of the eight week online class. the results were reported in a zoom community meet up at umgc on november 13, 2020 to the global campus. i demonstrated the script that i create to enhance the presentation of videos. i use specific pedagogy and organize the videos according to the learning objectives of the study week. i showed enthusiasm for teaching, since i extended the weekly content by using my own videos based on my own writing to frame a story line that offered planning and outline, writing developmental paragraphs, writing a literary critique, and comparing two short stories. extend classroom material on specific topics with original videos that are posted to announcements. presenting to the faculty of the university where i teach was also inspiring. i am grateful. 4. discussion hermeneutics is the practice and theory of interpretation and understanding of science, art, education, and philosophy. “a hermeneutic approach for conducting literature reviews and literature searches” by sebastian k. boeil and dubravka cecez-kecmnanoc inspires us to use the hermeneutic approach. the authors propose a hermeneutic framework that integrates analysis and interpretation of literature and the search for literature. furthermore, the authors explain two hermeneutic circles: the search and acquisition circle and analysis and interpretation circle (boeil et al.). moving toward the goal of poetic praxis, teaching tolerance, we incorporate hermeneutic arcs into the curriculum to organize and to interpret information. applying hermeneutical approaches constitutes a text, a respect for history of the author of the text and the significance of the text, and understanding approaches to writing about the text. the hermeneutic arc offers us methodology for interpretation. “hermeneutics, in france as elsewhere abroad, is frequently associated with the work of paul ricer” (frey, p. viii.). in 2011, in world applied science www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 136 published by scholink inc. journal, 15(11), 1623-1629, ghasemi et al. defined hermeneutics as the science of interpretation. “in the field of education, hermeneutics has played a relatively important role in understanding text” (ghasemi et al.). the authors site the hermeneutic method according to paul ricoeur. we accomplish understanding by explanation, understanding, and appropriation which ricoeur called “hermeneutic arc”. explanation explores the nature of the text; understanding explores the question which the text presents; and appropriation expands knowledge and perception. jeff malpas and hans-helmuth gander, editors of the routledge companion to hermeneutics, establish hermeneutic origins, explain hermeneutic thinkers, ask hermeneutic questions, describe hermeneutic engagements, challenges and dialogues, and conclude with the future of hermeneutics. literature is a social discourse. rooted in the principles of the aristotelian philosophy, i incorporate the theoretical basis of art as imitation. my pedagogy results in teaching themes that enliven the 21st century student to create imaginative meta-fiction and to enhance classes with projects that are alternatives to essay, to inspire students. read the poetics by aristotle. in doing so, set criterion for interpretation which reflects and questions fundamental assumptions (malpas et al.). her “poetry festival pedagogical project” assigns a writing process journal format with drafting, reflections on music lyrics as poetry, and the three attributes of hermeneutical arc including text, explanation of the text, understanding in reflections, and her original musicality contextual framework based on her case study research. argument summary captures the use of the hermeneutic arc and metacognitive pedagogy. my students participated in think, pair, share in a blog to introduce a themed unit of writing. summary writing as a metacognitive writing pre-writing exercise allows students to use critical reading skills to enhance their next writing activity. reading to doubt or exploratory writing in separate blogs with one theme offers reflective writing practices to discover style and personal voice or alternative topics. thinking about literature through the lens of the hermeneutic arc and with metacognitive activities may enlighten us to better writing. in fact, we promote the use of metacognition to begin the outlines and purpose, hermeneutics to approach the research, and finally, cultural poetics to see the literary work as a social discourse, metacognition is thinking about thinking. flavell coined the term metacognition in the seventies of the last century (flavell). combine hermeneutic and metacognitive models to ask how a particular effect is achieved or why an ending seems right but also what a particular line means and what a literary work tells us about the human condition. acknowledgement thanks to university of maryland global campus for inviting me to speak about my case study at community meet up on november 13, 2020. thanks to vernon press for publishing my work which i was editor for and contributor to: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 137 published by scholink inc. hermeneutics, metacognition, and writing. this volume investigates the social functionality of actions as an essential criterion of study. it focuses on hermeneutics: interpretation through the lens of philosophy of metacognition. vital contributions to the book include several chapters by me, which explore various facets of the central topic, including the intersectionality of hermeneutics, metacognition, and semiotics, as well as social movements. this collection of critiques and case studies examines the imagined cultural landscape of specific works and associated activities such as fine art, music, poetry, and digital humanities, which aim to initiate self-monitoring as metacognition, or meta-reflection, by creating interior interpersonal space to overcome adversity. this edited volume will be of particular interest to scholars and students of textual hermeneutics as it relates to prose writing and artistic works in non-verbal media. references (2005). pairing music and linguistic intelligences. record, 41(3), spring. kappa delta pi, international education honors society. (2014). rhetorical analysis and metacognitive pedagogy. amazon. kindle. e-book. (2015). teaching writing based on journaling concepts of thoreau. amazon. kindle. ebook. (2017). implementing learning strategies based on metacognition. journal of modern education review, 7(6), 380-388. new york: academic star. (2017). transcending domestic abuse through the study and practice of writing. germany: lambert academic publishing. (2018). the significance of the writing of thomas merton, cultivating peace. philadelphia: fast pencil publishing. (2019). spatializing social justice: literary critiques. maryland: hamilton publishing. daniel frey.” preface”. paul ricoeur. (2016.) hermeneutics, writings and lectures, volume 2. trans. david pellauer. massachusetts: malden. diedwardo, m. (2008). the pocahontas archive, history on trial. pocahontas as christy girl. department of english. lehigh university. retrieved from http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/pocahontas/essays.php?id=2”http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/poca hontas/essays.php?id=2 diedwardo, m. (2020). human rights in the film roma. final admission confirmation of the chapter—human rights congressseville, spain, dykinson. diedwardo, m. (editor and contributor). (2016). american women writers, poetics and the nature of gender study. england: cambridge scholars publishing. diedwardo, m. (n.d.). diigo. retrieved from https://www.diigo.com/user/diedwardo7 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 138 published by scholink inc. diedwardo, m. p. (2020). hermeneutics and metacognition. advances in social sciences research journal, 7(7), 12-16. retrieved from https://journals.scholarpublishing.org/index.php/assrj/article/view/8497 diedwardo, m. p. (editor and contributor). (2020). hermeneutics, metacognition, and writing. spain: vernon press. retrieved from https://vernonpress.com/file/10663/f5f7fd1190b872a0094c5fe64b0cc205/1575540046.pdf flavell, j. h. (1987). cognitive monitoring: a new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. american psychologist, 34(10), 906-911. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.34.10.906 flavell, j. h. (1987). speculation about the nature and development of metacognition. in f. e. weinert, & r. h. kluwe (eds.), metacognition, motivation, and understanding (pp. 21-22.). ghasemi, a., taghinejad, m., kabriri, a. & imani, m. (2011). ricoeur’s “theory of interpretation: a method for understanding text (course text)”. world applied science journal, 15(11), 1623-1629. idosi publications. malpas, j., & gander, h.-h. (eds.). (2015). the routledge companion to hermeneutics. new york: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315771854 sebastian k. b., & dubravka, c.-k. (2014). a hermeneutic approach for conducting literature reviews and literature searches. communications of the association for information systems, 34, article 12, 57-286. https://doi.org/10.17705/1cais.03412 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 234 original paper the gothic complex in tim burton‟s films wenchao deng 1* 1 sichuan university of culture and arts * wenchao deng, sichuan university of culture and arts received: september 28, 2024 accepted: october 18, 2024 online published: november 12, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p234 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p234 fund project: undergraduate teaching reform quality engineering project of sichuan university of culture and arts project: characteristic course construction of script project course under the background of integrated media (project number: 2021zl02) abstract tim burton’s films are known for their melancholic and melancholic yet love filled nature. the display and interplay of cool and warm tones in his films provide the audience with the director’s kindness and warmth during the viewing process. tim burton’s films use gothic artistic techniques to create a very eerie world, with gothic style reflected in characters, audio-visual language, and themes. keywords gothic, tim burton, film style tim burton is a famous “genius” director in hollywood, whose works have unique styles such as eccentricity, humor, exaggeration, violence, and other non-traditional elements that attract audiences who crave to break through tradition. most of his films are in the gothic art style, known as gothic cinema. the concept of gothic originated from the architecture industry and ultimately originated in europe during the 11th to 15th centuries. it was a very popular architectural style at that time. this style of architecture features towering spires, pointed arches, large floor to ceiling windows, and ornate stained glass windows, showcasing its religious and cultural characteristics. tim burton‟s films showcase the gothic art style through their distinct audiovisual language features, various gothic style shots, music scores, etc. this article elaborates on tim burton‟s gothic film style from three aspects. 1. gothic character in gothic literature, elves, ghosts, monsters, vampires, zombies, and various bizarre supernatural phenomena are often portrayed. these characters often have abnormal appearances, abnormal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 235 published by scholink inc. personalities, cold personalities, and strange behavior. the protagonist in tim burton‟s film portrays such a gothic character personality. for example, the protagonist edward in “scissorhands edward” is a robot that his “father” has not yet completed. most of his body has been completed, but his arms can only be replaced with a pair of scissors. he lives alone in a castle, isolated from the world, with a pale face, insect like scars crawling on his face, black and stiff hair, and a black leather jacket covering his entire body. the entire character‟s appearance is out of place compared to ordinary movie protagonists. tim burton, on the other hand, endows the character of edward scissorhands with an extremely pure and innocent heart and a kind and warm personality that is different from ordinary people. just like tim burton‟s 1982 film „vincent‟, the images of edward scissorhands and vincent are almost identical, or it can also be said that vincent and tim burton have similar childhood experiences, and edward is a later version to express the passionate and kind heart hidden deep in his lonely heart. in “scissorhands edward”, gothic dogs are also reflected in it. edward used his natural scissor hands to repair the fur of his neighbor‟s pet dog, which was shaped into a postmodern style image. these gothic dogs can also be found in “little scientist” and “zombie bride”, with their fur designed in various gothic styles, appearing in the movies to showcase their image. in the movie “the barber todd”, tim burton‟s portrayal of todd also has a strong gothic style. beethoven‟s messy black hair mixed with a strand of white hair, red eye circles, sunken eye sockets, pale face, todd presented the posture of a devil avenger from head to toe. it is worth mentioning that the actor who plays barber todd and scissorhands edward is the same person johnny depp, who combines gloom, sensitivity, personality, innocence, and sexiness. the appearance of edward in “scissorhands edward” has made more audiences recognize and appreciate tim burton‟s gothic style characters. this film embodies the symbols that gothic cinema should have, such as castles, weirdoes, bizarre events, and more. edward is a strange person with scissor hands who came to the town and was welcomed by everyone. however, those scissor hands still hurt people, and people began to reject and fear edward. eventually, edward gained everyone‟s recognition and helped everyone with their hair. however, when an unexpected incident occurred, once the harm appeared in the community, edward was rejected by people and could only return to his dark and lonely castle again. if the film ends here, it can be said to be a sad and depressing movie. however, tim burton did not end the story, but gave this dark world a happy ending, just like everyone, no matter how dark the heart is, there is always a gap that allows sunlight to shine in. in “zombie bride”, the zombie bride appears from a withered tree branch in the dark night, with her hair covering her face. there are signs of decay on her face and body, and her veil is torn and tattered. her wedding dress also has aged blood stains and holes, clearly symbolizing abnormal death. the male protagonist victor also has a pale face, deep dark circles under his eyes, a thin face, a frail figure, and a feeling of vulnerability, with a gloomy temperament. as for the other characters in the movie, they are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 236 published by scholink inc. either exaggeratedly obese or exaggeratedly thin and weak, like hemp poles. the whole movie is completely immersed in a black, gloomy, and terrifying atmosphere, as if there is no glimmer of light. 2. gothic audio-visual language gothic architecture is a pillar of environment and tone in burton‟s films, establishing that the story is destined to be dramatic. architecture is used to support the environment in which the story takes place, the environment is used to reflect the characters‟ psychology, and the characters‟ psychology is used to elevate the meaning of “cult” films. in tim burton‟s films, audiences can easily see buildings full of gothic style. in the movie “scissorhands edward”, edward lives in a dark, gloomy, dilapidated, dirty, and abandoned gothic castle, while the defeated castle is opposite to a sunny, clean, tidy, and orderly residential community. it is not difficult to see that the contrast between the two buildings reflects edward‟s warmth and humanity, despite his seemingly indifferent appearance; the orderly and even planned monotonous community reflects the conservative, worldly wise, devoid of personality, and rarely affectionate warmth of the residents. for example, the narrow alleys, medieval castles, palaces, and churches built in works such as “sleepy hollow”, “the barber todd”, and “zombie bride” are a must see symbol in tim burton‟s films. tim burton has a power that reminds audiences of his movies whenever they see gothic architecture. the existence of all gothic buildings showcases the pervasive aesthetic features of gothic through the lens and images. these buildings are often important emotional outlets and overall atmospheric displays in movies, showcasing gothic style to the audience through the lens. music is an important medium for listening to language in movies, and tim burton‟s gothic films use typical gothic music to enhance the atmosphere. gothic music has obvious anti traditional characteristics, opposing the existing musical forms of classical music, and its musical themes are mostly against european orthodox morality and christian traditional religious beliefs; music often praises darkness and the dark personality traits of indifference, ruthlessness, jealousy, and cruelty in human nature; faced with death, gothic music considers it a symbol of beauty; music melody processing often uses low, dull, and oppressive melodies to create a cold and ruthless music world. when extreme tension is portrayed in “sleepy hollow”, the rapid rhythm of the violin portrays the panic of people being chased by the headless horseman, while the playing of horns and drums slows down the rhythm, but it shapes the headless horseman‟s powerful sense of control over people, creating a terrifying atmosphere for the film. the music at the beginning of the movie “zombie bride” is low and distinct from the upcoming wedding, creating a tense and chilly atmosphere; the camera went underground, and although the scene was even darker, it used upbeat and emotionally charged music, fermenting the emotions of the male and female protagonists. the music complemented the plot perfectly; at the end of the film, the music is full of warmth, making the audience believe in the power www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 237 published by scholink inc. of love again. this is how tim burton cleverly uses music to give the audience a happy and surprising feeling. in “barber todd”, todd coldly and ruthlessly cuts his razor across his throat, spilling blood all over. at this moment, the music is a typical duet, creating a cold and gloomy atmosphere. at the beginning of the movie, “edward scissorhands” is accompanied by a desolate castle, and the music is low and oppressive, establishing the heavy tone of the entire film. when mrs. ampere, a cosmetics salesman, accidentally discovers a castle, the background music appears mysterious and novel, revealing edward‟s world and the process of his discovery. in the eyes of outsiders, this is a haunted castle, but when its true face is revealed, it is just a dilapidated dwelling, waiting for a lonely and helpless fragile young man. the clever combination of music and visuals, gothic architecture, gothic music, and gothic editing shots, together form the artistic style characteristics of gothic. tim burton uses music to portray the atmosphere of the film, uses gothic music to drive the development of the plot, uses gothic music to shape the characters‟ images, and expresses the director‟s own inner world. 3. gothic theme in literary works, gothic themes are portrayed, and authors shape demons, vampires, and witches to tell stories full of bloody terrorism or mysticism through their images, in order to stimulate the audience‟s imagination from a textual perspective. to showcase the gothic theme in a movie, what is presented to the audience is a story. through this gothic story, the audience discovers the gothic theme in the movie through a unique story. in “scissorhands edward”, edward‟s world is a dark gothic world, but when he walks out of the castle, he sees another organized, serious, and even somewhat monotonous community. this community has changed its previous gloom before the film. it presents a seemingly peaceful and happy ordinary community life, with the colors of the community treated with vintage tones, such as blue sky, white clouds, apartments, lawns etc., appearing in the eyes of the audience. however, the use of these elemental symbols further highlights the boredom, silence, rigidity, and uniformity of traditional middle-class society. in such a community, every household has a well maintained lawn, a hardworking husband who goes out to work, a blonde housewife, and two children, a man and a woman. when edward, who possessed these scissor hands, appeared, he was out of place with the environment. this sharp contrast in style often appears in tim‟s movies. edward, who has scissor hands, falls in love with a beautiful girl. the reason why this film is called a fairy tale is because its plot has rich imagination and fantasy. the difference is that fairy tales are always beautiful and there are not so many realities to face. and “edward scissorhands” marks reality fiercely in the fantasy and beauty of fairy tales, adding a strong gothic atmosphere. the castle in the fairy tale has become a dilapidated www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 238 published by scholink inc. castle, and the people living inside are not princes and princesses, nor are they kind and simple. from this perspective, it can be said that edward scissorhands, who lived in fairy tales, walked into reality. when fairy tales clashed with reality, it was the moment when tim burton‟s gothic fairy tales showed the biggest difference from ordinary fairy tales, and of course, the tragedy arrived. the majority of the film in “the barber todd” is still dominated by dark tones, as todd carries out his revenge plan in the gothic town under the never-ending dark clouds. only when talking about todd‟s past and recalling scenes of his wife and daughter living together, does the film sweep away the dark tones and present a warm and sunny golden hue. in tim burton‟s other films such as “alice in wonderland” and “the big fish”, although the overall style is not so gothic, in some scenes, such as alice walking into the forest, we see tim‟s usual gothic art style again. tim burton‟s works combine cartoon characters and gothic style. this makes tim‟s gothic always close to fairy tales. tim burton‟s films are mostly full of fantastic imagination, including some animated works. among them, “zombie bride” is one of the gothic style animated films, which is classified as a horror movie, but the same audience can still clearly feel the pure warmth from the protagonist emily. viewers generally believe that animation colors should be fresh and bright, and character designs must be cute or beautiful. however, the protagonist of “zombie bride” is a group of skeletons, and the scene is dark and gray. the protagonist is a group of skull bones, but the story is as beautiful and moving as a fairy tale. the story of a deceased bride who pursued love with simplicity and purity, and ultimately let go of love. the fairy tale that audiences are accustomed to is a love story between a princess and a prince, while in tim burton‟s movies, it can be a love story between zombies and living people. the grid by grid puppet blockbuster “zombie bride” contains many elements such as strangeness, creativity, fairy tales, black humor, commercial plot, gorgeous music and song and dance, etc. for example, the scene of victor and emily playing the piano in the film, the passionate sound of the piano and delicate expressions, the movement of the camera and the rhythm of the editing, are full of dramatic power, almost exceeding the limits that can be achieved by live performances. such a film with rich and complex elements may be tim‟s unique black fairy tale. movies are tim burton‟s means of expressing his personal beliefs, always conveying his evil fairy tale heart to the audience. fairy tales often give us beautiful stories, where heroes always win and villains have no happy endings. when you watch tim burton‟s fairy tales, you unconsciously fall in love with the villainous characters because the audience understands that good people are also bad people, and bad people are not necessarily good people. tim burton uses the bright colors of fairy tales to further beautify good people, elevate bad people, and ultimately establish his own style. this is not a disappointing movie, it is just tim burton‟s unchanging style. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 239 published by scholink inc. references chen, z. h. (2016). interpreting the art of ugliness in tim burton‟s films. film literature, (05). guo,y. (2010). tim burton: interpreter of author films and genre films. chongqing university. lin, l. (2020). on the gothic style of tim burton‟s films. drama house, (30). wang, s. (2013). on expressionism in tim burton‟s films. drama house (first half), (05). yu, m. (2017). on tim burton‟s american black film. film literature, (11). zhang, w. s. (2017). on the gothic character images in tim burton‟s films. news research guide, (05). zhi, c., & liang, m. (2011). on tim burton‟s gothic films. film literature, (03). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 97 original paper a case design on cultivation of integrating digital pedagogy and enhancing students‟ intercultural competence in english literature reading course jiahao lu 1 , lian xia 1 & weiqi lu 2 1 postgraduate student of the school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 postgraduate student of the graduate school of translation and interpreting, jilin international studies university, changchun, china received: august 19, 2025 accepted: september 10, 2025 online published: september 30, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p97 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p97 abstract since the concept of liberal english education was put forward, artificial intelligence and information technology have developed rapidly, and digitization has become a new form of human survival and development. the newly issued national standards for the quality of foreign language and literature teaching (2018) by the ministry of national education (hereinafter referred to as “the standard”) and the national ordinary institutions of higher learning foreign language literature specialty teaching guide and the syllabus (2020) (hereinafter referred to as “the teaching guide”) clearly point out that the cultivation of intercultural competence should be regarded as an important ability of english students and the teaching of foreign language courses in universities should serve the diverse needs of foreign language talents in the country, the pluralistic needs of local economic and social development, and the personalized needs of students‟ development. therefore, in order to enhance college students‟ autonomous study ability and intercultural competence, in this paper, the author presents a case design on integrating digital pedagogy into the english literature reading course to enhance students‟ intercultural competence. in the context of digitization of educational and globalization, digital technologies such as ai and vr are employed. through pre-class preparation, in-class implementation, and post-class extension, students are guided to compare chinese and western cultures, which helps cultivate their intercultural awareness and skills. the research contributes to digital pedagogy and intercultural education theories and provides practical implications for curriculum design and student development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 98 published by scholink inc. keywords intercultural competence, digital pedagogy, autonomous study ability 1. introduction 1.1 research background under the impetus of the standard and teaching guide, foreign language teaching in china‟s universities and colleges should boldly explore new theories and methods for foreign language education and teaching, new models and mechanisms for talent cultivation, as well as new platforms and paths for the deep integration of intelligent technologies with foreign language education. it is essential to comprehensively integrate various talent cultivation resources inside and outside universities, as well as at home and abroad; to fully stimulate the teaching enthusiasm and creativity of all teachers, and the learning motivation and potential of all students; and to continue forging ahead to build a world-class foreign language education system with chinese characteristics in higher education, thus making new contributions to the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation and the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind. digitization of education has witnessed a remarkable upsurge in recent years, significantly influencing foreign language and literature teaching. it can be observed that the enormous resource storage capacity and resource-sharing functions of the internet can break the time and space limitations in english classroom teaching, enabling students to study anytime and anywhere (siti rochmiyati, imam ghozali, and luky tiasari, 2020). digital technologies, including artificial intelligence (ai), virtual reality (vr), and supporting tools such as various online learning platforms, have revolutionized the educational landscape in higher education. in foreign language and literature courses, students can gain an immersive learning experience with the help of ai technology and have access to a wide range of learning resources, thereby increasing their participation. for instance, deepseek, as one of the representative ai-assisted learning tools, is capable of analyzing students‟ learning patterns and offering tailored learning recommendations, thereby enhancing the efficiency of the learning process. simultaneously, the importance of improving students‟ intercultural competence in higher education has been heightened with the acceleration of globalization. as the world becomes increasingly interconnected, students are required to engage with diverse cultures in academic, professional, and social arenas. in the english literature reading course, students are able to delve deeper into the cultural subtleties within literary works by developing their intercultural competence, thereby facilitating effective intercultural communication and fostering a global mindset. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 99 published by scholink inc. 1.2 research objectives and significance the following are the main objectives of the case design: the central objective of this research is to explore the integration of digital technologies into the english literature reading course to enhance students‟ intercultural competence (encompassing intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes through different cultures). by leveraging digital tools, this study aims to encourage students to compare chinese and western cultures during the course, fostering their intercultural skills and strengthening their sense of local cultural identity. the significance of this case design contains two aspects: theoretically, this study enriches the fields of digital pedagogy and intercultural education by providing empirical evidence for the effectiveness of digital technologies in promoting intercultural learning in the context of english literature teaching, thereby further contributing to existing theoretical frameworks. additionally, the author offers novel perspectives on integrating digital resources and activities into intercultural education, deepens students‟ understanding of the relationship between digitalization of education and the development of intercultural competence, and helps students fully leverage digital technologies to cultivate intercultural competence throughout their learning process. practically, the findings of this research have certain importance implications for curriculum design and student development. for curriculum design, it offers insights into incorporating digital elements into the english literature reading course to make it more engaging and effective in cultivating intercultural competence. for student development, it equips students with the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed in a globalized world, preparing them for future academic and professional pursuits that demand intercultural communication competence. figure 1. research objectives and significance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 100 published by scholink inc. 2. literature review 2.1 digitization of education and curriculum innovation the digitization of education involves the application of digital technologies to transform the teaching and learning process. in the realm of higher education, digital transformation has become a global trend. ai-assisted learning, like the one provided by deepseek, has the potential to revolutionize education by offering personalized learning experiences, instant feedback, and in-depth analysis capabilities of complex concepts. ai-assisted language learning provides robust support in writing, speaking, vocabulary, and reading. furthermore, it facilitates the improvement of students‟ language proficiency through real-time feedback and personalized learning pathways (huang, 2023). the study of digitalization began with alvin toffler‟s the third wave in the 1980s, followed by nicholas negroponte‟s being digital in the 1990s, and esther dyson‟s release 2.0: a design for living in the digital age at the turn of the 20 th and 21 st centuries. nicholas negroponte, known as “the first person to provide a panoramic vision and predictive study of humanity‟s networked existence”, described with extremely forward-looking insight in his book being digital—which caused a sensation in western society—the profound changes that the application of digital technologies would bring to human life forms. polikoff, dean (2019) and other scholars have found that information technology has gradually become a new form of english classroom teaching, and the effective integration of english classroom teaching with information technology is the key to boosting the “transformation” of english classroom teaching (northrop laura, 2021). nowadays, social media applications can significantly impact on english language learning in the classroom and outside of it thanks to new technologies and the widespread use of mobile devices (akylbek meirbekov, 2024). in recent years, china has attached increasing importance to the digital transformation of higher education. national smart education platforms such as massive open online courses (moocs) and chaoxing.com have helped achieve the goal of learning for all, everywhere, and anytime by placing educational resources on internet platforms to enable “national learning”. meanwhile, the ministry of education has issued the education informatization 2.0 action plan, emphasizing “promoting the renewal of educational concepts, transforming models, and reconstructing systems,” and formulated the standards for digital literacy of teachers, which regulate teacher development from five dimensions: digital awareness, digital technology knowledge and skills, digital applications, digital social responsibility, and professional development. these provide top-level design and action guidelines for the digital transformation of teaching in colleges and universities. these policies have profound implications for language teaching, guiding educators to integrate digital technologies into foreign language courses to improve teaching quality. the digital transformation of education requires teaching to shift from the imparting of knowledge to the guidance of values, and it enhances teaching effectiveness through technologies such as virtual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 101 published by scholink inc. simulation and intelligent evaluation. not only is this transformation an inevitable trend in the development of educational technology but it is also an inherent requirement for implementing the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education. 2.2 intercultural competence in language teaching with the continuous advancement of globalization, intercultural competence, as a crucial component for enhancing students‟ overall quality and strengthening cultural confidence, has increasingly gained attention from both domestic and international education circle. as china‟s economic and cultural exchanges with other countries become more frequent, there is an urgent need for a contingent of internationalized talents with strong intercultural competence. in china, foreign language education represents the most active field in intercultural competence research, and the cultivation of intercultural competence has become a topic of widespread concern in the foreign language education community. research on intercultural competence abroad began in the 1960s, initially aiming to solve practical problems in intercultural communication through the study of intercultural competence. in the field of intercultural research, ortis used the self-created concept of “transculturality” to describe cuba‟s colonial history, aiming to more accurately reflect the historical integration of the country‟s native culture and the cultures of colonial powers. building on ortis‟s theoretical research, dussel argued for the reciprocity of cultural reshaping in intercultural processes. byram (1997) defined intercultural competence from the perspective of civic education, suggesting that citizens with intercultural experiences reflect on their own experiences in four aspects: knowledge and skills, behavior, action, and emotional attitudes, thereby significantly enriching the meaning of intercultural competence. concerning its components, howard (1998) constructed an intercultural competence model consisting of three dimensions—attitudes, skills, and knowledge—based on a trichotomous framework. regarding the formation and development of intercultural competence, liddicoat (2002) proposed that intercultural-oriented english teaching should enhance students‟ competence to use english in intercultural contexts. in terms of defining intercultural competence, the academic community generally endorses deardorff‟s (2006) conceptualization. he defines intercultural competence as “the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, based on intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes.” with the development of the times, academic definitions of intercultural competence have evolved, continuously enriching its connotations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 102 published by scholink inc. figure 2. deardorff’s model of intercultural competence development 2.3 the english literature reading course: a course to develop critical thinking from a intercultural perspective through english literature reading english literature reading course, as a core course for english majors, plays a vital role in highlighting the core literacy of the english discipline and fulfilling its educational value. the course primarily introduces the emergence of literary schools in different historical periods of britain and the united states, biographies of classical authors, and selected readings and appreciations of classic anglo-american literary works (including genres such as poetry, essays, novels, and dramas), thereby helping students understand the social backgrounds and cultural contexts of the eras in which the authors lives. meanwhile, with correct ideological guidance as its foundation, the course guides students to maintain a chinese perspective while studying anglo-american literature, compare and contrast chinese and foreign literary works, and adopt a critical mindset to absorb the essence of these works and discard their dross. through learning anglo-american literary works, students can better understand their cultures, thereby telling chinese stories effectively through comparisons between relevant chinese and foreign literary works, spreading excellent chinese literary works globally, and showcasing chinese classics to the world. through this course, students can thoroughly understand and master english language knowledge and skills from cultural and social perspectives, enhance their comprehension of diverse cultures, cultivate intercultural communication competence through chinese-western cultural comparisons, and improve their ability to apply the english language. it will be possible to disseminate local culture, promote exchanges and mutual learning among diverse cultures, and cultivate qualified new-generation foreign language professionals (cao xiaoling, 2024). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 103 published by scholink inc. 2.4 the garden of forking paths: a novel to explore chinese-western philosophies via forking temporalities and cultural harmonies in interlaced spatialities set during world war i, the garden of forking paths follows yu tsun, a former english teacher at tsingtao hochschule and a german spy, who must transmit the location of british artillery parks on the ancre to berlin while evading pursuit by captain richard madden. fleeing to the village of ashgrove, yu targets stephen albert, a sinologist whose surname matches the secret city name he needs to reveal. in albert‟s garden, the scholar interprets yu‟s ancestor ts‟ui pen‟s legacy: a novel and labyrinth symbolizing time as an infinite, branching network of parallel futures. yu kills albert to complete his mission, is arrested, and is condemned to hang, though his act succeeds in delivering the intelligence. the story blends espionage with metaphysical inquiry, exploring time‟s nonlinear nature through eastern philosophy filtered by western interpretation. rooted in borges‟s seminal work the garden of forking paths, this curricular design requires students to navigate among eastern and western historical, philosophical, and literary traditions during textual interpretation. by analyzing characters‟ identity dilemmas, intercultural semiotic transpositions, and the metaphorical narrative architecture, not only does the course enhance multicultural textual analysis skills but it also cultivates intercultural literacy—an intellectual capacity embracing cognitive diversity, critical engagement with conflicts, and the pursuit of shared humanity within labyrinthine cultural pathways. such competency equips global learners with both a hermeneutic key to decipher our complex world and an architectural framework for constructing substantive intercultural dialogues. 3. traditional teaching paradigms and digital transformation 3.1 limitations of traditional teaching model currently, the teaching of the english literature reading course commonly adopts a traditional model that integrates lectures on the development history of english literature with selected readings of and appreciation for prominent authors and their classic works of the corresponding historical periods. the lack of integration of chinese elements in this model has resulted in most english major students lacking awareness of and understanding of chinese culture while studying english literature, and even less knowledge about the thoughts of chinese fine traditional culture and classic chinese literary works. coupled with the fact that traditional english literature teaching neglects chinese fine traditional culture, students often experience the phenomenon of “cultural aphasia” when using english, making it difficult for them to convey chinese culture to the world in english. thus, the field of english education inevitably faces the imbalance between chinese and western cultures and the unbalanced development of the global language and culture ecosystem in english education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 104 published by scholink inc. figure 3. traditional teaching model traditional teaching methods in english literature reading courses often over-emphasize linguistic analysis, primarily focusing on grammar, vocabulary, and literary devices. this approach tends to overlook ideological and cultural critical analysis, which are crucial for achieving a comprehensive understanding of literary works. students passively passively receive knowledge when studying anglo-american literature, with their understanding of literary works remaining superficial and lacking in-depth analysis. for example, when analyzing a text, students may fail to recognize the cultural biases or power dynamics embedded within it. furthermore, traditional teaching lacks interactive tools to visualize abstract concepts. in a work like the garden of forking paths, concepts such as “time bifurcation” pose challenges for students to comprehend through traditional lecture-based teaching alone. without effective visual aids, students may struggle to grasp the complex relationships among different elements in the story. 3.2 digital innovations in english literature reading course the application of digital technologies can offer innovative solutions for addressing the limitations of traditional teaching. in the pre-class stage, ai-generated concept maps, such as those related to “time imagery”, can assist students in constructing an intercultural semantic network. by visualizing the relationships between time-related concepts in different cultures, students can better understand the cultural connotations of literary works. during the in-class stage, vr technology can be utilized to recreate scenes such as the suzhou garden maze. this enables students to compare the spatial metaphors in borges‟s works with the spatial metaphors in chinese literature, such as comparing the maze in the story with the garden paths in chinese gardens to identify their similarities and differences. in the post-class stage, tiktok serves as a platform for students to disseminate chinese philosophical ideas globally. by creating and sharing bilingual short videos, students can introduce concepts like the taoist time-view and the co-existence of yin and yang to a global audience, thereby promoting cultural exchange. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 105 published by scholink inc. table 1. the design of digital innovations in english literature reading course teaching stage digital tool/method objective deardorff‟ s model pre-class ai-generated concept maps (e.g., “time imagery”) construct intercultural semantic networks to connect core imagery (time and space) in literature. attitude in-class vr reconstruction of suzhou garden scenes compare spatial metaphors in borges‟ works and chinese literature (e.g., labyrinths vs. winding paths in gardens). knowledge and comprehension post-class tiktok short video creation disseminate chinese philosophical ideas globally (e.g., taoist concept of time, symbiosis of yin and yang). skills 4. case study: cultivation pathways for intercultural competence and digital pedagogy in the garden of forking paths 4.1 pre-class preparation: cultural grounding during the pre-class preparation stage, the focus is to establish a foundational understanding of intercultural communication via digital tools. students are tasked to write reflective journals on the topic of “linear time (west) vs. cyclic time (china)” comparing western linear time (e.g., newtonian physics, clock-based time systems) and chinese cyclic time (e.g., the 24 solar terms, the concept of “cyclic movement” in the tao te ching). they can use ai annotation tools like deepseek to help them to broaden their ideas and to edit their mistakes of language. ai tools generate keyword maps (e.g., “time → maze → cyclicity → yin-yang”) to visualize intercultural semantic connections. additionally, students watch vr-generated animations of chinese gardens (e.g., suzhou gardens) and documentary clips on the “time visualization” in dunhuang murals, linking spatial metaphors like “winding paths leading to seclusion” with the story‟s “maze” motif. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 106 published by scholink inc. table 2. the design of pre-class preparation: cultural grounding in the garden of forking paths pre-class preparation worksheet objective to establish a foundational understanding of chinese-western time philosophy and cultural symbols through digital tools, students will get preparation for in-class analysis. implementation 1. ai-assisted reflective journals o task: students use ai annotation tools (e.g., deepseek) to analyze the contrast between western linear time (e.g., newtonian physics, clock-based scheduling) and chinese cyclic time (e.g., 24 solar terms, tao te ching‟s “周行而不殆” cyclic movement). o process: o students upload reflections on prompts like: “how does borges‟s „time bifurcation‟ relate to taoist concepts of „混沌‟ (chaos) and „分形‟ (fractal)?” o ai tools generate keyword maps (e.g., “time → maze → cyclicity → yin-yang”) to visualize intercultural semantic networks. o example resource: o documentary clips from the art of dunhuang comparing dunhuang murals‟ “flying apsaras” (representing timelessness) with borges‟ interviews on “infinite time loops”. 2. multimedia pre-reading o students watch vr-generated animations of chinese gardens (e.g., suzhou‟s humble administrator‟s garden) to observe spatial metaphors like “曲径通幽” (winding paths leading to seclusion), pre-linking to the story‟s “maze” motif. 4.2 in-class implementation: multidimensional engagement during in-class implementation, digital tools enable immersive and interactive learning. in a vr-simulated “suzhou garden maze”, students are able to navigate while analyzing the story, contrasting the western maze‟s symbolism of confusion with the chinese garden‟s representation of harmonious exploration of “the interplay of reality and illusion”. vr scenario simulation is a powerful in-class learning tool. by navigating a virtual “suzhou garden maze” through vr, students can directly experience the spatial layout of chinese gardens and compare it with the maze-like structures in borges‟ works. this hands-on experience helps students better understand the spatial metaphors in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 107 published by scholink inc. literature and the cultural values behind them. for critical debates on whether borges‟ “chinese garden” constitutes cultural appropriation, students can use ai research assistants (e.g., chatgpt) to retrieve theories like edward said‟s “orientalism” and fei xiaotong‟s “cultural awareness”, and engage in online discussions guided by professor sun youzhong‟s creed principle of “critiquing”, which emphasizes analyzing cultural context, representation, and ethical implications. with the assistant of ai, students can analyze and evaluate different viewpoints, develop their critical thinking skills, and enhance their understanding of cultural issues in literature. table 3. the design of in-class implementation: multidimensional engagement in the garden of forking paths in-class implementation worksheet objective to use digital tools for immersive analysis of cultural symbols and critical debates, fostering intercultural critical thinking. 1. vr scenario simulation: spatial metaphors in literature  activity: students navigate a vr-rendered “suzhou garden maze” while reading excerpts from the garden of forking paths.  comparative analysis: o western maze: represents confusion, entrapment (e.g., minotaur myth). o chinese garden: symbolizes harmonious exploration of “虚实相生” (interplay of reality and illusion, 《园冶》yuanye).  digital tool: vr headsets with embedded ai commentary (e.g., “notice how the garden‟s „borrowed scenery‟ mirrors borges‟ layered narratives”). 2. ai-assisted debates on cultural representation  topic: “is borges‟ „chinese garden‟ an act of cultural appropriation or intercultural dialogue?”  digital support: o ai research assistants: students use chatgpt to retrieve theories (e.g., edward said‟s “orientalism”, fei xiaotong‟s “cultural awareness”). o online debate platform: students post arguments with timestamped citations (e.g., borges‟ letter admitting “non-systematic knowledge of taoism”).  guiding framework: professor sun youzhong‟s creed principle of “critiquing”: o cultural context: analyze borges‟ 1940s argentina as a “periphery” negotiating western and non-western ideas. o representation: critique stereotypes (e.g., “mystical china” vs. historical realities www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 108 published by scholink inc. of garden design). o ethical implications: discuss responsibilities of global authors in representing “other” cultures. 4.3 post-class extension: transmedia practice in post-class extension, trans-media practice promotes cultural dissemination and self-reflection. students could work in groups to create bilingual tiktok short videos re-imagining the story in historical chinese settings (e.g., tang dynasty chang‟an), using ai script generators to incorporate classical poetry (e.g., wang wei‟s verses) and ar filters to visualize “yin-yang” symbols for parallel universes. by integrating chinese cultural elements and philosophical ideas into the video, students can showcase their understanding of intercultural concepts and promote chinese fine traditional culture globally. peer review via online platforms is an important part of the assessment. peer reviews could be conducted on platforms like padlet assess cultural authenticity, critical reinterpretation, and digital innovation. focusing on these aspects, students can learn from each other, broaden their views, and further enhance their intercultural competence. table 4. the design of post-class extension: trans-media practice in the garden of forking paths post-class extension worksheet objective to apply intercultural insights through creative digital projects, enhancing cultural dissemination and self-reflection. 1. tiktok short video production: time-branching narratives  task: groups create 90-second bilingual videos retelling the garden of forking paths in a chinese historical setting (e.g., tang dynasty chang‟an).  digital tools: o ai script generators: convert classical chinese poetry (e.g., wang wei‟s verses like “i‟d go as far as the end of a stream or fountain and sit and gaze on cloud rising over the mountain.”) into dialogue reflecting “time bifurcation”. o ar filters: overlay “yin-yang” symbols on scenes to visualize parallel universes.  cultural authenticity criteria: o inclusion of tang dynasty elements: imperial exams, counting rods, dunhuang frescoes. o alignment with taoist philosophy: “分岔即回归” (bifurcation as return), inspired www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 109 published by scholink inc. by i ching‟s “复卦” (returning hexagram). 2. peer review and global outreach  assessment platform: padlet wall with rubrics: o cultural authenticity (40%): accuracy of historical/cultural depictions. o critical reinterpretation (30%): how well the video subverts western stereotypes (e.g., showing tang scholars as cosmopolitan thinkers). o digital innovation (30%): use of ai/ar to enhance intercultural storytelling.  dissemination: top videos are published on tiktok with hashtags #timebranchingchina and #borgesintranslation, inviting global audiences to comment on cultural representations. 5. conclusion in conclusion, the digitalized, comparative, and experiential approaches in “global village” have effectively cultivated students‟ intercultural competence. digital technologies, including ai, vr, and online platforms, have provided new means for students to engage with literature, facilitating cultural comparison and experiential learning. through pre-class cultural grounding, in-class multidimensional engagement, and post-class trans-media practice, students have not only improved their understanding of english literature but also enhanced their intercultural competence. the application of digital technologies has also promoted the continuous development of foreign literature courses. it has made the teaching process more interactive, engaging, and effective in achieving educational goals. future research can further explore how to optimize the integration of digital technologies in literature teaching to better cultivate students‟ intercultural competence and meet the challenges of globalization. acknowledgement i am extremely grateful to my close friends whose companionship and understanding have always been a source of strength that propels me forward. also, i would like to dedicate my deepest appreciation to my family. it is precisely the encouragement and trust of my family that allowed me to devote myself to the thesis writing without distractions and face various difficulties in the research process calmly. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 110 published by scholink inc. references borges, j. l. (2018). the garden of forking paths. london: penguin uk. byram, m. (1997). teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. clevedon, uk: multilingual matters. byram, m., golubeva, h. h., & wagner, m. (eds.). (2016). from principles to practice in education for intercultural citizenship. clevedon: multilingual matters. cao, x. l. (2024). integration of chinese culture into english and american literature education: necessity and strategy. journal of eastern liaoning university (social science edition), 26(3), 109-114. deardorff, d. k. (2006). identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. journal of studies in international education, (3), 241-266. dussel, e. (1995). the invention of the americans: eclipse of “the other” and the myth of modernity (translated by michael d. barber). new york: continuum. dyson, e. (1998). release 2.0: a design for living in the digital age. new york: broadway books. fei, x. t. (2010). culture and cultural awareness. beijing: qunyan press. guidance on developing the digital economy to stabilize and expand employment. (2018). china foreign trade and economic cooperation gazette, (57), 7-10. howard, h. m. f., richardson, b. j., & shuford, b. (1998). promoting multicultural education: a holistic approach. college students affairs, (18), 5-17. huang, x., zou, d., cheng, g., chen, x., & xie, h. (2023). trends, research issues and applications of artificial intelligence in language education. educational technology & society, 26(1), 112-131. jin, h. y., hu, d. x., yin, l. p., li, y., & cui, d. (2023). cultivation of core competences of english major students under the inter-discinplinary guidance a case study of “the survey of british and american culture” course. communication, society and media, (6), 29-44. laura, n., & elena, a. (2021). vocabulary instruction for grades 3-8 english learners: an analysis of resources. tesol journal, (1), 119. liddicoat, a. (2002). static and dynamic views of culture and intercultural language acquisition. babel, 36(3), 4-11. meirbekov, a., nyshanova, s., meiirbekov, a., kazykhankyzy, l., burayeva, z., & abzhekenova, b. (2024). digitisation of english language education: instagram and tiktok online educational blogs and courses vs. traditional academic education. how to increase student motivation? education and information technologies, 29(11), 13635-13662. negroponte, n. (1995). being digital. new york: alfred a. knopf. ortis, f. (1995). cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar (translated from the spanish by harriet de onnis). durham: duke university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 111 published by scholink inc. rochmiyati, s., ghozali, i., & tiasari, l. (2020). the character values-based folklores as teaching resources to support english acquisition. journal of educational and social research, (3), 159. said, e. (1978). orientalism. new york: vintage books. su, w. l. (2021). how to use modern teaching methods to cultivate students‟ autonomous learning ability. open access library journal, (8), 1-5. sun, y. z. (2016). foreign language education and intercultural competence development. foreign languages in china, (3), 17-22. toffler, a. (1980). the third wave. new york: bantam books. notes this paper comes out as the periodical research results of the following projects: note 1. construction and practice of a transformation model for the professional development of english teachers in foreign languages universities within an interdisciplinary, jilin provincial higher education association context, jgjx2022d316 note 2. cultivation of students‟ intercultural competence and autonomous practical learning model of the english literature reading course in the global village under the background of digitization of education, jilin international studies university, jwxsky2025b089 note 3. development of digital teaching experiment cases in the global village from the perspective of chinese-western cultural comparison: integration of the course english literature reading course and the cultivation of students‟ intercultural competence. jilin international studies university, jgjx25d0724 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 15 original paper effects of social media on branding ——the rise of creative advertising marketing anyi li 1* 1 department of digital media technology, guangzhou vocational and technical university of science and technology, guangzhou, china * anyi li, department of digital media technology, guangzhou vocational and technical university of science and technology, guangzhou, china received: may 5, 2024 accepted: may 15, 2024 online published: may 25, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n1p15 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n1p15 abstract in the web2.0 era, social media has developed into the most compelling area in the global media industry and brought online users a fresher experience and more creative network communication application models. both its social impact and economic development have become the new engine and growth point of the media industry. more and more brands and companies put their advertising budgets on social media advertising, because social media advertising is not only affordable but also able to accurately target the consumer group. the internet word of mouth formed by social media is reshaping the relationship between brands and consumers. at the same time, the way audiences receive and disseminate information has undergone tremendous changes, and advertising creative communication is also facing huge challenges. this article will analyze the development process and trends of social media from the perspective of its core technology and communication characteristics, and then explore the social-psychological impact and cultural value of social media brought to brand communication. keywords social media, branding, brand communication, social-psychological impact cultural effect 1. introduction coca-cola is more than soda. starbucks is more than just a cup of coffee. nike is not only a pair of sports shoes. this is the reason for creating a brand. interacting with these products can provide experiences, and we will keep these experiences in mind when we purchase these products. when consumers make purchasing decisions, the brand may become the key deciding factor. nearly 60% of shoppers said that they actively buy products from a brand they know, while 21% of consumers www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 16 published by scholink inc. said that they buy products because they like the brand (global nielsen survey, 2015). branding is the process in which a company creates an effective and positive perception in their customer’s minds. the mission of branding is to improve the competitiveness of the brand and build a loyal customer base by combing the visual design, the story, and the marketing message of the brand. there are over four billion social media users worldwide. in the past year, the scale of users expanded to nearly 500 million, the annual growth rate exceeds more than 13%. nowadays, the users of social media have exceeded half of the world’s population (datareprotal, digital, 2020). therefore, advertisers have transformed from conventional media to social media advertising, and social media has become a channel for brand communication, building the connection with target consumers and corporate advertisers. social media marketing is a significant part of branding strategies, and branding can change consumer perceptions of the brand, drive new business and increase brand awareness. for marketing purposes, companies create specific messages or content on social media and generate discussion online to attract the attention of consumers, also encourage them to disseminate this marketing content through their social networks. from a business perspective, social media acts as a communicator between brands and customers. at present, in addition to the main traditional advertising channels such as facebook, instagram, youtube, and google, short video advertisements represented by tiktok, information flow advertising has launched a challenge to traditional social media advertising. for advertisers, advertising on social media can bring the greatest promotion effect to its brand or product. it is necessary to choose a suitable channel for brand exposure according to brand attributes and product attributes to maximize return on investment (roi). for brands, the ultimate goal is to make a profit by selling goods. through social media, brand companies can reach more potential customers, build consumer goodwill and make purchases, and at the same time use social media to help acquire more customers. 2. analysis of social media 2.1 the overview of social media the definition of social media is an interactive communication platform based on user content publishing and creation that people use to share their perspectives, personal experience, and insights. it has multimedia functions, including information such as images, audio, video, animation, and movies. social media in the web2.0 era has not only changed the way of communication between people but also created a complete user experience and product design, making brands younger and diversified. it is enriching consumers’ all-around product experience and shared experience, not only creating countless hot topics that people are discussing in their social lives but also attracting consumers and businesses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 17 published by scholink inc. 2.2 the key enabling technique born in the ear of the participatory network, the essence of social media is social networking services (sns), a concept that originated from the six-degree separation theory of stanley milgram, an american social psychologist. the theory suggests that six nodes in a network can connect any two strangers in the world. in the field of the internet, social networking services (sns) technology can be characterized as a collection of mobile internet application programs based on user profiles and data. it has technical characteristics such as personal status information, life and works social network, communication mode, and event tracking to meet people’s social needs. a typical social networking service (sns) has four layers of architecture, namely hardware, software, services, and web applications. network technology developed from the mid-1990s is changing the construction of information and the development of mankind, which systematically categorizes and intelligently analyzes massive resources and information. the traditional marketing model has been changed, resource sharing and information transparency and intelligence have been realized, and the technology is providing various industries with a vigorously developing strategic core. network nodes are connection points within a network that can send, transmit, analyze and save data. it represents a device with a network address such as an internet protocol (ip) address where the user can provide some kind of identity to receive access. a computer network that uses a cable modem on a standard cable infrastructure is called broadband and the larger the frequency range, that is, the higher the bandwidth, the greater the data that can be sent. rss is a technique (also known as aggregated content) that sites use to share content with other sites. technology that originated from the browser “news channel” is often used for news and other sequential websites, such as for weblogs (blog). social media has become a useful tool for audio-visual propaganda on streaming platforms. however, before streaming media technology emerges, people had to save and download the content from media resources to their local devices, and after a long wait which usually takes longer to download due to bandwidth constraints until they could watch or listen to the content of the media. with the advent of streaming media technology, people no longer have to wait for the media to download completely. the three characteristics of streaming media technology are continuity, real-time, and timing. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 18 published by scholink inc. figure1. the network transmission of modern streaming technology streaming media technology is a transmission technology that compresses data information of continuous video and audio files. streaming requires browser support. all web browsers are based on http protocol, and http protocol is built into mime (multipurpose internet mail extensions). typically, browsers use mime to recognize a series of simple file formats, and the browsers can mark numerous multimedia file formats on the internet, including various streaming media formats, with mime built-in http protocol. as shown in figure 1, modern streaming technology unifies network transmission to http and provides a consistent caching infrastructure to improve the performance of a video, images, documents, and other content. 2.3 the development history the development of social media is long-term and continuous, and this process (social media-based messaging) involves all aspects of human social development. in the pre-digital age, the information disseminated relied on shaped or materialized carriers of communication, such as printed paper for newspapers, master tapes for records, tapes for movies, and so on. when it comes to the digital era of information transmission, the process of communication has been changed, and fragmented information exchange has brought infinitely developed media contact points. the telecommunication network supports the continuous advancement of the information age, and real-world information such as text, sound, image, and audio is enriching people’s communication and daily life. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 19 published by scholink inc. figure 2. the history of social media from 1978 to 2015 (jon allen 2017) the first social media site goes back to the late 1970s when the university of illinois has developed the program named automatic teaching operations system (plato). the system supports thousands of graphics terminals around the world that can run on nearly ten different networked computers and provides modern multiple access concepts including “forums, message boards, emails, chat rooms, picture languages, instant messaging, remote monitoring and sharing, and multiple users’ video games”. bulletin board systems (bbs) was one of the earliest formats of social media, it was the first platform to allow users to log in and connect. then came the social media platform sixdegrees launched in 1997, where users can create personal or professional profiles, and add friends. it had about one million members at its peak but lasted only four years. figure 3. a tremendous variety of social media today (widsix written word 2019) the beginning of modern social media was in the early 21st century with the rapid change of technology. founded in 2002, friendster represents the first official social media with more than one www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 20 published by scholink inc. million registered users. it provided the function to discover friends, and its core concept is to let users know more friends in the real world. founded in 2003, linkedin was the first platform used social networks for career and business. it is mainly used for professional networking, allows job seekers to post their curriculum vitae (cvs) and interact with employees through personal emails. users can write posts and articles on the linkedin platform, introduce videos and other interactive ways to share with their professional social networks. established in the same year, myspace was providing users with an interactive platform that combines dating, personal information sharing, instant messaging, and more. it also provides an internal search engine and an internal e-mail system and became the world’s second-largest social networking site. by 2006, facebook, youtube, and twitter both became available and popular all over the world. in 2010, instagram came out with an entirely creative platform for people to share the pictures capture at any time in a fast, wonderful, and inspiring way. most of these new social media platforms can be transferred to cross-posting and cross-sharing. other social networking sites, such as tumblr, spotify, foursquare, and pinterest, have also emerged in recent years. a tremendous variety of social media and the rapid development of technology are opening up new opportunities for new ideas. 2.4 the new trends mobile live streaming in the age of social media is no longer just a single form of information exchange, it has also spawned many functions, new economic models, and cultural phenomena. in mobile live streaming, users build an image of the scene community through viewing and interacting. the companionship and ritual sense of mobile live broadcast has been paid more and more attention, and the anchor has shaped various cultural ceremonies for its users in the various kinds of information scenes built on the platform. for example, in a live youtube video, there’s a video section called “study with me” where people live-stream scenes of their reading and learning, and there are many fans who come to watch and interact. in gaze at the host learning process, the user can also obtain psychological satisfaction, thus stimulating the continuation or transformation of their behavior, focusing on their learning or affairs. sociologist bowman once used the term “liquid” to describe the flow of modernity changes, from solid, stable modernity to flow, light modernity, social relations, social institutions, and media forms are affected and changed, mobile broadcasting is no exception. users expect live content not only to get diverse information, but also to seek emotional recognition and companionship, or innovative experiences of various cultural lifestyles. with the growing influence of social media, social commerce is becoming an increasingly important channel for online shopping. for more than a decade, consumers have been using social media to learn about and find inspiration for products and brands. major social media platforms, including instagram, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 21 published by scholink inc. facebook, pinterest, and snapchat, have improved their shopping channels in the hope of achieving business value with the rise of social commerce. for example, the short video social application tiktok has started experimenting with social commerce. according to techcrunch, tiktok has begun allowing some users to add links to e-commerce sites to their profiles and has provided creators with the ability to easily attract their audiences to purchase sites. according to emarketer, “more than 55 percent of generation z internet users in the u.s. think their latest fashion shopping has been inspired by social media browsing”. the rise of social commerce is driven by some of the young consumers, especially generation z and millennials who are obsessed with creative, fun, new, and convenient ways to interact and purchase online. as the influence of social media improving, social platforms are further commercializing the channels to make them more attractive and interesting. 2.5 the communication characteristics the five core sorts of social media are social networking, photo sharing, video sharing, interactive media, and intelligent network community. other than that, the social attributes of platforms such as e-commerce and music are rising rapidly, and the social attributes of platforms such as instant messaging, video or live streaming, news, forum, online to offline e-commerce model (o2o), and life services are developing and growing to vary degrees. before the advent of social media, people shared ideas and experiences through gatherings. communication was limited and everyone’s interactions were done through language. since the birth of the internet, communication tools on social media such as videos, photos, live streams, forums, and so on have flourished, and the way people communicate has changed dramatically. communication tools influence the way people behave, and human behavior has contributed to the development of tools. interaction on social media has always been structured by many factors, and the four critical elements that affect the user’s interaction behavior and mental state are user data, network relationships, information flow, and message during sending and receiving. for example, when users fill out their profiles, what they do is a kind of self-presentation, that is, control their image in the minds of others. sociologist goffman once suggested that each of us in daily life is constantly acting on different occasions to different people to present a different image. information flow is a common way of presenting content on various social media platforms. compared with other more active interactions (such as comments, retweets), information flow is more passive access to information. the earliest social media platforms, basically in chronological order to arrange content, the latest published content is ranked first. later, however, most platforms changed to the sorting of algorithmic interventions, which were based upon a variety of factors, such as the frequency of interaction between two people, the popularity of a piece of content, etc., to guess the importance of the content and determine its order. whether an individual can consciously choose multiple contents, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 22 published by scholink inc. whether they actively focus on more diverse accounts, and whether they can maintain more heterogeneous social relationships are specific rules of the interactive algorithm. this also demonstrates once again that technical features and the way people are used are interactive. in the era of multimedia, the internet has given everyone the right to express their views freely. we-media platform refers to the private, civilian, generalized, autonomous communicators, everyone has a microphone, everyone is a reporter, and everyone is a news communicator. in the current stage of internet development, users have been deeply involved in the construction of online information and the creation of new media content, their creativity as well as enthusiasm are constantly improving. new media content also presents the characteristics of user generated content (ugc) or user-created content(ucc). social media such as youtube and flickr can be seen as success stories for ugc with the forms of community networks, video sharing, blogs, and podcasts (video sharing). 3. the socio-psychological effects of social media on branding 3.1 transform consumer market traditional media cannot achieve the two-way effect of information transmission when marketing products and companies cannot acquire customer feedback on products. social media creates a network platform between businesses and consumers, where consumers can freely express their comments or opinions on products. through brand communication marketing on social media, companies can recognize and investigate customer satisfaction with products, refer to online feedback information, and then improve product quality and services, optimize products and produce new products that are more connected with consumer needs, thereby achieving the ultimate goal which is to promote product sales. besides, people can share and exchange user experiences about the product quality and the services of the company through social media, which is invisibly helping companies conduct marketing. people’s consumption attitudes are largely susceptible to the influence of other people around them in real life, which in turn has a positive impact on people’s consumption decisions and product sales. the cost of the traditional media marketing approach is high and the speed is slow, such as advertising marketing in radio and television, which would cost tens of millions of dollars in just ten seconds with the marketing effect which may not be satisfying in some cases. compared with the traditional media advertising mode, the use of social media is mostly free. therefore, the use of social media marketing does not require a large amount of capital investment. brand advertisers can publish information through online media to promote the brand value and brand culture anytime and anywhere. as a result, the product not only gets publicity but also strengthens interaction with customers, which ultimately reduces marketing costs. in social media, each user can use a personal account to browse or share their favorite information, which shows consumer values and consumption needs. based on statistical analysis, the company can https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc7868771/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 23 published by scholink inc. observe and figure out the interests and living habits of different consumer groups, and then judge the consumption habits of their target users and understand the consumption behaviors of them. for example, tiktok’s algorithm recommendation is to use the artificial intelligence engine to analyze big data and promote the advertisements with the highest correlation with products to consumers, thereby avoiding the delivery of invalid advertisements. nowadays, many companies use social media marketing strategies to make marketing events more targeted, meet increasing customer demand and improve marketing efficiency to the greatest extent, and ultimately promote sales and create benefits. 3.2 transform the psychology of consumer conspicuous consumption (thorstein veblen, leisure class theory, 1899) refers to the purchase of goods to show off identity and status. the more expensive the price, the more people want to buy. unfortunately, social media has contributed to this distorted consumer psychology. david hirshleifer, a professor at the merage school of business (uc irvine) at the university of california, irvine, said that “visibility bias stems from the way we interact in social situations”. he said that “people tend to talk about what they are doing, which means that we will put more emphasis on consumption rather than non-consumption”. people spend more and save less because they only see how much others spend, not how much others save, and social media exacerbates this trend. as contact methods become cheaper and more diverse, visibility bias is increasingly driving social buying trends. the difference in consumption does not lie in the difference in product use-value, but the difference in product symbols (ma, 2011). in the consumer era, the maximization of the difference in product symbols is the brand. one of the goals of social media advertising is to establish a group’s consumption differentiation and to create a “symbol” for this group to make them feel different from the public. and the means to achieve this goal are hints and temptations. social media has injected fresh vitality and energy into the brand, especially for generation z, it gradually enhances their aesthetic awareness and personality awareness, and makes them increasingly pursue personalized consumption. as generation z who grew up with smartphones and social media has gradually become an emerging group of global consumers, brands are facing new opportunities and challenges. most of them have the common characteristics of being open-minded, strong in action, capable of independent thinking and communication. at the same time, they can immediately identify advertisements and various untrue propaganda in social media networks. the attitude of embracing new things, curiosity about the world, and the courage to face the unknown are also reflected in their consumer psychology. generation z yearns for diversity, including race, gender, interests, and other aspects. from the perspective of publicity effect, user-generated content(ugc)attract their attention the most, followed by key opinion leaders (kol)and social media www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 24 published by scholink inc. celebrities, who will also have a profound impact on generation z. for the younger generation of consumers, videos and pictures are more memorable than text, and social media channels play a more important role. the perception of consumers tends to be influenced by repeated thoughts at the time that the more frequently they see advertisements and news from social media, the more likely they are to make purchases. as the most people-friendly platform, social media can repeatedly push product content based on big data and algorithms and find out consumer attitudes toward products by collecting more data of consumer demand. social media is good at transforming information into activities or some popular events that consumers are interested in, to attract their attention and interest. when consumers are interested in the product through information disseminated by other consumers, they tend to have a stronger sense of trust, which makes them more decisive in making purchase decisions. social media also uses the frequency and schedule of posting to repeat the old content. for example, the duration of a post on twitter is limited, but twitter can reuse the content with a good effect, forward the previous content directly to increase the second exposure, or make a second modification according to the current hot spots. information repeatedly exposed on social media will increase the sense of reality and visibility psychologically, thereby enhancing its influence. even if participants know that this is not the case, they will subconsciously trust these forwardings and interactions. when the truth is hard to tell, familiarity is an attractive alternative, which will make their consumption behaviors lose rational judgment. 4. the cultural effects of social media on branding 4.1 improve the creative competitiveness in the web2.0 era, social networks are increasingly incorporating the humane elements of communication, interaction, and sharing, thus injecting a fresher experience into cultural creation. social media provides a platform for the development of cultural and creative industries. with low-consumption resources and high-tech information platforms, due to its unique mobility, it can support the browsing and release of cultural and creative product information at any time, to achieve rapid product dissemination and allow users to participate in the experience and interaction. burberry ran the first luxury snapchat discover campaign to promote its new burberry men’s fragrance and beauty product line in 2016, it played a short video directed by steve mcqueen on the snapchat discover channel, and provided articles and interviews, focusing on tailoring and retouching techniques. 24 hours before the show, users could spy on the new season’s products on snapchat, and the function and coolness of the content burned after reading it was very appetizing for young people. in the beginning, many people thought that the luxury industry was not suitable for marketing on the instant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 25 published by scholink inc. social platform, because the exquisitely crafted content only had a few seconds of reading time and there was no delay in spreading. but breaking through the traditional market concept, burberry realized mysterious and private effects to satisfy people’s desire for prying, without spoiling the design of the new season before the show. this creative social media marketing case enhances the brand’s creativity and fashion, and at the same time incorporates the aesthetics of movies and the real-time communication characteristics of social platforms. 4.2 combine business values with cultural and artistic the scale of the digital industry market represented by social media has grown rapidly, and its value has made brand marketing and the art industry one of the fastest-growing emerging industries in the world. however, with huge profits, commercialization has also harmed social media art creation. the modular and streamlined commercial operation will reduce the artistic quality of the works, and the humanized creative elements and artistic spirituality in the works will also be reduced. some small brand companies do not have their professional creative teams. due to the shortage of funds, they have to quickly train a group of technical talents to copy excellent works. it takes time and cost savings as considerations and caters to fast-paced social media. the same production method has led to works that lack innovation and flexibility. its operation is the continuous copy and repeat process, from production to packaging, and then to the market. making it difficult for the brand to obtain independent spiritual character and aesthetic significance, and social media is flooded with impetuous and monotonous content. 5. summary 5.1 the opportunities for branding on social media there are three billion people around the world using social media and spending 135 minutes a day checking social media for information (source: globalwebindex, q3, 202o). it is undeniable that social media offers tremendous opportunities for two-way interaction and communication between products and audiences. the online word-of-mouth that has emerged from social media is reshaping the relationship between brands and consumers, and in the age of social media, individuals and brands have the opportunity to talk on an equal footing. what’s more, enthusiastic consumers can also become the brand’s best collaborators. social media can spread information and turn audiences into paying users. through social media and interaction with consumers, brands can directly find target consumers, meet the needs of the customers and the users, as well as collecting some creative proposals for the products. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 26 published by scholink inc. 5.2 the challenges for branding on social media there are three billion people around the world using social media and spending 135 minutes a day checking social media for information (globalwebindex, q3, 202o). social media is changing people’s lives. it can connect people and it can also help communication and interaction between them. this is something that no other platform can achieve. the online word-of-mouth that has emerged from social media is reshaping the relationship between brands and consumers, and in the age of social media, individuals and brands have the opportunity to talk on an equal footing. what’s more, enthusiastic consumers can also become the brand’s best collaborators. social media can spread information and turn audiences into paying users. through social media and interaction with consumers, brands can directly find target consumers, meet the needs of the customers and the users, as well as collecting some creative proposals for the products. references brave, s., & nass, c. 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(2015). brand innovation and social media: knowledge acquisition from social media, market orientation, and the moderating role of social media strategic capability. industrial marketing management, 51(51), 11-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2015.04.017 ramnarain, y., & govender, k. k. (2013). social media browsing and consumer behavior: exploring the youth market. african journal of business management, 7(18), 1885-1893. reeves, b., & anderson, d. (1991). media studies and psychology. communication research, 18(5), 597-600. reeves, b., & nass, c. (1996). the media equation: how people respond to computers, television, and new media like real people and places. cambridge university press. siddiqui, s., & singh, t. (2016). social media its impact with positive and negative aspects. international journal of computer applications technology and research, 5(2), 71-75. theodoropoulou, i. (2020). social media branding. research companion to language and country branding, 313-331. van dijck, j. (2013). the culture of connectivity: a critical history of social media. oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199970773.001.0001 voorveld, h. (2019). brand communication in social media: a research agenda. journal of advertising, 48(1), 14-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2019.1588808 voramontri, d., & klieb, l. (2019). impact of social media on consumer behaviour. international journal of information and decision sciences, 11(3), 209-233. vorderer, p., klimmt, c., & ritterfeld, u. (2004). enjoyment: at the heart of media entertainment.communication theory, 14, 388-408. ziyadin, s., doszhan, r., borodin, a., omarova, a., & ilyas, a. (2019). the role of social media marketing in consumer behaviour. in e3s web of conferences (vol. 135, p. 04022). edp sciences. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 106 original paper a cultural study on linguistic metaphors of love in poetry ho trinh quynh thu1* & phan van hoa2 1 department of foreign languages, quang nam university, quang nam province, vietnam 2 english department, university of foreign language studies, da nang city, vietnam * ho trinh quynh thu, department of foreign languages, quang nam university, quang nam province, vietnam received: june 10, 2019 accepted: june 24, 2019 online published: july 9, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n3p106 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n3p106 abstract language is one of the cultural factors. love, an abstract concept is mainly interpreted by metaphors which are considered as part of culture. it is consequently inevitable that the linguistic metaphors of love are under the influence of culture. in this research, we centre on investigating cultural factors in linguistic metaphors of romantic love in vietnamese modern poetry, and then compare them to those in english. it is shown in our findings that linguistic metaphors of romantic love are considerably influenced by lifestyles, habits and customs and geographical conditions. therefore, there are many variations in the ways of expressing romantic love between vietnamese and english although the conceptualization is chiefly similar. keywords metaphor, culture, romantic love, conceptual metaphor of love, metaphorical expressions of love 1. introduction as one of the most basic human emotions, love is considered the basis of everyday life. among various kinds of love, romantic love (hereafter in the paper referred to as “love”), which will be culturally and metaphorically treated in this paper, is a complex of erotic, cognitive, emotional and behavioural components that are unable to be separated (bartels & zeki, 2004). people find it difficult to show or manifest the concept of love fully since it is abstract. however, this concept is rather diversified in words. most of them are metaphoric, which, according to kovecses (2000), results from lack of the adequate vocabulary to express the ideas of this abstract concept. in terms of metaphor, cognitive linguistics supposes that metaphor is universal; that is, metaphor is similar between different languages and cultures all over the world. the question is that all the metaphors or just some kind of them is shared by various cultures globally, which used to be discussed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 107 published by scholink inc. by kovecses (2010). he demonstrated the pervasiveness of many conceptual metaphors in different languages and reached the conclusion that love, among popular concepts such as happiness, anger and time, is universally embodied and conceptualized. as a result, different languages and cultures share conceptual metaphors of love. however, it should be noticed that human embodied experiences are not homogeneous and monolithic across the world because our daily life activities are deeply impinged on by cultural manifestations (inglis, 2005). also, metaphorical conceptualization is stimulated not only by embodiment but also by context which is determined by culture (kovecses, 2010). in addition, metaphor is a matter of cognition. it happens in mind and depends on the ways of our thinking in which culture is reflected. the metaphors of love are consequently thought to be under the influences of culture and comprise cultural characteristics. in order to partly consolidate this belief, the paper investigates the interference of cultural factors in love linguistic metaphors that are collected from vietnamese modern poetry. a comparison between these linguistic metaphors and english ones will concurrently be made in order to learn more about cultural similarities and differences in love description between the two languages, which has not been paid much intention so far. our paper is carried out based on the conceptual metaphor theory raised by lakoff and johnson (1980), where the distinction between conceptual and linguistic metaphors is suggested. this matter is mentioned in the next part—theoretical background, where the concept of romantic love and the relationship between metaphor and culture are also shed light on clearly. 2. method the paper is carried out based on qualitative and quantitative research methods that are responsible for analysing and processing the data collected from 250 vietnamese love poems and the same number of english ones. as an investigation into metaphors, the identification of metaphorical expressions in a discourse is an important step; thereby we may know the existence of conceptual metaphors under them. also, it helps ensure the reliability and validity of the study results. in this paper, we adopt the approaches to metaphor identification raised by pragglejaz group (2007) including four steps: (1) read the entire text-discourse to establish a general understanding of the meaning. next, (2) determine the lexical units in the text-discourse. then (3) take into account what comes before and after the lexical unit, determine if it has a more basic contemporary meaning in other contexts than the one in the given context. if yes, decide whether the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can be understood in comparison with it. if yes, (4) mark the lexical unit as metaphorical. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 108 published by scholink inc. 3. results examining 250 vietnamese love poems and the same number in english, we have discovered over 2000 metaphorical expressions of love. 199 out of 1098 vietnamese expressions bear cultural features (accounting for 18.1%), which is compared to 124/1129 english ones. the numbers show a certain influence of culture on metaphorical expressions in language. making a comparison, we find that most of these expressions are different between these two languages. firstly, the image of tim, lòng or dạ in vietnamese is used to talk about love while it is only heart in english. following is our statistical report. table 1. the quantity of the metaphorical expressions of love containing the images of tim, lòng, dạ in vietnamese and heart in english images vietnamese english tim—heart 63 111 lòng—abdomen 62 0 dạ—abdomen 2 0 secondly, in the light of the differences of culture the terms of natural world and social events employed to express love are found to be different between vietnamese and english, which is quantitatively presented in the following table. table 2. cultural differences in vietnamese terms of natural world and social events used to express love when they are compared to english terms vietnamese english flavourlessness/saltiness 5 0 five tones 1 0 sonata 0 2 symphony 0 2 mountains/mountain passes 6 0 rivers 9 0 wharf-boat/ferryboat 24 0 flower-butterfly 3 0 (red) thread 18 1 paradise/garden of eden 3 8 harvest season 2 0 betel-areca nut 1 0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 109 published by scholink inc. shortly from what have been manifested above, it can be seen that the cultural factors have a significant role in love description. they contribute not only to structuring love but also helping this concept become unique and typical in each certain language. 4. discussion 4.1 romantic love “what is love?” it is regarded as a seemingly unanswerable question that has been attractive to many researchers in biology, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology and linguistics. in each research area, love is defined in an own way. one of the definitions of our interest is developed by gottschall and nordlund (2006) and expressed as follows. romantic love is a “feeling expressed in a romantic context between two people” with partly sexual attraction. this feeling is “typically reserved for only one person” and expected to last forever. it also “involves intense attraction to the beloved’s whole person and is not just about attraction to the body”. therefore, to love someone romantically is to “experience a strong desire for union with someone who is deemed entirely unique”. it is to “idealize this person”, to think constantly about him or her, and to “discover that one’s own life priorities have changed dramatically”. it is to “care deeply for that person’s well-being and to feel pain or emptiness when he or she is absent”. 4.2 conceptual metaphor versus linguistic metaphor in the light of the conceptual metaphor theory, metaphor is considered a “property of concepts” (kovecses, 2010), and the “locus of metaphor is thought” (lakoff, 1993). metaphors operate thanks to cross-domain mappings that transfer the characteristics or properties of a more concrete domain (called source domain) to another more abstract domain (called target domain). these mappings are tightly structured, asymmetric, unidirectional, partial based on daily experience and have a definite structure: target-domain is/as source-domain (kovecses, 2010). in the mapping, linguistic metaphors (or metaphorical expressions) are what expressed by language; and conceptual metaphor (or metaphorical concept) refers to a mental representation describing how two words or expressions from apparently different domains may be associated at an underlying cognitive level. in the metaphor love is/as a journey, for example, “love is a journey” is the name of the mapping or conceptual metaphor; love is the target domain, journey is the source domain; such sentences as we can’t turn back now (lakoff, 1993) and đôi ta lên thác xuống ghềnh (we are up hill and down dale; phan văn hòa & hồ trịnh quỳnh thư, 2011) are individual linguistic metaphors. the distinction between conceptual and linguistic metaphors is really significant, especially in our research, which focuses on investigating linguistic metaphors. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 110 published by scholink inc. 4.3 metaphor—culture relationship culture is defined as “a fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs, policies, procedures and behavioural conventions that are shared by a group of people, and that influence (but do not determine) each member’s behaviour and his/her interpretations of the ‘meaning’ of other people’s behaviour” (spencer-oatey, 2012, p. 2). culture develops in the close relation to and the mutual impact of language that is considered the leading cultural factor to contain national nuances (nguyễn đức tồn, 2008). in respect of the relationship between metaphor and culture, the conceptual metaphor theory argues that metaphor is part of culture. a metaphor should be interpreted based on two basic factors, meaning and social context which are, in turn, understood as the conceptualization of personal experiences and the cultural nature of language. lakoff and johnson (1980) also confirm that metaphor is rooted in cultural and embodied experiences. likewise, kovecses (2010) mentions two simultaneous impacts on metaphorical production, i.e., embodiment and context that is determined by culture. accordingly, it may be stated that metaphor should not be separated from culture. culture creates the consistence and the diversity of metaphors in each language and different ones. 4.4 cultural impacts on linguistic metaphors of love metaphor functionates via the understanding of one more abstract concept in terms of another more concrete. in this paper, the abstract concept that needs to be interpreted is love; and the linguistic expressions employed to describe love can be under three basic categories: human beings, natural world and social events. the expressions chosen must include cultural factors or bring cultural values that are typical in each language or each region. 4.4.1 human beings it was traditionally believed that the heart was the center of emotions in human body. although science has proved it is brain that is responsible for feelings and emotions, the heart is still popularly considered as seat of emotions, especially love. as a result, human heart (equivalent to tim in vietnamese) is defined as the emotional nature (distinguished from intellectual nature) such as love or affection (mariam-webster dictionary). it is also regarded as the symbol of emotion and love in vietnamese mind (vietnamese dictionary, 2003); for instance, (1) ta đã gửi cho anh/một con tim dào dạt (i sent him an overflowing heart) (đoàn thị lam luyến, gửi tình yêu). in this case, the heart can be treated to represent love which is interpreted by combining two metaphors: love is an object and love is a fluid in a container. as an object, love is described to be sent (gửi) to the beloved. on the other hand, it is conceptualized as a fluid that is contained in the heart, thus “dào dạt” (overflowing). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 111 published by scholink inc. besides “heart”, there are some other words referring to human organs employed to express love in vietnamese. they are lòng, dạ (abdomen). (2) mang em trong dạ như mầm,/ngày đi suy nghĩ, đêm nằm mến thương (carrying you like a seed in my abdomen, i always think of you and love you) (xuân diệu, quả trứng và lòng đỏ). (3) em trao lòng xuân nặng/trên bốn mùa lang thang (i gave you my heavy spring heart during four seasons) (nguyễn thị khánh minh, trách). in (2), love is understood in a combination of three metaphors via the linguistic metaphor “mang em trong dạ” (carry you in my abdomen). firstly, the verb “mang” (carry) tells us about an entity that may be his beloved and also his love. the expression is the linguistic surface of the conceptual metaphor love is an object. secondly is the metaphor love is a unity under the expression “mang em trong dạ”, where the beloved is described to be inside the lover. two are in one to become a unity that is not separated. lastly, the expression “trong dạ” arouses the image of a container. “dạ” (abdomen) here is interpreted to be capable of containing the lover’s beloved, his love. besides, for the vietnamese, “dạ” or “lòng” is symbolic of emotion in general and of love in particular (trần ngọc thêm, 1996); thus, it refers to love, the love of a man in which his beloved is contained. similarly, the image of “lòng” in (3) also indicates the love which is conceptualized as an object expressed by the terms “trao” (offer) and “nặng” (heavy). in relation to the symbol of love, trần ngọc thêm (1996) shows the vietnamese image of “lòng” and that of “heart” for the westerners. it may be the reason why the linguistic metaphors with “lòng” (abdomen) are rather popular in vietnamese poetry but they cannot be found in english. instead, the image of heart is applied in the english language with a similar conceptualization. (4) i give you my heart, […]/so, give me your heart (bobette bryan, true love). (5) i carry your heart with me (i carry it in/my heart) (e.e.cummings, i carry your heart with me). heart and abdomen are among the most important organs in the human body. people cannot live without them. with such significance, love described in terms of heart and abdomen is understood to be necessary for life, or it is just human life. it can hence be interpreted from (1), (3) and (4) that the lovers have given/sent their love or their life to their beloved. in brief, cultural factors in linguistic metaphors of love can be illustrated by terms of parts of human beings, namely heart in english and tim, lòng, dạ in vietnamese. the word lòng in vietnamese is defined as abdomen—a symbol of human psychology, mind, emotion and will (vietnamese dictionary, 2003). in consequences, in many cases of translation from vietnamese into english, the word heart is used for both tim and lòng. in our world, human beings cannot exist independently but live in a harmonious relationship with natural world and social environment. as a result, the expressions of natural world and social events are also used to talk about love, which is discussed right in the following section. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 112 published by scholink inc. 4.4.2 natural world and social events the natural world, according to merriam-webster dictionary, is defined as all of the animals, plants, and other things existing in nature while social event refers to something that happens at a given place or time. their appearance and existence are perceived by human senses. because love is an interpersonal relationship occurring in society, it can also be perceived and described in the terms of sensory perceptions; for example, (6) tôi vẫn đi bên cạnh cuộc đời/ái ân lạt lẽo của chồng tôi (i’m still beside my husband with his flavourless love) (ttkh, hai sắc hoa ti gôn). love in this case is described in terms of a nutrient, hence “lạt lẽo” (flavourless), and identified thanks to human gustation. this taste is not found in english linguistic metaphors of love, which may be shed light on by the views of love relationship in western and eastern cultures. love, for eastern people including the vietnamese, is often interpreted in relationships between persons and their environment, so it tends not to depend on subjective feeling of the persons in this relationship (valsiner, 2012). furthermore, eastern people do not like changes (bagozzi et al., 1999). in an unsatisfactory relationship, they tend to resign themselves to live with it instead of changing it despite its “flavourlessness”. by contrast, love in western culture is the result of a person’s private wishes and desires (valsiner, 2012). it will be destroyed if it does not meet the personal benefits of the couple in the relationship. thus, when they are in love, the westerners usually find more satisfaction than disappointment, and “flavourlessness” seems to be out of their love taste. opposite of flavourlessness is saltiness, the taste that is known as one of the traditional basic tastes in eastern culture but it is not in the western one (polansky, 2007). it may be the reason for the absence of saltiness in english love linguistic metaphors whilst this taste is often used to talk about love and faithfulness in vietnamese. (7) cuộc đời chồng thêm tuổi/tình yêu càng mặn nồng (when we are older, our love becomes hotter and saltier more passionate) (diệp minh tuyền, tình yêu thì thầm). love in (7) is conceptualized as food that can be taste via the linguistic metaphor “tình yêu mặn nồng” (hot and salty love). in vietnamese, when being depicted as “mặn nồng”, the love here is comprehended to be charming, passionate and hard to fade (vietnamese dictionary, 2003). in addition to gustation, audition also exposes some cultural differences between vietnamese and english when it is used to express love. let look at the following lines, (8) tình so chưa đủ ngũ âm (love hasn’t had enough five tones yet) (thanh nguyên, lỗi hẹn cùng ca dao). (9) love’s sonata/[…] our love, tonight, feels like a symphony (chad joseph thieman, love’s sonata). love in these lines is structured in terms of music that people can perceive through ears. the cultural factors appear to be clearly displayed in the extract. in (8), the musical term is absolutely vietnamese with the expression “ngũ âm” (five tones) because vietnamese traditional music is pentatonic in scale, including hò, xự, xang, xê, cống (mcleod & nguyen, 2001). meanwhile, love in (9) is defined as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 113 published by scholink inc. “sonata” and “symphony”, genres of music that were generated in the western culture. referring to culture, the vietnamese cannot help dealing with the village culture in which there are banyan-tree, well and public court. these images closely attach to vietnamese traditional village activities and reappear in poetry. (10) lòng ta hãy ôm trong như giếng tạnh/nước vẫn sâu khơi mà bờ vắng lạnh;/tình! chính ngươi đến soi mặt, êm sao!/thả gàu múc nước, rúng trăng sao (my abdomen is like a well deserted but with fresh water; love! you come with it to look your face, which makes me pleasant; but your scooping water makes a disturbance here) (xuân diệu, con sáo sang sông). love here is personified via the actions of “đến soi mặt” (coming to look at one’s face in a well) and “thả gàu múc nước” (scooping water out of a well). as mentioned above, the well along with the banyan-tree and public court is very important and characteristic in vietnamese traditional villages; it is also the beginning place of love (nguyễn oanh, 2012). as a result, the verse is a description of the man’s mood at the beginning of love, of a dramatic psycho-emotional change when his love comes. besides the well, wharves and rivers also have a strong attachment to the vietnamese village life; therefore, it is not surprised when these images are used to describe love in vietnamese. following is an instance. (11) em đi theo đuổi mãi tơ duyên/dò mãi lòng sông, sắm mãi thuyền (i always run after the silk thread of love, fathom the depth of the river, buy boats) (nguyễn bính, khăn hồng). the stanza tells us about a hard journey to pursue and look for love on which the man is very patient of changing boats (the means of the journey) to fathom the depth of the river (or just learn about his beloved’s feelings). such a description cannot be found in english. similarly, the obstacles in the love journey manifested in the extracts below are also typical and unique to geographical and cultural features in vietnam, where agriculture-based culture is dominant; where people’s lives are closely attached to rivers (sông), mountains (núi) and villages enclosed by trees and bamboos (thus, sharp thorns—gai nhọn). (12) đường êm quá, ai đi mà nhớ ngó!/đến khi hay, gai nhọn đã vào xương (the road is so smooth that nobody pays attention until sharp thorns stick their feet) (xuân diệu, dại khờ). (13) đã thương mấy núi cũng trèo/mấy sông cũng lội, mấy đèo cũng qua (when people are in love, they can climb over mountains, cross rivers and go over mountain passes to get to their beloved) (xuân quỳnh, tình ca trong lòng vịnh). the images of wandering up hill and down dale, wading across rivers and treading on thorns describe difficult journeys in vietnamese rural life. they are mapped onto the difficulties on the love journey that the lovers have to overcome in order to get to their destination. (14) bến ấy neo thuyền tình mong manh/ (the faint love boat may be anchored in the wharf) (từ nguyễn, chuyện ngày qua). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 114 published by scholink inc. the journey is finally finished when the boat is brought to anchor in the wharf. however, the result is not always as good as what is expected. there are the journeys on which the travellers don’t know when and where they reach their goals (as in 15). there is even the journey that has even not carried out yet; it is just a plan with a bright future (see 16). (15) bao giờ bến mới gặp đò?/ hoa khuê các bướm giang hồ gặp nhau? (when will the ferry-boat go into the wharf, gentle flowers and errant butterflies meet each other?) (nguyễn bính, tương tư) (16) anh có đi cùng em/ […] đến những mùa hái quả (are you going with me to the harvest seasons?) (xuân quỳnh, mùa hoa doi) the pairs of images such as bến-thuyền (wharf-boat) in (15), bến-đò (wharf-ferry-boat), hoa-bướm (flower-butterfly) in (16) are metaphorically used to talk about the persons in the loving relationship. mùa hái quả (harvest seasons) in (17) describes a perfect destination for the couple at the end of their love journey. all these images are the embodiment of agricultural lives. they are consequently rather popular in vietnamese while the ideal destination of love journey is paradise or the garden of eden in english. (17) nor would we sail for paradise/would it its shoals conceal (nicholas gordon, dreams do come true). (18) i finally found my/garden of eden/when i met you (bobette bryan, eden in you). returning to “tơ duyên” (red thread of love) in (11), love is conceptualized as a unity of two persons in the loving relationship who are tied together by a red thread. the image comes from a legend telling of love and marriage that is believed to be destined by god. according to this legend, matchmaker gods called ông tơ bà nguyệt bind a man and a woman together with a red thread so that they will become a couple of wife and husband. (19) chắc đây là kiếp nợ duyên/ông tơ bà nguyệt gắn nguyên tơ hồng/cho ta thành đôi vợ chồng (perhaps for predestined love, matchmaker gods tie the red thread for us to become wife and husband) (huỳnh lâm phong, kiếp nợ duyên). unlike the red thread of love in (11) which is being sought, the red thread in (19) has fastened the couple together. it is noteworthy that the image of the red thread can only be found in vietnamese but not in english although it is not without the term of thread employed to express love in english as illustrated in the example below. (20) time found our seaming,/rotted away the silly thread,/laid bare two essences, unjoined (alan harris, bidentity). it would be really regrettable if the image of trầu-cau (betel-areca) was not mentioned when the custom of vietnamese love and marriage is discussed. trầu-cau is a unique feature in vietnamese culture, referring to the faithfulness in love. a quid of betel and areca-nut (paan) is a start-up of a conversation, an emotional uncover. the give and take of paan means the give and take of feelings or love; therefore, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 115 published by scholink inc. the girl in the following lines is attempting to seek for such a tray of paan. (21) lỡ làng mười tám đôi mươi./tôi đi chợ muộn kiếm cơi trầu già (i go to the market at its closing to look for a tray of old paan in my early twenties, the age of being tardy for marriage) (nguyễn thị đạo tịnh, bùa lá). obviously, the image of “cơi trầu” (the tray of paan) is used to imply a partner, a love and a possible marital relationship. love in (21), which is attached to marriage, is conceptualized as a unity of betel and areca nut. the image may show the desire of not only a marriage but a steadfast and lasting loving relationship. as trầu-cau (betel—areca nut) is a typical image of a close relationship in vietnamese culture, it cannot be caught in english. so far, it can be said that culture has a big impact on linguistic expressions in general and on linguistic metaphors in particular. all the evidence presented above once again shows the fact that linguistic metaphors of love are divergent in different languages and cultures, particularly between vietnamese and english. in addition, according to kovecses (2010), cultural factors influence metaphorical expressions, and these metaphors may help to define culture. let us look at the following example, (22) tình già/như là thịt trâu sấy/tình trẻ/như là thịt bò non/vừa ngon, vừa lạ (old love is like carabeef; young love is like veal, delicious and strange (lò ngân sủn, tình già, tình trẻ). love in this verse is conceptualized as a nutrient that is tasty and strange via the expressions “tình…là thịt trâu sấy/là thịt bò non” (love…is carabeef/veal). these images may immediately lead people to northwest vietnam, where carabeef is one of the best-known specialities. it is made from meat of buffalo raised in this region combined with some kinds of spices made by the ethnic people here. it is not just moreish and delicious but contains in it the cultural feature of the northwest mountainous region of vietnam—homeland of the poet. as a result, carabeef and veal go into his poem naturally, originally and imaginatively. the linguistic expressions describing love as in (22) cannot be found in english and anywhere else in vietnamese although the concept of nutrient used to metaphorize love is rather popular in both languages. it can consequently be said that metaphor is localized. linguistic metaphors are distinguished not just between different cultures but also between various areas within a culture. in short, there are many images of natural world and social events with cultural features used to metaphorize love. they can be manifestations of regional or national culture. though they belong to any of above-mentioned cultural features, the metaphoric expressions of love such as well, red thread, boat-wharf, ferryboat-wharf, flower-butterfly, betel-areca nut, carabeef, veal, wandering up hill and down dale, wading across rivers, trading on thorns, and harvest seasons are rather popular in vietnamese but hardly found in englisha language under the influences of western cultures. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 116 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion we have just presented the results of our investigation of metaphorical expressions of love under the influences of culture. the research has been carried out in light of the conceptual metaphor theory with the data collected from modern poetry in order to find out cultural differences resulting in the varieties of love linguistic metaphors between vietnamese and english. these expressions are examined and analyzed under three main categories: human beings, natural world and social events. for the former category, the images including tim, lòng, dạ (heart and abdomen) are employed to talk about love in vietnamese while only heart is used in english. this phenomenon is explained clearly by trần ngọc thêm (1996), who concluded that lòng, for the vietnamese, is considered as pivot and becomes symbolic of emotion in general and of love in particular while it is heart for the westerner. the terms of natural world and social events applied to express love are also under the influences of culture. because vietnam is a nation of agriculture-based culture, the images of love and everything related to this relationship are pervaded with vietnamese rural villages such as the well, rivers, mountains, thorns, boat-wharf, flower-butterfly, betel-areca, carabeef, veal, and harvest seasons. in addition, the vietnamese believe in god and fate, everything in their life (love included) is controlled by gods. as a result, the red thread (the means that matchmaker gods use to bind two strange persons into a couple) appears much in vietnamese love poems while it is just a very vague thread in english. besides, the perception of love is described in different ways between vietnamese and english. vietnamese love sometimes tastes salty while this taste is not found in english. furthermore, it can be differently audible in vietnamese and western forms of traditional music. in conclusion, love becomes diversified in terms of human beings, natural world and social events. however, it is described in own ways in different languages, namely vietnamese and english in this investigation, under the impacts of culture. as vietnam is a country of cultural diversity, the linguistic metaphors of love are even regionalized and vary within vietnamese, which reflects the subcultural dimension of metaphor in language. references bagozzi, r. p., wong, n., & yi, y. (1999). the role of culture and gender in the relationship between positive and negative affect. cognition and emotion, 13(6), 641-672. https://doi.org/10.1080/026999399379023 bartels, a., & zeki, s. (2004). the neural correlates of maternal and romantic love. neuro image, 21, 1155-1166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.11.003 gottschall, j., & nordlund, m. (2006). romantic love: a literary universal? philosophy and literature, 30, 432-452. https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2006.0030 inglis, d. (2005). culture and everyday life. routledge, london and new york. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 117 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203005200 kovecses, z. (2000). metaphor and emotion: language, culture, and body in human feeling. cambridge: cambridge university press. kövecses, z. (2010). metaphor: a practical introduction (2nd ed.). oxford: oxford university press. lakoff, g. (1993). the contemporary theory of metaphor. in a. ortony (ed.), metaphor and thought (2nd ed., pp. 202-251). cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139173865.013 lakoff, g., & johnson, m. (1980/2003). metaphors we live by (1st/2nd ed.). the university of chicago press, chicago and london. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226470993.001.0001 mcleod, m. w., & nguyen, t. d. (2001). culture and custom of vietnam. greenwood press, london. nguyễn đức tồn. (2008). đặc trưng văn hóa—dân tộc của ngôn ngữ và tư duy. nxb khoa học xã hội. nguyễn oanh. (2012) (ghi). thú vị giếng làngnét đẹp văn hóa làng quê việt nam. retrieved march 20, 2017, from http://vanhoagiaoduc.vn/bao-van-hoa-giao-duc-thu-vi-gieng-lang-13265.html phan văn hòa, & hồ trịnh quỳnh thư. (2011). conceptual metaphor “love is a journey” in english and vietnamese. language and life, 9(191), 15-19. polansky, r. (2007). aristotle’s de anima. cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511551017 pragglejaz group. (2007). mip: a method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. metaphor and symbol, 22(1), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926480709336752 spencer-oatey, h. (2012). what is culture?—a compilation of quotations, globalpad core concepts. retrieved may 19, 2019, from https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/globalpad/openhouse/interculturalskills/global_pad_-what_is_cult ure.pdf trần ngọc thêm. (1996). tìm về bản sắc văn hóa việt nam. nxb tổng hợp thành phố hồ chí minh. valsiner, j. (2012). the oxford handbook of culture and psychology. oxford university press, new york. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396430.001.0001 viện ngôn ngữ học. (2003). từ điển tiếng việt, hoàng phê chủ biên (in lần thứ 9). nhà xuất bản đà nẵng-trung tâm từ điển học, hà nộiđà nẵng. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 144 original paper press insecurity during anglophone war coverage in cameroon: ways to protect marginalized journalists emmanuel k. ngwainmbi 1* 1 independent scholar, charlotte, north carolina, usa * emmanuel k. ngwainmbi, engwainmbi@gmail.com received: july 31, 2024 accepted: august 14, 2024 online published: august 26, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p144 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p144 abstract as the global media community prepares for world press freedom day 2025 culminating and the academic conference on safety of journalists, attacks on journalists and the profession are diversified as never before. military regimes and democratic governments prevent journalists from accessing and reporting news correctly. that scenario exists in the republic of cameroon (aka lrc), where some eight million predominantly english-speaking people in cameroon and abroad struggle for recognition as a separate nation from the republic of cameroon. the struggle has been disfigured by misinformation on social media platforms, unreliable reporting of the crises, and journalists having limited access to news and information sources. lrc‟s military and pro-independence fighters often prevent journalists from reaching affected groups, particularly refugee inhabitants facing inhumane treatment by the military, thus possibly fearing backlashes from government officials, human rights advocates, the united nations human rights council, pro-independence groups, and free press unlimited. using straw polls, email surveys, and telephonic surveys carried out periodically between january 2022 and march 2024 on news reporters and journalists serving four independent newspapers in the anglophone region, this presentation shall highlight newsgathering and reporting practices during the war. this paper offers possible solutions for the gridlock inter-alia: (i) ways of re-establishing integrity in journalism as a credible news bank and (ii) how journalists in nations excluded from mainstream social, economic, educational, and cultural life should be protected against punitive activities facilitated by international partners, particularly donors. keywords war, newspapers, military, journalists, news, source, anglophone, cameroon, ambazonia www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 145 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction 1a. the psychology of news creation and press coverage news remains the most essential tool human beings have used or relied on to construct, re-construct, adjust, or re-adjust their thoughts, actions, feelings, and decisions. no matter what their cultural orientation, age, race, creed, belief, level of education, geographical location, or time in the history of humanity, homo sapiens capitalize or rely on news to take action or consider immediate, medium, or long-term behavior. thus, we cannot underestimate news-creating structures. suppose the journalists, informants, reporters, channels, and language users turn basic information into something new. in that case, we will most likely accept press coverage of any happening as news. what about the conditions under which the happenings are recorded or reported? in fragile conditions like war zones, journalists are expected to be protected if they do not directly participate in the hostilities. of course, news media, when used for propaganda purposes, must enjoy immunity from attacks, except when they are used for military purposes or to incite war crimes, genocide, or other acts of violence. the fact that easy access to social media platforms has created a tsunami of news and information flows to eager and unwitting audiences and markets alike around the world, with significant implications on users‘ consumption patterns and attitudes toward the topics shared, determining political outcomes, including in politically fragile nations, emerging communities, and industrialized regions (ngwainmbi, 2018, p. 29) should alarm traditional sources of credible news—the press—historically credited for connecting publics to information they need to advocate for themselves, make informed decisions, and hold elected officials accountable. in a statement published online may 3, during the celebration of world press freedom day, the united nations complained that: journalists encounter significant challenges in seeking and disseminating information on contemporary issues, such as supply chain problems, climate migration, extractive industries, illegal mining, pollution, poaching, animal trafficking, deforestation, or climate change. ensuring the visibility of these issues is crucial for promoting peace and democratic values worldwide (https://www.un.org/en/observances/press-freedom-day). that is also why world press freedom day has been dedicated to the importance of journalism and freedom of expression in the current global environmental crisis. 1b. press role in covering news five storylines trigger news coverage—a spontaneous event, senior government official, citizen, press, or medium used. the frequency of use determines its importance: how often it is replicated, shared, received, and consumed. the press has always had a romantic relationship with conflict zones, mainly because each situation potentially has significant news value and is of utmost public interest due to its security implications. conflict is, thus, the adrenalin of the news media. similarly, journalists are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 146 published by scholink inc. trained to trace disagreements and discords, so they find war irresistible. the media‘s involvement becomes more enthusiastic and extensive when war happens in its locale. many cases supporting my position have been recorded in history books for centuries, one being the kargil conflict between india and pakistan from may to july 1999, which, as rai (2000) remembers, broke out when the indian media was better equipped to project it on an unprecedented scale. lastly, qualities of nuanced news reporting are observed. in this social media era inundating communication platforms and our minds with vast volumes of unprocessed data and information, journalists are expected to have the skills to identify, observe, gather, assess, record, and share relevant information. they need vital research and writing skills, ethical awareness, and creativity; they must pay attention to detail and remain curious; have the ability to write with clarity, cohesion, and intrigue; be inherently curious; can write captivating articles for the audience and maintain curiosity. they must be prepared to question pieces of information, even in trusted organizations, and they must be persistent and keep going when hunting for information, especially in bureaucratic environments where authorities control information that should be public. this article analyzes press insecurity in coverage of the anglophone war in cameroon, guided by the globally known principles of press freedom. it reviews news stories published on the crises. 1c. crisis coverage in bureaucratic environments journalists, especially community (citizen) ones practicing pure journalism, are easy victims of the oppressor during war or rising political tensions. there has been a remarkable increase in the number of journalists reportedly killed or missing in 2022 alone. its report stated that 533 journalists were in detention because of their work. many women journalists are in detention, a record-breaking rise of nearly 30% compared to 2021. according to a reporters without borders report published online in 2022, an international organization that monitors and reports on press freedom violations, advocates for policies and practices that defend the safety of journalists working in dangerous conditions, women now account for nearly 15% of detained journalists, compared to fewer than 7% five years ago. however, member states of the african union (a.u.) had affirmed aspiration 3 of the agenda 2063: ―an africa of good governance, democracy, respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law.‖ under the aegis of the a.u., the media stakeholders attending the african media convention in arusha in may 2022 canvassed for improved synergies between the media in africa, governments, internet intermediaries, private and public sectors, civil society, national and regional human rights organizations, and researchers to mitigate the effects of the digital onslaught on journalism and the media. there are documented cases of the press not being given access to crucial information from states and political parties that are in the public interest and are essential for public accountability. the african institute for development policy (afidep), an african-led, regional non-profit research policy institute established in 2010 to help bridge the gaps between research, policy, and practice in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 147 published by scholink inc. development efforts in africa, has proactively beamed the torchlight on persecutors of anti-corruption whistleblowers and supports evidence-based information and press coverage for good governance and government accountability. the governance watchdog that operates in 24 african countries, cameroon among them, and whose focus areas include governance and accountability, health and wellbeing, and strengthening capacity in evidence-based use for decision-making for africa to achieve sustained and equitable development is not only concerned with promoting a culture where evidence is actively sought and used routinely in decision-making suitable investments and transformation of people‘s lives; it also assesses bottlenecks in accessing and publicizing data on marginalized populations, political crises and institutional biases against freedom-seeking groups. also, mziwandile ndlovu, a research and policy analyst working with the african institute for development policy (afidep), cites cases of african public officials not declaring their finances and political parties not publicly disclosing their funding sources. ndlovu (2023) points to the growing criminalization of free speech online, primarily using legislation that purportedly aims to combat ―fake news‖ and ―false news.‖ he further states that regulatory requirements for digital media outlets and citizen content creators to be licensed by states and to pay fees and levies, coupled with the intimidation, jailing, and brutalization of media workers and online content creators, are some of the pressing challenges facing the media today. the plight of legitimate news gatherers in situations of armed conflict continues and cannot be ignored if news consumers want to know the truth about the causes and course of the war in their community. accurate reporting is necessary; it requires unfettered access to potential news sources and breaking news and reporting it without coercion. while war correspondents are protected under international humanitarian law and considered civilians under article 79 of the second additional protocol to the geneva conventions, the warring groups, especially in fragile states, do not guarantee their protection. explosives, rogue administrations, and disorderly armed groups in the conflict areas are known to ignore the geneva convention treaty. journalism is fundamental for sustainable development, human rights protection, and democratic consolidation. still, it remains dangerous and too often deadly. as the global media community prepares to observe another world press freedom day, in tandem with the eighth edition of the academic conference on the safety of journalists convened in uruguay and broadcast online, attacks on journalists and abuse of the profession are as diversified and complex as never before. military regimes and some nations claiming to be democratic harass journalists and prevent them from accessing and reporting news correctly. we must beam some light on the increasing number of internal conflicts, government crackdown on protests, and widespread use of social media in emerging democracies; marginalized communities worldwide have made the work of trained journalists. countries with weak political structures and deep corruptive practices continue suppressing the press‘s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 148 published by scholink inc. ability to properly observe, monitor, record, and report facts to inform affected groups and the human community. 1d. review of press insecurity in fragile nations and the plight of marginalized journalists press insecurity emanates from the notion that journalists representing the press are human beings. based on international humanitarian law, all human beings have the right to express their political views and are expected to be protected from violence. thus, it is illegal for any military or civilian regime to attack journalists and the media, not even in times of armed conflict. the media law scholar at the university of paris-sud, alexandre balguy-gallois, accentuates my position in these summarized words: the illegality of attacks on journalists and news media derives from the protection granted to civilians and civilian objects under international humanitarian law. even when used for propaganda, the media cannot be considered military objectives except in exceptional cases. in contrast, no specific status exists for journalists and their equipment. journalists and their equipment benefit from the general protection enjoyed by civilians and civilian objects unless they effectively contribute to military action (balguy-gallois, 2004). balguy-gallois‘ stance that journalists benefit from protection enjoyed by civilians is, however, utopic in that journalists‘ rights are not guaranteed in new nations practicing principles of democratic governance; no legal system has successfully prosecuted the military or assassins sponsored to eliminate ―marginalized‖ journalists or suspend operations for media houses that blatantly oppose the regime. marginalized journalists operate in extreme conditions. the governments typically restrain the free press without any legal process. the military routinely arrests journalists and newspaper editors and closes their presses; they are locked up with no due process; military tribunals accuse some of the dissension and banish some of them for encouraging resistance. 1f. cameroon and the idea of press freedom cameroon is among 210 countries and territories where people have access to political rights and civil liberties, which means the press, as a critical conduit of democratization, should have unfettered abilities to source and report news and information. two types of public media operate in cameroon: government-owned and private press. the former typically covers news and information that favors the regime. although the government of the rep. of cameroon has allowed individuals and institutions to broadcast and distribute news throughout the country and abroad, the government clamps down on reporting that ―heavily‖ criticizes the government operations or identifies massive corruption among highly ranked officials, including cronies and persons associated with the presidency. freedom house‘s report published in 2023 rates cameroon as a ―not free‖ country in terms of journalistic and media work. in its report published july 17, 2023, the global organization that monitors threats to press www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 149 published by scholink inc. freedom, freedom of expression, and democracy cited ngos‘ call for the protection of journalists in cameroon ahead of the country‘s u.n. human rights review submitted to the united nations by freedom house, the committee to protect journalists, and the american bar association‘s center for human rights, with the support of covington & burling llp. the report, released ahead of the country‘s universal periodic review in geneva later in 2023, included the abduction and killing of a prominent cameroonian journalist, martinez zogo, whose mutilated body was found five days later. the group‘s submission highlights that the killing, physical attacks, abduction, torture, and harassment of journalists by cameroonian police, intelligence agencies, military, and non-state actors continue to have a severe chilling effect (freedom house, 2023). 1g. the character of the ―anglophone crisis‖ and press demise ―anglophone‖ refers to an english-speaking population, especially in a country where two or more languages are spoken. in cameroon, however, ―anglophone‖ has been used interchangeably by political scientists, activists, journalists, social media, scholars, and socio-cultural groups as people of multiple socio-linguistic cum cultural backgrounds, most of whom hail from the predominantly english-speaking regions of cameroon, the northwest and southwest provinces (noso)—the former british southern cameroons. also, ―anglophone war‖ and ―anglophone crisis‖ are used interchangeably in this article to denote the burgeoning attacks, armed conflict, killings, and forced displacement of civilians in the region. on december 5, 2016, aljazeera.com and reuters reported that thousands of teachers and lawyers in the english-speaking regions of cameroon were on strike about the government‘s imposition of the french language in schools and courts in the noso. on november 30, 2017, president paul biya, the republic of cameroon president, speaking on television, declared war on anglophone separatists‘ followed by public demonstrations involving over 1 million people in the noso region. the armed military arrested the leaders, and protesters detained them in various prison cells across the cameroon territory. following the arrests and detentions in 2017, activists created social media platforms, including facebook, twitter, and youtube channels. they began mainly by expressing outrage against the government of cameroon. this process culminated in what most english-speaking cameroonians consider a revolution, a struggle for independence of southern cameroon, aka ambazonia. the cameroon government announced measures to appease the anglophone population, including a national dialogue involving various group leaders within cameroon and abroad to resolve the conflict and map a way forward. the dialogue did not result in meaningful action. anglophone activists declared ambazonia‘s independence and launched a guerilla campaign against the cameroonian defense forces. in short, the frustrations of anglophones surfaced dramatically after 2016 when a series of sectoral grievances morphed into political demands, leading to strikes and riots. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 150 published by scholink inc. the sais review of international affairs, published by the johns hopkins school of advanced international affairs, foreign policy institute, details the conflict: the conflict in the anglophone regions of cameroon is a civil war that started in 2017 between cameroonian security forces and non-state armed separatist groups vying for an independent state they call ―the federal republic of ambazonia.‖ longstanding grievances in the anglophone regions of cameroon, dating back to the colonial era, re-emerged in october 2016 in the form of peaceful protests against marginalization, political exclusion, and the state‘s preference for the use of french over english. the demonstrators demanded reforms, primarily in the education and judicial sectors, but the rep. of government‘s response was brutal. security forces have continued indiscriminate arrests, killings, and torture of civilians (mutah, 2022). mutah‘s (2022) report, as well as human rights watch, the united nations human rights council (unhcr), amnesty international, foreign news network giants like reuters, associated press, agence france presse, xinhua news agency, africa news, and other documented sources other than 600,000 internally displaced persons and efforts to end the conflict, have not yielded any meaningful strides. religious groups, activists, diplomats, pro-and the crisis has rapidly escalated into a secessionist political conflict with the potential to degenerate into a complex emergency, but the timid response from western superpowers, the united nations, the african union, and multilateral corporations with investments and potential interests in the ever-emerging reports of new minerals in that area has only escalating conflict, promoted propaganda war, and minimized opportunities for peace negotiations. journalists reporting on the anglophone crises operate in disguise. they rely on periodic indigenes‘ text messages and their observations and information shared discreetly about the war. reporting is done through themes related to violence and solutions. the heavy presence of armed forces in the war zone prompts potential informants not to share news bits with reporters. the photo below illustrates this point. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 151 published by scholink inc. figure 1. a soldier stands guard outside a polling station where cameroon’s incumbent president, paul biya of the cameroon people’s democratic movement party, casts his vote during the presidential elections on sunday, october 7, 2018. [source: alamba/a.p.] since 2017, the u.n. and human rights groups estimate that over 800,000 people have been displaced. the conflict has killed over 700,000 people, displaced more than 1 million people, destroyed more than 600,000 homes, and rendered at least 4 million out of an estimated 8 million people of southern cameroon origin unemployed, underemployed, or in severe financial and emotional distress. briefly put, the struggle for independence and maintaining the status quo has been disfigured by misinformation on social media platforms, unreliable reporting of the crises, and journalists‘ limited access to news and information sources. unconfirmed reports reveal that state-instructed cameroon‘s military and pro-independence fighters have been blamed for preventing journalists from reaching affected groups, particularly refugees and inhabitants facing inhumane treatment by the military. a worrisome aspect of the cameroon conflict is the lack of attention by international actors. despite the brutality of violence, in which children have been prime targets, the international response has been worryingly minimal. u.s. senate resolution 684 marks a significant turning point. many researchers and political scientists have succinctly documented the dubbed anglophone crises, including sources like the journal of international humanitarian action and the university of oxford lay blogs. using an exploratory, qualitative, analytical, and descriptive case study research tradition involving document/content analysis (bang & balgah, 2022) applied the robert strauss centre‘s complex emergency framework to investigate the potential of the anglophone crisis, whose ramifications led to a warning for an impending complex disaster emergency that could heighten humanitarian challenges www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 152 published by scholink inc. unless there is foresight and goodwill by relevant actors to commence a process of adequate contingency planning immediately. the multilayered, complex nature of the conflict and gross inequalities continue to exist as anglophones resist and strive for long-overdue freedom. dr. roxana willis, a researcher at the university of oxford and principal investigator of the cameroon conflict research group on february 17, 2021, admitted that international state actors have been mainly exploitative and infused with power imbalance (willis, 2021). for their part, nembot, meh, and beri (2023) have shared harrowing images of the socioeconomic consequences of the conflict in a report published at onpolicyafrica.org (note 1), insisting that the desire to reinstate the two-state federation that defined the union between the english and french-speaking parts of the country at independence remains sacrosanct among a sizeable number of anglophones. they reveal that the conflict cause closure of more than 3,000 out of 6,515 schools; number of secondary school enrolments reduced from 213,277 in 2016-before the crisis to 2,908 in 2018-during the crisisrepresenting a 98.6% drop rate; that public and private enterprises like pamol and the cameroon development corporation (cdc), with an employment capacity of about 10,000 people, was partially shut down and 6,434 and 8,000 employees in different sectors lost their jobs. (onpolicyafrica.org, dec. 14, 2023). indeed, those conditions deserve a clinical examination because they speak of health and illness in people needing help to develop better ways to prevent, diagnose, treat, and detect the dis-ease affecting their social wellbeing. thus, data on the psychophysical and social conditions of persons in the war zone is needed to contextualize the role of journalists in the war zone. to do so, we must first examine the causes of the anglophone war to gauge conditions for press operations in tandem with human rights violations in that region. the anglophone crisis can be traced back to the foumban conference of 1961, where the former british southern cameroons reunited in a federation with french cameroun after 45 years of anglo-french partition of german kamerun. however, crisis group africa, the associated, reuters, and other major agencies confirm that the crisis that led to the war began on october 11, 2016. here is a snapshot of rapid events exacerbating the crisis. ❑ december 2016marginalization of anglophone heritage, cultural activities, and ways of life leads lawyers, teachers, and civilians to protest enhanced. anglophone lawyers and teachers file complaints about pro-francophone lawyers and teachers to the cameroon government. ❑ october 1, 201717 people are killed; 50 wounded as the blue and white flag of the self-styled republic of ambazonia is hoisted in towns across the north west and south west regions to mark a symbolic break from cameroon. southern cameroons ambazonia consortium united front (scacuf) declares the independence of ambazonia, naming sisiku julius ayuk tabe as president, and scacuf www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 153 published by scholink inc. forms the ambazonia interim government. sisiku creates an interim government and begins a tour of citizens of southern cameroon) in the diaspora. ❑ october 2, 2017-the republic of cameroon reprimand protesters, fueling the independence push in anglophone cameroon. the crackdown happens after anglophone insurgents kill soldiers and police officers. ❑ november 30, 2017, the republic of cameroon president biya declares war on secessionist rebels. in return, the anglophones set up an interim government abroad, declared independence for southern cameroon in november 2017, and implemented a process called ghost town—a once-per-week economic boycott and business activities in the anglophone region--to weaken the cameroon economy and forced negotiations to discuss terms of separation. published scholarship and press reports show that the exploitative socioeconomic structure implemented through the european legal regime of slavery and neo-colonial processes from cameroon‘s partition in 1884 to 1916 (for germany and france); france and england (1918-1960/61) continues to structure exploitative relationships in the present, albeit in transmuted forms, especially with france‘s influence since cameroon‘s checkered independence. ❑ activists create online platforms and begin promoting the ambazonia independence movement. ❑ january, 2018-sisiku and ten members of his cabinet are arrested at nera hotel in nigeria, extradited to cameroon, convicted for secession and terrorism by a rep. of cameroon military court, and fined $500 million. they are currently serving a life sentence. ❑ 2019-talks between the pro-independence groups and republic of cameroon representatives mediated by switzerland ultimately fail. ❑ september 2022, president paul biya deploys a military commander and special elite forces to noso. ❑ january 20, 2023, canada‘s foreign minister, mélanie joly, announces that the two sides have agreed to start peace negotiations. ❑ february 9, 2023, the international crisis group announces that pre-talks between cameroon‘s government and anglophone separatists, facilitated by canada, have opened the door to a long-overdue peace process, but yaoundé has balked. the government should embrace these talks, while domestic and external actors should put their full weight behind the initiative. (crisisgroup.org/africa, 2023) ❑ august 2024cameroon is beset with more major violent conflicts—boko haram insurgents in northern cameroon, ―the anglophone war (in noso), political unrest depicted in media broadcasts, and rising ethnopolitical tensions in the republic of cameroon as the 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 154 published by scholink inc. presidential elections race looms, expected to change the political landscape of the country and ultimately the futures of the southern cameroon communities. public dialogue about the republic of cameroon government acculturating, marginalizing, and depleting human capital and natural resources in southern cameroon (british cameroon territories) has filled the airwaves and social media platforms for decades, rethatching the argument to resolve the war legally. figure 2. november 23, 2017. anglophone protesters confront security forces, chanting, “how many people will paul biya kill?” [source: alamba/a.p.] 2. press coverage of the anglophone war well-known cameroon-born journalists and reporters, including john mbah akuro, innocent chia, bou herbert, remy ngono, innocent chia, mimi mefo, chris anu, michel biemtong, and boris bertolt, have been disseminating meaningful coverage of the anglophone war in the diaspora. some use youtube, twitter, and whatsapp channels to broadcast news on the crises. however, major global news agencies have overlooked the war in cameroon, including local government officials attempting to undermine the regional and international significance of the crisis for political reasons. although most local news agencies have not been able to finance reporters‘ travel expenses to the war zone, the international press has produced lukewarm coverage of the war because it operates on a cash-flow reporting mentality. the crisis-laced news farm with a big economy and diplomatic clout in the united nations deliberation floor gets global media attention. comparing the ukraine-russia war that started in february 2022 and israel‘s launching of an ongoing invasion of the gaza strip in october 2023 with the civil war in cameroon—u.n. member countries like china and france –on the conflict, living would expect the global press to spotlight the crisis. a few reuters, aljazeera, xinhua news agencies, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 155 published by scholink inc. and agence france presse reporters have periodically filed stories on the ―anglophone war‖, but it has not received adequate media attention or the type of support from the international community. to assess the extent of press insecurity in the unfolding conflict in former british southern cameroons, which some media outlets, diplomats, politicians, pundits, and political scientists have described as ―anglophone war‖, ―anglophone conflict‖, ―southern cameroon independence movement‖, ―separatists movement‖, ―terrorists‖, ―(noso)-northwest-southwest war‖, or ―war in the anglophone region in cameroon‖, we must contextualize the term ‗anglophone‘ and briefly explain the root cause of the conflict. 2.1 newsmedia challenges in reporting the anglophone war in cameroon the cameroon government has habitually controlled free speech since the country gained independence from its colonial masters, germany, france, and britain. on january 27, 2017, aljazeera reported that the government had ordered a cut-off of internet access from the northwest and southwest communities internet blackout after protests against the marginalization of english speakers. the move prevented the local population from using online social network groups to exchange information about the protests. as public demonstrations spread, including naked older women marching to prevent troops and security forces from harassing protesters, the ministry of posts and telecommunications in cameroon fought back by ordering mobile phone operators (mtn, orange) to warn users not to circulate ―false information‖ on social networks about the crisis. on january 25, 2017, reporters without borders, an international non-profit and non-governmental organization focused on safeguarding the right to freedom of information headquartered in paris, france, published an article online condemning the cameroonian government for multiple violations of freedom of information amid protests by the country‘s english-speaking minority community. however, the private press, especially radio and television networks, have, since 2017, on-the-scene and analytical reports of war proceedings. broad-readership newspapers include le messager, le jour, the guardian post, la voix du centre, and radio equinoxe. web, radio balafon fm 90.3, spectrum, canal 2, and other private national television stations have produced loud headline captions and grinding pro-independence and pro-unitary ideologies about the ongoing war against the so-called separatists. the private media and on-location persons are more aggressive than the government-controlled media in cameroon in terms of coverage of the war. local newspapers, especially in the northwest province (also described by ambazonians as the ‗northern zone‖), are adept at providing daily headlines on the war. youtube channels created mainly through pro-independence activists in the diaspora also provide daily coverage. whatsapp is the most common channel to spread news and information, usually unverified or fake, about the war because of its capacity to carry or store videos and the ease of allowing anyone to create content (texts, images). facebook and youtube are also standard tools used by activists who support or oppose independence. however, articles published by local private www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 156 published by scholink inc. newspapers, opinion leaders, and videos shot with iphones by pro-independence fighters, the military, and government media go viral. over eighty percent (80 %) of stories about the anglophone war have been developed and shared online by pro-independence fighters, public relations representatives, or activists. they make running commentary, take pictures of the unfolding fight, record audio messages and videos of themselves on location, and forward them to persons on their contact list, who, in turn, forward them to other people using their iphones. simply put, activists have been using social media to alert, confuse, inform, blackmail, or fact-check, seemingly oblivious to repercussions for the freedom fighters, civilians, or military bodies. 2.2 the demise of journalists since the dubbed ―anglophone war‖ started, some journalists covering it went into exile in america, europe, and asia. they have been using youtube and other online channels to disseminate news and information about the anglophone war alongside other media outlets. local journalists covering the war have increasingly faced physical, psychological, and emotional reprisals from the government-back military and intelligence sources, forcing some to flee the country while some journalists on location (also known as ground zero) have been tortured, imprisoned, assassinated, or coerced to publish news and information denouncing the war and favoring the position of the regime in power. however, the diaspora-based veteran pro-liberation southern cameroon journalist john mbah akuro has narrated numerous incidents in which the minister of territorial administration assembled newspaper editors and journalists and offered them money and a government press release to publish that discredited southern cameroon independence movement (mbah-akuro, february 8, 2023). innocent chia, another diaspora-based veteran citizen journalist and a former reporter at cameroon government‘s main broadcasting network, crtv, has consistently used tweets and other e-media resources sensitizing various publics on the perils of the dubbed anglophone war with a view to mobilizing a conscientious collaborative effort to actuate and validate the independence of southern cameroon—ambazonia. other reports, especially on youtube, facebook, and whatsapp accounts, and some privately owned newspapers detail how journalists disguised themselves and sneaked across the cameroon border seeking political asylum in neighboring nigeria, south africa, the united states, france, and norway. in the article published online on july 7, 2022, amnesty international stated that activists received death threats for exposing human rights violations and abuses in anglophone regions. the cameroonian authorities did not ensure that human rights groups could work without intimidation and reprisals. a famous journalist from cameroon‘s restive anglophone region was arrested and charged with propagating false information and terrorism, arrested and jailed for four days. the arrest of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 157 published by scholink inc. equinoxe television journalist mimi mefo was an attempt to silence media outlets that reported on the crisis in that region. various media outlets, including africa news and world forum for democracy, reports show the investigative journalist had opted for the right to remain silent after the gendarmerie, an armed military unit with law enforcement duties among the civilian population, accused her of reporting false information when mefo revealed the army had killed civilians in violence, not armed separatist fighters, as the military had alleged. some recognizable news agencies have documented reports of journalists covering the war. here is a summary:  moki edwin kindzeka published this report on november 08, 2018, at 3:27 pm a famous journalist from cameroon‘s restive anglophone region remains in jail after she was arrested and charged with propagating false information and terrorism.  media rights groups say the arrest of equinoxe broadcast journalist mimi mefo is an attempt to silence outlets that report on the crisis in that region. https://www.voanews.com/a/cameroon-journalist-jailed-in-anglophone-unrest/4650515.html  the al jazeera media institute documents jean-marie ngongsong, a journalist and radio operator, who experienced this at voice in bamenda during the crisis. ―i reported everything without fear before the crisis in 2016. i had easy access to news sources and did my work with zest. since the crisis escalated into an armed conflict with heavy militarization of the region, fear of arrest and kidnapping has placed a chokehold on my work. besides the fear of arrest, anti-terrorism laws have also added to the burden of journalists‖. (al jazeera journalism review, https://institute.aljazeera.net/en/ajr/article/1911, retrieved 02/08/2023) podcasts by activists also mention local informants bribed by some ministers of the republic of cameroon intentionally misinform journalists. given the importance of journalists as frontline workers during crises and the well-documented experiences of reporters in similar situations elsewhere, this author has documented journalists‘ experiences during the ongoing war in southern cameroon to help us understand their predicament in marginalized environments and possibly find ways of protecting journalistic integrity in such environments. 3. method 3.1 methodology frameworks this article is built on the premise that the press is a voice that allows the collection and sharing of newsworthy information with anyone else; it protects the right to spread ideas, thoughts, news, and perspectives by publishing them. freedom of the press protects the right to spread opinions, ideas, news, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 158 published by scholink inc. and views by publishing them in a mass-oriented format. press freedom implies the following conditions: (i) there should be no interference from an overreaching state; (ii) the press can seek and preserve its rights through the constitution and other known legal forms of protection and security. free press is not paid press, where communities, police organizations, civic organizations, businesses, institutions, and governments pay to get their news published or are paid for their copyrights. 3.2 data collection techniques used this author used electronic tools like telephone surveys and mediated forms like whatsapp and press reports to reach sources. this researcher assembled a whatsapp contact list through social interactions and college times in cameroon to reach informants in the northwest and southwest regions. the informants were five local citizen journalists, three former classmates of this author, two priests, and six local businesspeople. a questionnaire sought answers to the following questions.  how people get information about the crisis  how people share information  how people use the information they get the study‘s main goal was to discern how the republic of cameroon used tactics to prevent the private press from harvesting news and obstructing observers from sharing data on victims and at-risk persons. this author also wanted to know how state officials coerce private newspapers (e.g., photojournalists, reporters, and managing editors) to publish content to protect national interests and promote the government‘s agenda before offering solutions for the gridlock, among others: (i) ways of re-establishing integrity in journalism as a credible news bank and (ii) how journalists in nations excluded from mainstream social, economic, educational, and cultural life should be protected against punitive activities facilitated by international partners, particularly donors. table 1. questionnaire for journalists in anglophone war zone name of your newspaper _______________________________ subject questions item a: accessing news tell us how you collect information on the war in the northwest/southwest provinces-about the skirmishes between the military and ‗separatist‘ fighters to write your news article. item b: reporting news 1. describe the challenges you face when preparing your article to be published. a. does the editor ask you not to include some data? 2. describe any financial difficulties you have during production i. e.g., when printing the paper, ii. tools you lack to collect information and news about the war www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 159 published by scholink inc. item c: press security 1. has the military or any secret government agent visited your office? 2. have you ever been banned from going where the military is assaulting civilians? 3. have pro-independence fighters prevented you from interviewing anyone? if so, why? 4. have pro-independent fighters prevented you from interviewing civilians? why? 5. who has threatened you since you started interviewing people and publishing stories about the political crisis here? amba boys or the military or thugs representing a particular group? 6. describe any tactics the lrc government uses to limit access to the private press from harvesting and breaking news and obstructing observers from sharing data on victims and at-risk persons. 7 have you ever been harassed? by whom? 8. has your home, office, or family been threatened? by whom? 9. explain how local officials coerce your newspaper into publishing articles that protect national interests and promote the government‘s agenda. 10. has any informant you interviewed been killed or arrested by government officials? 11. has any informant you interviewed been killed or arrested by amba boys? 12. has any informant you interviewed been killed or thugs representing a particular group? 3.3 clarification on survey questions used q.1: tell us how you collect information on the war in the northwest/southwest provincesabout the skirmishes between the military and „separatist‟ fighters to write your news article. this question sought to know whether the military or separatist fighters (―amba boys‖) used force and intimidation methods to block journalists‘ access to news. for reference, article 4 a (4) of the third geneva convention and article 79 of the additional protocol stipulates that journalists are entitled to all rights and protections granted to civilians in international armed conflicts. moreover, shield laws statutes provide journalists the absolute and qualified privilege to refuse to disclose sources used or information obtained during news gathering. thus, journalists were expected to have unfettered access to news sources anywhere in that region. on the issue of item b: reporting issues, questions 1 and 2 sought to know whether journalists living in the war zone were coerced due to limited access to economic resources and conditions such as ‗ghost town‘ (every monday and sometimes more days, all businesses in noso do not operate). the press house administration may have relied on other sources, like government-led financial assistance, to publish government propaganda instead of hard news. item c: press security had more probes (12 questions) to assess the extent of press insecurity in the region properly. social media platforms and local newspaper reports seemed to show increasing signs of harassment, torture, and intimidation of news sources—journalists and their informants. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 160 published by scholink inc. 4. results 4.1 description i. summary of how people access news and information on the anglophone war • social media platforms (youtube channels, facebook, whatsapp messages, instagram) • newspaper, radio, and television reports • spokespersons: government and ―separatist‖ groups • hearsay (two-step flow) • public gatherings (bars, church, birth/death celebrations, etc.) • conversations in the bar • conversations at home/interpersonal conversations ii. how private journalists gather and report information and news about the crisis  eyewitness accounts  local informants—with phone contacts of reports  amateur videos posted online by amba fighters and military  stories from social media (e.g., facebook)  trained ―undercover‖ indigenous correspondents  coverage by journalists in the diaspora  eyewitness accounts  local informants—with phone contacts of reports  amateur videos posted online by amba fighters and military  stories from social media (e.g., facebook)  trained ―undercover‖ indigenous correspondents  coverage by journalists in the diaspora  reporting:  printed papers, radio/t.v. broadcasts, podcasts, online newspapers, online t.v. channels iii. how government journalists gather and report news and information about the crisis:  government communications (press releases/alerts)  official appearances of public officials (organized meetings, working sessions)  appointed military officials at crisis grounds reporting to the hierarchy in the ministry of territorial administration the study found that 80 % of stories about the anglophone war have been developed and shared online by pro-independence groups; almost 60% of news is fake. the three assistants visited news houses to interview journalists about how they collected and reported the news during the war and explain their challenges. they used questionnaires (see figure 1). figure 1: transcript of the interviews: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 161 published by scholink inc. transcript 1: interview 1 with local journalist recorded by the assistant: saturday, february 4, 2023 assistant: i visited the eden newspaper office in bamenda and chatted with the manager, a journalist. question: what are the challenges you face when preparing your article to be published concerning the anglophone war in southern cameroon? answer: are you a spy? are you living in cameroon? have you not heard of the killing of a prominent journalist in yaoundé? where is wazi zi, who was convocated to report to a police station and, after respecting the convocation, his whereabouts up to the day is not known even by his own family. however, one year later, the government announced that he died in yaoundé. please, i don‟t want to lose my life. leave my office because i cannot take any risk in discussing or answering any questions from you. other reports on social media and privately owned television stations in cameroon also discussed the journalist‟s sudden disappearance. transcript 2: tuesday, january 24: visit the post newspaper office in bamenda assistant: have you ever been harassed by military or government officials while discharging your duties regarding information about the anglophone crisis? journalist‟s response: (name withheld): go and get authorization from the administration, the governor, the senior divisional office, or the divisional office assistant: why? journalist: so i can talk without fear. if not, you are a spy and want to destroy my life. assistant: (he knew i could not get this document, so this was a simple way of sending me away.) transcript 3: visit to lifetime (a private newspaper) november 30, 2022 assistant: good afternoon, sir. (managing editor). please tell me how you collect information on the war in the northwest/southwest provinces—the skirmishes between the military and “separatist” fighters—to write your news article and whether you‟re facing challenges. managing editor: turns softly; casts a suspicious look. “are you a journalist? assistant: no. managing editor: why? what do you want to do with this information? assistant: pleading: i am collecting this information so that someone can help us ambazonians so accurate information can help managing editor: ok, let‟s wait until everyone leaves the office assistant: ok, i‟ll go outside and wait until you usher me back in managing editor enters his car and drives off. his secretary declines to give any information since the “patron” (manager has left). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 162 published by scholink inc. the assistant: i immediately left the area, worried the manager might contact separatist fighters to pick her up. “they could take me and kill me without asking questions”, her voice recording states. realizing the difficulty of collecting data, the researcher recorded a directive message for assistant #3, who has lived in the region and served as a public health officer for forty years. transcript 4: recorded by assistant #3. researcher interview instructions were recorded and sent to assistant #3 on friday, january 3, 2023, via whatsapp in vernacular and mixed with english to ensure privacy “visit a newspaper, like the guardian. record your interview in the following manner:  went to the manager. record whatever they said. write down the difficulties you are facing reaching the journalists.  document how often you have visited them and the difficulties you and they are facing. give me their feedback. assistant #3 (recording for the researcher): ―hey! you said certain words in english. i was scared while listening to your voice message. my neighbor is a police officer who rented the flat a few weeks ago. most of them rent houses to listen to private conversations. things are tough here, new. the phone company gave secret police lengthy phone numbers belonging to international owners from france, the u.s., and the u.k. the government has had to rent rooms to listen to private conversations and arrest people. i heard people chit-chatting about this while at church last weekend. after killing martinez azogo, they killed another journalist called rev. jean jacques ole bebe, who dared also criticize the government for launching an unjust war in the anglophone zone and killing many innocent people. the story is on facebook. go check it‖. source: whatsapp voice message received by this researcher, january 6, 2023 transcript 4: recorded by assistant #4. these researcher‘s interview instructions were recorded and sent to assistant #4 on friday, january 3, 2023, via whatsapp, disguised in the vernacular and mixed with a few english language verbs and adjectives to ensure privacy “visit a newspaper, like the guardian. record your interview in the following manner: ∙ went to the manager. record whatever they said. write down the difficulties you are facing reaching journalists. ∙ document how often you have visited them and the difficulties you and they are facing. give me their feedback. assistant #3 (recording for the researcher): ―hey! you said certain words in english. i was scared while listening to your voice message. i heard people chit-chatting about this plan while at church last weekend. can you imagine my neighbor is a police officer who rented this flat a few weeks ago? they rent houses to track our private conversations and arrest us. things are tough here. the phone www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 163 published by scholink inc. companies (orange & mtn) gave the secret police phone numbers belonging to international owners in france, the u.s., the u.k., etc. the government has rented rooms throughout this town for the ununiformed police to listen to private conversations and arrest people. people are just disappearing. every day, people find a dead body on the street. we mind our business. if you complain, you might be arrested at night”. after killing martinez zogo, you know. he is ewondo, one of their people; they killed another journalist last friday. his name is rev. jean jacques ole bebe. he dared criticize the government for launching an unjust war in the anglophone zone and killing many innocent people. the story is on facebook. go check it”. source: whatsapp voice message received by the researcher, january 6, 2023 transcript 5: cameroon panorama accessing news 1. i have cultivated sources in parishes across the regions. when there is an incident where i cannot reach them, i call them to ascertain the facts. i call many people for the same thing to establish the facts. sometimes, i rely on official sources like government communiqués or separatists‟ communiqués. however, i verify the facts from my sources very well because the communiqués are often full of propaganda from both sides. sometimes, when it is secured, i go to the field. still, it is always tricky because we are not protected either by the state forces or separatist forces. reporting news 1. i have to make many calls to confirm the facts. sometimes, it takes work to get to my sources. government sources, too, are most often unwilling to accept interviews. i must ensure i do not fall into social media news, which delays the stories. sometimes, victims are afraid to speak because people have spoken the truth and have been arrested by either government or separatist forces. a) if the data is not verifiable, i am asked to leave it out. b) i) the cost of printing is very high and unstable with the changing price of paper and printing materials. ii) most of my sources don‟t have good phones to snap pictures and record interviews that i could use. i have to assist many of my sources in getting pictures and interviews. few graphic designers are available, and those who are available don‟t know about journalism, so i have to stay with them throughout the magazine layout to be done correctly. c) yes, but we prevented them from having access. d) yes, i have been prevented several times from getting to the scene by the military, which claimed it was not safe for me to go there. e) i) no. that i should give them money first. ii) not directly. some civilians are afraid of some of them to speak. iii) anonymous callers who are suspected to be government agents had called and threatened me. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 164 published by scholink inc. c) there is no freedom of information in cameroon. government sources hardly release information. they always tell you they need authorization from yaoundé to talk. some of them refuse interviews from primate media organs. i) yes. by the military and called for questioning by the government secret agents. ii) yes, by government forces. d. sometimes, they send out official communiqués. once you don‟t publish them, they remove the newspaper from government subvention that comes once in a while. newspapers were not invented to cover government events. e. yes. but i cannot ascertain that he was killed because of the interview he granted our magazine. f. i am not aware of any. g. i am not aware of anyone. h. to be assured that i will not be killed or arrested by the state forces or amba boys if i report credible information. i should not be forced to reveal my sources as well. transcript 6: radio evangelicum: jumbo diocese (summarized) since the outbreak of the anglophone crisis in 2017, news collection has not been accessible for those of us exercising journalism in the crisis-hit areas. as a radio, several factors compound issues significantly. the radio does not make much money, and movement is thus tough. to make matters worse, journalists have been viewed with much suspicion by both campsthe government and the separatists; all ears of the warring parties feel that a report did not favor them, and threats are issued to the radio. the authorities, i mean the local authorities in kumbo in 2018, tried to shoot us up by inviting our reporter to appear before the senior divisional officer with copies of the news report. this happened on four occasions before there was an order for the military to get hold of the particular reporter. fortunately, the plot leaked, and the reporter went into hiding. the military, however, did not visit the radio house. it is worth mentioning that the four times the reporter appeared before the authorities and the military without papers, he argued his way out. however, he didn‟t leave without receiving verbal warnings, never to mention anything on the history of the southern cameroons, and never again to interview top historians who have a good knowledge of the political evolution of cameroon, particularly the history of the british southern cameroons. our reports have never been offered protection by the state authorities at the local level. the military threatens when a reporter appears at a scene where a circular or civilians are being assaulted. our reporter was forced to lie looking face upwards in the blazing sun. this happened even though he identified himself as a journalist working for radio evangelical. he would accompany his bishop on a pastoral visit to one of the parishes. the reporter was insulted, bullied, and threatened by the military, who even accused him of collaborating with the amba boys. according to the military, the reporter should have warned the military of the amba soldiers‟ imminent attack on the military. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 165 published by scholink inc. on the other hand, the pro-independence fighters have not made it easy for our reporters to function. like the state military, they ask for identification papers and collect the reporter‟s phone, not without threats. they once brutalized our reporter for daring to intervene on behalf of his boys. the reporter lost a tooth in the assault. the most significant difficulty in reporting during this war came from the state side. the authorities and the military hardly accept granting interviews. unfortunately, the reporters are often considered sympathizers of the independentists (freedom fighters of pro-southern independence fighters, “amba boys”). we are a private media platform. since the private sector journalists are not given state protection, few-breaking news becomes secondhand news from some eyewitnesses who survived the hot atmosphere. therefore, we are left to refer to our sources rather than eyewitness reports. occasionally, our reporter may stumble on a government official, but getting the official to talk about the war situation is like trying to squeeze water out of a rock. we are functioning in an area considered one of the war‟s epicenters. as such, he can‟t function like reporters elsewhere. we remain targets for suspicion. no side wanted to talk to our centers unless it came to warning the reporter while recording any voice or against taking autographs. under normal circumstances, reporters of the private sector should have been accorded the media personnel. here, i am thinking of state protection using the military, especially when we must travel to the war front. one of our reporters made a 2018 suggestion for prime protection. these men and women of the fourth estate should be given free and ready information from the local authorities, the local authorities, and the military. things have begun to change their mind. local politicians, by standards and as a matter of conscience, should be blamed for the u-turn of those who, unlike the amba, are better placed to give out information on the evolution of the war. the local politicians tagged some reporters as the opposition. those who were and are not with the party in power or are not in support of the state‟s decision to use force. it has been an uphill task for the local press to give the people fresh and up-to-date news reports on the war situation because of a lack of trust in the men and women who are said to be the nation‟s fourth estate. 5. discussion political pundits, the private press, and internet platforms discuss sensitive issues, but the media in cameroon is not entirely free. the cameroon constitution guarantees press freedom, but in practice, threats from government censors, including ministers, directors, municipal councilors, mayors, and divisional officers, weaken opposition viewpoints and prevent them from being broadcast in the government-controlled media. independent newspapers actively practice yellow journalism, especially www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 166 published by scholink inc. concerning the ongoing ―noso‖ war. daily newspapers are replete with eye-catching headlines and exaggerations about ―separatist fighters‖, soldiers, and pro-independence activists in the diaspora, mainly for increased sales, scandal-mongering, and sensationalizing the events to make the war a current event and prolong financial investments by the opposing parties in prosecuting the war. in addition, local informants use their mouths and cell phones to share news tips with journalists. still, they lack access to sources to collect and report news properly. journalists are trained to collect and distribute news for socio-political public-interest matters due to public non-confidence against journalists, fear of repression from the government, and disguised government informants. government soldiers and officials, suspicious of journalists, do not grant interviews, depriving the latter of harvesting and delivering news. these obstacles expose happenings in the war zone to social media networking communities and other unreliable sources to infect the public‘s conscience on the real reasons for the protracted, underreported ―anglophone‖ war, visibly ignored by the international community. based on the analyses above, including transcripts from the journalists on location, we find that the news media in cameroon, even when used for propaganda purposes, enjoy limited immunity from attacks and protection granted to civilians under international humanitarian law. the absence of public trust in journalists and their insecurity propagated by state authorities who have fed the public with espionage fears and reprimand threats has severely diminished the potential for journalists and reporters on-location to access and distribute news and data that could help significant news outlets worldwide to have an accurate account of the silenced war that has claimed over 35,000 lives, destroyed over 600 villages, retarded education for over 1 million young people and cost over $500 million in the local economy within seven years. without a repertoire established for news products such as press releases, verified photographs, and interview transcripts) on the ground operations and related communications, peace advocates, human rights agencies like the unhcr, and international bodies, including the u.n., may not have a comprehensive record of the ―anglophone crisis.‖ 6. the way forward i propose options needed for the protecting journalistic integrity and marginalized journalists cognizant of the notion that countries, especially those in developing countries like cameroon that decided to practice democracy, struggle to balance their principles with those of social and economic security and are not well equipped psychologically and financially to implement the steps shared in this article effectively. i once stated that redefining our local space, group dynamics, and any change in a globalized world requires learning how electronic media and its networked communities create, dismantle, and shape our identity (see ngwainmbi, 2023). the learning process includes investing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 167 published by scholink inc. human capital and financial resources, training citizen journalists, and providing funds that do not benefit the funding agency. no matter the financial standing, environment, or risks in accessing and broadcasting news in the war zone, journalistic integrity drives, defines, actuates, and prepares the ground for public consumption of true stories that could influence policymakers and increase advocacy and the public‘s actions. for journalistic integrity to be protected in marginalized communities, particularly those operating in war-torn regions like cameroon, immediate short-term intervention actions are required to allow constructive messages to be shared and proper solutions to the dubbed ―anglophone‖ crisis to be addressed. to wit, the unesco, in collaboration with unhcr, civil rights groups, reporter without borders, and the cameroon association of media professionals, should ► engage social networking company executives (e.g., facebook, instagram, twitter, tiktok) to help filter social media content on events associated with the crisis. ► those companies, directed by unesco experts, should create a databank on the anglophone crises for foreign and local media to extract and report on its content. ► they should create a list of qualified journalists and reporters with verifiable credentials from the api, reuters, agence france presse, and upi, maybe xinhua news agency, and empower them to post content in the databank—e.g., videos, stories, press releases, news tips, etc. ► set up paid watchdogs to monitor potential obstacles against local informants and journalists. ► enforce international justice systems to impose penalties against the state (cameroon) government. for example, the imf, world bank, and african development bank should impose financial sanctions against cameroon to prevent journalists from collecting and reporting on the anglophone crisis. ► each country should provide protection using the military, especially when journalists travel to the war front. ► each country should hold workshops and train its municipal staff, local law enforcement authorities, and local journalists on international media laws, threat mitigation methods, how to provide first aid and secure communications methods, ► local authorities should have 24-hour hotlines, safety funds, safety equipment, and safe houses, and provide legal assistance and emergency assistance to journalists injured during work. ► the international federation of journalists, reporters without borders & camp should lobby the ‗influencers‘ (international financial institutions) to help implement policies that allow unfettered access to news and information on the ongoing anglophone crisis. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 168 published by scholink inc. the private press should receive technical and financial support to process and distribute news about the crises-news is power. accurate reporting can help parties in conflict correctly resolve their problems. acknowledgment this author wishes to thank all journalists and media representatives who risked their lives by visiting war zones, recording written and audio answers to survey questions, and submitting their responses via email and whatsapp. their affiliation and names are withheld to protect them and their families. references akuro, j. m. (2023, january 20). canada has spoken: journey through the media releases & transformation lrc into sodom and gomorra. retrieved from https://youtu.be/a70sddoieus balguygallois, a. (2004). protection des journalistes et des médias en période de conflit armé. (protection of journalists and media during armed conflict). irrc, march 2004, 86(853), 37-68. retrieved from http://www.icrc.org bang, n. h., & balgah, a. r. (2022). the ramification of cameroon‘s anglophone crisis: a conceptual analysis of a looming ―complex disaster emergency.‖ journal of international humanitarian action, 7(6). retrieved from https://jhumanitarianaction.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41018-022-00114-1 canada initiative offers opportunity for cameroon peace process. (february 9, 2023) retrieved august 21, 2024, from https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa mutah, j. (november 2022). global responses to cameroon‘s anglophone crisis: the inadequate international efforts to end the world‘s most neglected conflict. the sais review of international affairs. ndlovu, m. (may 3, 2023). media censorship deepens in africa, further aggravating the state of press freedom. retrieved from https://afidep.org/about/our-objectives/strengthen-capacity-in-evidence-use-for-decision-making nembot, a., meh, j. b, neri, p. (december 14, 2023) analysing the socioeconomic consequences of the anglophone conflict in cameroon. in on policy africa. https://onpolicy.org/analysing-the-socioeconomic-consequences-of-the-anglophone-conflict-in-ca meroon/ retrieve 08/2102024 ngwainmbi, e. k. (ed.). (2023). dismantling cultural borders through social media and digital communications: how networked communities compromise identity. london, uk: palgrave macmillan. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 169 published by scholink inc. ngwainmbi, e. k. (2018). why follow all the hoopla? fake news reporting on social media platforms and implications for nation-state building. international journal of media, journalism and mass communications, 4(2), 29-43. ngwainmbi, k. e. (2007). nepad and the politics of globalization: redefining local space, group dynamics, and economic development. in a. mazama (ed.), africa in the 21st century: toward a new future (pp. 221-257). new york: routledge. rai, k. a. (december 2000). media at war: issues and limitations. strategic analysis: a monthly journal of the idsa, xxiv(9). reporters without borders. (2022). new record number of journalists jailed worldwide. retrieved january 26, 2022, from https://rsf.org/en/new-record-number-journalists-jailed-worldwide willis, r. (2021). causes of the anglophone conflict in cameroon. faculty of laws blogs. university of oxford, england. zane, i. (october 28, 2022). parallel wars: the power of social media in cameroon‟s anglophone crisis. the pulitzer center. retrieved january 27, 2023, from https://pulitzercenter.org/projects note note 1. ―on policy africa focuses on presenting accurate, balanced and apolitical analysis that is insightful to the readers. contributions cover issues related to governance, democracy, human rights, economic affairs, free trade, peace and security, rule of law, international relations, health, gender studies, sustainable development, migration, entrepreneurship, digital technologies, climate and biodiversity etc.‖ visit https://onpolicy.org/writers-guidelines-for-on-policy-magazine/ communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 61 original paper an investigation about entailment and narrative by ai techniques (generative models) paolo marocco1 & roberto gigliucci2* 1 department of economics, university of genova, italy 2 sapienza university of rome, italy received: october 28, 2020 accepted: november 7, 2020 online published: november 16, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n4p61 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n4p61 abstract many storytelling generation problems concern the difficulty to model the sequence of sentences. language models are generally able to assign high scores to well-formed text, especially in the cases of short texts, failing when they try to simulate human textual inference. although in some cases output text automatically generated sounds as bland, incoherent, repetitive and unrelated to the context, in other cases the process reveals capability to surprise the reader, avoiding to be boring/predictable, even if the generated text satisfies entailment task requirements. the lyric tradition often does not proceed towards a real logical inference, but takes into account alternatives like the unexpectedness, useful for predicting when a narrative story will be perceived as interesting. to achieve a best comprehension of narrative variety, we propose a novel measure based on two components: inference and unexpectedness, whose different weights can modify the opportunity for readers to have different experiences about the functionality of a generated story. we propose a supervised validation treatment, in order to compare the authorial original text, learned by the model, with the generated one. keywords entailment, narrative, linguistic generation, transformers, narratology, ai 1. introduction to start with, let us look to discuss with what we consider to be an existing disconnection between the study of artificial intelligence and the analysis of storytelling. during the decade of 2000-2010, there was a period of confluence, say a mutual interest, more or less, between the two domains of research mentioned above. as a testament to what has previously been said, we may mention some bibliographical datum; for example the work by cavazza and pizzi (2006) about narratology for interactive storytelling (narrative representations, trees, etc.), or the proposal of advancing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 62 published by scholink inc. computational models of narrative by richards and finlayson (2009). other voices in italy: basili, gigliucci, marocco (2010) (where we proposed a mix between lsa and classification using syntagmatic features); gigliucci and marocco (2006); gangemi (2006). we feel that it is fair to say that these premises have not been maintained. interestingly, from the nineties onward we have not experienced significant technological improvements in the field of studies about artificial intelligence and storytelling: the models have not changed to a great extent. these models have continued to adopt a mixture of classification, decision making and logic rules. not so different, one could say, from the classical ai patterns of the eighties (expert systems) that was to be echoed and reverberated in literature over the next two decades. a bibliographical testimony of that is the book by bringsjord and ferrucci (1999). the two authors showed a good mathematical background, and their challenge was to demonstrate «that logic is forever closed off from the emotional world of creativity». their approach was typical of the first chatbots that have been simulating the turing test, namely, to build a knowledge repository where an “agent” answered a human person: the agent ran through decision trees to query the repository. alternatively, more agents interacted with each other—without human support—and they gave life to narrative paths. when implementing these deductive-inductive schemes, which are enclosed and self-sufficient, we specifically limit the magnitude of events and stories to be narrated. however, these systems can easily be plunged into crisis in response to unexpected questions, whereby they need continuous extensions and generalizations, as well as ways of appending new rules and new events and stories: it is—you pardon the pun—a never-ending story. despite considerable advances in neural language modeling during the last twenty years (note 1), the more hopeful branches toward the text generation and automated storytelling have simply addressed the statistical learning domain. the first goals of general computational linguistics of the nineties have been long forgotten. indeed, promises of a machine, that tries to dive deeply into a text comprehension (using logics and others linguistic models), have not been kept. by adopting large training on millions of webpages and heterogeneous documents, the current language models pursue this law: more information ingested, more knowledge (reasoning abilities) acquired. an example is offered by openai’s gpt2 model, followed by its successor gpt3, which has recently overpassed the turing test, in some lite versions. these models are based on the assumption that the probability’s distribution of a words sequence can be decomposed into the product of conditional next word distributions. simply put, the text generation guidelines try to discover the more probable distributions of words chains, with respect to the global knowledge learned (paradigmatic level), and locally inferred by the previous sentence (syntagmatic level). in these cases, the inference is drawn by assigning a most probable maximum score to words’ context and relationships among pieces of text. the current metrics, used for measuring text-generated quality, follow the same concept. essentially, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 63 published by scholink inc. they use a similarity score, calculated in some vector space. they adopt lexical-based syntactic or semantic matches; recently, semantic similarities among sentences had been increasing, without being able yet to deeply investigate the meaning. the results are not very convincing, because, in linguistics and literature tradition, the meaning depends on other factors too, for example “who addresses whom in what surrounding”. moreover, an entailment-based test considers only the semantic consistency of antecedent (premise) with consequent (entailment hypothesis), exploiting in any case the same geometrical-probabilistic level. some authors observe: “quality human language does not follow a distribution of high probability next words. in other words, as humans, we want generated text to surprise us and not to be boring/predictable. the authors show this nicely by plotting the probability, a model would give to human text vs. what beam search does” (note 2). in addition to this kind of perplexity, we find case reports in which the fault is more pronounced, and the inference tests show lack of comprehension and common sense, in spite of the fact that the model used is gpt-3, the top current model. that has been announced as a result that would allow a machine to reason broadly in a manner similar to humans without having to train for specific tasks. let us show an example of inference driven by gpt-3: you are having a small dinner party. you want to serve dinner in the living room. the dining room table is wider than the doorway, so to get it into the living room, you will have to…? remove the door. you have a table saw, so you cut the door in half and remove the top half (note 3). although the output is grammatical, and even impressively idiomatic, its comprehension of the world is strange, and the appeal is nonsensical. the machine offers a seriously a costly solution to destroying the home, for finding a solution to a trivial problem. this is absolutely at opposition to the effort minimizing suggestion of such a problem-solving machine (also automatic). it is not a singular case: many texts generated, when understandable, are curious and seem rich in random irony. probably useful for creative storytelling, but definitely inadequate for logical entailment, as the nlp metrics attempt to measure. in light of this, the purpose of our research is to extend the entailment, providing for other linguistic connectives, because the narrative and lyric tradition often does not proceed towards a real logical inference. the storytelling coherence and readability are conditioned by a complex way of reasoning, pointing out a spectrum of solutions, starting from an antecedent statement, completely untied from the next sentence, then trying to infer the truth of the antecedent (hypothesis). it is evident that this spectrum collects a rich variety of sentence relations, some inferred by cause-effect, some not. it is different from the simple opposition between entailment and contradiction, like the current evaluation systems insist on measuring. when we work from this point of view, it is extremely difficult to reduce all the relations which do not belong to the cause-effect inference to an easy “not-entailed-label”, as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 64 published by scholink inc. required by traditional nlp metrics. primarily because we lose all the properties of narrative variety, and also the ability to capture the reader’s attention. to achieve this scope, we propose a novel measure of narrative inference, and, more generally, the concatenation of a pair of sentences based on two components: inference and unexpectedness, whose different weights can modify the opportunity for readers to have different experiences about the functionality of a story. 2. method 2.1 related literature it is not simple to collect the related literature that has aided our research, for several reasons. from one perspective, the new horizons of nlg (natural language generation) research, was born in 2017, with the transformers models, probably too short on time to allow the use of new measures of narrative functionality. bleu score (note 4), and derivative metrics like bleurt (note 5) are used to evaluate the consistency of a text generated from a trigger (the previous words), but they fall into the trap of adopting the same technological level applied to language (the story to put in exam) and meta-language (the metric to measure the properties of the story). since the automatic approach is limited by the lack of metalevel, the human evaluation is often preferred, but limited only to classical inference proof. from another perspective, as we anticipated above, during the last decade we have assisted with a detachment from nlp (natural language processing) research, performed basically by computer scientists who are unrelated to digital humanities fields and are not interested in literature studies and narrative experience. despite the names, nlg and computational creativity (cc) convey different meanings: the first relies on some advanced and specific algorithms of neural network and statistical learning, whereas cc (note 6) is oriented on the creativity from a less formalized point of view, drawing from psychology, philosophy and sometimes from neurosciences. in this panorama, mark riedl (note 7) is an author who merges the two areas, engaged in intelligent narrative technology (note 8) and in the new improvements of nlp. in “computational narrative intelligence: past, present, and future” (note 9) he traces the insights of this approach: “narrative intelligence is the ability to craft, tell, understand, and respond effectively to stories”. the purpose is to highlight how the knowledge, required to understand a story, can be used to create new stories. once the domain model has been ingested, a story generation system can produce an infinite number of stories involving characters, places, and actions that are known to the system. in “scheherazade: crowd-powered interactive narrative generation” (note 10) the author uses crowdsourcing information to automatically learn the domain knowledge that is needed to construct and to understand stories about daily activities, such as going to a restaurant or to a movie theater. the approach is similar to the basic principles, implemented in the pre-trained model of nlg, but the difference is essentially given by the different level of human contribution. a system like scheherazade uses a plot graph for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 65 published by scholink inc. predicting possible stories’ development, driven by human supervisors (note 11), whereas the systems like gpt-2 learn by texts and generate new texts through a completely automatic way, driven only by statistical distribution laws. in a recent paper, riedl (note 12) has been improving his research, with the goal of integrating nlg perspective, of decomposing neural plot generation in two issues: a) the generation of a sequence of events (event-to-event) and b) the transformation of these events into natural language sentences (event-to-sentence), so as to offer a solution to the current limits of nlg (the capability to produce grammatically correct but semantically inconsistent sentences). the paper, remarkable for measuring the topic alignments of sentences, fails to adopt a suitable evaluation of the inference problem, limiting the measure to blue score. in another paper (note 13), riedl focuses the attention about the skillfulness to learn normative natural language descriptions, exploiting predetermined narrative events, but without measuring in detail the entailment. at the end of the story, except for particular cases, like the quoted studies of riedl and his collaborators, we observe a fairly small intersection between nlg veins and narrative intelligence (or other sub-stream of digital humanities). the first branch continues to remain out of the field of narrative theories, and it avoids directing itself into the deep role of inference (and its variations) of the literary tradition shows. the second branch is often not updated to the deep learning models and is too much tied to the rules that are drawn by humans, thus introducing a bias that confounds a model evaluation. in addition, recent digital humanities studies, specifically concerning literary texts, are definitely stopped at the stage of perhaps more sophisticated forms of querying textual corpora (that is a development of the “linguistica computazionale” in italy, arising from the pattern dbt by picchi-stoppelli) and little else, as e. g., examples of digital philology, critical editions of texts available online that are pretty much interactive. we have an evident testimony of this backwardness, when we read an insight into this topic which is now offered by an outstanding review such as italian studies: what should be—and it is, actually—an overview concerning “italian studies and the digital” (armstrong & patti 2020). this gives us a very thorough frame of the existing international debate. nonetheless, in this paper we find only a single reference to artificial intelligence as a future possibility, related to dh, presented as almost a science fiction projection (p. 206) (note 14). the rest is silence, a silence that is overflowing with bibliography which has truly little to do with new digital perspectives. 2.2 research question our research is focused on evaluating the narrative functionality of a story (generated through some ai tools). to achieve this scope, we propose a novel measure of narrative inference, extended to all the concatenation modes of a pair of sentences. for functionality we mean the encoding of a sequence of dynamic components (also in the diachronic meaning) that aim to achieve a successful value judgement, approved and confirmed by a community of readers. in layman’s terms, with narrative functionality we www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 66 published by scholink inc. identify basically the propriety of a story (written as well as in audiovisual etc.) to be successful for much of its public. there is no need here to make matters more complicated, quoting the concept of erwartungshorizon and the reception theory (rezeptionsästhetik), or the thought of gadamer and so on. we prefer to remain on an elementary level, at most evoking and invoking the common-sense theory. our attention is driven by the so-called nlg task: “prompt generated text”. in simple terms: the human premise is followed by a consequent sentence generated by the machine, through a statistical learning mechanism. the purpose of this mechanism is to predict the next probable word based on the earlier sequence of words. the quality of this prediction depends on several factors, mainly based on the model (the neural network that implement the text generation) and on the features that are exploited by the model, to learn from a training set of data texts. in any case, the tool must meet stringent requirements, about building understandable stories, so that the reader satisfaction can be reached. there is therefore the requirement for an evaluation measure. the method that we propose is based on two components: inference and unexpectedness (note 15), whose different weights can modify the opportunity for readers to have different experiences about the functionality of a story. the inference part is related to the prediction capability of the reader, while the unexpectedness conveys a feeling of surprise, of astonishment and curiosity about the storytelling evolution. our idea is supported by the belief that this functionality could be described by feasible features, quantitatively measurable by weights: < τi: inference, τu: unexpectedness>, applied to the concatenation of two contiguous sentences (x,y). better said, a weight τ (0 < τ < 1) sets the leverage on the story, provided respectively by the inference and the unexpectedness of y, given x. the sum of the two-weights s= τi + τu represents a sort of aggregative index, able to capture different opportunities for generating a story. for example, τi + τu 0 sounds like a free concatenation of the sentences, with a lack of useful information for a story, whereas τi + τu 2 represents a sort of contradiction, because it is a concatenation marked by high inference (involving high predictability) and high unpredictability at the same time. the best equilibrium for the readability of the story is to assess around τi + τu 1 (see just below). the challenge is the evaluation of inference-unexpectedness attributes, reaching writer’s style, with respect to the case of the machine’s prediction style. the evaluation is based on the comparison between one pair of sentences (x,y), with another pair (x,z), where x,z are written by the author, and y is generated by the machine. in this way, we can explain a quality of text generation, and its stickiness to a replicability style, from the point of view of narrative functionality. otherwise, from a theoretical point of view, it is simple to generalize this mechanism, expanding more chains (x1, …, xn) where (x,y) = (xj, xj+1) for some j 0 < j <= n-1. let us give some examples of the first case (relating to texts written by an author). https://context.reverso.net/traduzione/inglese-italiano/must+meet https://context.reverso.net/traduzione/inglese-italiano/requirements www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 67 published by scholink inc. to simplify, let us consider only the average of our two indexes: <mean τi, mean τu> related to some pairs (x,y) captured from reference texts. in the novel the catcher in the rye by salinger (note 16) we expect average values of inference lower than those of unexpectedness (f. i. 0.3 < 0.7), because this novel belongs to a narrative strand which we can call post-modernist, where causality is often undetermined—in fact, in some cases, it is replaced by manifest contradictoriness. on the other hand, if we take such an example as dickens’ david copperfield (note 17), we expect some inference levels greater than unexpectedness (f. i. 0.6 > 0.4). that happens because a lot of events in the latter novel are logically caused by other events. furthermore, the semantic relationship antecedent → consequent will coincide with mere contiguous couples (previous → following). but, still in relation to this author, if we consider another novel by him, a masterwork of humor, enriched with nonsenses, pickwick club (note 18), we are now expecting: less inference than unexpectedness, as in the catcher’s case, even though we shall find probably less obvious differences (0.4 < 0.6), since copperfield is a 19th century novel, that is more “classic”, from the narratological point of view. take another example, alice in wonderland by carrol. the analysis may be quite intriguing, because the logical writing process of that novel will almost surely generate causal consistencies but, at the same time, the unrealistic world carrol describes shall determine something unexpected and amazing. perhaps, the amounts of <mean τi, mean τu> in alice will be similar to pickwick’s ones, but the “variance” (for instance variance in each chapter) will be diversified, because unexpectedness in carrol’s novel is not the same as that in pickwick: in fact, it has a different distribution. 2.3 methodological proposal in order to explain an idea of method, we now propose a classification with five possible cases. this allows us to make a partition of the range [0,1] in three levels for each index: small ( 0), medium ( 0.5), large ( 1). this trisection allows a supervised evaluation in the light of a prior approximation. 1) <inference 0, unexpectedness 1> 2) <inference 1, unexpectedness 0> 3) <inference 0.5, unexpectedness 0.5> 4) inference unexpectedness (0.7 > 0.3) 5) inference unexpectedness (0.3 < 0.7) some examples: 1) i go to kiss my mother -> and my mother stabs me 2) i go to kiss my mother -> and she hugs me 3) i go to kiss my mother -> but she walks away, irritated 4) i go to kiss my mother -> and she invites me to lunch 5) i go to kiss my mother -> and she breaks down in tears www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 68 published by scholink inc. certainly, the narrative context makes the sentences clearer; to be less abstract, we propose another sequence of examples, in the same order, with materials extracted by the summary of a renowned tale by raymond carver (note 18): 1) scotty goes to school with his mate and he wonders what gift he will receive -> then a car hits him 2) if the baker takes the order by keeping silent -> then the baker is abrupt 3) scotty’s mother goes to the bakery to buy a birthday cake for the son -> and she chooses it among those in the shop window 4) she sees a radio in the backroom of the bakery -> and she hears country-western music. 5) scotty falls with his head in the gutter and his legs out in the road -> and his eyes are closed, but his legs moved back and forth logic-narrative sequences: our experiments seek to explain the cause-effect typologies; they range from ordinary to exceptional, by means of a neural network, with causal chains in the form of antecedent-consequent. the fuzzy cases shown before, like inference unexpectedness (0.7 > 0.3) and the inverse values (0.3 > 0.7), set faint levels of the basic ones mentioned below. examples: a) determined cause-effect <τ-i, τ-u> <1,0> c) verisimilar cause-effect <τ-i, τ-u> <0.5,0.5> d) unlikely cause-effect <τ-i, τ-u> <0,1> 2.4 the model nowadays there are two possible approaches for generating stories from nlg perspective. the first, and easier, is by adopting pre-training models, such that they are available through an open-access provider (like hugging face, google and so forth). the second one concerns the creation of a dedicated model from scratch, otherwise customizing a pre-training model via a transfer learning process (transferring knowledge across tasks or domains), in order to make the machine learn the contents of a writer and his style. in terms of the scope of our research, we essentially require a pre-trained model, that has learned from a default set of data texts (e.g., blogs or web pages) and a mechanism of fine-tuning of this model using new information. in such a way, we can compare some results of text generation, using the default model, with other results, captured by the transfer learning method. our attempt is to show an improvement of the customized model, with respect to the trustworthiness of generating text in accordance with the original writer’s style. basically, within the nlp neural networks we have two options to transfer new knowledge: a) using task-driven information or b) using domain-driven information. the original pre-trained network is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 69 published by scholink inc. trained on a general domain of data for different source tasks: we must specialize the original knowledge to assist the target task (in our case: learning supervised information about the classification of sentence pairs, with respect to the two indexes: <inference, unexpectedness>) and the domain task (leveraging the original model and adding the contents of the reference writer submitted to our attention). let us discuss some examples: task driven: this learns from labeled pairs like: <premise → hypothesis> for example: a soccer game with multiple males playing → some men are playing a sport; this takes into account the supervised label from an open source dataset (e. g., https://nlp.stanford.edu/projects/snli/): o entailment (inference), o contraddiction (opposite inference), o neutral (the output does not rely on premises and consequences). in a similar way, we proceed to learn the unexpectedness of the task. since it is not a standard evaluation in the traditional nlp process, and it is hard to find it navigating the public repositories, we will compile a dedicated one. • domain driven: it also embodies the reference novels (the catcher in the rye and possibly the other works of salinger) to map on the neural network. we observe that the simple task-driven process is not enough to allocate the inference/unexpectedness structure of a story, because it has been set on the linguistic experience derived from a writer. it captures the insight of the inference property, compliant to natural language understanding systems, but it also needs to move this abstract knowledge toward concrete examples of the specific author utterances, depicted through the domain-driven task. the problem of the making of the library (dataset) to achieve our fine-tuning is a particularly delicate task. the literary texts we need, to put together a homogeneous and consistent corpus for successful queries, must be at least—if not totally—oriented towards a narrative which is open to unexpectedness or, in any case, somehow distant from a classical (note 19), traditional way of storytelling. furthermore, we have decided to include also poetic texts and dramas. the former subgroup of texts is the result of a choice of lyrical and epic poems whose main characteristic is to surprise the readers through unexpected relationships and metaphors, or unforeseen events. the latter sub-set has been chosen among quite “original” dramatists’ pieces that are renewals, more or less, of the classical theatrical traditions. almost one hundred thousand pages of this databank can be enough to result in interesting findings, in our opinion. obviously, we shall implement, if necessary, the corpus in question. https://nlp.stanford.edu/projects/snli/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 70 published by scholink inc. 3. result we intend to measure the weights of the two indexes <inference, unexpectedness> using samples extracted from different datasets: the pre-trained model, the fine-tuned model and the original samples of author’s books. the original samples have to set the baseline of the writer’s style, while the two levels of text generation (pre-trained and fine-tuned) need a comparison with respect to the baseline. the comparison will be estimated through principal statistics, like mean, variance, median and the probability density distribution function (pdf) of the evaluation of n pairs of sentences in each section of partition (note 20) (where: a. text generated by pre-trained model, b. text generated by fine-tuning; c. is the original text). in more detail, the sequence of experiments as follows: a. using a pre-trained model of an open source library (e.g., gpt-2 or xlnet of huggingface framework). extracting n sample (e.g., 1000) of pairs of sentences <premise, hypothesis> prompt-based generated (e.g., they are always asking you to do them a big favor -> because you are a very handsome guy). a. submitting the sample to a supervised evaluation of weight level for each index < τ-inference, τ-unexpectedness> taking in account three levels small ( 0), medium ( 0.5), big ( 1). b. making some descriptive statistics about the results. c. calculating mean, variance, median and estimate the pdf function. b. getting task-driven and domain-driven information, then fitting the fine-tuned model. extracting n samples of pairs among the new results and evaluating these, like in the basic step of pre-training. c. repeating the evaluation mechanism about pairs extracted from the original test of the author. the c. test applied to the original text can suggest interesting scores about the writer’s preference to privilege strong or fuzzy entailment, and about the editing style used to create sentences’ concatenation. the statistical values, delivered by a. and b. test the different degree of <τ-inference, τ-unexpectedness> in a simple sentence concatenation, and ensure the ways in which a machine can learn about an original text and generate some variations, are more or less readable and understandable by a generic user, compliant to the original style of the author (note 21). 4. discussion so far, we have been trying to measure the coefficients of inference and unexpectedness: a maximum of the first coefficient—say 0.9—implies a superminimal presence of the second, and vice versa. so, we have two extreme ends of a spectrum where the two coefficients find a reciprocal distribution. this is not the place to draw a historical diagram of western narrative which can be grounded upon the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 71 published by scholink inc. average measure of the equilibrium between the two coefficients, age upon age. however, we can say that, for example, the so-called baroque period has had a particular orientation towards the meraviglia (anything that is met with curiosity or wonder, or is unusual, odd, rare, etc.), and this statement, with its clarifications and details, is essentially basic knowledge. in a post-modernist narrative we may find something of similar, but obviously not identical. we are seeing an increase in the desire for surprise and for a kind of “functional inconsequentiality”—we use the term functional in the practical meaning: in short, when a tale or a novel functions, i. e., works. we may exemplify with pynchon’s or de lillo’s novels, with carver’s and salinger’s stories, with foster wallace’s inventions or, within the cinematographic field, with cohen brothers’ movies, or with lynch’s masterworks. in fact, such an artist as david lynch has accustomed his viewers—in the tv series of twin peaks—to narrative possibilities which are actually unexpectedness-oriented, and he has managed to familiarize the average audience with what, on the face of it, appears to be oddity or absurdity. obviously, the balancing act between the two coefficients proposed in this work has been a constant over the centuries. nevertheless, possible objections could be proposed: is it true that all readers/viewers always aspire to something unexpected? the answer, we think, is not at all certain. often, in fact, the pleasure for the audience grows from the solace given by a verisimilar order of cause-effect (remember aristotle). then, regardless of historical epochs and tastes of the times, the equilibrium/disequilibrium between inference and unexpectedness cannot be subjected to a deterministic law. we can say, to provisionally conclude, that the periods of “high classicistic orientation” privilege the entailment coefficient, whereas “baroque-oriented” ages (let’s say) prefer to enhance the unexpectedness coefficient. our research stands on the line of recent studies about neural network applications for classifying humanities and art works. a computer scientist, who collaborates with museums and galleries to classify artwork from the point of view of creativity, is ahmed elgammal (note 22). conversely, we do not notice on the side of history of literature and of literary movements studies, an analogue improvement. our preliminary work aims to bridge for this gap. references ammanabrolu, p., tien, e., cheung, w., zhaochen l., ma, w., martin, l. j. & riedl, m. o. (2019). guided neural language generation for automated storytelling. in proceedings of the second storytelling workshop (pp. 46-55), florence. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/w19-3405 armstrong, g., & patti, e. (2020). italian studies and the digital. italian studies, 75(2), 194-208. https://doi.org/10.1080/00751634.2020.1744867 basili, r., gigliucci, r., & marocco, p. (2010). un approccio geometrico all’analisi dei testi letterari. in s. bassi (ed.), seminari signum 2006 (pp. 61-80). pisa: scuola normale superiore. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 72 published by scholink inc. carver, r. (1983), cathedral. n.y, f. knopf. cavazza, & pizzi. (2006). narratology for interactive storytelling: a critical introduction. international conference on technologies for interactive digital storytelling and entertainment. berlin-heidelberg: springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/11944577_7 clark, a. (2013). whatever next? predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. behavioral and brain sciences, 36, 181-253. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x12000477 dessalles, j.-l. (2010). have you anything unexpected to say? the human propensity to communicate surprise and its role in the emergence of language. in a. d. m. smith, m. schowstra, b. de boer, & k. smith (eds.), the evolution of language. singapore: world scientific. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789814295222_0013 dessalles, j.-l. (2015). l’imaginaire de la narration: une approche cognitive. in p. musso, s. coiffier, & j.-f. lucas (eds.), pour innover, modéliser l’imaginaire—regards croisés d’industriels et de chercheurs (pp. 154-167). paris: editions manucius. dessalles, j.-l., & dimulesco, a. (2010). understanding narrative interest: some evidence on the role of unespectedness. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228667128_understanding_narrative_interest_some_e vidence_on_the_role_of_unexpectedness dickens, c. (1837). pickwick club. london: chapman & hall. dickens, c. (1850). david copperfield. london: bradbury & evans. https://doi.org/10.1093/oseo/instance.00121331 elgammal, a., & babak, s. (2015). quantifying creativity in art networks. from arxiv:1506.00711 gangemi, a. (2006). a semiotic metamodel for bridging lexical and formal semantics. in s. bassi (ed.), seminari signum 2006 (pp. 21-48). pisa: scuola normale superiore. gigliucci, r. (2020). if…then: narratologia per terne inferenziali. studi (e testi) italiani, in press. gigliucci, r., & marocco, p. (2006). traduzione e creazione letteraria. in a. di stefano (ed.), cyberletteratura: tra mondi testuali e mondi virtuali (pp. 85-89). roma: edizioni nuova cultura. holtzman, ari, & all. (2019). the curious case of neural text degeneration. from: arxiv preprint arxiv:1904.09751 li, b. y., & riedl, m. (2015) scheherazade: crowd-powered interactive narrative generation. twenty-ninth aaai conference on artificial intelligence. retrieved from https://nil.cs.uno.edu/publications/papers/li2015scheherazade.pdf marneffe, c.-m. de, & all. (2006). learning to distinguish valid textual entailments. second pascal rte challenge workshop (vol. 62). retrieved from https://nlp.stanford.edu/pubs/rte2-report.pdf moretti, f. (2013). distant reading. london-ny: verso. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 73 published by scholink inc. nahian, m. s. a., frazier, s., riedl, m., & harrison, b. (2020, february). learning norms from stories: a prior for value aligned agents. in proceedings of the aaai/acm conference on ai, ethics, and society (pp. 124-130). https://doi.org/10.1145/3375627.3375825 richards, w., winston, p. h., & finlayson, m. a. (2009). advancing computational models of narrative. computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory—technical report. cambridge (mass.): mit. salinger. (1951). the catcher in the rye. boston: little, brown & co. spratt, e. l., & elgammal, a. (2014). computational beauty: aesthetic judgment at the intersection of art and science. retrieved from https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.2488.pdf sitographic references https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/22/1007539/gpt3-openai-language-generator-artificial-int elligence-ai-opinion/ https://cs.nyu.edu/faculty/davise/papers/gpt3completetests.html. https://nlp.stanford.edu/projects/snli/ https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/05/evaluating-natural-language-generation.html http://computationalcreativity.net/iccc20/ http://eilab.gatech.edu/mark-riedl https://www.aaai.org/library/workshops/ws17-20.php http://www.di.unito.it/~rossana/int10/index.html, https://www.dropbox.com/s/evivh66wq5zzu16/int10.pdf?dl=0 https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/w19-3405.pdf notes note 1. natural language processing (aka nlp) is a field of artificial intelligence focused on the ability of the machines to comprehend language and interpret messages. a set of algorithms designed to explore, recognize and utilize text-based information and identify insights for the benefit of the business operation. as such, natural language processing and generation algorithms form a backbone for the majority of computerized processes. to put it simply, nlp gives the computer the skills to: understand informally written queries; extract the meaning out of it; generate the responses of its own; perform requested tasks. note 2. holtzman, ari, et all. (2019). note 3. the stressed bold words are the response of the machine. it is interesting the comments of the authors of the test (gary markus and ernest davis): [this is one confusion after another. the natural solutions here would be either to tip the table on its side (often sufficient, depending on the specifics of https://nlp.stanford.edu/projects/snli/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 74 published by scholink inc. the geometry) or to take the legs off the table, if they are detachable. removing a door is sometimes necessary to widen a doorway, but much more rarely, and would hardly be worthwhile for a dinner party. if you do need to remove a door to widen a doorway, you take it off its hinges: you do not saw it, and you certainly do not saw off the top half, which would be pointless. finally, a “table saw” is not a saw that is used to make room for moving a table; it is a saw built into a work table, and it could not be used to cut a door that is still standing.] see https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/22/1007539/gpt3-openai-language-generator-artificial-inte lligence-ai-opinion/ and https://cs.nyu.edu/faculty/davise/papers/gpt3completetests.html. note 4. automatic metrics often take two sentences as input, a candidate, and a reference, and they return a score that indicates to what extent the former resembles the latter, typically using lexical overlap. a popular metric is bleu, which counts the sequences of words in the candidate that also appear in the reference. bleu: bilingual evaluation understudy score. the bilingual evaluation understudy score, or bleu for short, is a metric for evaluating a generated sentence to a reference sentence. a perfect match results in a score of 1.0, whereas a perfect mismatch results in a score of 0.0. about entailment: marneffe et all. (2006). note 5. https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/05/evaluating-natural-language-generation.html note 6. http://computationalcreativity.net/iccc20/ note 7. http://eilab.gatech.edu/mark-riedl note 8. https://www.aaai.org/library/workshops/ws17-20.php note 9. http://www.di.unito.it/~rossana/int10/index.html, https://www.dropbox.com/s/evivh66wq5zzu16/int10.pdf?dl=0 note 10. https://nil.cs.uno.edu/publications/papers/li2015scheherazade.pdf note 11. in https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/w19-3405.pdf see star wars 3 example…. un sistema a metà tra regole e varianti statistiche: queste sono troppo rigide o troppo lasche, quindi generano varianti minimali, inutili per una storia proponibile nel mercato dell’entertainment o in quello delle arti letterarie. note 12. ammanabrolu, tien, cheung, zhaochen, ma, martin & riedl (2019). note 13. nahian, m. s. a., frazier, s., riedl et all. (2020). note 14. furthermore, in the paper we do not find any quotation of the works by franco moretti: see now the collected essays in moretti (2013). note 15. published in volume in 1951. note 16. publ. in vol. in 1850. note 17. publ. in vol. in 1837. note 18. namely: a small, good thing according to the version of cathedral (1983), available online too: http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/sgthing.html. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 75 published by scholink inc. note 19. note that also in neuroscientific fields some researchers use the term classical vs non-classical to identify a normal event in the environment vs an unexpected one that arouses the brain’s reaction to implement its framework of prediction-reaction: see e. g. clark (2013): 184. note 20. pdf function is referred to: in x-axis are set the three levels values of each index, and on y-axis the frequency. note 21. for a more detailed discussion on this point see gigliucci (2020). note 22. elgammal & babak (2015); spratt & elgammal (2014). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper a comparative study of translation of the spyring or lust, cautionby eileen chang and julia lovell in view of translator’s subjectivity yuting cao1& dan cui2* 1 student of the school of graduate school of translation and interpretation, jilin international studies university, changchun, jilin, china 2 postdoc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china; doc of literature, professor, dean of institute of international languages and cultures, leader of comparative literature and cross-culture discipline, jilin international studies university, changchun, jilin, china; doc supervisor of yanbian university, yanji, jilin, china * dan cui, correspondence author, e-mail: summerelephant@126.com received: september 30, 2022 accepted: october 14, 2022 online published: october 28, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n3p1 abstract in view of the spyring or lust, caution has already become one of the modern chinese classic novels as one of the representative works by eileen chang with strong influence in china to a deep degree for sketching china’s historical situation and cultural characteristics. since its publication, it has been translated into several languages and appreciated by readers of all works of many countries. in view of the english version as a success, eileen chang, the author in fact, the subjectivity of the chinese and english translators like eileen chang and julia lovell in particular, plays a pivotal role in the translation process. from an interdisciplinary perspective, a comparative analysis can be made in four aspects: the translator’s subjective consciousness and sub-consciousness, subjective creativity, intentionality and selectivity, and the choice of obedience or resistance in the translation process. moreover, since the author is the translator in fewer cases, it is of great research value to study the comparison between the author-translator and the reader-translator, which can help culture exchange and communication and set up a sample for the channels to make works of china more adaptable to the acceptability of foreign readers while spreading chinese literature and culture of high quality. keywords eileen chang, julia lovell, spyring or lust, caution, translation, subjectivity, acceptability www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. 1. research background lust, caution has entered the penguin classics series, which was endowed high popularity among the west. before its publication, qian zhongshu’s fortress besieged was the only modern and contemporary chinese work to be included in the series in 2005. as the 2nd work translated into the west, this book illustrates again chinese particular characteristics and it is of great value and practical significance to study the translation of lust, caution(qin, 2010). both eileen chang and julia lovell as translators have contributed to and written extensively in the translation of chinese and english literature, including lust, caution, a representative translation of both. due to differences in their cultural backgrounds, translation strategies, and styles, their translations also possess individual strengths. so far, researchers have focused on ecological translation, translation adaptation theory, multi-dimensional translation, genre, etc., which have achieved remarkable results. however, in view of increasingly crucial role of the translator’s subjectivity throughout the translation process, and the rare status of eileen chang as an author-translator in modern literary translation, though her reputation as a writer far outweighs her achievements as a translator, her translation achievements are not to be taken lightly. in the 1950s, eileen chang aimed to enter the mainstream of english writers and “break into the american press” by writing in english (zhou, 2007). almost at the same time, she started to translate her own works into english. as a native english-speaking sinologist, julia lovell fully demonstrates her strengths in translating chinese and english works. when selecting texts, lovell considers them more comprehensively, objectively, and deeply. possessing her own standards and principles in translation, she highlights alienating the classic works of non-mainstream culture (chinese culture) from mainstream ones (british and american literature) (qin, 2010), thus illustrating a strong resistance to creative translation. as a matter of fact, four dimensions of translators’ subjectivity and their characteristics from an interdisciplinary perspective proposed by liu junping focus on four dimensions of translators’ subjective consciousness, and sub-consciousness, translators’ subjective creativity, translators’ intentionality and selectivity, and translators’ manipulation or resistance to position translators. researchers can conduct a comparative study of translators’ background, translation strategy, style, creativity, initiative, and passivity, thus providing an in-depth analysis of the translation and the translator. both eileen chang and julia lovell are highly learned, literary and experienced translators. eileen chang, taught english by her family’s teachers in her early years and later educated at st. mary’s girls’ school, possesses a solid bilingual ability in both chinese and english. she used to refuse to have her works translated by others due to her strength in self-translation which lies in her understanding and appreciation of her own works. on the one hand, she makes changes in the works through her translation that is easy for readers to understand, and on the other hand, she aims to spread chinese javascript:; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. characteristics and culture and promote exchanges between the east and west. graduating from chinese department of cambridge university with a ph. d degree in modern and contemporary chinese literature, julia lovell enjoys a long-standing understanding and study of chinese language and culture. as a british native speaker, she is familiar with english literature and western culture, and plays her role in translation career as a bridge connecting chinese and western culture and literature based on her translation principle of “faithful re-creation of the source text”. based on the differences in the subjectivity of two translators, including their identities, cultures, language backgrounds, translation strategies, styles, etc., the two versions of translation have their own distinctive features and different effects on audiences. we hope that the comparative exploration of chang as author-translator and lovell as reader-translators can offer a new perspective into understanding how the subjectivity of translation influences the translated versions and the final reading effects of targeted readers. 2. comparison of translation from perspective of translator’s subjectivity 2.1 subject consciousness and sub-consciousness the subjectivity of the translator is reflected between rationality and irrationality, and consciousness and the sub-consciousness. the translation is the initiative and creative activity of the translator, and the author’s own experience of language and the text survives only through the translator’s translation and interpretation (liu, 2008). subjective consciousness is embodied by the translator’s interpretation of the text based on his or her special readership and re-creation of the translated text based on his or her own comprehension. eileen chang owns a unique audience view：in “on writing”, she said, “there are two ways to satisfy the readers: (1) say what people expect to say; (2) and tell the people what they expect to hear”(zhang, 1997). however, this view of readers attaches too much importance to readers’ understanding and to some extent neglects the cultural transmission and the characteristics of the original text. for example, ①马路阔，薄薄的洋铁皮似的铃声在半空中载沉载浮，不传过来，听上去很远。(chang, 1978, p. 16) chang: “a bell was being rung half-heartedly, its tinny, well-spaced ding-a-ling-a-ling cutting across space and time like a dotted line.”(chang, 2008, p. 9) lovell: “someone was lethargically ringing a bell, the thin, tinny sound barely carrying over the wide street.”（lovell, 2007,p. 84） although the two translators both possess a certain mastery of literary modification techniques, chang, as a literary writer, is relatively higher in view of creation motivation. since chang’s translation is author to translator, while lovell is reader to translator. chang focuses on the bell, and her identity as an author influences her to adopt the creative techniques and rhetoric in translating, and by using “half-heartedly” to anthropomorphize the “bell”, she conveys the status of sinking and floating; as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. lovell stands from the perspective of the bell-ringer, tracing its origin, the ups and downs of the bell reveals the state of the bell-ringer’ s carelessness, so lovell adopts this word “lethargically” to show the image of the bell-ringer. the source text does not mention the ringer, but lovell analyzes in accordance with readers’ cognition and paraphrase based on her own feelings. as a reader-translator, her subjectivity is specifically conveyed in her interpreting the text reflecting her subjective consciousness and from her subjective senses of the novel. ②一种失败的预感，像丝袜上一道裂痕、阴凉地在腿肚子上悄悄往上爬。(chang, 1978, p. 6) chang:“a sense of failure began to make itself felt like the insidious creep of a ladder up a nylon stocking”. (chang, 2008, p. 5) lovell: “she felt a kind of chilling premonition of failure, like a long snag in a silk stocking, silently creeping up her body.”（lovell, 2007, p. 45） in the source language, no personal subject exists and it conveys the heroine‘s feelings, but in translation, chang adopts direct translation without emphasizing the subject, while lovell translates the subject “she” and writes that “she” possesses such a sense of feeling. it is more immersive. although “ladder” is more authentic, lovell does not translate “裂痕” from the source text but harnesses “snag” to visualize the cracks. it is translated as a protrusion—like a protrusion on a stocking, silently creeping up to her body. lovell applied metaphor here to describe “裂痕” as “snag”. from a study (lv&wang, 2020) on the frequency of her adding metaphor in translation, we can observe a total number of 16 times her adding metaphors in lust, caution. following the general claims and thoughts of reader-oriented theories, especially jauss’ s emphasis on the reader’s mind as the origin for meaning generation and iser pinpointing the need of readers to do active reading and create meanings for producing various meanings that constitute the cluster and spectrum of meanings. therefore, it is feasibly true that when reading the same novel, different readers from different circumstances tend to produce different opinions and thoughts. as a translator, lovell incorporates her personal feelings into her translation, which leads to representing her subjective imagination and creating her own style in the translation version. 2.2 subjective creativity as a scholar of comparative literature, xie tianzhen divides the creative treason of literary translators into four types in his translation: 1.characteristic translation; 2. miss-translation and omissions; 3. brief translation and compilation; 4. conversionand adaption (xie, 1999, pp. 146-146). through innovative forms of methods such as new expressions, new contents, etc., the translators’ level of knowledge, linguistic ability, and expressive style can be reflected. here is an example: ①易太太不免要添些东西。到了这购物的天堂，总不能入宝山空手回。(chang, 1978, p. 1) chang: “but mrs. tai had gone out a lot.”(chang, 2008, p. 1) lovell: “yee tai-tai had no intention of wasting the golden purchasing opportunity offered by a javascript:; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. stopover in the commercial paradise of hong kong.”（lovell, 2007, p. 27） compared with the source text, eileen chang’s self-translated version possesses many features, such as adding, deleting or even changing the plot, which does not conform to translation convention (wang, 2009).the phrase “often went out” does not necessarily represent “going out shopping”, and since there is no such expression in western culture, so it is not easily understood by foreign readers, and it also reflects chang’s concise writing style and subjective creativity of applying brief translation. in contrast, lovell does not exert her creativity since her translation adopts the additive translation, adding hong kong that is not obviously written to highlight the location where the storyline takes place. from the perspective of the translator’s subjectivity, lovell aims to emphasize the authenticity of the plot and simultaneouslythe cultural output that helps expand the city’s popularity. it can be seen from their translations that eileen chang’s creative treason is more obvious. as the author translator, her translation shows simplicity, and to some extent, she will change the meaning of the original text and even recreate it. ②不过”无毒不丈夫”。不是这样的男子汉，她也不会爱他。(chang, 1978, p. 17) chang: “he had no choice but to kill her, being the kind of man that she had been in love with. ‘no venom, no hero’as the ancient saying went.”(chang, 2008, p. 10) lovell: “but real men have to be ruthless. she wouldn’t have loved him if he’d been the sentimental type.”（lovell, 2007, p. 89） “无毒不丈夫” is a chinese proverb originating from guan hanqing’ s “wang jiang ting”, signifying that one must take every means (even illegally) to achieve the goal without demonstrating any sympathy. in translation, chang adopts the adapted translation, thus giving full play to the creativity of her subject and applying the format of the english proverb “no pains, no gains”, which is antithetical in form (double negation)and unobtrusive in implication(heroic “毒”), while adding “as the ancient saying goes” (not shown in the original text). therefore, it reflects that sucha chinese proverb is of the wide acceptance and highly chinese cultural traits. such away of handling exerts an influential effect on cultural communication. however, lovell directly translates it as “a real man must be merciless”. it is not ambiguous in meaning and can help make readers comprehend its connotation without emphasizing that it is a chinese proverb that is not conducive to cultural communication. from the perspective of subjectivity, on the one hand, lovell, as a sinologist, is equipped with much knowledge of the chinese proverb but she adopts conversion by translating “男子汉” into “non-sentimental”. besides, she takes the reader’s view and takes the readers’ understanding as the ultimate purpose to achieve the effect through direct translation. both versions can well reflect the creative treason of the two translators. they do not carry out word-for-word translation according to the original text but express the true meaning of “无毒不丈夫” through modification with familiar sentence patterns of double negation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. ③房间那头整个一面墙上都挂着土黄厚呢窗帘，上面印有特大的砖红凤尾草图案，一根根横 斜着也有一人高。(chang, 1978, p. 16) chang: “one wall was entirely covered from floor to ceiling by a fluted curtain of sand-colored wool with a rust-red palm leaf pattern.”(chang, 2008, p. 2) lovell: “the wall behind him was swathed in heavy, yellowish-brown wool curtains printed with a brick-red phoenix-tail fern design, each blade almost six feet long.”（lovell, 2007, p. 31） “有一人高” is translated into “from floor to ceiling” as exaggerated in relation to the source text. however, such way of portraying mr. yi’s curtains not only reflects mr. yi’s strong and sensitive political and social background, but also paves the way for later description of mr. yi’s worry of assassins. in view of chang’s subjectivity, exaggeration is also a common way of writing technique that complies with her style and also represents her characteristics of translation. here, eileen chang’s creative treason is reflected in her modification of the stylistic effect of the original text. some exaggeration techniques are used in the novel not only to make the style more literary, but also to create a vivid situation for readers to be personally involved in. 2.3 intentionality and selectivity intentionality refers to the subject’s ability to construct conscious phenomena, and it is believed that any human comprehension is constructed by the subject’s consciousness (tan, 2015). in translation process, the intentionality of the translator refers to the intentional behavior in a specific situation. common intentions include cultural output, readability of the translation, etc. the translator’s selectivity is mainly reflected in the following aspects: the translator’s annotations, notes, and explanations of the selected books, the translator’s consciousness to follow certain translation standards and strategic use, lexical, syntactic, and stylistic decisions, etc. translators distinguish themselves from each other in their decision due to their different cultural and knowledge backgrounds, strategic preferences, and styles, etc. specifically, eileen chang often adds annotations, adopts rhetorical words, and implements provincial translation. in contrast, lovell often chooses the equivalent expressions, rarely adds annotations, and adopts “faithful recreation”. 2.3.1 the selection of words and annotations ①左右首两个太太穿着黑呢斗篷，翻领下露出一根沉重的金链条，双行横牵过去扣住领口。 (chang, 1978, p. 1) chang: “two of the ladies sat facing each other in identical black velvet cloaks held together by a heavy gold chain under the collar.”(chang, 2008, p. 1) lovell: “the two ladies—tai-tais—immediately to her left and right were both wearing black wool capes, each held fast at the neck by a heavy double gold chain that snaked out from beneath the cloak’s turned-down collar.”（lovell, 2007, p. 26） “太太” is translated as “lady” by both translators, but lovell adds “tai-tais”for further explanation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. through naturalization. since lovell herself is a native english speaker, her translation aims to convey the designation and targets to demonstrate the charming characteristics of foreign culture through the pronunciation of chinese characteristics. naturally, it also attracts readers’ interest in chinese culture and thus realizes the function of spreading culture through translation. in the book a textbook of translation, newmark explicitly states: “i define culture as a way of life, a state of life specific to a group, which is usually expressed by the specific language of that group”. (newmark, 2001). therefore, some cultural words themselves have the attributes of a certain group, and the translator needs to take the particularity of the group into consideration when translating. therefore, the cloak is a fashionable object with wives of warlords in shanghai, which is mostly made of silk, fur and tweed named “黑呢” in the text. it is a kind of tweed, often made of wool plus chemical fiber or pure chemical fiber, and chang translates it as “velvet”. this is related to her comprehension of the social background whereas lovell’s translation lies in “wool” as a kind of animal hair. both translations conform to the actual situation, but the material “velvet” has been popular among the european royal family since renaissance, and such material is too expensive for ordinary people to afford. therefore, in view of portraying the identity of the characters, “velvet” is more suitable than “wool”. also, it is charged with more social significance and can imply the wearer’s social status. “翻 领” is not exactly translated by chang since her “collar” can refer to either a standing collar or a lapel and she exerted her subjective initiative to pursue a concise version. lovell translates it as “turned-down collar”, which is more consistent with the original text. this can reflect lovell’s long-standing pursuit for true representation through her translation by seeking fully equivalent expressions to the source text and attracting the readers as well. also, some of chinese culture-charged expressions have been adopted to portray the leading characters vividly. the following is chosen as a typical example: ②易太太是在自己家里，没穿她那件一口钟，也仍旧”坐如钟”，发福了。(chang, 1978, p. 1) chang: “it has been said in the ancient classics that a woman’s ideal posture is ‘like a bell when seated’”(chang, 2008, p. 1) “mrs. tai, the hostess, was as firmly set on her chair as a bell even if she didn’t have her cloak on.”(chang, 2008, p. 1) “but shahlu li looked a bit out of place amidst these bell-like shapes at the table.”(chang, 2008, p. 1) lovell: “yee tai-tai was chez elle, so she had dispensed with her own cape; but even without it, her figure still seemed to bell outward from her neck, with all the weight the years had put on her.” （lovell, 2007, p. 27） in the original text, the phrase “坐如钟，发福了” is intended to highlight mrs. yi’s plump body in chinese conventional colloquialism and both translators make use of their initiative respectively. chang, javascript:; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. based on her accumulated knowledge of chinese culture, first explained the original meaning of “坐如 钟”(sitting like a bell) in chinese culture: dignified and stable like a bell. later, she writes “as a bell” and “bell-like shapes” in contrast to the dignity of the former and the bloatedness of the latter. such translation well depicts the physical characteristics of mrs. yi and other wives, and also shows their status background. however, since “bell” is utilized to designate dignity in gesture, readers are likely to consider it similarly and may not be able to tell the implied implication of bloatedness. in contrast, non-native speaker lovell is not expected to know the exact meaning of the word, and she verbalizes the bell and adds an explanation of the weight of the years on mrs. yi’s body, functioning to make her bloated image vivid and clear. she chooses literal translation adding paraphrases to preserve the dynamic process of the source text on the one hand, and to explain the real connotation of bell’s verbalization on the other hand. ③麻将桌上白天也开着强光灯，洗牌的时候一只只钻戒光芒四射。白桌布四角缚在桌腿上， 绷紧了越发一片雪白，白得耀眼。(chang, 1978, p. 1) chang: “though it was daytime, they had turned on a strong light directly over the taut white tablecloth tied on to the four legs of the mahjong table. crimson finger-nails, dark against the flat glaring whiteness, scurried among the bamboo tiles as all four pairs of hands stirred the tiles up for the next game.”(chang, 2008, p. 1) lovell: “though it was still daylight, the hot lamp was shining full-beam over the mahjong table. diamond rings flashed under its glare as their wearers clacked and reshuffled their tiles. the tablecloth, tied down over the table legs, stretched out into a sleek plain of blinding white.”（lovell, 2007, p. 25） “diamond rings flashed in their wake.”（lovell, 2007, p. 25） in view of syntax, lovell is accustomed to implementing english expressions that are more object-dominated than person-dominated, while chang’s novel is endowed with distinctive and strong language colors and resonant tones. the flexible adoption of the rhetorical methods of thetemporary transferred meaning of words gives rise to variability in combining word implications. all these writing characteristics are reflected in her translation and influence the wording and effect of her translation. the expression “洗牌” is translated into “stir” by chang, which usually refers to “stirring of molecules, liquids, and mixtures”, but mahjong as a solid item is not suitable for such an expression. chang employs it to reflect the confusion between the tiles, thus reflecting the complexity of the relationship between the characters. lovell adopts “clack and reshuffle”, the former of which shows onomatopoeia crackling sound to vividly depict the scene of shuffling, and this sound is not directly reflected in the original text but is the translator’s own sensory perception through reading the source text. it belongs to the expression of the translator’s subjective initiative. the latter is commonly used to refer to the shuffling of cards. 2.3.2 translation strategy selection www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 9 published by scholink inc. ①房间那头整个一面墙上都挂着土黄厚呢窗帘，上面印有特大的砖红凤尾草图案，一根根横 斜着也有一人高。(chang, 1978, p. 16) chang: “one wall was entirely coveredfrom floor to ceiling by a fluted curtain of sand-colored wool with a rust-red palm leaf pattern.”(chang, 2008, p. 2) lovell: “the wall behind him was swathed in heavy, yellowish-brown wool curtains printed with a brick-red phoenix-tail fern design, each blade almost six feet long.”（lovell, 2007, p. 30） this sentence is an unmarked passive expression in chinese, which is converted into a passive sentence in english by the two translators, but the wording is different. chang adopts “covered” while lovell takes “swathed” for the former is not a concreted description, indicating “to hide from sight”and it is equivalent to the original counterpart featured with its own translation characteristics, i.e., simplicity; as lovell proposes “faithful recreation” that is, the ultimate target of translation is being faithfulto the original text and slight changes are necessary on the condition that it aims to convey the meaning (ji, 2021). “swathed” showcases “wrapped”, which is the feeling experienced by the translator in the original text, and then deepens its degree, echoing the later text when mr. yi returned home from a narrow escape and saw the heavy curtains and felt worried about the assassins hidden secretly. the translation echoes the worry that mr. yi could not even find out whether an assassin is out there. since eileen chang is also good at creating small space and environment tailored for the real psychology of the characters through the perspective of the characters and the help of the environment, therefore it can accurately reflect and project the real spiritual world of the characters (dong, 2019). ②时间还早，咖啡馆没什么人，点着一对对杏子红百折绸罩壁灯，地方很大，都是小圆桌子， 暗花细白麻布桌布，保守性的餐厅模样。(chang, 1978, p. 4) chang: “it was small and dark. the narrow passage where she went to telephonelooked and smelled like a crowded train with its lamp lit chocolate brown walls, an icebox chug-chugging away in the vicinity and rows of the waiters’ clothes hanging down from high hooks overhead, white smocks and long gowns with soiled cloth linings.”(chang, 2008, p. 4) lovell: “as it was only mid-afternoon, the café was almost deserted. its large interior was lit by wall lamps with pleated apricot silk shades, its floor populated by small round tables covered in cloths of fine white linen jacquard—an oldfashioned, middlebrow kind of establishment.”（lovell, 2007, p. 37） chang very often omits the original contents, thus reflecting the simplicity of her translation. for example, in this case, she simplifies “杏子红百折绸罩壁灯”(apricot red silk-covered pleated wall lamp) into “lamp” while lovell not only translates all the information accurately through delicate conveying of the description but also adopts the technique of exaggeration through “deserted” to outline such scenario. it is also part of her principle of practicing faithful re-creation in translation. for lovell, the details are also expressed by choosing comparable words to reproduce the rhythm and javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. scenes of the original text as much as possible. ③ 稍嫌尖窄的额，发脚也参差不齐，不知道怎么倒给那秀丽的六角脸更添了几分秀气。脸 上淡妆，只有两片精工雕琢的薄嘴唇涂得亮汪汪的，娇红欲滴，云鬓蓬松往上扫，后发齐肩，光 着手臂，电蓝水渍纹缎齐膝旗袍，小圆角衣领只半寸高，像洋服一样。(chang, 1978, p. 1) chang: “but shahlu li looked a bit out of place amidst these bell-like shapes at the table. she was petite with deep curves, wearing a brief dark gown covered with big pink peonies. she had disdainful eyes heavily fringed and lifted smokily at the corners. her face was a pale gold heart. she was very pretty.”(chang, 2008, p. 1) lovell: “the harsh artificial light silhouetted to full advantage the generous curve of chia-chih’ s bosom, and laid bare the elegant lines of her hexagonal face, its beauty somehow accentuated by the imperfectly narrow forehead, by the careless, framing wisps of hair. her makeup was understated, except for the glossily rouged arcs of her lips. she had pinned her hair nonchalantly back from her face, then allowed to hang down to her shoulders. her sleeveless cheongsam of electricmoiré satin reached to the knees, its shallow, rounded collar standing only half an inch tall, in the western style. a brooch fixed to the collar matched her diamond-studded sapphire button earrings.”（lovell, 2007, p. 25） first, chang’s concise style can be seen in length in comparison with lovell’s, where she adopts a strategy of massive deletion, which ostensibly contradicts the traditional view of translation as faithful to the original and essentially wins the reader over. this translation strategy reduces the complex description of imagery, thus making it less difficult to comprehend for readers. after a lengthy description, chang directly employs the conclusive sentence “she was very pretty” to reiterate heroin’s beauty. lovell, on the other hand, maintains faithful to the original text and describes the heroine’s image to the fullest, using vocabularies that are somewhat obscure but reflect wang jiazhi’s image, such as “cheongsam”, “moiré satin”, “diamond-studded sapphire” etc. it also reflects her subjectivity of applying “faithful recreation”. also, another example deserves our attention in portraying the figures through simplified or complicated corresponding translation: ④穿着灰色西装，生得苍白清秀，前面头发微秃，褪出一只奇长的花尖；鼻子长长的，有点” 鼠相”，据说也是主贵的。(chang, 1978, p. 2) chang: “he was a small man in a grey suit with thin hair receding from a delicate mousy face.”(chang, 2008, p. 2) lovell: “mr. yee came in, dressed in a gray suit; yee looked even shorter than usual. his face was pale, finely drawn, and crowned by a receding hairline that faded away into petal-shaped peaks above his temples. his nose was distinguished by its narrowed, almost rat like tip.”（lovell, 2007, p. 31） chang selects three main points “灰色西装 ”(gray suit), “头秃 ”(bald head), “鼠相 ”(mouse face)respectively to describe the figure so that a vivid character emerges in the translation and she quits www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. translating “花尖” and “主贵”, which are culturally loaded words difficult to comprehend and the omission will not interfere with the appropriateness of conveying. “花尖” stems out of sichuan dialect, referring to the edge of the hair on the forehead, and “high flower tip” indicates intelligence. “主贵” in henan dialect is usually adopted to modify a person that is delicate and precious. chang tries to seek for a balance between the cultural alienation of the original text and the reader’s acceptability, and specifically, she aims to convey the unique cultural connotation of the source text to the reader to a certain extent but does not anticipate this practice to exert too much negative impact on reader’s reading interest（liu & xiang，2011）. based on the principle of faithfulness, lovell translates almost every detail ranging from “头秃”(a receding hairline), “花尖”(petal-shaped peaks) to “鼠相”(ratlike tip), etc. to figuratively portray mr. yi’s essential features and exert profound effects on the target readers. 2.4 manipulation (submission) and resistance fidelity to the original language and culture in translation and maintaining the clarity and readability of the translation demonstrate the subject’s submission. on the contrary, if the translator pursues the exotic and cultural otherness in the translation, thus showing the translator’s resistance to the subject(liu, 2008). ①“我还正想着手风转了。”刚胡了一牌的黑斗篷呻吟着说。(chang, 1978, p. 2) chang: “‘and i was just thinking that my luck was turning,’mrs. sun groaned as she rearranged her tiles.”(chang, 2008, p. 3) lovell: “‘and just when i thought my luck was changing,’ muttered the winning black cape.” （lovell, 2007, p. 34） in mahjong, “手风转了”refers that one’s luck is about to turn back, and “胡了”illustrates “win”. the translation “luck was turning” means “every dog has his day”. it is more in line with the situation, since there is no direct equivalent between chinese and english, and the lady “moaned” so that the readers can clearly understand that she had been losing money, and she just started to have good luck. however, something happened to heroin and she called a halt. as the author, chang harnesses the words of life to portray the scene directly, such as “胡了”(win), and as the translator, when without any equivalent word, she should consider how to reflect the essence of the original word and its style, thus both translators consider the next action should be shuffling that is conventionally translated as “rearranged tiles”. here chang translates it as “rearranged her tiles”, using pronoun “her” to reflect the winner, also giving evidence that chang as the translator is restricted by the target language and subjectivity. lovell directly translates into “winning” to portray the lady in the black cloak won, which is easier for the reader to grasp the meaning, but it also demonstrates that the translator’s subjectivity is constrained by the reader. in order to achieve semantic equivalence through cultural transformation rather than adding culturally loaded words that are not easy to understand, lovell reflects her submission here to give www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. priority to readers. this work is full of chinese culture and both translators are good at handling it motivated by their own judgment over the function of translation. while face up with the lack of cultural correspondence, the translators deal with them respectively and thus illustrate their stands. we would like to take the following case as an example: ②“易先生帮帮忙，帮帮忙！三缺一伤阴骘的。先打着，马太太这就去打电话找搭子。”(chang, 1978, p. 3) chang: “ah, come on, mr. tai!” urged mrs. sun. “it’s a sin to refuse when it’s san ch’uch yih, three lacking one.”(chang, 2008, p. 3) lovell: “do, mr. yee! mah jong’s no fun with only three. play just for a little, while ma tai-tai telephones for areplacement.”（lovell, 2007, p. 36） “三缺一伤阴骘的” refers to the lack of necessary participants when playing mahjong and the other one who doesn’t serve as a member will hurt his yin virtue (agooddeedtothedoer’screditinthenextworld). taoism has wenchangdijun yinzhiwen, one of the taoist bookson encouraging virtue, advising people to accumulate more yin merit and yin virtue, for good not to make a name for themselves, alone not to do evil, so that they will be secretly blessed with blessings and longevity. as for cultural default, translators often possess a clearer understanding of the cultural default in the original text from the perspective of the target language culture, so that they can make appropriate compensatory attempts in translation (liu & xiang, 2011). here, chang adopts naturalization by linking the common ground between chinese and western languages and translates “阴骘” as “sin”, a word with very religious connotation in the west, thus better translating the traditional origin of the word “阴骘” and its religious connotation. “sin” is of high religious sense in western world and thus such implementation strongly conveys the connotation through seeking out correspondence social interpretation though it inevitably sacrifices the original signified meaning in china. here, both translators focus on readers’ understanding but do not emphasize cultural transmission, because “三缺一伤阴骘的” not only possesses no cultural equivalent but also is difficult to explain further. then the two translators demonstrate their compliance. the transliteration of the word “三缺一” is a combination of pronunciation and interpretation, which not only exports the culture of mahjong but also allows readers to understand it. in contrast, lovell’s translation of “三缺一” neither translates the implication of “阴骘 (yin virtue)” nor reflects its genre as a proverb. she only makes it easily accepted without potentially conveying the cultural transmission and such practice actually echoes her principle of sticking to the original fact-the demonstration of loyalty. her submission is obviously revealed for applying for naturalization. however, when loyalty damages acceptability, flexibility of translation is in need. therefore, when it comes to absence of cultural correspondence, lovell chooses to comply by paraphrasing the meaning, but actually hardly promotes the cultural exchange further. the two javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. culture-loaded words in this sentence both have unique cultural meanings and are not common. in translation, under the circumstance where alienation can hardly achieve the ideal effects of information transmission, it would be preferred for the translators as obedient as possible to explain them in the target language. ③ “特务不分家”，不是有这句话？(chang, 1978, p. 16) chang: “since the war began there had been this saying, ‘teh wu pu fung chia, special agents are all one family,’ because they could switch sides with ease.”(chang, 2008, p. 10) lovell: “he had heard or read somewhere that all spies are brothers; that spies can feel a loyalty to one another stronger than the causes that divide them.”（lovell, 2007, p. 86） as a proverb, chang still exploits phonetic translation and interpretation, and by combining naturalization and defamiliarization, she aims not only to increase readability but also to focus on cultural output. especially when the culture-loaded word is of great significance in the original text, since eileen chang translated “色戒” as “the spyring” because “特务不分家” is a proverb with a strong connection to the content of the article, which is suitable for alienated translation so as to spread culture. two reasons can be attributed to chang’s choice of tama-style pinyin over modern pinyin: first, it was created by the british minister to china, wittoma, and others, and was more influential at that time; second, wittoma-style pinyin was widely employed for pronouncing names and places before china promoted the modern pinyin in 1958, which coincided with the novel setting. “不分家”is directly translated by chang’s “family”, whereas lovell focuses on the reader’s reaction and acceptance rather than cultural transmission, so the translation is naturalized. therefore, when conducting translation, lovell chooses to keep the number of footnotes and endnotes to a minimum, preferably incorporating the background information that needs to be annotated into the translation naturally to avoid affecting the readability of the translation (ji, 2021）. the distance between the translator and the author and their works leads to cultural differences. lovell makes readers understand the implication of domestication, but the two cultures are completely separated. “brothers” is used metaphorically to indicate seemingly similar sharing of the same brotherhood, which is more in line with the english expression. in a religious sense, it also refers to male members of the same religious organization, and in this case, it may also indicate that all the agents share similar purposes and pursue the same kind of interests, just as the members of a certain religion have the same belief. lovell is aware of the cultural differences between china and the west, and in the translation process, she pays much attention to the gap between english and chinese languages and cultures and seeks to replace them in english with languages that are similar to chinese cultural customs or culturally loaded words. in the process of translation, she reflects her own translator’s subjectivity but is more or less limited by the target language. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. 3. conclusion table 1. comparison of subjectivity subject consciousness and sub-consciousness subjective creativity intentionality and selectivity manipulation (submission)/ resistance eileen chang author-translator; individuality simplicity; rhetoric characteristics: annotation, rhetorical vocabulary strategy: omission objective: equal emphasis on cultural communication and target readers’ acceptance domestication, (foreignisation) julia lovell reader-translator faithfulness characteristics: faithful words strategy: faithful recreation purpose: reader comprehension domestication, less foreignization actually it can be seen that both translators performed differently in view of translation and their subjectivity has exerted a great influence on the output of translation. both eileen chang and julia lovell aim to promote the exchange of chinese and western literature and culture in their translation practice. from the levels of translator’s consciousness and sub-consciousness, eileen chang’s identity as an author-translator makes use of her writing characteristics, and her unique understanding of her own work contributes to the rhetorical content, euphemism, and profound connotation of her translation. as a reader-translator, julia lovell’s subjectivity based on her personal understanding and her literary background illustrates her translation style in a much more objective, authentic, and clear way. in view of translator’s creativity, chang’s translation is simple and she uses rhetorical techniques like exaggeration and metaphor. however, though lovell’s translation is more faithful to the original text, it is inevitably influenced by her creativity in the case of translating chinese proverbs in particular. as for the translator’s intentionality and selectivity, eileen chang often uses provincial translation, giving www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. equal importance to the two purposes of cultural transmission and readers’ understanding, and often uses annotations to explain culturally loaded words and rhetorical terms; lovell is characterized by faithfulness to the original text and follows the translation strategy of “faithful re-creation”, which aims more at readers’ understanding than cultural transmission. in terms of translator’s manipulation and resistance, both of them use more domestication and submit to the reader’s understanding, and chang often combines domestication and foreignisation, thus preserving the chinese cultural characteristics of the original text while ensuring the reader’s understanding; lovell takes the strategy of foreignisation and only adds appropriate amount to show the exoticism and attract the reader’s interest. it is expected that such a comparative interpretation of the translation can offer a glimpse into the related studies of overseas chinese contemporary literary translation, especially into the issue of how translators’ subjectivity influences the quality of translation. it also offers a new perspective on bti and mti instruction of teachers for communicating chinese culture into the world through translation. references dong, x. p. (n.d.). eileen chang’s novels and psychological realism writing. jilin university. ji, z. d. (2021). a study of english sinologist julia lovell’s translation views. modern english, 22, 49-51, 95. liu, j. d., & x. d. (2011). the translator’s cultural consciousness and the choice of translation strategy—an analysis of the english version of the golden cangue by eileen chang. journal of xi’an international studies university, 19(04), 95-98. liu, j. p. (2008). the four dimensions of translator subjectivity and their characteristics from an interdisciplinary perspective. foreign language and their teaching, 8, 52-55. newmark, p. (2001). a textbook of translation. shanghai: shanghai foreign language education press. qin, j. h. (2010). british sinologist julia lovell’s ideas on translation. journal of changsha university of science and technology (social science edition), 25(05), 117-121. tan, y. f. (2015). translator subjectivity in the perspective of the principle of intentionality. heihe journal, serial(12), 23-24. wang, x. y. (2009). eileen chang’s chinese-english translation: a post-colonial perspective. foreign language and literature, 25(02), 125-129. xie, t. z. (1999). medio-translatology (pp. 146-156). shanghaieducationalpublishing house. zhang, a. l. (1997). a look at eileen chang (pp. 255-259). guangzhou huacheng press. zhou，f. l. (2007). sorrow and injury: a biography of eileen chang(99). shanghai far east publishers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. note(s) note 1. this paper is the periodical outcome of project on “a study of the geographical writing and overseas introduction and translation of ‘northeast writers group’ from the perspective of nationalities and regions”;of project on “a study of english major course system construction with value shaping based on ‘global village’ as the foreign language lab” supported by foreign language teaching and research coucil china association of higher education(no: 21wyjyzd08); of project on “a study of routes applied to cultivate the inter-cultural competence of english major students” (no: gjjx20201130); of project on “the establishment and practice of vista mode of development and transformation of english-major teaching faculty’s proficiency under new arts prospect” sponsored by chinese private higher education association(canfzg22417); of project on “the construction and practice of mode of development and transformation of foreign language teaching faculty’s proficiency in international studies of universities under multiple-discipline background” sponsored by jilin higher education association (no: jgjx2022d316) of project on “the introduction and translation of chinese contemporary literature and culture”sponsored by jilin international studies university in 2022. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 56 original paper journalism and convergence carolyne m. lunga1* 1 department of journalism and mass communication, university of eswatini, manzini, eswatini * carolyne m. lunga, department of journalism and mass communication, university of eswatini, manzini, eswatini received: january 27, 2019 accepted: february 14, 2019 online published: february 22, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n1p56 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n1p56 abstract the internet’s influence on the production and consumption of news has brought about revolutionary changes in the field of journalism. the people previously known as the “audiences” are now actively involved in creating and disseminating news via online news sites and websites. this increase in players has both positive and negative consequences for democracy. this paper provides an overview of the positive and negative changes that have come about due to convergence. through an observation of what is happening on various online sites and journalists’ everyday experiences, the paper offers an analysis of the impact globally. on a positive side, for example, citizens are engaging in conversations online with journalists and also with each other on various social platforms on issues that matter to them. the internet is applauded for promoting the number of voices online and freedom of expression. on a negative side, citizens bemoan the rise in fake news and disinformation which is harmful for democracy and is discrediting journalism. journalism is fundamental as it influences society’s worldview. it thus becomes paramount for media houses and society to be more digital literate so as to distinguish between “real” and “fake” news in order to make more informed decisions. keywords online journalism, convergence, democracy, social media, fake news, media ethics www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 57 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the field of journalism is undergoing tremendous change due to convergence of media technologies. from sub saharan africa to europe and the united states, news boundaries have been broken as events take on a transnational shape. the evolution of the fixed deadline into a continuous one now guides journalists as events are updated 24/7 online. the abundance of information online comes with its own negatives and positives for citizens, media organisations and democracy. 2. method 2.1 observation of online news sites this paper offers an overview of the positive and negative changes that have come about due to convergence, the integration of print, broadcast and internet while posing some questions. convergence impacts on how citizens and media organizations create, consume and disseminate information. this paper was produced based on observation of what is happening on various online news sites and social media and journalists’ everyday experiences. 3. result social media has become integral in journalists’ everyday work altering the ways in which they gather news, link with their sources and publish their stories (heinrich, 2011). reporters get news ideas from profiles of prominent people. from facebook to twitter, instagram to snapchat, flickr to delicious and reddit among other social networking platforms including blogs, the web is flooded with a multiplicity of perspectives which journalists use to give their stories context. the “personal” and sensational thus dominate the news space, as the private and public co-exist online (papacharissi, 2002). the decentralization of the internet, non-linearity in information production and flow, the plurality of information are some of the advantages of the internet on communication (mcnair, 2009). media organizations across the world compete to want to be the first ones to break a story. “stories break at the speed of light, circling the globe instantly via the internet” thus overcoming space and time constraints (pavlik, 2000, p. 231). events are consumed online in real time, in video, audio and text. however, ethical principles such as verification, accuracy and truth are brought into question as the notion of what is news has become problematic (mutsvairo, 2016). events are experienced in real time giving editors a little opportunity for gatekeeping (otufodunrin, 2017) which can be advantageous to citizens who are exposed to a wide range of voices and information. mainstream media are flooded with triviality and gossip and very little analytical stories on politics and the economy (gant, 2007). questions about the role of the media in a democratic society are being asked as society is looking for truth in order to make important decisions about their lives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 58 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion pessimists decry a situation in which “fake news”, trivialities and gossip are dominating online, which they say has detrimental effects to democratic processes. they argue how in the abundance of information, people are less informed and thereby unable to make more informed decisions about their future. on the other hand, optimists celebrate the internet and social media in extending the platform for participation especially by people whose voices were marginalized on mainstream media such as “opposition” voices, women, gays among others what fraser (1992) refers to as co-existing publics or counter-publics. as (moyo, 2011, p. 1) argues, “digitization has occasioned new counter-hegemonic spaces and new forms of journalism that are deinstitutionalized and deprofessionalised, and whose radicalism is reflected in both form and content”. for example, more hashtag movements are seen on social media when these social groups freely express themselves and confront their abusers. the “text messaging generation” which brought down estrada in the phillipines is being witnessed globally (shirky, 2011). for example in 2014, society witnessed the #bringbackourgirls campaign. the #metoo and #menaretrash are examples of online movements of 2018 that gained a lot of support offline. the issue of how much success they brought is however debatable. these “new” watchdogs of society have come about due to the internet which extends the platform. more scandals, theft, and corruption by public officials and people in the lower echelons of society are being exposed. personal gadgets such as smartphones and tablets are dominated by user-generated content through various news websites that have mushroomed and some of them include “fake news”. with the rise of fake news, the more the call for verification of information is being made to those in the business of producing and disseminating information for journalistic purposes. but more so to people previously called the audiences in order to ascertain the authenticity of such information. the journalistic space has now more players and there has never been a time in history when there was so much information surrounding us. audiences, who for a long time, just consumed news have become active players in the news production process (fancher, 2009; ludtke, 2009; mutsvairo, 2016). but more importantly citizens are looking for truth and this brings emphasis on the ethical principles that have and continue to guide professional journalism and also rendering it respectable. it is no longer enough for journalists to know how to craft stories only. the 21st century journalist has to be able to do more including taking pictures, recording videos and being able to edit them and tell stories in the most engaging ways in order to take advantage of multimodality. journalists have to be more experienced, knowledgeable on top of acquiring new skills as stories are being done in concert with citizens (otufodunrin, 2017; fancher, 2009). journalists should be able to fact check stories and distinguish themselves from the inexperienced, untrained individuals who engage in journalism. more people prefer entertainment than being informed (gant, 2007). can we safely say that we are at the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 59 published by scholink inc. height of a new democratic dispensation? is the internet extending the space for participation? questions of access, inequality and power still remain central in africa as some people still do not have access to mobile phones and the internet (mudhai et al., 2009). what kind of democracy is it where governments move onto online platforms to control the internet? some even go to the extent of shutting down the internet totally in order to cut off communication with the international world when there are protests and unrest. on the other side, the same head of states and government officials set up facebook and twitter accounts in order to engage citizens directly on issues that affect them in various parts of the world. the story goes on and on. what then is the future of the news media? what measures should media organizations put in place in order to safeguard the credibility of journalism? there is a pressing need for society to be more digital literate in order to consume news online more critically. media organizations and journalists need to strengthen their ethical policies when it comes to doing journalism online and invest in fact checking. journalists need to realize that society looks up to them to sift “real” from “fake” news and not participate in the sharing and liking of stories whose origins are unknown so as to provide society with credible information. acknowledgement thanks to all journalists whom i work with who are still passionate about providing credible news and leveraging on the influence of convergence to promote a more free and critical citizenry. references fancher, m. (2009). the 21st century journalist’s creed in nieman report. fraser, n. (1992). rethinking the public sphere: a contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. social text, 25/26, 56-80. gant. s. e. (2007). we’re all journalists now: the transformation of the press and reshaping of the law in the internet age. free press. heinrich, a. (2011). network journalism: journalistic practice in interactive spheres. routledge: new york. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203830451 ludtke, m. (2009). let’s talk: journalism and social media. neiman report. mcnair. (2009). journalism in the 21st century—evolution, not extinction. sage, 10(3), 347-349. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884909104756 moyo, l. (2011). blogging down a dictatorship: human rights, citizen journalists and the right to communicate in zimbabwe. sage, 12(6), 745-760. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884911405469 mudhai, w., tettey, f., & banda. (2009). african media and the digital public sphere. palgrave macmillan: new york. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230621756 https://brettany.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/fraser-n-1992-rethinking-the-public-sphere-a-contribution-to-the-critique-of-actually-existing-democracy-_social-text_-2526-56-80/ https://brettany.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/fraser-n-1992-rethinking-the-public-sphere-a-contribution-to-the-critique-of-actually-existing-democracy-_social-text_-2526-56-80/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 60 published by scholink inc. mutsvairo, b. (2016, march 7). what is news in the 21st century? retrieved from http://www.conversation.co.za otufodunrin, l. (2017). journalism in the 21st century: opportunities and challenges. speech at seminar by national association of judicial correspondents, lagos. retrieved march 24, 2018, from http://thenationonlineng.net/journalism-21st-century-opportunities-challenges/ papacharissi, z. (2002). the virtual sphere. the internet as a public sphere. sage, 4(1), 9-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614440222226244 pavlik, j. (2000). the impact of technology on journalism. journalism studies, 1(2), 229-237. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616700050028226 shirky, c. (2011). the political power of social media: technology, the public sphere, and political change. foreign affairs, 90(1), 28-41. http://www.conversation.co.za/ http://thenationonlineng.net/author/rilwan/ http://thenationonlineng.net/journalism-21st-century-opportunities-challenges/ communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 136 original paper what’s up! whatsapp: an additional teaching-learning tool in physiotherapy education isha s. akulwar1* 1 k. j. somaiya college of physiotherapy, mumbai, india * isha s. akulwar, m.p.th. neurosciences, associate professor, k. j. somaiya college of physiotherapy, mumbai, india received: june 28, 2019 accepted: july 24, 2019 online published: september 11, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n4p136 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n4p136 abstract introduction: more recently, there is growing use of whatsapp as a communication platform for teachers and their students. it seems that whatsapp has advantages over other technological tools employed by the educational system. however, in the context of medical education this concept is still nascent. hence, the purpose of this retrospective analysis is to explore the effects of whatsapp use for physiotherapy education as an adjunct to traditional teaching and to determine the opinions of the students towards this process. methods: a facilitator created a group for the students, separate for every class. a total of 250 students from i year to iv year physiotherapy undergraduate program participated voluntarily. activities undertaken were discussion on academic topics, feedback on exam performance, guidance on seminar presentation, etc., and students’ doubts were answered with more elaborate explanation on the topic. retrospective analysis of the students’ feedback obtained at the end of the program and content analysis was done from the themes identified. results: success of the program: • professional, as well as comfortable learning environment, is created on whatsapp • low cost, simplicity, accessibility, efficiency & natural language • fosters high interactions with the facilitator and knowledge sharing between students as well • learning material—easy accessibility, variety of resources increases the flexibility, quick sharing of related links • use of different emotional gestures add humor and fun to tl • promotes proactive learning and critical thinking www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 137 published by scholink inc. • learning independently at anytime and anywhere (no geographical boundaries) • students are more open to ask questions as it provides privacy and confidentiality • one student’s doubt solving benefits the entire group • especially helpful during exam preparation for immediate feedback & quick problem solving, discussion of important topics, etc. • effective method for doubt solving, explanation with voice notes, video calls is possible problems encountered: • conceptual learning could be challenging • technical challenges: need for a smartphone & internet facility; message flooding, eye strain, time consuming if large amount of context has to be discussed • high expectations on teacher’s availability • students attention and understanding cannot be assured • effectiveness depends upon teacher’s skills of use of related software applications • distractions from other messages received simultaneously • sometimes when the internet speed is slow, disruptions in the flow when many people are participating in the discussion conclusion: whatsapp enables learning beyond classroom borders and can potentially enhance learning process in physiotherapy education. keywords whatsapp, physiotherapy, teaching-learning tool, social network 1. introduction the potential and influence of social networks on the educational environment are increasing rapidly every day, especially with the help of internet supported mobile technologies. this potential, which enables cooperative synchronous and asynchronous communication together with their multimedia support, and covers the features of social networks on a large scale, is gaining popularity. the growing technologies in education have made the concept of mobile-learning ubiquitous in the present world (bere, 2012). we all know whatsapp (free to download, cross-platform mobile instant messaging) is the leading messaging application available easily on any smartphone device (avci, 2015). whatsapp is a tool used naturally by adults and students alike. due to simplicity of this technological tool, more recently, there is growing use of whatsapp as a communication platform for teachers and their students (bouhnik & deshen, 2014; church & de oliveira, 2013; nguyen & fusell, 2016). it seems that whatsapp has advantages over other technological tools employed by the educational system (bansal, 2014). the fact that these applications can have a great impact on the social development of young people necessitates the determination of their impact on students’ academic development and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 138 published by scholink inc. expectations. despite the aforementioned academic incentives offered by these technologies (doering, lewis, veletsianos, & nichols-besel, 2008; cifuentes & lents, 2010; sweeny, 2010; smit, 2012), limited research has been conducted to determine its usage in teaching-learning process. especially, in the context of medical education this concept is still nascent. hence, the purpose of this retrospective analysis is to explore the effects of whatsapp use for physiotherapy education as an adjunct to traditional teaching and to determine the opinions of the students towards this process. 2. methodology context/setting: the participants were undergraduate physiotherapy students from i year b. p.th. to iv year b.p.th. and interns at k. j. somaiya college of physiotherapy, mumbai. students’ willingness to participate was taken into consideration. from the prior knowledge of the students, it was ensured that all the participants met with the technical pre-requirements (viz. possession of a smartphone, internet facility and the usage of whatsapp, etc.) for participation in this activity. during the course of the study, these students were not using any other social media for teaching-learning. a total of 250 students (s) participated over a period of 5 years from the year 2013-2018. description of the innovation: using the group chats feature the facilitator (f) created a group for the students, separate for every class. separate study groups were also created for academically weak students and for specific seminar presentations etc. students were allowed to interact with the facilitator on personal chat also. all these activities were undertaken beyond the college hours. activities undertook: technologically, almost all the core abilities and features of whatsapp (viz. group chat feature; sending text, graphics, links; video calls etc.) were utilized to develop the educational strategies and to enhance the learning experience. activities undertaken primarily included discussion on academic topics. the topics of discussions were decided by the facilitator or as demanded by the students (fig. 1). the important aspects of any topic already taught in the classroom were emphasized again in the whatsapp discussion. sometimes students were introduced to a new topic on whatsapp first before it is taught in the classroom (to stimulate their interest and help anticipate learning needs). students’ doubts were answered with more elaborate explanation on the topic. most of the theoretical, practical and clinical topics were incorporated in whatsapp teaching. assignments were sent to the students. feedback on exam performance was also given. patients’ photos, videos, investigation reports, etc., were shared and reflections from students were guided by the facilitator. students themselves also shared their pictures of evaluation and treatment techniques; and received feedback from the facilitator as well as other students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 139 published by scholink inc. figure 1. topic of academic discussions decided in consensus with students 3. results and discussion lesson learned qualitative approach was employed for analysis. data was collected from the students’ feedback and also from the facilitator’s experience. open ended question with regards to the benefits and disadvantages of whatsapp use for teaching-learning was asked to the students at the end of their academic year. following themes were identified after collation of the content received. this is reiterated as the student’s (s) or facilitator’s (f) comments. success of the program: although the general principles of teaching remain the same as for conventional teaching, there are some additional advantages due to which whatsapp can be considered as effective. communication: a professional as well as comfortable learning environment is created on whatsapp. at its most basic level, education is nothing but communication. it is widely accepted that, as a communication tool, whatsapp fosters high interactions with the facilitator and knowledge sharing between the students as well (bere, 2012; church, k., & de oliveira, r., 2013). it promotes 3-way communications, i.e., teacher<> students <> students. it creates sense of belonging and more collaborative learning is facilitated (fig. 2). it promotes elements of arguments and discussion positively and eliminates social barriers. in today’s world of competency-driven education system, whatsapp communication amongst students provides them with a sense of competency and accountability. teacher is able to praise the students. one student’s doubt solving benefits the entire group. also, it facilitates real time communication. it was observed that discussion on whatsapp groups occurred more frequently and often with sharing of resources. also, whatsapp has the technical feature of end to end encryption and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 140 published by scholink inc. ability to communicate on personal chat; so students feel more secure to interact. s 45: “...we feel more open to ask questions on the group as well as on personal chat as it provides privacy and confidentiality”. figure 2. collaborative learning learning material: more resources, more access to resources ability to share unlimited text in various formats viz. word, pdf, ppt, etc. along with multimedia messages is an additional advantage of whatsapp as compared to other social media (fig. 3). variety of resources increases the flexibility of teaching-learning method. easy, quick and seamless amount of data accessibility increases the abundance of learning opportunities. more elaborate explanation with voice notes, video calls is also possible thus making it an effective method for doubt solving. with effective use of e resources and quick sharing of related links, relevant images, interactive clinical cases, simulations, etc., more integrated teaching is possible and it also makes the learning more evidence based (fig. 4). the facilitator is able to direct the students to more reliable and credible resources. as previously reported in a study, by getting the opportunity to explore the topic in depth; students’ confidence with the study material also improves (dar et al., 2017). use of different emotional gestures adds humor and fun to teaching-learning (fig. 5). s11: “...learning becomes more digital, more interactive and more discoverable with whatsapp”. f: “...it is not challenging to teach however it is interesting to be creative”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 141 published by scholink inc. figure 3 & 4.variety in format of learning material figure 5. adding humor & fun to learning student-centered and student-driven learning: as whatsapp teaching is a tool which promotes student centeredness in teaching, it enhances student directed learning and thus life-long learning. it increases students’ motivation to be an active learner (also reported by mohanakrishnan k. et al., 2017; dar, et al., 2017) and promotes proactive learning, critical thinking and deep student learning capabilities (also reported by plana et al., 2013; lohitashwa r. et al., 2015). more reflections are possible. it develops self-confidence to throw ideas and thoughts. also, it provides consistency and progressive learning. clinical learning: (fig. 6, 7, & 8) all the effective methods of teaching viz. problem based learning (pbl), case based learning etc., is possible on whatsapp. pbl discussions created more interest as the students had freedom to discuss with their friends and by pushing educational content into learners’ mobile devices, mere sneakers to the whatsapp group are encouraged to participate actively by searching information through online or offline. thus, it follows the inquiry orientated method that is central to pbl. in line with a previous study for third year medical students, communication and education within pbl groups can be facilitated by the use of whatsapp instant messaging (dyavarishetty, & patil, 2017). many of the times, learning for clinical cases is opportunistic depending on exposure of the students to cases during their clinical posting and also limited due to time constraint. however, sharing the findings of clinical cases on whatsapp bridges this gap of actual exposure and learning; and hence improving and generating the learning opportunities, an advantage unique to smartphone environment. previous studies have reported its successful implementation in clinical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 142 published by scholink inc. teaching for psoriasis (flynn, 2015) and for medical students on clinical attachment (dyavarishetty, & patil, 2017). also, some professional and ethical issues can be more openly discussed on whatsapp. figure 6, 7 & 8. clinical learning methods incorporated on whatsapp quick learning: just in time real information is provided. this is especially helpful during exam preparation for immediate feedback & quick problem solving, discussion of important topics, etc. (fig. 9 & 10). in an interventional study for community medicine, students emphasized on its utility especially for exam preparation; by referring the model answer on their devices (garrison, 2000). special guidance can be given for seminar presentation, project etc. (fig. 11). learning on move; and similar other benefits have been reported by bansal t., joshi d. (2014) and giordano, c. (2011). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 143 published by scholink inc. figure 9, 10 & 11. quick learning teaching-learning becomes more flexible: inadequacies of classroom teaching are well addressed in whatsapp teaching. also, two major blocks in traditional teaching-learning i.e. subject based system and time-based system are effectively overcome with whatsapp method. most important advantage of whatsapp is learning independently at anytime and anywhere (no geographical boundaries) (bere, 2012). thus, teaching-learning becomes more flexible with respect to time, content and method. social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 144 published by scholink inc. media method is capable of creating personal learning environments in which a student can adopt personal learning style and pace (gon, s., & rawekar, a., 2017). most of the students appreciated the quality time they were getting with the teacher at online platform. s 67: “...i feel with whatsapp teaching that time barrier isn’t there anymore. doubts come when we open the books at home and try to study and that’s the time when the whole whatsapp teaching comes handy. we ask you at the moment and get it solved perfectly…” (fig. 12). learning becomes more focused and practical too. learning with whatsapp brings more certainty, replication and precision in teaching-learning. documentation of learning material, feedback and learning experience is possible. students reported the practicality of access to previous conversations and resources, being able to refer back to them and also being able to access this all the time. s 176: “...we can archive the notes from whatsapp for exam preparation...” s12: “...we can access the recorded discussions...” it addresses heterogeneity of students more positively catering to individual specific needs. also, the technological features of whatsapp enable teaching methods suitable for visual and auditory learners as well. in one of the studies (indu, kandhol, & cherian, 2018), the groups of male and female learners were kept separate to meet their cultural requirements of segregation. this study found that male students ranked it better as compared to female students in contrast to findings of another study (jain, baghel, & ranjan, 2017) which showed that whatsapp learning was favored by female students. figure 12. doubt solving www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 145 published by scholink inc. social aspect of learning: (fig. 13 & 14) garrison et al. (2000) claimed that there are three intersecting elements essential to a successful online learning community: (1) social presence, (2) cognitive presence, and (3) teaching presence. it is important to mention that throughout the study period students remained actively engaged and there was “no drop out” by any of the participants since the study group was created. this implies that students find whatsapp use meaningful, relevant to their academic growth and are socially bound together creating long-lasting relationship with the teacher. our findings are in accordance with previous studies which reported that medical students perceived, social media in medical education, facilitates professional development (lenhart, madden, macgill, & smith, 2007). a previous analysis also showed that whatsapp is a suitable platform for student groups to develop social presence in a pbl group, which is a key element for a successful learning experience (lohitashwa et al., 2015). similar study by makoe (2010), whose research was similarly focused toward the use of mobile instant messaging for learning (using mxit mim rather than whatsapp), acknowledged its potential usefulness for developing the social aspect of learning. s 18: “…whatsapp teaching can be an easier, faster and a better way because now a days people like us are always on whatsapp or on social media, so if something beneficial can happen through, then why not…” two established learning theories such as connectivism and constructivism support incorporating social media into education system. connectivism explains how internet has created opportunities for learning across online peer networks (ludlow, & duff, 2009; mattar, 2018). according to constructivism, learning is a social process and students learn best through interactions (mazzuoccolo et al., 2018). using whatsapp in teaching provides an opportunity to implement both these learning theories in an effective way (mohanakrishnan et al., 2017) the established popularity of whatsapp messenger as a social communication tool aided its successful integration into teaching. the familiarity of the use of the application meant that no training had to be organized. furthermore, there was no additional financial cost incurred by the use of whatsapp messenger, due to the fact that students and facilitator already had the application installed on their phones. to the best of our knowledge, this dedicated long term (more time and number of sessions) on a large cohort of the students is the only study conducted for higher education, also the first one reported in physiotherapy undergraduate education. it is important to appreciate the comprehensive nature of the methodology and outcomes too reported in this study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 146 published by scholink inc. figure 13 & 14. social aspect of learning problems encountered: high expectations on teacher’s availability could be one of the biggest challenges perceived by the teacher. operating such a group demands constant availability of teachers and requires teachers to invest time beyond their regular duty hours has been previously expressed by medical teachers as well (bere, 2012). this challenge could be overcome with more teachers’ involvement and restricting the time of posts. one of the negative aspects of whatsapp—is the lack of direct physical connectivity and face to face interaction—thus, students’ attention and understanding cannot be assured. this concern of uncertainty of understanding (also reported by raiman et al., 2017) and of variable learner participation and passivity of some of the learners has been reported previously by indu m. et al. (2018) while teaching medical undergraduates. however, when such learners are identified; we recommend that more encouragement from the facilitator and personal chat feature should assure active participation from everyone. type of learning: practical topics can only be emphasized on whatsapp, however needs to be previously/afterwards taught directly in the classroom. s 18: “…it might be sometimes difficult to understand a practical topic on whatsapp without actual practice...” this view is also mentioned in a study4 that 6.25% of medical teachers feel psychomotor component of learning cannot be involved in whatsapp method. as physiotherapy is a hands on profession, practical teaching in the direct classroom environment is more important as patient handling skills cannot be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 147 published by scholink inc. taught through whatsapp. conceptual learning sometimes could be challenging. s 45: “...there might be problems related to misinterpretation of information...” using whatsapp in communicating with students cannot replace the traditional way of learning by attending classes, reading text books, etc. it can only supplement the learning process to be fun, faster and help students learn things easily. s 88: “...when a teacher explains a student face to face, it develops a better student-teacher relationship and student’s confidence...” reduced personal interaction and no emotional contact were perceived as disadvantages also by medical teachers in a study on whatsapp use as a teaching mode (bere, 2012). technical challenges: need for a smartphone & internet facility; teaching with whatsapp could be time consuming if large amount of context has to be discussed. eye strain (fig. 15) could be one of the important hazards as we need to use a small screen and especially for a longer time (robinson, 2015). though it is technically simple, effectiveness depends upon teacher’s skills of use of related software applications. message flooding21 and distractions from other messages received simultaneously could disturb the attention of the learner/teacher. sometimes when the internet speed is slow, disruptions could occur in the flow when many people are simultaneously participating in the discussion. figure 15. eye strain due to whatsapp necessary precautions should be taken to minimize the drawbacks expressed by the students. these could include the following suggestions: to avoid disruption in the flow of discussion, use the feature of “tag the message” while replying. to avoid distractions from the other messages received simultaneously, the notification should be kept off. limitations: however, i acknowledge that this was not a structured program and the content and design of the program were not pre planned. more structured program could be better able to achieve the desired educational outcomes. also, this was a qualitative analysis and especially from students’ perspective. the effectiveness of such programs should be assessed more objectively with a quantitative approach. we recommend similar studies involving more educators. conclusion: whatsapp enables learning beyond classroom borders and can potentially enhance learning process. to conclude from my own experience with whatsapp teaching for last 4-5 years, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 148 published by scholink inc. whatsapp has an immense potential to impact learning from both theoretical and practical point of view and also in clinical teaching for physiotherapy students. the technological, instructional and educational advantages far outweigh the disadvantages or the challenges encountered. overall the low cost, simplicity, accessibility, efficiency & natural language of whatsapp support its natural use in teaching-learning. whatsapp can be used to reach students via the technology they are most familiar with. students are favorably inclined to use the whatsapp and welcome its role in enhancing their learning experience. this additional tool given in teachers’ hands creates another venue for learning. the teacher as a facilitator is equipped with simple but extremely dynamic tool in teaching-learning. implications: the internet has had a more dramatic influence on education than any previous technological innovation (robinson, 2015). a recent survey on first year and graduating students revealed that students prefer online media as their primary source of information (sthapornnanon, 2009) in the phase of transition introduction of m-learning could be an important milestone landmark keeping pace with the need of this fast growing generation. this technological advancement, if supported with a change in our educational strategy can result in a major paradigm shift in teaching-learning. i recommend that the use of whatsapp in physiotherapy education process should be encouraged as a supportive technology (fig. 16 & 17). i wish to further expand this activity by preparing a structured content and design and by taking learners’ feedbacks regularly and in a more structured way. also, use of whatsapp for the evaluation purpose needs to be explored. figure 16 & 17. whatsapp: innovate to teach.. participate to learn acknowledgment i would like to acknowledge the valuable feedback and support of all the students of k. j. somaiya college of physiotherapy, mumbai who participated in this activity. my sincere thanks to the principal and my colleagues for their encouragement and support. conflict of interest the author declares that there is no conflict of interest. funding this study involved no monetary funding. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 149 published by scholink inc. references amry, a. b. 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(2009). social constructivist learning environment in an online professional practice course. am j pharm educ, 73(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.5688/aj730110 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 59 original paper “truth and mystery”: pearl s. buck’s the good earth and the research on overseas establishment of chinese image peishen zhou1& dan cui2* 1 undergraduate student of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 post-doc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china; doc of british and american literature, school of foreign languages of northeast normal university, changchun, jilin, china; professor, dean of institute of international language and culture, leader of comparative literature and cross-culture discipline, jilin international studies university, changchun, china; doc of literature, college of foreign languages, yanbian university, yanji, jilin, china * dan cui, corresponding author, e-mail: summerelephant@126.com received: november 9, 2022 accepted: november 20, 2022 online published: november 27, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n3p59 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n3p59 abstract this paper aims to analyze the issue if pearl s. buck conveys an authentic image of china in the good earth by composing typical and important aspects ranging from the life of chinese lower class to the their spiritual status through realistic style. this article reflects its mysterious characteristics by analyzing buck’s writing of chinese exoticism and spiritual simplicity and plainness in the novel. meanwhile, through the exploration of the harsh social conditions, the physical and mental suffering of social oppression, and the tragic fate under the feudal foolishness, peal tries to find out the true side of china. in addition, through further study, it is found out that pearl’s portraying of china is featured with waving position: a sense of fusion of and contradiction between mystery and authenticity, thus presenting a contradictory and compatible image of china. keywords the good earth, pearl s. buck, image of china 1. introduction pearl s. buck, a famous american writer, translator, and activist for human rights and female rights, won the pulitzer prize for fiction in 1932 and the nobel prize for literature in 1938. she was the first female writer to win a double award. pearl s. buck lived in china for a long time, teaching and writing in anhui, nanjing, and other places, and was in an in-depth emotional connection with china. her www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 60 published by scholink inc. writing focuses on the ordinary people under the daily life experience in china, creates a rich range of groups of figures, and strives to build a more real and objective chinese cultural image of the west. some of her representative works include east wind: west wind(1930), the good earth(1931), pavilion of women (1946), the hidden flower (1952), a bridge for passing (1962)etc. the good earth is the 1st novel of the west to cast their sight onto the positive description of chinese land and the life of chinese peasants, which is an “epic description” of the life of chinese peasants and it was conferred the nobel prize in 1938. in this novel, she describes how an ordinary chinese peasant wang lung as a typical case and miniature of a family evolves from decline to prosperity, from prosperity to decline, and then eventually set into prosperity, thus fulfilling the target of forming a typical “real” narrative of chinese. due to its particularity, the academia has come into the large-scale evaluation and researchers have come to the general consensus: the work has changed the stereotypical image of chinese people and chinese culture, as well as contributed to changing the impression of china as a “mysterious country” into a real true east country of long history featured with primitive traumatic history and incompetent humble people. but it is such a work that causes scholars and researchers to argue over whether it is a novel of authenticity in reality or just another version of imagination based on the so-called immersed observable perspective and its research is always in debate, highlighting the significance of its research, which need to be deeply discussed and studied further. therefore, from the perspective of both chinese and western cultures, the results are brought about under two completely different evaluation criteria. therefore, the questions that how the real image of china should be presented and what kind of china is supposed to be shown to the world are the key issues that we try to solve in this study. under the parallax of eastern and western cultural contexts, we try to explore the real mysterious country from the east through the analysis and research of the pearl’s real image of china. also, we aim to objectively analyze the value of the good earth in order to realize the author’s pursuit for correctly transmitting chinese overseas image and can allow more westerners to gain a glimpse into the real china. since the 20th century, the western understanding of china’s image has been probably vague. on the one hand, western researchers have independently constructed the imagined chinese image from western perspective. with their scientific eagerness to find out about real china and their expertise in academic studies, they have tried to explore real china. however, situated in the westernized context, they have been marked with their native culture in view of their social regime, cultural context, psychological needs, thinking models, value orientation etc. and due to this, their views have been intervened in view of comprehending china. therefore, what they have seen, heard, read, and written about china reflects their efforts to illustrate china objectively, but inevitably or unconsciously distorts certain facts if not out of intentional efforts. these will also affect their understanding and recognition and even they distort the truth shaped by “orientalism” (said, 2007). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 61 published by scholink inc. for example, arthur henderson smith writes in chinese characteristics (1894) “the first impression which a stranger receives of the chinese is that of uniformity. their physiognomy appears to be all of one type, they all seem to be clad in one perpetual blue, the ‘hinges’ of the national eye do not look as if they were ‘put on straight’, and the resemblance between one chinese cue and another is the likeness between a pair of peas from the same pod” (smith, 1894: 48). john barrow’s description of china in travels in china(1805) presents the general characteristics of this nation are arrogance and selfishness, a firm combination of disguised seriousness and real lightness, and elegant etiquette and vulgar words and deeds (barrow,1805). superficially, they are extremely simple and straightforward in their conversation, but they are practicing the art of politics. as an american native, buck followed her missionary father to china when she was young, and lived in china for more than 30 years. in view of such experience, her thoughts and values were deeply influenced by the eastern and western cultures simultaneously, and due to some particular reasons, her works are often criticized by people from all walks of life at home and abroad, even receiving negative criticism. so it is necessary to study the real and mysterious exotic image of china established by buck to seek out an objective and authentic image of china for the public. starting from the good earth, we can see how the writing of pearl s. buck reflects its authenticity, through dis-mystification, to achieve the correct dissemination of chinese image overseas. the truth and mystery expressed in the work are somewhat conflicting and integrative. now, what is presented before us is a contradictory and compatible chinese image. therefore, we are not supposed to take an extremely negative attitude and allow westerners to see the essential diligence and simplicity of chinese peasants, but also recognize the objective value brought by this novel in the dissemination of chinese culture. through analyzing and studying the real and mysterious chinese image constructed by pearl, we expect more people to re-understand chinese culture and establish a real chinese image overseas so that the west can pay more attention to chinese literature, improve its judgment standards, and make chinese literature accepted by the world. 2. literature review 2.1 domestic research status the study of buck and her works has begun since the 1940s. from the initial comprehensive denial to the extensive research today, researchers’ comprehension of pearl has been much clearer and more complete. due to her own it seems that it is still hard to escape the exotic perspective of her own culture no matter how hard she tries to present a relatively objective china. for this reason, some early chinese mainstream literary writers have confirmed that while buck praises the diligence and courage of chinese peasants, she simultaneously presents primitive habits and corruption of old chinese society which is portrayed as a regime that seriously oppresses chinese women with the man occupying the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 62 published by scholink inc. domineering position. in his reply to ke yao, xun lu criticized buck’s comprehension and reflection of china as a case superficial level, for he believes that to examine the truth of history, it must be chinese people that do it themselves(lu, 2005). wenjun li in “the analyse of american reactionary literati pearl s. buck” even analyzes her as a rogue person cultivated and immersed in american imperialism who tries to beautify the imperialist aggression and insult over chinese people (li, 1960). in more than half a century, even though the good earth has won many honors, it has rarely appeared positively in the vision of the public. in the 21st century, domestic research has made richer achievements. scholars have been conducting diverse perspectives including theoretical approaches including post-colonialism, humanism, and humanitarian spirit, thematic analyses, characterization, narrative perspectives, writing styles, and characteristics. with the related studies developing more maturely, researchers also gradually recognized her contribution to the field of literature and the dissemination of chinese culture. ziqing zhang and yinglin shang have discussed the role that buck plays as a communication bridge between chinese and western cultures in “pearl s. buck and china—commemorating the centenary of pearl s. buck” (zhang, 1992) and “a human bridge of chinese and western culture—commemorating the centenary of pearl s. buck” (shang, 1992). in “the good earth: the sublimation of local literature” (chen, 1995), chunsheng chen objectively and rationally situates this work into the context of its time. he affirms the worldwide significance of pearl’s work and claims that it realizes the sublimation of local literature. from the perspective of the current academic development in china, though the study of pearl buck has broken through the perspectives of the times, however, it is still featured with indecisive results and sometimes conflicting mutually, especially in view of the authenticity of chinese image it has established and portrayed. 2.2 foreign research status since buck won the nobel prize, foreign study and evaluation have also illustrated mixed and even contradictory conclusions. korean-american researcher younghill kang in his article “china is different” (1999) criticizes the distortion that buck does in this work and points out that in addition to some particular minor details, almost all the important description is not in line with the truth. also, some western critics put forward doubts over the authenticity of her description of china. for example, when some western critics spoke highly of her, others argued that it only presented a simplified china, but did not deeply analyze its interior details (hunt, 1977). in addition, some researchers also hold a positive attitude towards her, believing that her works can make western readers get to know a different china, a kind of alien china from their conventionally recognized country and thus they confirmed the positive role it had played in changing the stereotypically-held impression of the western world on china. american news celebrity harold robert www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 63 published by scholink inc. isaacs (2015) exposed that he had conducted the in-depth exploitative interview of influential figures from multiple fields including those from the american government, news agencies, business fields…etc. during the 1950s, and it eventually demonstrates that all of them had been deeply influenced by chinese characters portrayed by pearl s. buck. therefore, we can see that the question that if buck’s the good earth portrayed an authentic image of china or not has always been the center of academic attention since it is of high importance in view of both the literary value and realistic items ranging from the recognition of china to the relationship between china and other countries as well. so it is of important necessity to explore buck’s writing in detail to clarify certain concerns in view of the authenticity of her illustrating and transmitting chinese image all over the world. 3. the writing of “truth” 3.1 the writing of harsh social conditions the good earth depicts the life of chinese rural people in the 1930s. taking wang lung’s family as the main line, buck narrates how his family fought against natural disasters as ordinary peasants, made a fortune in turmoil, and based on the fortune he had acquainted to become a landlord. under buck’s pen, the wang lives in an adobe house with broken windows, wear shabby and dirty clothes, and only relies on the land to struggle for surviving. experiencing continuous droughts, water-loggings, locusts, soldiers, bandits, and other natural and man-made disasters, wang lung, as the representative of the all, eats the bark, swallows grassroots, and drinks mud soup. perhaps if it were not due to the windfall, they would have continued to make a hard-living, since it shows readers the real difficult and even primitive conditions of local villagers who could solely depend on nature-weather. such a description authentically reflects the real conditions of china’s poor and weak people at the social bottom struggling for surviving through suffering the miseries and distresses both from coarse nature and backward social regime. however, it cannot be denied that buck’s old china is stagnant and backward, and on some levels, she still retains her perspective mingled with a western outlook. while in westerners’ minds, people in eastern countries, areas, and regions are so primitive, backward, mysterious, and uncivilized that they need to be salvaged, rescued, and civilized by the west (said, 1978). such a preliminary concept is either due to her interior nature-western cultural gene (that is the collective unconsciousness in jung’s words) passed from her ancestors or her nurture based on her life influence from her family and western culture. so it is an inevitable fact that she could not actually understand and rightly interpret the rooted essential reasons affordable for such a harsh circumstance. actually, no other reason than the collusion and conspiring between domestic imperialism and feudalism at that time can be more reasonable. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 64 published by scholink inc. in the 1830s, china was forcefully set into a series of serious domestic troubles including foreign invasions, imperialist aggression, and feudal exploitation and oppression, all of which caused the continuous decline and collapse of the countryside in china. therefore, in some cases, china in buck’s eyes tends to be single, solidified, and superficial. her solution for this is to blame the villagers for their inability in mind and action to fight against social inequality due to their primitive cognition and even rural people’s ignorance and vulgarity in pursuing their own rights, though mostly with her compassion and sympathy. conclusively, she presents chinese people suffering suppression as a lack of motivation to gain their rights by fighting but solely trying every means to make out the way to passively surviving without taking actions to change their situations or circumstances. she attributes more to chinese people’s meekness for their poor conditions than analyzes deeply the complicated situation of china at that time. nevertheless, paradoxically, her depiction illustrates the diligence and plainness of chinese people on the one hand and makes the western world witness the hard circumstance that chinese people were confronted with. 3.2 the physical and mental suffering of social oppression wang lung is not only the receiver of suppression but also the subject that conducts the oppression. under the chinese traditional patriarchal system at that time, the father has always represented the image of an absolute authority as the other in jacques lacan’ s words. although wang lung’s father is old, he is the only person in the family that decides the matter of all domestic affairs. for example, before marriage, wang lung cooks food and makes tea for his father daily. even after his father reprimands him, he only dares to whisper to his heart “that old head thinks of nothing except his eating and his drinking” (buck, 1973: 5). because wang lung knew that he had to do it, or else it would affect his reputation. so when wang lung’s uncle asked him to raise his family, he finally chose to make a compromise due to the traditional social system. besides, according to the essential code of the chinese patriarchal system, the social convention is that men handle the social affairs and women take on the household work. in the family, men have the right to exercise decision-making and regulate the behaviors of women. women bear double physical and mental oppression and even lose their own will, and become attached to men. taking the relationship of wang lung and o-lan as an example, we can see that one carries out the concept of male domination and female submission by observing the moral norms of “three virtues and four virtues”. women were considered as the talking animal that submissively follows the rules and is considered as the tool to reproduce and regenerate the next generation. wang lung used a gold-plated silver ring and a pair of silver earrings to buy o-lan as his wife. under the oppression of the father and the husband, o-lan as the typical woman at that time keeps working and bearing children, but when she gives birth to a 2nd child, which unfortunately coincides with the harvest and wang lung blames her, “so you have chosen this time to breed again, have you!”(buck, 1973: 40). for wang lung, he marries his wife only to make www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 65 published by scholink inc. her give birth to children and conduct farming work continuously. when o-lan’s third child is a daughter, which is a piece of unfortunate news for them since girls are not considered to belong to their parents, but were born for others, wang lung feels so furious, which echoes the fact that the social discrimination and prejudice against women is based on the deep-rooted thoughts of preferring sons over daughters and such suppression makes them unable to escape, and can only bear it silently for they can only rely on their families and men to survive. 3.3 the tragic fate under the feudal foolishness buck creates a group of personalized characters in the good earth, either industrious or simple wang lung or thrifty o-lan, has the epitome of men and women in traditional old chinese society at that time, which also adds a tragic color to their fate. in her writing, old china suffered from natural disasters and man-launched catastrophes. the villagers lost their sanity and rationality due to hunger and become irritable. when they hear that wang lung’s family is rich in food and his children are still fat, men take up poles and go to wang lung’s house to search for every corner and scrabble every surface to find the food (buck, 1973: 52). thus it can be seen that people’s thoughts have already become numb under the invisible destruction of society so it is reasonable for wang lung to fall into degeneration and degradation. although wang lung is featured with the diligence and simplicity of ordinary peasants, he also possesses deep-rooted bad habits. the 1st half of his life is full of ups and downs, working hard for a living, and the 2nd half is addicted to lust, but he is bound by society from the very beginning to end, and his self-consciousness is shallow. georg wilhelm friedrich hegel believes that the reason for china’s backwardness is the darkness of the inner spirit of the chinese people. china is a land that has not yet been illuminated by the light of human spirit, where the sun of reason and freedom has not yet risen, and man has not yet got rid of the primitive and natural state of ignorance. the chinese people have no independent personalities and are internally obedient to the clan elders, externally in front of the government (hegel, 1861). the current social situation at the time is exactly what westerners had long expected of china. the most tragic character is o-lan, who was sold to the landlord’s family as a slave and then to wang lung as his wife. in a society dominated by men who hold a pragmatic spirit of a wife should not be good-looking, but just to give birth and regard women as particular commodities and tools. women do not have human rights of their own, and they suffer discrimination and belittlement. they are a family shame from the very moment of birth and this shame will accompany them for the rest of their life. o-lan is well aware of this reality of society, family, and male prejudice against women, so when the fourth child was found to be a girl, she chooses to terminate the life of a newly born child. pearl s. buck’s description of the real side of china shows the poverty and weakness of the old chinese society and the feudal ignorance of people’s thoughts in the public. at that time, people www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 66 published by scholink inc. experienced the destruction of war and natural disasters, and also experienced the double oppression of imperialism and feudalism, which reflected the process of conflict between traditional feudal culture and modern civilization. even if buck’s limitations make it impossible for her to realize this, it is undeniable that the social environment she presents is worth exploring the real reasons behind the formation of these harsh conditions. 4. the writing of “mystery” 4.1 the writing of chinese exoticism china as an ancient country is featured with its mysterious culture and customs that always possess hazy and mysterious colors for the west. in that era of underdeveloped information development, buck shows the exotic sentiment belonging to china before westerners’ vision through text writing which conforms with the western’s expectation for china, and the such issue has been thoroughly elaborated by said in his culture and imperialism (said, 2012). first of all, as the original birthplace of silk and tea in the world, both silk culture and tea culture have a history of thousands of years, which contains mysterious and noble humanistic colors and philosophical connotations. in the novel, there are many pieces of description of dressing ranging from the shabby clothes worn by wang lung’s family in the early poor period to the silk cheongsam after his prosperity. conclusively, the pursuit of beautiful items in each era never stops. as a matter of fact, silk represents not only a beautiful piece work of art but also a symbol of beauty itself and it has been highly praised and admired as the item of nobility classification from other lower social classes and taste belonging to the class. it even represents the high level of chinese exotic artistic products. although the author’s description of tea culture is slightly shallow, close to the daily, the novel began to introduce that every morning wang lung boils water for his father, and occasionally in good harvest puts tea in boiling water, when even people at the bottom are also familiar with the etiquettes of serving tea, and tea drinking is particular served for the elders. as a big country of interpersonal relations, china attaches great importance to the relationship between people. tea is not only a real product for daily life, but also the best harmonious material to communicate between people and deal with complex interpersonal relations. in the novel, the author mentions many scenes where people drink tea. in their daily life, making friends and hospitality, various teahouses are opened on the streets for people to enjoy in their leisure time. all these reflect the profound influence of tea culture on the chinese people. developed till now, this popular and elegant culture has carried not only the material civilization, but the spiritual richness. secondly, chinese folk myths and legends are widely spread. peasants rely on the weather, so to pray for favorable climatic weather and the line of offspring, and the worship of gods are very common. buck also seeks such a detailed description of exotic sentiment and the unique features of a local www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 67 published by scholink inc. environment always give special characteristics to its gods, and the god in the mind of the peasant is a gnome. people not only conduct the worship ceremony at home but also build the temple in the village—the small temple is built with bricks by wang lung. he sincerely believes the gods of their fields can bless ordinary people’s life deciding events ranging from marriage, harvest, sons and rain, and they can lay all their hopes for life on various gods. therefore, no matter how poor their life is, they won’t ignore the protection from the god of land. on each chinese new year day, wang lung’s father will bring some red paper to cut new robes carefully for the solemn figures. there are also gods including “bodhisattva”, “god of wealth”, “kitchen lord”, “door god” etc., which illustrates people undoubtedly respect and fear the gods, but this is also precisely in line with the western expectations of the mysterious color of china in view of superstition and strong believe in god of land. 4.2 the writing of spiritual simplicity and plainness of chinese in the novel, the description of the peasants is mostly sympathetic and praiseworthy. although they also possess certain negative aspects in their personality, however, once they turn to land, they will turn to be industrious, kind, honest and simply rooted in the soil. this is in sharp contrast to the western anticipation and expectation for chinese as immoral, lazy and ugly. in the novel, wang lung and his family are at the bottom, but always retain their dignity. when they flee to the south, someone suggests that he can beg to people for copper money and food because it is the fastest and the simplest way, but wang lung always feels he has his hands and wants to gain money through diligent and hard work, which reflects his embodiment of the working people’s industrious quality. due to such spirit deeply-rooted in his bones, he will not adopt such malice to predict the original intention of others’ behaviors. when he encounters some poor people, he will buy some food to help the poor, which in other people’s eyes is a way for the rich and the gentle to accumulate yin virtue and earn reputation. however, the inner motivation for wang lung is that he firmly believes there are always people out of kindness, out of which, when wang lung meets his former neighbor who is emaciated now, he does not forget previous help from his neighbor before, gives him seeds and cultivates him with his cattle. all these reflect wang lung’s good qualities belonging to chinese people. in the westerners’ cognition, chinese people were conventionally called the “chinaman” living in “chinatown”. they acted as eccentric, ugly, dirty, cunning, numb and cruel, and they labeled the chinese people as “sick man of east asia” and described china with misunderstanding and prejudice. however, they ignore those people who can truly reflect the brilliance of human nature, and the land spirit that inherits the chinese spirit and is deeply rooted in the bones. pearl’s portrayal of the characters also shows her attention to the current situation of the chinese people and the humanistic values. 4.3 ardent love for land agriculture buck named the novel the good earth because the land is the clue that goes throughout the novel. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 68 published by scholink inc. description of the relationship between man and land, man and nature, nature and land etc., presents us a thorough rural life and vivid characters. as an ancient country with thousands of years of agricultural civilization, land is always held as an almost the most noble and sacred existence in the hearts of all chinese peasants. they regard land as precious as their own lives. and the richness or barrenness of land determines the prosperity or decline of the family. land can be considered to be linked to the fate of peasants, and wang lung is no exception. as a typical peasant, wang lung works hard on the land and fights against natural and man-made disasters. at the same time, he builds his own house on the land with his own wife and children. he never gives up his land even after hunger and coldness. for wang lung, as he set his feet onto the land, his life can be continued. therefore, no matter how poor he is, he chose to stick to the land. he misses the land when he flees and after settling down in the city, he is still concerned about the land and buys it when he has money. after experiencing giant ups and downs, his love for the land reaches its climax at the last moment of life, “out of the land we came and into it we must go—and if you will hold your land you can live—no one can rob you of land—” (buck, 1973: 60). whether by life or death, he rests all of what he has onto the land that gives him eternal peace and foundation. it can be said that the ups and downs of wang lung’s life came from his feelings for the land. from the initial decline, his family becomes rich by buying land, and then, wang lung gradually loses himself, which causes his son to sell the land. even if he finally wakes up, he cannot change the fate of the family decline. actually for wang lung and his family, the land is not only the material conditions of their survival and his spirit, which allows him even to face natural and man-made disasters, but also keep peace of his mind, because he believes he will return to the land, as long as the land still exists, they will always have can habitat, it also causes wang lung makes the decision to use money to buy land, to the family prosperous period. on the contrary, when wang lung begins to indulge in enjoyment and does not cherish the land, their fate is doomed to tragedy, the decline of the family is taken for granted, what they rely on for survival has disappeared, then everything in the past will return to nothing. buck does not write much about the land, but the lines show people’s persistence on and love for land. this carrier of the emotion and spirit of countless peasants, the land, is also presented in front of the public. before that, westerners’ view of chinese land was limited to the traditional cultural production on the land. one of the few achievements in agriculture was the systematic use of large manure as fertilizer, and the stagnation of agricultural development. but what westerners do not know is that it is this land that nourishes the reproduction of the chinese nation, gives birth to the uninterrupted chinese civilization, and embodies the painstaking efforts and sweat of countless working people. the appropriate situation of the peasants described in the book, the appropriate life of the fields, and the current discussion of the relationship between husband and wife www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 69 published by scholink inc. really accurately summarize the real essential spirit of the chinese civilization, which is the endless land spirit. 5. the antagonistic writing of “mystery” and “truth” in the good earth 5.1 the resistance of land belief and western missionary as the daughter of a missionary, pearl is also a former missionary, and she has gone through different stages of understanding of the missionary career. she also gradually realized that the missionary work was not successful in china, because the missionaries paid too much attention to save the souls but ignore the salvation of human’s physical body. they deemed that what they brought is the gospel and salvation, but they never really understood the value and rationality of others’ culture in essence. the french missionary évariste régis huc summarized the faith of the chinese people in this way: chinese people have no faith, so they do not care about the religion. but at the same time, they are superstitious (huc, 1856). western missionaries satire the ignorance of chinese with the prejudice of heretic, and they don’t know that the people at that time did not care about any form of faith. their faith is derived from their love for the land. in the novel, the author also depicts people’s most noble belief in land, but holds a deeply hateful attitude towards missionary preaching. most western writers in pearl s. buck’s era held a position of western centrism, and from such perspective, the chinese faith was always placed in a weak and marginal position relative to christianity. but buck’s the good earth subverts the western christian center theory and raises the position of chinese peasants’ belief in the land and the land god to the central position. the land lays the essential position in their life, and it does not need the gift of god. the spiritual pillar of the chinese people depends on the chinese people’s unshakeable belief in land, rather than rely on missionary. at the same time, it also makes them realize the value of life in the intimate integration with the land, and get eternal happiness and happiness. 5.2 the collision of feudal tradition and western women’s independent consciousness when reading buck’s the good earth, we find her description of the characters has always been very special, especially for her portrayal of chinese women. these women not only have all the kind, honest and industrious human qualities of the people of that era, but also possess the spirit of independence, a typical quality the western women of that era. in the novel, o-lan as a virtuous wife always assists her husband and takes the family as the center of her attention, which thus represents a typical ancient chinese woman image. but simultaneously, buck portrays her women in western style of the subject status and resistance spirit, so that under her pen, the image of chinese women were not always obedient to men as conventionally portrayed, but took the initiative to have a say in their own destiny. when people in the village break into their homes to search for food that night, and when the children and the elderly are frightened, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 70 published by scholink inc. wang lung is at a loss, o-lan stands out and resists against their behaviors with a voice superior to the male voice. in the later stage of the novel, o-lan’s self-consciousness and resistance spirit become more and more prominent. she would avoid communicating with her husband’s concubine room after wang lung taking his concubine, silently washing and cooking, and doing silent resistance. she would also refute when wang lung scolds her, “i am not slave of slaves in this house at least”(buck, 1973, p. 147). at that time, she implemented her meager strength to allow people to see the awakening of chinese female consciousness. another more special typical woman with fused characteristics is pear blossom. she was bought by wang lung in the famine years, and she also has the honest duty of a traditional woman, wholeheartedly serving her husband. her loyalty is also reflected most vividly after wang lung’s death. in the novel, she always remembers wang lung’s kindness, so after his death, she is willing to stay in their former courtyard and sleep beside his coffin. in the early stage, pear blossom is actually very inferiority and cowardly, which is in sharp contrast to the rebellious spirit she bursts out after she became wang lung’s concubine. her spirit of resistance is not only against men, but also against class. as wang lung’s concubine, she always holds the disgusting attitude towards her former hostess lotus, which even shocks her and frightens her. therefore, when she sees lotus touching wang long’s coffin, she will loudly scold to defend her husband. not only for lotus, she is also full of disgust for wang lung’s first son, wang da. this timid woman, for the first time when wang da is about to sell the land, she stares and shouts excitedly that she cannot sell the land. it can be said that pear blossom’s loyalty to her husband and to the land is fused into one. after losing her husband, when she is about to lose the land, she cannot bear and accept such result for she is afraid of becoming a soulless person again. so she finally breaks through the feudal shackles and rejects such decision as if after the spring rain, the seeds of independence and resistance in her hear begins to sprout. buck’s description of the characters strengthens women’s sense of independence and actively intervenes in the western perspective. it reflects the collision between western women’s independence consciousness and chinese traditional feudalism, which gives women the resistance spirit of western style, gradually breaks through the shackles of chinese feudal traditional thoughts, and makes chinese women a clearer and more complete cognition of themselves and their values. 6. conclusion in summary, it is not difficult to see that the chinese image of pearl has both real and mysterious elements, which makes it break through the single image from the one-sided western perspective and deepen the westerners’ understanding of china. the “truth” part of the novel shows us the living state and social environment of the old chinese peasants. while arousing the sympathy of the people, we should also explore the causes and background of these phenomena and provide documents for the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 71 published by scholink inc. progress of history. at the same time, the mysterious elements contained in the work also let us understand the traditional culture and ideological belief that only belong to the ancient chinese civilization country, raising the chinese people’s belief in the land to a certain extent. whether it conveys the mystery or truth, the good earth portrayed by pearl exerts a profound impact on changing the image of china in the eyes of westerners and establishing the correct image of china. the swedish academy of sciences has evaluated her that buck’s novel played a major role in shaping western attitudes toward china, opening a faraway and foreign world to deeper human insight and sympathy within our western sphere (1938). after experiencing countless sarcasm and misunderstandings, the time has also proved the value and significance of the existence of pearl and her works. china is an ancient civilization nation with a history of five thousand years, and at different times it illustrates different cultural backgrounds and characteristics, so we cannot present it all just by a single piece of literature. what we are supposed to do is to objectively and comprehensively analyze each work on the premise of eliminating the limitations of the author’s own, and put the work under the background of that era to analyze the image of china in that era. therefore, china under buck’s pen represents one more facet of china in that particular period. re-understanding buck and her works are valuable not only for the east and west (in binary for handy simplicity) but also for our past and future. she opened up a new way for the western world to understand china, viewed the foreign image from a more humanistic perspective, and made a contribution to chinese culture to the world. acknowledgement at the completion of this paper, i would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere gratitude towards my supervisor dan cui, for her choice of this research topic, the design of paper structure and framework, the rigorous academic attitude and strong sense of obligation in telling the true story of china, thus revising and reviewing the paper timely. i would like to express my gratitude to my parents for their motivation, patience, love and care during my education and life journey. my final thanks go to all the people who have directly or indirectly supported me in completing my thesis and sincere wishes to you and may everything be pleasant to you. references barrow, j. (1805). travels in china: containing descriptions, observations, and comparisons, made and collected in the course of a short residence at the imperial palace of yuen-min-yuen, and on a subsequent journey through the country from pekin to canton... wf m’laughlin, no. 28 north second-street. buck, p. s. (1973). the good earth. new york: washington square press. chunsheng, c. (1995). “the good earth: the sublimation of local literature”. foreign literature www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 72 published by scholink inc. studies, (2), 66-70. hegel, g. w. f. (1861). lectures on the philosophy of history. g. bell and sons. hongtu w. (2014). on the chinese people in the eyes of the foreigners in the late qing dynasty. chinese times, (3). huc, e. r. (1856). a journey through the chinese empire (vol. 2). harper & brothers. hunt, m. h. (1977). pearl buck-popular expert on china, 1931-1949. modern china, 3(1), 33-64. isaacs, h. r. (2015). scratches on our minds: american images of china and india. routledge. juan, d. (2012). on china’ s image in pearl buck’s works. overseas english (6), 176-177. mohammed, d. a. (2014). oppressing and discriminating women as depicted in pearl s. buck’s the good earth. journal of kirkuk university humanity studies, 9(1). said, e. w. (2012). culture and imperialism. vintage. said, e. w. (2007). orientalism: western conceptions of the orient. penguin classics. smith, a. h. (1894). chinese characteristics. revell. von mossner, a. w. (2021). sentimental cosmopolitanism: the trans-cultural feelings of pearl s. buck. in cosmopolitan minds(58-88). university of texas press. wen, j. l. (1960). “the analyze of american reactionary literati pearl s. buck”. world literature (9), 114-128. xin, t. z. (2020). the study of chinese image in the writings of pearl s. buck and jorge luis borges under the ken of intercultural communication—the cases of the good earth and the garden of forking paths. huazhong university of science and technology. xun, l. (2005). the complete works of lu xun. beijing: people’s publishing house. ying, j. g. (1999). pearl s. buck: chinese criticisms. li jiang publishing house. ying, l. s. (1992). “a human bridge of chinese and western culture—commemorating the centenary of pearl s. buck”. journal of henan normal university, (4), 34-37. ying, z. (2015). the acceptance and research of pearl s. buck in western academic circles. journal of social science of harbin normal university, 6(4), 126-129. zhe, s. g. (2021). chinese images in the eyes of western writers—the case of pearl s. buck’s the good earth. jingu creative literature(20). zi, q. z. (1992). pearl s. buck and china—commemorating the centenary of pearl s. buck. foreign literature studies (1), 73-81. notes note 1. epic description, due to the evaluation of 1938 nobel prize “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in china and for her biographical masterpieces”. note 2. orientalism as a general term refers to study the history, literature, culture and other www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 73 published by scholink inc. disciplines of eastern countries. said regards it as a biased way of thinking or cognitive system in which westerners despise eastern culture and arbitrarily. note 3. this paper is the periodical research result of project on “the anxiety and transcendence of john keats’s individual identity construction” sponsored by national social science foundation of china (no: 21fwwb015); of project on “a study of the construction of john keats’s national identity” sponsored by the fellowship of china postdoctoral science foundation (no: 2021m700496); of project on “a study of john keats’s national identity writing” sponsored by social science foundation of jilin province; of project on “‘truth and mystery’: pearl s. buck’s the good earth writing and the research on overseas establishment of chinese image” sponsored by jilin international studies university; of project on “a study of english major course system construction with value shaping based on ‘global village’ as the foreign language lab” sponsored by the academy of foreign language teaching attached to the institute of higher education of china (no: 21wyjyzd08); of project on “a study of routes applied to cultivate the inter-cultural competence of english major students” (no: gjjx20201130); of project on “the establishment and practice of vista mode of development and transformation of english-major teaching faculty’s proficiency under new arts prospect” sponsored by chinese private higher education association (no: canfzg22417); of project on “the construction and practice of mode of development and transformation of foreign language teaching faculty’s proficiency in international studies of universities under multiple-discipline background” sponsored by jilin higher education association (no: jgjx2022d316); of project on “the introduction and translation of chinese contemporary literature and culture” (no: fyxh2022001). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 97 original paper design of virtual anchor based on 3dmax wang zixuan1, ye mao2* & xiang runze3 1 geely university of china, chengdu, sichuan province, 641423, china 2 geely university of china, chengdu, sichuan province, 641423, china 3 xuzhou university of technology, xuzhou, jiangsu province, 221111, china 1 2065742361@qq.com 2 997809049@qq.com 3 940404118@qq.com 1 tell: 0086-15096470601 2 tell: 0086-18228095240 received: june 25, 2023 accepted: august 7, 2023 online published: august 27, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n3p97 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n3p97 abstract with the rapid development of virtual reality and live streaming technologies, virtual anchors have become increasingly popular in recent years. in this paper, we propose a design method of virtual anchors based on 3dmax. through the use of modeling, rigging, and animation techniques, virtual anchors with realistic appearances and human-like movements can be created. we also explore the application of machine learning technologies in improving the interaction between virtual anchors and users. in addition, we provide a case study on the design and implementation of a virtual anchor for a popular live streaming platform. our results show that the use of 3dmax in virtual anchor design can greatly enhance user engagement and improve the overall user experience. virtual anchor design technology based on 3dmax is a highly complex design work, which requires designers to have a variety of skills and creative capabilities, and needs to fully consider the needs of the audience and the development trend of the industry. designers should also have certain cultural accumulation and creative ability, and be able to design an attractive and valuable virtual anchor image from the perspective of the audience. this paper analyzes the production and design of the current virtual anchors, in order to provide some reference significance for the production, operation and commercial realization of the virtual anchors in the future. keywords virtual anchor, 3dmax, modeling, live streaming www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 98 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction 1.1 research background and significance with the continuous development of science and technology, virtual anchor has gradually become a new industry. virtual anchor refers to a form of virtualizing characters through 3d technology to perform, interact and spread on network platforms. virtual anchors not only cover the functions of traditional anchors, but also can show more colorful personality, image and interactive forms, which has become a hot topic in the current internet entertainment and media industry. the emergence of virtual anchors reflects the development level and innovation ability of china’s entertainment and media industry. the emergence of virtual anchors can provide users with more diversified and personalized entertainment and communication services, and can also bring broader development space and business opportunities for the entertainment and media industry. therefore, an in-depth study of the design method and technology application of the virtual anchor industry is of great significance to promote the development of china’s entertainment and media industry and enhance the core competitiveness of the industry. virtual anchors, also known as virtual influencers or virtual streamers, are computer-generated characters that act as hosts in live streaming platforms. as ai technologies continue to develop, virtual anchors have become increasingly popular among users. they offer a unique user experience and can attract a large following due to their visually stunning appearances and entertaining personalities. however, the design of virtual anchors requires advanced computer graphics techniques and complex animation skills. in this paper, we propose a method for designing virtual anchors using 3dmax, a 3d modeling and animation software. we also explore the integration of machine learning to enhance the interaction between virtual anchors and users. 1.2 literature review a lot of exploration and practice have been carried out on the research of virtual anchors china and abroad. in 2002, thomas rist introduced the intellimedia field at the pacific rim ai international conference, believing that the field is at the intersection of multimedia systems and ai research, and will be the future trend. (rist, 2002). jinming zhan and nan zhang (jinming zhan & nan zhang, 2023) think the new form of reward “superchat”, which is born with the development of virtual anchors, has not been studied yet. he zhiqing (zhiqing h, 2023)analyzes why domestic virtual anchors can rise rapidly in the field of live broadcasting from the aspects of image design, technology application, fan psychology, crossover and so on. in 2018, brazilian scholar de araujo l v proposed that the media research on artificial intelligence in brazil is rare, especially the empirical research on evaluating their applicability in news production. in the paper, the scenarios and the possibility of using algorithms and nlg in brazilian media companies are investigated through interviews, and the results show that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 99 published by scholink inc. doubts and doubts about these technologies still exist. cobos-guzman s and others have designed a virtual assistant to improve the communication between presenter and audience.and they believes that this virtual assistant should be able to automatically determine the attention of the audience from audio-visual resources(cobos-guzman s., nuere s., álvarez l., et al., 2021). 1.3 study content and methods the research content of this paper is based on the design of virtual anchors under 3dmax, the structure of this study is mainly individed into there parts: create virtual anchors, design action process and analysis practical effect. but the outcome the previous research still has the gap in how to add the realistic appearances and movements, therefore the purpose of this study focused on the basis of exploring design methods and technology application, in-depth research will be conducted from three aspects: image positioning, action design and expressive innovation. the research methodology used in this paper is a multidisciplinary comprehensive and practical research. first of all, the existing virtual anchor industry practice is analyzed, and its successful design elements and methods are explored. secondly, with the help of 3dmax and other design software, the virtual anchor image, action and expression design. finally, the design results were tested and evaluated, and the experience of design methods and technology application was summarized. 2. methodology our method consists of three main steps: modeling, rigging, and animation. using 3dmax (3dmax is a powerful 3d modeling and animation production software with a wide range of applications. in addition to frame-by-frame animation, material mapping, and lighting shading, 3dmax also supports a variety of particle effects production, post-synthesis, and 3d printout, making it one of the most important tools in the 3d industry.), we create a 3d model of the virtual anchor based on reference images and sketches, ensuring a visually appealing appearance. we then rig the model with a skeleton or bone structure, enabling it to be animated. the animation is created using 3dmax’s tools, incorporating keyframe animation and motion capture data for smooth and lifelike movements. we also implement a natural language processing algorithm to improve user interaction. in our proposed method, we use natural language processing, computer vision, speech synthesis human-computer interaction technology, emotion recognition technology to create virtual anchors with realistic appearances and movements. the process consists of three main steps: modeling, rigging, and animation. see table 1: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 100 published by scholink inc. modeling: we start by creating a 3d model of the virtual anchor using 3dmax. we use natural language processing, computer vision and speech synthesis to design the character’s appearance, including its facial features, hairstyle, clothing and sound style. we also create the character’s body structure and proportions to ensure that it looks realistic and visually appealing. rigging: once the 3d model is complete, we proceed to rig it. rigging is the process of adding a skeleton or bone structure to the model, which allows it to be animated. we use 3dmax’s built-in rigging tools to create a skeleton for the character and add controls for each bone. this enables us to move and animate the virtual anchor’s body and facial expressions. animation: with the rig in place, we use human-computer interaction technology to create animations for the virtual anchor’s movements and actions using 3dmax’s animation tools. this includes animations for walking, speaking, and gesturing. we use keyframe animation and motion capture data to create natural and smooth movements. we also use emotion recognition technology to create the expression of virtual anchors with realistic appearances and movements. 3. virtual anchor design process role setting of virtual anchors the role setting of the virtual anchor is the first step in the design process. before determining a role, consider the following aspects: 1) basic attributes of gender, age, height and body shape of the anchor. 2) the style and image characteristics of the anchor, including clothes, hairstyle, makeup, etc. 3) their language ability, professional background, and their role in the live broadcast. 4) the anchors set the background story, hobbies, so as to better present a vivid image for the audience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 101 published by scholink inc. after determining the basic role of the anchor, it can be refined according to the needs. for example, if it is a children’s education software, the anchor can be a kind and friendly teacher image, and if it is a simulated business game, the anchor can be a middle-aged businessman image. (zhuhong, 2014). 3d model making after completing the role setting, you need to transform the role setting into a 3d model, which is the second step of the design process. the 3d model production depends on the software 3dmax. the production process mainly includes the following aspects: 1) according to the character setting, transform the 2d characters into 3d models, including the head, body, limbs and other parts. 2) detailed on the model, including the production of facial expressions, hairstyles, clothes, etc. 3) texture processing and animation to bind to the model. commissibug the model after the production is made. if there is a problem, the model can be modified until the model achieves the expected effect. application of motion-capture technology after completing the model production, it is necessary to design the action of the virtual anchor. traditional animation design requires manually drawing each frame of animation, which is inefficient. now, motion-capture technology can be used to complete the animation design more efficiently. motion capture technology refers to the use of special devices to capture human movements and apply the captured data to the animation production of virtual characters. common motion-capture devices include sensor sets, optical camera sets, and so on. through the motion capture technology, the movements of the real people are recorded, and analyzed and processed according to the recorded data, and the data is applied to the action design of xiao ji, so as to achieve a more real action effect. there are several issues when applying motion capture technology: 1) determine the type and number of motion capture devices. 2) show the action of the anchors and capture the action data. 3) clean and optimize the captured data to make it meet the body architecture and animation needs of virtual anchors. 4) apply the optimized data to the virtual anchors for animation production. virtual anchor scene production virtual anchor scene production is the last step of the design process. the production of the anchor scene needs to consider the following aspects: 1) scene design and construction, including background, props, lighting and other elements. 2) interactive animation of the virtual anchors in the scene, including the interaction with the audience, performance, etc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 102 published by scholink inc. 3) special effects design of the virtual anchor scene. in the scene production, each element in the scene is required to ensure the authenticity and aesthetics of the scene. in short, the design process of virtual anchor is a systematic process, which needs to be multiple links such as role setting, 3d model production, motion capture technology application and virtual anchor scene production. in practical application, the design process can be adjusted and optimized according to the specific situation to achieve the best results. 4. case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, we present a case study featuring a virtual anchor named xiaoji. designed using our proposed 3dmax method, xiaoji quickly gained popularity on a live streaming platform due to her realistic appearance and entertaining personality. the user experience was enhanced, leading to increased engagement and a large following, see figure 1: xiaoji’s modeling and animation technology involves many fields of technology, which requires the collaboration of multiple professionals to achieve a high-quality virtual digital character. by combining animation rendering technology, xiao ji can show more real movements, thus enhancing the audience’s sense of immersion and interaction. analysis of practical effect in the process of practice, the expression and interactivity of virtual anchors can be continuously improved through continuous trial and error and modification. at the same time, the operation strategy and business model of virtual anchors should also be considered in practice. through continuous practice and feedback, better user experience and business benefits can be obtained. in short, the design practice of virtual anchors based on 3dmax requires in-depth study of market demand and audience taste, pay attention to details and sense of reality, and constantly improve and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 103 published by scholink inc. enhance the expression and interactivity of virtual anchors in practice, so as to win the trust and commercial value of users. on the live broadcast platform, the application of virtual anchors is mainly used as live broadcast anchors. virtual anchors can be designed through software like 3 dmax and other software to flexibly show various scenes and characters. virtual anchors are not limited by geographical restrictions and can live anywhere, saving physical space and labor costs. at the same time, virtual anchors can change their image at any time to attract more audiences, see table 2: 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 transaction amount: 100 million yuan forecast trend of transaction volume of live streaming e-commerce in china from 2017 to 2023 6. results our results show that the use of 3dmax in virtual anchor design greatly improves user engagement and the overall experience. the realistic appearances and lifelike movements created using 3dmax contribute to a more immersive and enjoyable experience. integration with machine learning technologies also enhances the interaction between virtual anchors and users, making it more natural and human-like, see figure 2: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 104 published by scholink inc. 7. finding and discussion while our proposed method shows promising results in designing virtual anchors based on 3dmax, there are several areas where further research and development can be conducted to improve the design process and enhance the user experience. real-time rendering currently, the rendering process for virtual anchors is time-consuming and requires powerful hardware. future research can focus on developing real-time rendering techniques, allowing virtual anchors to be rendered and displayed in real-time, reducing the rendering time and improving the efficiency of the design process. facial expression and emotion modeling in order to create more realistic virtual anchors, the modeling and animation of facial expressions and emotions should be further improved. developing advanced techniques for capturing and replicating subtle facial movements and expressions can greatly enhance the realism and emotional range of virtual anchors. interaction and engagement virtual anchors are often designed to interact with users through chatbots or voice recognition systems. future research can explore more advanced natural language processing techniques, enabling virtual anchors to have more intelligent and engaging conversations with users. this can include sentiment analysis, understanding context, and providing personalized responses. customization and personalization providing users with the ability to customize and personalize virtual anchors can greatly enhance the user experience. future research can focus on developing user-friendly tools that allow users to easily modify the appearance, personality, and behavior of virtual anchors, making them more tailored to individual preferences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 105 published by scholink inc. virtual reality integration with the rise of virtual reality (vr) technology, integrating virtual anchors into vr environments can provide users with an even more immersive and interactive experience. future research can explore the development of vr-compatible virtual anchor designs and investigate the impact of vr on user engagement and immersion. 8. conclusion the design of virtual anchors based on 3dmax offers great potential in enhancing the user experience in the live streaming industry. through the use of advanced modeling, rigging, and animation techniques, virtual anchors with realistic appearances and human-like movements can be created. the application of machine learning technologies further enhances the interaction between virtual anchors and users. however, there are still several areas for improvement, such as real-time rendering, facial expression modeling, and customization options. virtual anchors have emerged as a fascinating and innovative application of virtual reality and live streaming technologies. through the use of advanced computer graphics techniques, such as the design method proposed in this paper based on 3dmax, virtual anchors can captivate audiences with their realistic appearances and human-like movements. the integration of machine learning technologies further enhances the interaction between virtual anchors and users, providing a more natural and engaging experience. as the field of virtual anchor design continues to evolve, there is still much room for improvement and exploration. for example, the speech synthesis technology of virtual anchors needs to be further improved, the scene construction needs to be more intelligent and humanized, and the material selection needs to be more accurate and flexible. in the future, we can further study and develop virtual anchor technology, improve its quality and efficiency, and provide users with more intelligent, personalized and rich media experience. future research efforts can focus on refining the design process, developing more advanced animation techniques, and integrating virtual anchors into emerging technologies such as virtual reality. with continued innovation and collaboration, virtual anchors have the potential to revolutionize the live streaming industry and create new possibilities for entertainment and user interaction. future research and development in these areas will contribute to the continuous improvement and evolution of virtual anchor design, providing users with even more engaging and immersive experiences. acknowledgement this article has supported by the fund of geely universty of china 2023 college students innovation and entrepreneurship training plan, and thanks to associate professor of geely universty of china mao www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 106 published by scholink inc. ye, whom is the supervisor of this research. the research is honored the second prize by the college student entrepreneurship program in sichuan province for the first time in 2022. references cobos-guzman, s., nuere, s., álvarez, l., et al. (2021). in press: 1.the audience and the presenter. international journal of interactive multimedia and artificial intelligence. design of a virtual assistant to improve interaction between. international journal of broadcast engineering (2019). araujo lvd. algorithms, artificial intelligence and nlg in the production of brazilian journalism. international journal of broadcast engineering, 4(0), 9. rist, t. (2002). lecture notes in computer science. springer berlin heidelberg, 9-18. zhan, j. m., & zhang, n. (2023). exploring the impact of virtual anchor features and live content on viewers’ willingness to pay for “superchat” in live entertainment scenarios. proceedings of 5th international conference on business, economics, management science (bems 2023). ed.., 190-206. zhiqing, h. (2023). a brief analysis of the new pattern of china’s virtual anchor enabling webcast—taking jiaran as an example. frontiers in art research, 5(1). zhu, h. (2014). based on 3dmax animation character head modeling plug-in development. dalian university of technology. 1.1 research background and significance 1.2 literature review 1.3 study content and methods 2. methodology 3. virtual anchor design process 4. case study 6. results 7. finding and discussion communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 27 original paper news trend in political participation: does news convince female electors to vote? a comparative study between egypt’s (cairo) and morocco’s (rabat) media campaigns monia mohsen 1* & iman el-bastawisi 2 1 october university for modern sciences & arts (msa university), egypt 2 sape dep., the american university in cairo & the facu lty of postgraduate african students, anthropology dept., cairo university, egypt * monia mohsen, advertising and public relations dept., october university for modern sciences & arts (msa university), egypt received: february 7, 2020 accepted: february 18, 2020 online published: february 24, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v 3n1p27 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/cs m.v3n1p27 abstract the aim of this paper to explore the news availability and its effect on female voting behaviour in egypt’s capital cairo and morocco’s capital rabat political elections. the study used an exploratory research design, working within a qualitative paradigm two sources of evidence were employed. commentary was compiled from respondents: (i) twenty in-depth face-to-face interviews with key respondents from egypt and morocco (ii) four focus groups with each group containing six respondents in egypt and morocco. in regards to the findings, the media impact was apparent in both countries that influence citizens. however, they mentioned minimal influence by the available political news. egyptian citizens confirmed that they were not convinced that the available news convince females to vote, as they felt that the available newspapers and news websites is of less credibility, yet moroccan citizens confirmed that the available news is credible and it does convince females to vote. mentioning social and cultural determinates that affects females in the society, both egyptians and moroccans claimed that females have their full rights that gives full freedom to participate in the elections. finally, both citizens conformed that the social media, is the most effective medium employed in political media campaigns. keywords female, voting, news, egypt and morocco www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the most famous and probably the shortest definition of democracy was delivered by abraham lincoln in h is historic gettysburg address of 1863: “government of the people , for the people, by the people”. democracy as a perception, it is way different and multifaceted, it is something which is documented by plenty of modern democracy theories (saage, 2005; schmidt, 2010). besides, a main factor which distinguishes these challenging theories, is the participation level and the engagement forms they expect from cit izens (dahlgreen, 2009). yet, one main civ ic duty which is common by all modern theories of democracy, is that the citizens should keep themselves informed about public issues; first to be able to participate in the public d iscourse, second to form qualified political opin ions, and finally to implement their right to vote. past studies have shown that the arab media tend to operate with authoritarianis m and social responsibility as media norms, which override liberalis m. past evidence also shows that arab governments used press laws and intimidation to close down media and news outlets to maintain their strict control over the media and its content (rugh, 2004; sakr, 2001). however, there was a slow movement towards democratic reform in egypt that allowed more freedom of the press and the adoption of western democratic press principles. the former egyptian president hosni mubarak was required to resign after 18 days of strikes and social arrest. media played the role of engaging and organizing the protes ts. moreover, it was a major element in build ing the movement (sohail & chebib, 2011). the important effect of media during the revolution led the government to block internet (consequently no access for facebook, twitter, and youtube…, etc.), and blackout mobile phones’ network. however, those barriers were not sufficient, as successful workarounds were found (sohail & chebib, 2011). people were attracted to media and eventually they were attracted to the revolution leading them to participate. during pres ident hosni mubarak’s regime, the egyptian media environment was characterized by inconsistency and uncertainty. mubarak had strict control over media outlets and operations through various laws such as the egyptian penal code, the 1996 press law, the egyp tian constitution, and press licensing laws. nevertheless, in the later years of mubarak’s reg ime, the egyptian media started to observe much freedom and democracy when the existing government allowed the format ion of the first daily independent newspaper al masry al youm, plus it eliminate the ban on issuing licenses for private channels (al masry, 2012). on the other hand, the egyptian television environment started to embellishment in 2000s, for the first time, when, the egyptian government conformed on the issuing of issue licenses, which allowed private egyptian television channels to be launched. mainly the government was under severe pressure to satisfy the national business niche, pamper in state investments and finally to surpass other arab countries to be the finest among pan arab media production. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. it is not only egypt in the arab region who fought for freedom, years ago following the march 1998 elections, but also an alliance government headed by opposition socialist abderrahmane youssoufi, which is main ly fo rmed of min isters chosen from opposition parties. morocco prime minister youssoufi's government was the first government elected chiefly from opposition parties. moreover, it was the first time in arab world, the modern political history, that the opposition seized power after the elections. as for now the current government is ru led by saadeddine othmani. the 2011 pro-democracy 20 february revolutions, injected a new energy into the moroccan state media. the expansion of the moroccan media industry reflects its historical, political and social subtleties in country. besides, the history of the moroccan media shows a pervasive uncertainty with irregular series of openness and closure which is depending mainly on the government’s acceptance, and its need to endure modernizat ion encounters; such as encouraging journalists to debate and to challenge the historical constitutional taboos, as the recent constant restrictions on critical reporting is reducing journalists again to self-censorship. still, the limited possibility and impact of this movement vulnerable merg ing all of these trends. this leads to understand that media strategies and promotional campaigns, which are usually used to help increase their share through election campaigns (kotler, 1975). indeed, authors assume that perceptions of candidates and voting objectives are more generally focused on personality image, rather than policy (guzmán & sierra, 2009). it is crucial to consider media and communicat ion processes generally in the study of conflict formation which has been widely pred ictable (hoffmann, 2013). given what has been discussed thus far, this led the researcher to seek understanding the news in egypt and morocco in order to exp lore the news availab ility and its effect on female voting behaviour in egypt’s capital cairo and morocco’s capital rabat political elect ions. to address this, five main areas were d iscussed from cit izens perspectives (i) the media impact in egypt and morocco (ii) the extent were the female electorates influenced by availab le political newspapers or news website (iii) female electorates perception of the available news (iv) social and cultural determinants of the female political participation, and finally (v) most effective medium employed in political media campaigns. this paper does not represent the political, religious, economic and/or social views of the authors. the paper is structured as followed: literature review, methodology, findings, and conclusion. 2. literature review the studies are mostly very relevant to the discourse under construction and provided insight into the various dimensions of the topic. on rev iewing the literature of the topic under examination, it has been found that many studies were done in the point under research; however, most of these studies were not conducted on the arab media. only limited number of studies were done on that area. few literature studies conducted in in egypt and morocco. the importance of women’s involvement in formal politics www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. or political representation has been underlined by large number researchers of feminist and democracy researchers. yet, many forms of polit ical part icipation or other behaviors exist outside of the formal political scope must be tackled in order to both acknowledge their importance along with how they cooperate with more fo rmal political behaviors. naib (2011) wrote about females who had become polit ical activ ists. thusly, they utilized online life to illuminate and report their “ace progressive stories and commitments” adequately. their online posts, pictures, recordings and tweets became moment web-based life hits, so turning into a web sensation and turning into an energizing cry to move others to jo in the fights at tahrir square. as an example, naib (2011) in her written news article for aljazeera, t itled “women of the revolution” reports on a number of young women who had become political act ivists. as such, they used social media to inform and document their “pro-revolut ionary stories and contributions’ very effectively. their on-line posts, pictures, videos and tweets became instant social media h its, so going viral and becoming a rally ing cry to inspire others to join the protests at tahrir square. what the discussion has highlighted thus far is the dichotomy faced by egyptian women. the arab spring, and more so, the revolutions of january and june revived women’s aspirations. women became active actors that helped shape the future of egypt, they felt at last they had a voice and their contributions recognized (khodair & hassib, 2015). naib (2011) claimed that a real sense of how women felt about their part icipation with in the revolution, egyptian women, just like men, as they all as egyptians shaped a new political and social scene (naib, 2011). ironically beyond this, such aspirations remained very much an idealist view and the reality proved to be much more complex, because women faced social and cultural obstacles, and still do even to this day (botman, 1999; bastawy, 2014, 2015; frantzman, 2017). according to opcit research (2013), reviewed the barriers to women’s inclusion in politics, and, through case studies and research with new media users, how new media may should embrace the growth women’s involvement in all, different levels, political part icipation, and, o f course, including formal representative politics. it focused on new media such as computer assisted communication (cac), social networking, networked activ ities, online fo rums. the study used a focus group with a d iverse group of women recru ited from the general public; also, in-depth twitter-enabled survey, and an in-depth semi-structured survey of members of an international professional women’s network. finally, the s tudy revealed that several barriers to women’s involvement and new media strategies should be developed using gender mainstreaming principles. besides, there were few differences between male and female uses of new media. women seemed to be more interactive on social media, as they have more followers and likes, compared to men. mcleod et al. (1999), that examined the ro le of community integration and mass and interpersonal communicat ion in forecasting two types of local polit ical participation; “institutio nalized” acts of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 31 published by scholink inc. participation, and less traditional acts of participating and speaking out in a forum. it showed a strong role of newspaper readership and a somewhat lower impact of interpersonal discussion on institutionalized participation. different patterns emerged for participation in a civic forum, television news use had no direct impact on either type of participation, but it did have a modest indirect impact on institutionalized part icipation. moreover, bakker, t. p., & de vreese, c. h. (2011) added that political participation has attracted a great deal o f scholarly attention. start ing from a notion of differential media use and an encompassing notion of polit ical participation, this art icle tests the relationships between media use (newspaper, te levision, and internet) and offline and online forms of political participation. findings from a national survey reveal that a variety of internet uses are positively related with different forms of political part icipation, whereas the relationship between most uses of traditional media and participation are weak, though positive. moreover, positive relat ionships between online communicat ion and non-informational uses of the internet vis -à-vis participation are found. moreover, sylvia tamale in her book: when hens begin to crow gender and parliamentary politics in uganda. stating that uganda is unique in its affirmative action program for women-participation. the book mainly studies how women have adapted their legislat ive strategies for empowerment in light of uganda’s patriarchal h istory and social structure. president yoweri museveni, in the late 1980s, claimed that uganda’s effective development was main ly because it increased gender equity, plus it supported the opinions by involving females in centered policies in motion; for example, saving thirty-nine seats for women in the parliament. the study referred to other african and non-african countries struggling with the same challenges of democracy and development; moreover, it showed that media contributed in help ing participation of women. unlike majority of studies, a study by wilkins (2010) b laming media for declining political participation among cit izens. the study is faulting media for declining political part icipation in the united states. as the survey research results indicate that public engagement and political suspicion may be related with polit ical participation; however, these procedures are not straightforwardly described by watching television. instead, newspaper reading and television news watching, along with level of education, tend to be related with electoral part icipation. the author suggests that uncertainty be re-conceptualized as a healthy part of the democratic progression. finally, tolbert, c. j., & mcneal, r. s. (2003) suggests that changes in communication technology may play an important ro le in influencing electoral behaviour. th is study main ly focuses on the communicat ional part that traditional models of voter turnout may be under-specified with respect to changes in the media, especially use of new information technologies. furthermore, the internet improves voter’s perception and informat ion about electorates and the elections; as a result, it increases voters’ participation. respondents with access to the internet and online election news were significantly more likely to report voting in the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections. it also suggests www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 32 published by scholink inc. that access to internet and online election news significantly, improved the chance of voting. 3. method according to malhotra, birks, and wills (2010), qualitative research approach (figure 1) is divided mainly into two categories direct and indirect. the researcher mainly used both direct approaches. figure 1. qualitative research, source: malhotra et al. (2010) 3.1 research instruments the paper used two sources of evidence: face-to-face semi-structured interviews and focus groups. the advantages and disadvantage of these sources of evidence is well documented and will not be rehearsed here. the rationale for this techniques merge is found in what the paper aimed to exp lore. the aim of this paper to exp lore the news availability and its effect on female voting behaviour in egypt’s capital cairo and morocco’s capital rabat political elect ions. in addition, the design was concerned with extracting detail appertaining to individual interpretations and richness of individual insight relevant to news content. looking at each technique in brief: 3.1.1 face-to-face semi-structured interviews qualitative research is a category of research design that is concerned with individual interpretations; and richness of descriptive reports of individual insight which is mainly used in feminist research (hakim, 2000). moreover, according to carson et al. (2001), if a politician wants to test a sudden incline in quantitative poll, he/she is required to conduct qualitative research to understand the reason and deep feelings of voters. promise, tony blair’s campaign name, used qualitative approach to test www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 33 published by scholink inc. citizens’ feelings towards tony blair; they used the blair focus groups to know people’s feelings towards the brand. simultaneously they asked some citizens to write letters to tony blair (scammell, 2007). th is research conducted twenty in-depth face-to-face interviews with citizens in both capitals cairo and rabat (key informants – see table 1). respondents were chosen from occupations such as academia, communicat ions, financial services, organizat ions. table 1. interviewees interviewees moroccan egyptian director marketing manager media relation manager sales manager media account manager housewife economic research production executive student-faculty of languages studentfaculty of law dig ital market ing executive television reporter finance associate sound engineer cost manager oncologist interior designer creat ive content director freelance creative director human resources executive key informants were selected because they were well informed about the issue pertaining to political landscape, the access was established with indiv idual respondents via face to face interaction to make sure that they are willing to participate in the study, interview appointment was scheduled and conducted upon respondents’ agreement. this was made possible because the study had an egyptian female researcher in situation. owing to the sensitivity of the topic, some interviewees refused access while others agreed and were happy about it. the interview schedule, with associated questions, concentrated on five key areas: (i) the media impact in egypt and morocco (ii) the extent were the female electorates influenced by available political newspapers or news website (iii) female electorates perception of the available news (iv) social and cultural determinants of the female political participation, and finally (v) most effective medium employed in political media campaigns. 3.1.2 focus groups morgan (1996) suggest focus groups are a valuable tool in qualitative consumer research when conducted from a truly qualitative perspective. moreover, they work fo r topics concerned with (i) convictions and beliefs of others and (ii) group interactions that may knock into t he motivation and unconscious areas of the human essence. to this end, four focus groups were conducted with each www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 34 published by scholink inc. containing six respondents (morgan, 1996; threlfall, 1999; hakim 2000; malhotra & briks, 2003). respondents were drawn from: socio-economic groups a and b from d ifferent professions, as noted in earlier in table 1 above. moreover, based on particular demographics, such as, education, gender, nationality and age respondents were targeted and placed into one of the four focus groups. unlike egyptian focus groups, it was an obstacle in morocco to set the focus groups with n a place, which was café and restaurants, with d ifferent citizens. therefore, given that the topic negotiates an important political issue which is controversial topics in both egypt and morocco, the paper wished to explore the differing opinions of the various cohort of citizens, and ascertain whether they were able to influence and change opinions of one another. in essence, as an unexplored topic, value from focus g roups, allowed the researcher to reach valuable evidence on language or behavior and capture real -life communicat ion among the various focus group members (threlfall, 1999). a combination of snowballing, judgmental and referrals were used to access suitable respondents, focus groups revolved around the same interview guidelines; in order, to confirm what has been concluded from the interviews. 4. the peripherals all research instruments were being tested throughout the pilot study; the pilot study allowed adjustments and pre-warning aspects within the study that could demonstrate any problem. on the other hand, the possibility of reliab ility and generalizab ility were conceded as morocco and egypt’s has a very unstable political situation; also, the attitudes from city to city and from urban to rural. given the environment and sensitivity of the study, judgmental and snowballing techniques were considered appropriate forms of sampling. with regards to ethical issues, before participating within the study all respondents were made aware of the nature, topics and purpose. also, all respondents consented to have their names published. however, names will not appear with in this paper. each indiv idual will be coded from the alphabet from a to j and have an initial letter as (e) o r (m) depends on their country. retouring to cultural and polit ical sensitivity, all fieldwork was conducted by a trained female egyptian researcher, in cairo, egypt and, within the natural and familiar setting of the respondents. the interviews and focus groups were conducted in arabic, as its convenient for both egyptian and moroccans; thus, the issue of forward and back translation was addressed, main ly, two steps to translation were conducted. first, interviews, and, focus group’s questions were written in and translated from english to arabic. these were then sent to an experienced english/arabic translator to approve the translation reliability. after, the completion of the fieldwork, instruments were translated from arabic back into english during the process of transcribing data. the integrity of the respondents spoken word was maintained throughout. finally, all semi-structured interviewers were voice recorded via an electronic devise, as well as, copious notes taken. similarly, focus groups were recorded to in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. order to remember the discussion. in-depth interviews and focus groups are necessary in emerging marketing theories. a large number of studies using qualitative methods have been conducted in market ing in the consumer context (e.g., belk, 1992; belk et al., 1988; alam, 2005). however, in this paper, the author intends to follow the theory building purpose by using in-depth field interviews with egyptian and moroccan citizens. as, research does advantage from having different sources of evidence. additionally, the use of multip le sources of evidence helps in achieving construct validity in a qualitative research (yin, 1994). in -depth interviews are used more in academic research with 15-25 people (hakim, 2000). 5. findings there are five main areas that the study explored from the cit izens perspective, (i) the media impact in egypt and morocco (ii) the extent were the female electorates influenced by available political newspapers or news website (iii) female electorates perception of the availab le news (iv ) social and cultural determinants of the female polit ical participation, and finally (v) most effective medium employed in polit ical media campaigns. where necessary data extrapolated via the various research tools will be used in conjunction with each other to help support discussion under the five areas noted above. looking at each: (i)the media impact in egypt and morocco: this section focused upon general key questions that explored the respondents’ knowledge on media impact in egypt and morocco, the section involved around five questions that revolved around the importance and impact of media in both countries in regards of most used media and the credible one. during the face-face interview phase it transpired that the media impact was apparent in both egypt and morocco, that had a huge influence on citizens. ostensibly, citizens believed that nowadays digital media has a huge impact on daily lives, and most people get information and news from on line media as respondent b(e) noted: “media is the thing that we wake up to its our source of news, and mostly it’s so credible.” also, respondent i(m) “media is credible as long as you know how to interpret the message” respondent c (m) added, “i don’t buy newspapers for political news i go for online news, and i believe what i read, why would they lie” besides, respondent h(e) supported, “i don’t read newspapers i get all new either from facebook or from by friends and family” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. citizen also confirmed that the media impact on the social level is more palpable than political one, as respondent j(e), “media impact is high we learn everything from media, we get updates about our family and friends through, we even know how to dress from media, and we get some political updates” what became evident throughout the interviews and all focus groups that citizens noted a huge media impact, especially on teenagers and young adults, that when the interviewer asked on media impact, mostly all cit izens confirmed that all people became media users by different means, so eventually citizens are always updated by what happened in the country either polit ical or social news, as respondent d(e) added, “we are always online smart phones made it so easy to be updated by all news; for example, i am subscribed on certain news application, that send me news minute by minute” (ii) the extent were the female electorates influenced by available political newspapers or news website within this section the paper wished to explore extent were the female electorates influenced by available political newspapers or news website. for instance, despite what has been discussed in the section above, they mentioned min imal influence by the available political news on females. here questions focused upon areas related to the availab le newspapers and online news with a common theme. citizens confirmed that that the news available during elect ions are not strong motive for voting, respondent b(m) “the news does not help us in finding the suitable candidate” citizens were also asked to evaluate news content that they find daily or weekly according to their usage, respondent c(e) added, “mostly the available news is an agenda from the government” respondent a(m) supported, “we find the new but it doesn’t mean that the news available if of a value” during the focus groups citizen were confirming that they find news, in both countries, as they news always available on tv, online or through newspapers. however, they mentioned that not always updates about the political arena. (iii) female electorates perception of the available news it was found that contrary to popular belief, media exposure seems to have little relat ionship to voters'; prior political attitudes and educational levels are much stronger predictors of these perceived images rather than the available news. egyptian citizens confirmed that they were not convinced that the news (availab le news) convince females to vote, as they felt that the availab le newspapers and news websites www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 37 published by scholink inc. is of less credibility, yet moroccan citizens confirmed that the availab le news is cred ible and it does convince females to vote. as respondent b(e) went on to pointed out: “of course, the news available during the voting period that specific times will all support the candidate” egyptian citizens confirmed that news credibility is weak and does not provide the true image consequently it does not help in the voting behavior, respondent e(e) added, “i go vote but not because of the news is trustworthy. but because i will be fined if i didn’t vote” some cit izens confirmed that the voting behavior is done according to prior informat ion regarding the candidates, and the available news is usually is a form of updates rather than valuable news, respondent e(m) added, “we vote because we have a prejudgment on the candidate” (iv) social and cultural determinants of the female political participation the penultimate part of the interv iews and focus groups explored the perceived role of women within the society. its important part to understand the society role. here questions focused upon seven areas with a common theme of social and cultural determinants. citizens from both countries agreed upon female having their fu ll rights in the society, as respondent e(e) stated, “men and women are equally treated in the society” on the other hand, only one respondent from morocco claimed that females and males a re not treated equally and still female d id not achieve their freedom, respondent i(m), “females are bargain ing and fighting, but still they are mostly home as housewives” also, citizens were asked to comment on the female ro le in the political arena, which was more likely positive and the role in the society, all respondents equalized the role as male make ones. respondent c(e). in essence, respondents were asked to comment on challenges and barriers that face women’s political participation, respondent a (e) added, respondent a(m) claimed, “proactive gender equality policy in parliament which results in a high number of female polit icians” citizens were asked to comment on challenges and barriers that face women’s polit ical participation, answers varied but within the same context, some of the cit izens commented on the male pressure in the society as respondent b(e) added, “we always follow men in voting we take it as family decision, we usually vote for the same candidate” respondent c(m) supported, “it ’s not like they force us to vote but eventually we vote for the same candidate” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 38 published by scholink inc. also, respondent e(e) claimed, “use peer pressure telling others about your voting plan can also remind them to vote, ask your friends what their voting plan is when and where they will vote. then follow up and ask if they kept to it, social pressure is mighty persuasive” (v) most effective medium employed in political media campaigns the last section consisted of question regarding the most effective medium employed in politica l campaigns and whether this medium is appealing to females or not. when respondents were asked regarding the most employed medium in political campaigns, noticeably of the 20 (n=100%) face-to-face interviewees and the four focus groups, all agreed that social media is the most used and most effective as respondent c(e) stating, “since the 2011 revolution social media became a weapon that collapsed the old regime” moreover, respondents were asked to state which social medium precisely is the most used. the answer varied among participants, almost 10 (n=50%) conformed that facebook is mostly used, the other n=50% agreed that twitter is the used and most suitable medium in political campaigns. as respondent f(e) purported: “i guess its facebook mostly used but not as much credible as twitter” when participants were asked to state where the medium is appealing to females n=100% agreed that yes facebook is used friendly and used by almost all females with all levels in the society, so they have access for information and updated by all political news. finally, respondent g(m) stated: “facebook is the most used medium for entertainment and news as well for males and females” 6. conclusion this paper set out to exp lore the news availability and its impact on female voting behaviour in egypt’s capital cairo and morocco’s capital rabat political elections. to address this, five main areas were discussed from cit izens perspectives. through the qualitative methods, it’s been found that the media impact in egypt and morocco is quite huge. it is quite clear that the media p layed an important role in these countries, especially egypt as throughout the interviews and focus groups the citizens mentioned how powerfu l the media was during the revolution, adding that the fo rmer president hosni mubarak was required to resign after 18 days of strikes and social arrest. media p layed the role of engaging and organizing the protests. moreover, it was a major element in building the movement. cit izens did also mention that the role of media in entertaining is more powerful than the polit ical one, especially in morocco. the cit izens in morocco confirmed that media is an important element in their daily lives, but the news or ‘political news’ is not that powerful and it is not of a strong impact, interestingly they are happy with what is being aired or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 39 published by scholink inc. published. in addition, when talking about the female role in society both in morocco and egypt equalized the ro le of female with the males, mentioning that they have the s ame rights and eventually the same political rights. but, surprisingly, they added that of course they face some obstacles and barriers in the society that might prevent in polit ical part icipation some of them is the male p ressure. on the other hand, they added that they do participate and they do convince their peers to participate as well. furthermore, they mentioned that when females are elected it a kind of a motive that might lead them to participate. the news was an interesting part in the analysis. first both countries conformed that the newspapers are not durable nowadays, and the informat ion they get is from the dig ital news. however, they mentioned minimal influence by the availab le polit ical news. as the in fluence is not apparent and does not change anything. in addition to, the female electorates perception of the available news, egyptian citizens confirmed that they were not convinced that the news (available news) convince females to vote, as they felt that the available newspapers and news websites is of less credibility. in their defense, that most of political news during election will, of course, support the candidates and its kind of updates of what is going on in the country rather than informat ion regarding the candidates. on the other hand, moroccan citizens confirmed that the available news is credible and it does convince females to vote, as they said it convince both males and females. the question is, so the news does not influence moroccans, but it does convince them to vote? they also added that they go for news available on social media such as twitter and facebook. unexpectedly, they said that facebook is not that credible, but it’s the most used medium, along with twitter especially in polit ical news. also, they mentioned that facebook is appealing and easy to use, as of course each candidate always makes sure to establish a communicat ion channel which is usually through facebook or twitter with cit izens. this research revealed the important trends that need to be addressed by the news to avoid the decline in the distrust of the voters. at the same time, it focused exclusively on the views and comments by electorates from two countries which represents only one-sided view of the picture. to deeply understand the phenomena of trust and trust breach between political candidates and voters, voters should be brought on the board and their views should be compiled. a very important future research direction is based on the identification o f reasons and factors contributing in the voter’s decision, is the analysis of news content. this will help the political candidates as well as polit ical parties to utilize the research findings to strengthen the relationship with their voters based on trust. it is important to understand that political success is not always defined and determined by the same factors, and that the needs and expectations of the electorate might vary from one country to another. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 40 published by scholink inc. references al-natour, m. (2012). the role of women in the egyptian 25th january revolution. journal of international women’s studies, 13(5), 59-76. alam, i. (2005). fieldwork and data collection in qualitative marketing research. qualitative market research, 8(1), 97-112. https://doi.org/10.1108/13522750510575462 bakker, t. p., & de vreese, c. h. (2011). good news for the future? young people, internet use, and political participation. communication research, 38(4), 451-470. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650210381738 bastaway, s. (2014). women’s rights in post-revolution egypt. asfar, e-journal ed ition: december 2014. retrieved march 5, 2017, from http://www.asfar.org.uk/womens-rights-in-post-revolution-egypt/ bastaway, s. (2015). women’s rights in post-revolution egypt, part 2. asfar, e-journal ed ition: december 2015. retrieved march 5, 2017, from http://www.asfar.org.uk/womens-rights-post-revolution-egypt-part-ii-sawsan-bastawy/ belk, r. w. (1992). moving possessions: an analysis based on personal documents from the 1847-1869 mormon migrat ion. journal of consumer research, 19(3), 339-361. https://doi.org/10.1086/209306 belk, r. w., sherry, j. f. jr., & wallendorf, m. (1988). a naturalistic enquiry into buyer and seller behaviour at a swap meet. journal of consumer research, 14(4), 449-470. https://doi.org/10.1086/209128 botman, s. (1999). engendering citizenship in egypt, research . ch ichester: john wiley and sons. west sussex, england. carson, d., gilmore, a., perry, c., & gronhaug, k. (2001). qualitative marketing research. sage publications ltd, london, england. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849209625 dahlgren, p. (2009). media and political engagement. new york: cambridge university press. elmasry, m. (2012). journalism with restraint: a comparative content analysis of independent, government, and opposition newspapers in pre-revolution egypt. journal of middle east media, 8(1), 1-34. frantzman, s. j. 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(1994). case study research: design and methods (2 nd ed.). sage publishing beverly hills, ca, usa. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 61 original paper the science of undetectable equals un-transmittable plays out in real life a clinical case report alycia t. dickens1* 1 hampton veterans affairs medical center, department of medicine, division of infectious disease, hampton, virginia, usa * alycia t. dickens, hampton veterans affairs medical center, department of medicine, division of infectious disease, hampton, virginia, usa received: february 19, 2019 accepted: march 14, 2019 online published: april 12, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n2p61 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n2p61 abstract 66-year-old african american man presented to the infectious disease clinic for evaluation and treatment of hepatitis c. risk for hepatitis c was intravenous drug use (ivdu) 20 years earlier. patient was referred to the infectious disease (id) clinic by primary care provider. medical work-up, done by primary care provider, included hiv testing and the patient tested hiv+. further testing by infectious disease provider showed a cd4 643 @38% and a hiv rna or hiv viral load of 43 copies/ml. interestingly, this patient was unaware of his hiv (+) status and he is also newly married less than 2 years. keywords long term non-progressor, elite controller, un-detectable equals un-transmittable (u=u), treatment as prevention (tasp), pre-exposure prophylaxis for hiv (prep) 1. introduction 66-year-old african american man presented to the infectious disease (id) clinic for evaluation and treatment of hepatitis c. risk for hepatitis c was intravenous drug use (ivdu) 20 years prior. patient also reported a history of being incarcerated x 6 years. the patient was previously treated for syphilis and had a titer of 1:1. patient was referred to the infectious disease clinic by primary care provider. patient was also noted to have a positive quantiferon tuberculosis (tb) result. he stated he was never treated for tuberculosis (tb) or latent tb. primary care work-up included hiv testing and he tested hiv+. unfortunately, he had never been informed or counseled about the hiv+ diagnosis. upon arrival in the id clinic, he was subsequently informed of the hiv diagnosis and further testing by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 62 published by scholink inc. infectious disease provider showed a cd4 683 @ 36% and a hiv rna of 58 copies/ml. interestingly, patient was newly married less than 2 years. 1.1 definitions 1) long term non-progressor and/or elite controller-hiv infected people who are symptom free with a cd4 count above 500 cells/mm without the aid of antiretroviral therapy for a minimum of eight years. 2) undetectable=un-transmittable (u=u)—the concept that hiv infected individuals who are virally suppressed cannot transmit the hiv virus. 3) treatment as prevention (tasp)—hiv that is controlled with antiretroviral therapy that reduces the amount of virus in the body which helps to prevent hiv transmission to others via sex, needle sharing or from mother to child-to-child via pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding. 4) cd4 count-cd4 cells are a type of white blood cell. they are sometimes also called t-cells, t-lymphocytes, or helper cells. they work by activating an immune response. one of the fundamental issues with hiv is that the cells meant to initiate an immune defense are the very same cells targeted for infection by human immunodeficiency virus (hiv). your cd4 cell count is the number of blood cells in a cubic millimeter of blood. it is not a count of all the cd4 cells in your body. a higher number indicates a stronger immune system. a normal or a cd4 cell count of a person who does not have hiv can be anything between 500 and 1500. 5) hiv (human immunodeficiency virus). there is no cure for hiv but with effective medical care it can be controlled. hiv attacks the body’s immune system, specifically the cd4 cells (t cells), which help the immune system fight off infections. untreated, hiv decreases the number of cd4 cells (t cells) in the body, making the person more likely to get other infections or infection-related cancers. 6) pre-exposure prophylaxis (prep)—pre-exposure prophylaxis for hiv is an hiv prevention tool used for people who are hiv negative but who are at substantial risk for hiv acquisition. the mainstay of prep is taking a daily pill, truvada, to prevent hiv infection. prep is more than 90% effective in preventing hiv transmission especially when used with condoms and other std/sti prevention methods. 7) hiiv viral load (vl) or hiv rna pcr—a viral load test quantifies the amount of hiv’s genetic material in a blood sample. the results of a viral load test are described as the number of copies of hiv rna in a milliliter of blood. the higher the number the more hiv there is in your blood, then the faster your cd4 cell count will drop which equates to increased risk of becoming ill because of hiv. 8) the joint nations programme on hiv/aids (unaids)—the main global advocate for coordinated and comprehensive for action against the hiv/aids pandemic. 9) unaids goal/target of 90-90-90 (for all countries)—90% of people living with hiv will be diagnosed by 2020. 90% of people diagnosed with hiv will be on antiretroviral therapy by 2020. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 63 published by scholink inc. 90% of people on antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression by 2020. 2. method 2.1 diagnostic focus & assessment 1) hiv testing repeated, including repeating cd4 & hiv rna. a) repeat hiv test (+) b) cd4 683 @ 36% c) hiv rna 58 copies d) patient did not have any clinical symptoms of hiv e) he denied weight loss or major changes in weight/appetite, no diarrhea, no nausea, no vomiting, no sore throat, no skin lesions, no lymphadenopathy 2) wife got hiv tested for hiv & other sexually transmitted diseases (stds)/sexually transmitted infections (stis) she was also tested for tb. a) wife had negative hiv test, negative hiv viral load test, negative rpr, tb, chlamydia/gonorrhea/trichomoniasis tests 3) patient states hiv risk is from ivda done 20 years ago in 1998 which is when he also had syphilis. 4) patient denies any other risk activities to include men who have sex with men (msm) or heterosexual contact other than wife. 5) local health department notified & inquiry done to assess if previous or other hiv testing had been done/recorded within the state database—there was no other hiv testing information found in the database for this patient regarding hiv testing. only the syphilis testing which showed reactive with 1:1 ratio and documentation of appropriate treatment. 2.1.1 therapeutic focus & assessment the patient was prescribed biktarvy. biktarvy is the newest single tablet, once-daily regimen that includes tenofovir alafenamide and emtricitabine (bic/taf/ftc). it is an integrase strand inhibitor (insti) that was approved by the united states food and drug administration in february 2018. single tablet regimens are used when possible and especially for naïve patients for simplification purposes. this drug also has few drug-drug interactions, a higher barrier of resistance when compared to other antiviral medications and has few side effects. also, the taf agent, included in this drug, concentrates in the cd4 cell having 90% less exposure to bone and blood as compared to the tenofovir disoproxil furmarate (tdf) agent and the taf agent it works even with tdf resistance. this patient also received the first shot of the twinrx vaccine series. twinrix is a vaccine that provides active immunity against both the hepatitis a and hepatitis b viruses. it is recommended and administered for people who are hiv infected because providers want to take precautions against patients acquiring other infections. unfortunately, the patient refused the pneumonia and influenza vaccines, for personal https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/sti150879#sti150879-sec https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/sth149722#sth149722-sec https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/sth149741#sth149741-sec www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 64 published by scholink inc. reasons. the patient’s wife is being treated at a local health department with truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (prep) for hiv. the plan is to also treat and cure the hepatitis c infection and then treat latent tuberculosis infection for this patient. 3. result the couple is relieved that the wife is hiv negative. the wife is somewhat knowledgeable about hiv as she has a relative who is hiv (+) and therefore was not threatened or too overwhelmed by the diagnosis. the wife desires to be on prep and to also use condoms, especially for contraception (as she is in her late 40s) after being counselled by the health department representative. the patient is happy that he can tolerate biktarvy without any adverse side effects. the patient is also happy about being on a single tablet regimen and that this diagnosis did not destroy his marriage. 4. discussion this case illustrates that the concept of u=u works. this patient had an un-detectable hiv viral load via, per our assessment, long term non-progressor status. he did not transmit hiv to his wife of less than 2 years, even though he was not on hiv therapy. traditionally, patients who are considered elite controllers or long term non-progressors are not necessarily initiated on antiretroviral therapy (arv). however, this thought process is changing in the age of tasp, single-tablet regimens and with the much-improved side-effect profile noted with nearly all the new arvs currently on the market. this patient specifically was initiated on arv mainly for cardiovascular health to decrease proinflammatory response and to further reduce the likelihood of hiv transmission to his wife. he has some compromised renal function which also makes a case for arv therapy, especially one containing the new tenofovir alafenamide (taf) product, which decreases the potential of adverse side-effects related to bone and renal function especially for this 66-year-old african american male. this case demonstrates the importance of and the increased need for thorough history taking and hiv testing for the general population, but, most notably for high-risk individuals. it also represents the success and the proven biology of the notion undetectable equals un-transmittable (u=u). this outcome for this couple could have been very different and usually is especially for african american women. african americans represent 12% of the united states population but 44% of the new hiv infections. the message of u=u needs to be spread within the community at large to help decrease stigma and discrimination about hiv testing and treatment. moreover, the eastern region of virginia has the highest hiv prevalence (30%) in the state. unfortunately, even with knowledge of these dire statistics, african american women, in particular, underestimate their risk for hiv acquisition. as clinicians and researchers need to continue to advocate for minorities with hiv and those at risk for hiv. we need to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 65 published by scholink inc. draw substantial attention to the co-contributors of poverty, violence, gender oppression, substance abuse, mental illness, incarceration and educational disparities to reach the unaids goal of 90-90-90. acknowledgement my deepest gratitude goes to my mentor barbara cross-jones, phd, fnp-bc for her support, encouragement and technical assistance with this paper. references cd4, viral load, & other tests-viral load. (n.d.). retrieved march 27, 2019, from http://www.aidsmap.com/viral-load/page/1327496/ cichocki, m. (n.d.). what are cd4 t-cells and why are they important? retrieved february 19, 2019, from https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-are-cd4-t-cells-49354 department of health and human services adults and adolescents antiretroviral guidelines panel* classifies a fixed-dose combination product of bictegravir/tenofovir alafenamide/emtricitabine as one of the recommended initial regimens for most people with hiv news. (n.d.). retrieved february 19, 2019, from https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/news/2044/adult-arv-panel-classifies-bic-taf-ftc-asrecommended-initial-re gimen-for-hiv hiv non-progressor status established soon after infection. (n.d.). retrieved march 26, 2019, from http://www.aidsmap.com/hiv-non-progressor-status-established-soon-after-infection/page/14329 75/ topics-achieving the 90-90-90 target. (n.d.). retrieved february 26, 2019, from http://www.aidsmap.com/90-90-90 cdc. (2018, february 21). what are hiv and aids? retrieved march 27, 2019, from https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/about-hiv-and-aids/what-are-hiv-and-aids what to start adult and adolescent arv. (2018, october 25). retrieved march 27, 2019, from https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/guidelines/html/1/adult-and-adolescent-arv/11/what-to-start hiv/aids. (2018, november 1). retrieved march 26, 2019, from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/prep/index.html hiv/aids. (2018, december 18). retrieved march 26, 2019, from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/art/index.html virginia hiv epidemiologic profile. (2016). virginia department of health, office of epidemiology. factsheet cd4 cell counts. (n.d.). retrieved february 19, 2019, from http://www.aidsmap.com/cd4-cell-counts/page/1044596/ about unaids. (n.d.). retrieved february 26, 2019, from http://www.unaids.org/en/whoweare/about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 66 published by scholink inc. hiv/aids. (2019, march 19). retrieved march 27, 2019, from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/racialethnic/africanamericans/index.html durvasula, r. (2018, march). a history of hiv/aids in women: shifting narrative and a structural call to arms. psychology and aids exchange newsletter. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 53 original paper title of the manuscript the phenomenon of ma baoguo under the use and gratification theory dongxu wang 1,2* , y. ahmad 2 , & syed zulkarnain syed idrus 3 1 school of education, zhanjiang university of science and technology, zhanjiang 524088 2 faculty of applied sciences and humanities, universiti malaysia perlis, 01000 kangat perlis, malaysia 3 school of human development and technocommunication, university malaysia perlis, malaysia * corresponding author: dongxu@studentmail.unimap.edu.my received: june 28, 2024 accepted: july 14, 2024 online published: july 31, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p53 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p53 abstract the multi-form self-media technology has expanded the speed of media culture and the sharing of social information resources. the development of science and technology promotes the diversification of media communication, the rapid development of information and the deep integration of society has provided a new resource development. the phenomenon of ma baoguo is a society culture which uses martial arts as a symbol from the perspective of use and gratification theory. under the network platform as the medium and, using pseudo-shaped traditional cultural concepts as the form of expression, the phenomenon of ma baoguo spreads a ugliness and entertainment of society by using the way of information commercialization thinking image. through the use and gratification theory, the phenomenon of ma baoguo is an epitome of traditional chinese literature under the imbalance of rapid economic development and cultural diversity, which highlights the crack between the traditional and modern culture represented about chinese martial arts under the embarrassing and contradictory situation. the impact of non-mainstream rational values and irrational mainstream entertainment thinking is a group phenomenon under the diversified information. keywords media studies, informatization, ma baoguo, martial arts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 54 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction today is an era in which media and culture interpenetrate, complement each other and confirm each other. the globalization of mass communications was driven by the spread of satellite and cable tv, cellular mobile telephones, the internet, and multimedia convergence (norris & inglehart, 2009). with the rapid development of network, communication technology has improved by the terminal and optical fiber and the channel, the form of personality and information exchange between platforms has become the mainstream of contemporary network communication. the important role of mass emotions as a tool that unites people in social communications, induces a centrifugal force that reformats “collective soul” of the audience to the state of “public opinion” through communication apperception (demutska, 2021). mass media is strongly influencing public opinion and our worldview, and media narratives shape and change the way we view the world (muzzatti & rigato, 2007). undoubtedly, the essence of communication is still the dissemination or sharing of social information. in the new information age background of diversified network platform resources, explosive change of information, commercialization of digital media, mainstreaming of media entertainment and inclusive ideology, every individual has the opportunity of cultural communication and a platform for innovation. the internet industry has become the “fertile soil” that cultivates the modern economic system, and the support of capital has undoubtedly promoted the rapid development of the internet industry. in the process of capital and the internet, capital undoubtedly plays the role of catalyst promoting the internet consumption and industry. from this, many small platforms such as facebook, youtube, whats-app, tiktok, bilibili, sns, wiki are represented, and many other anchor information platforms with individuals as the main body are derived. new network applications are staged new cultural business model. the continuous development of new media technology and internet technology has changed the power structure of the audience to obtain and disseminate information, and promoted the empowerment of groups on the basis of self-empowerment, thus promoting the empowerment of society and organizations (dai, 2022). social media, the interactive, global and hypertext link internet communication form formed by the form of network socialization, the interaction, immediacy, equal rights, diversity and low cost of communication communication are highly appreciated by the public. the connection and interaction by approved the trust and social interactions strengthen, which contribute to enhancing the user‟s motivation for sustainable consumption (ertz & elgaaied-gambier, 2023). chinese martial arts have 5,000 years of inheritance traces. chinese martial arts thought have been deeply influenced by multiple local cultures such as traditional chinese confucianism, taoist philosophy, and buddhist culture in the historical changes. it has formed symbols of body culture and martial arts, full of chinese national spirit and a national culture with aesthetic appeal. it can be said that chinese martial arts is a mirror of chinese traditional culture. from the thought of chinese martial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 55 published by scholink inc. arts, we can get a glimpse of the spiritual belief and national character and quality of chinese people in the farming era (ciembroniewicz, 2019). however, with the diversification of culture and the change of social ecological model, chinese martial arts is facing the impact and extrusion of multiple external environments such as the weakening of the value of fighting skills, the rupture of the master-apprentice inheritance model, and the impact of emerging fitness and competitive sports. like beijing opera, acrobatics and other local traditional cultures and skills, traditional chinese martial arts are facing a marginalized situation on the verge of being forgotten (liu & liu, 2016). with the legalization of modern times, the fighting essence of martial arts has gradually lost the essence of its skills and the way of inheritance, forming a kind of imaginary memory. on the contrary, with the rapidity of mobile communication resources and the increase of people‟s fragmented time, the benefits of commercialized internet traffic from individual or team-based multi-platform communication have become increasingly prominent, and have become a new entertainment and economic ecology. the cultural dissemination of the internet is also a microcosm of the values and aesthetics of the public opinion field. ma baoguo in the self-media era and the phenomenon of ma baoguo‟s internet culture caused by it are just such a representative figure who has no intention of spreading martial arts values and has aroused the pursuit of the internet. ma baoguo‟s words “mouse tail juice” and “young people do not talk about martial arts” have become the new generation of online buzzwords. although ma baoguo‟s words and deeds and a series of subsequent commercialization behaviors have been controversial by major mainstream media and the public, the communication phenomenon projected by ma baoguo himself and the causes of its internal environment are worthy of our deep thinking and exploration. 2. background the interaction effect of the group extends an extended era of network communication. the popularity of new media allows people to immerse themselves in the dual spiritual world of reality and virtualization more freely, expanding and supplementing the spiritual needs and spiritual enjoyment in real life in the network world. the new communicative surroundings are radically transforming traditional communication between people. it is destroying channel information, experience and spiritual values created by men (korableva, 2015). and when this virtual ecology gradually becomes a part of life, people will gradually blur the cracks and boundaries between reality and virtual space, creating a sense of recognition and satisfaction psychologically. the network society offers a radically new view of the world and metaphoric of thinking (frolova & volkov, 2015). therefore, the new media is called a pan-socialized ecological mode in the individual or society. under the cultural ideology, economic complemented mode and social coexistence mode, the individual living space gradually realizes the “universal” form of globalization. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 56 published by scholink inc. in 2020, coincides with the historical period of the global covid-19 pandemic, ma baoguo, an ordinary person with no political qualifications or capital background, has aroused the enthusiasm of the internet on china‟s internet platforms. ma baoguo‟s short video of actual combat and post-match self-defeat interpretation, and his iconic actions of “mouse tail juice” and “five whips with lightning” in strong language slang, once caused a media top stream with 1 billion traffic on the internet. as a result, ma baoguo once became a celebrity on the internet platform. the imitation of ma baoguo‟s image and the creation of new media such as language and animation technology have been continuously refreshed and pushed by major platforms, which has triggered a wave of entertainment in the whole society about the essence of chinese martial arts and ma baoguo‟s sect. china‟s mainstream media and the official people‟s daily commented that it is characterized as a culture of judging ugliness because of its value orientation of “sensationalism, bluffing, traffic supremacy, and pursuit of interests”. as a result, ma baoguo‟s related media works and commercial promotions were suspended from various platforms, and became jokes or stories containing chinese martial arts symbols among the media. a series of social phenomena such as the traffic value generated by the ma baoguo phenomenon, the mainstream attention of social groups, the controversy of the era of martial arts, and china‟s official cultural criticism and guidance are worthy of our reflection. 3. use and gratification theoretical based on the use and gratification theory, this paper studies the social background and public psychology of ma baoguo phenomenon, and analyzes the era communication effect factors and game characteristics of ma baoguo phenomenon, so as to explore the cultural communication essence of ma baoguo phenomenon. in 1974, american sociologist elihu katz and j. g. bromel edited (the uses of mass communications, 1974). elihu katz summarized media contact as a causal chain process of “social factors + psychological factors” and “media expectations-media contact-demand satisfaction”, and proposed the basic mode of “use and satisfaction”. under the “use and satisfaction” mode, the audience uses the use of the public to use the media to achieve the dependence psychology of families or social levels with the help of the media (child & haridakis, 2017). the medium of communication can compete with interpersonal communication or other traditional ways of satisfying needs. the internet has promoted the spiritual needs of individuals for online virtual games and social (liu et al., 2017). it is the best competitive strategy for network media to expand the popularity of the media by using hot events or emergencies on the internet. in the context of internet platforms and group participation, ma bao‟s chinese language and martial arts movement form new fission -type communication on social media such as weibo, wechat, and zhihu, and thus has further strengthened its scope of communication and communication. from station www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 57 published by scholink inc. b to the entire network, the catalysis of the platform enables the malaysian national fans to get the attention of people from different circles in the internet, and then promote the expansion of the scope of the spread of the “malaysian phenomenon” (zhou & cheng，2016). based on this, after sorting out the source and development process of the ma baoguo phenomenon, we found that the ma baoguo phenomenon is just a social phenomenon in the “use and satisfaction” communication effect (the relationship of ma baoguo phenomenon: figure 1). figure 1. the relationship between the factors of the use and satisfaction of the spread effect in the ma baoguo phenomenon 4. discussion 4.1 the imbalance of chinese social economy and cultural development under the background of ma baoguo phenomenon china‟s economy accounts for 10% of the global economy, making it the second largest economy in the world. china‟s overall economic strength has increased, infrastructure investment has increased, people‟s material living standards have improved, and the pace of life and life pressure have shown a squeeze-like increase amid rapid economic growth. under the dual economic structure, urban-rural division, urban-rural development, and excessive income gap have become the main contradictions in china‟s economic development, resulting in a kind of “involution” form of factors such as real estate, education, work, pension, competition, and life mental stress. correspondingly, china‟s cultural development is lagging behind, and even under the influence of multicultural factors and the promotion of commercial culture, the positive cultural guiding effect is showing a weak trend. fueled by social ethos such as unrestrained entertainment, flaunting wealth, fraud, and comparison psychology, the crime rate has risen, etc., and the prevalence of internet culture presents and reflects the imbalance of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 58 published by scholink inc. china‟s mainstream culture and ideology under the contemporary economic background. unreasonable reform mechanisms lead to social stratification and differentiation, which in turn leads to social rupture. similarly, serious cultural deviations cannot be fundamentally reversed in a short period of time. china‟s social transformation and cultural change are facing severe challenges. the legalization of china‟s social order and serious cultural deviations, as well as the inconsistency between local culture and modern global culture, have formed a new social and cultural contradiction. the media communication intuitively presents the focus and dilemma of this contradiction. at the same time, new media communication also brings a new consumer market and market brand value for commercialization to expand the strategic market, increase the integration of strategic capital, and the aggregation of product production resources. based on the content of radio, television, film, and new media technologies, a person creates an image of himself, his own potentials, values, success, as well as his own affiliation, a certain class, race, nationality, and thus media culture has a remarkable social significance (ljajić, 2020). the audience is gradually changing from the recipient of traditional media to the role of the leader. there is a rational law of co-prosperity and balanced development between economy and culture. when business and culture produce ideological imbalance or confrontation in the social development trend, the true spiritual value of culture must rationally exclude and restrain the irrational economic development. deviation of group values. the internet provides a platform for the exchange of ideas and perspectives, and it has the potential to shape and transform social and cultural norms and values (laoebela et al., 2023). against this background of culture and social ecology, the internet star phenomenon represented by ma baoguo is the inevitable status quo of the lack of traditional chinese culture and aesthetic values, and the imbalance between rapid economic development and cultural diversity. in other words, the phenomenon of ma baoguo is more like a rebellion and ridicule of the values of mainstream media and social norms under the state of imbalance of china‟s economy and culture. 4.2 the thrust of the internet economy era under the background of the ma baoguo phenomenon bakhtin pointed out in the carnivalization theory that people live two lives in reality. one is daily life, one is a carnival life, and in the carnival life, people are not restricted by the hierarchical world. emotional emotions are the total celebration, etiquette, and form of all carnival (eweis, 2021). with the advent of the information age and the popularization of multimedia platforms, the economic benefits of entertainment have become prominent. various entertainment programs in china have multiplied. the era of individual independence and loss of social ecology brought about by the internet and the era of economy and entertainment have gradually formed a new cultural form. virtual culture and virtual consumption have become new ways of enjoying in the digital age. while the internet brings convenience to people‟s life and work, it also implies some potential dangers and disadvantages. news, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 59 published by scholink inc. rumors, and information of all kinds can spread quickly without being constrained by adversaries or institutions (hongchuaru, 2015). a series of problems caused by the internet are also prominent, such as fraud, managing anchors, etc., which have become an important part of social instability. information dissemination and lifestyle represented by “floating symbols” are constantly changing and updating people‟s living and cultural cognition. the internet has promoted the way of social and cultural communication, and at the same time endowed art forms with new cultural connotations and emotional experience transmission. digital media art creates and integrates people‟s rational thinking and artistic thinking, forming a shared communication of new aesthetic appeal and value experience. the dissemination of new media has driven the progress of civilization such as the openness of social information, cultural inclusiveness and diversity, and fair competition. at the same time, it is inevitable to face the impact of multiculturalism on local culture and the crisis of homogenization. the network kuso phenomenon has become a self and self realization of the platform of public display. but for the public, it is important to realize themselves in the network, and get the opportunity to be read and accepted, so as to meet the public‟s desire to show themselves (lei, 2017). the internet economy brings various media platforms, disseminates various information cultures and reaps cultural and commercial benefits at the same time. the new digital communication platform has a positive value of the times for the national culture that expresses the common truth, goodness and beauty of mankind. mutations make the fans of ma baoguo seemed more adaptable to the public‟s environment, which causes more internet users to actively or passively participate in the carnival of the “ma baoguo phenomenon”, strengthening the exposure and spread of the style of ma baoguo in the field of public, so the “ma baoguo phenomenon” was expanded in the strong spread in the network medium (li & he, 2021). the phenomenon of ma baoguo reflects a highly commercial hype and pursuit of capital interests of the internet star effect. however, the aspect of the ma baoguo phenomenon reflects the rapid development and popularization of the internet traffic economy, and traffic earning has become a new way and means of economic development under the social background of the new era. whether the social group cultural orientation caused by the flow benefit pursued by the individual platform represented by the ma baoguo phenomenon is positive or negative is worthy of in-depth reflection by managers and participants at multiple levels of society. 4.3 the rise of subject entertainment under the background of ma baoguo phenomenon the american “wired” magazine said that it is a new information age of “person to person”. the internet business platform has brought a new form of individual cultural media and business models. the dissemination of network culture in the form of traffic and management has become a new digital network business model. this kind of network ecology provides a new consumption space for disseminating positive cultural values, displaying personal skills and abilities, developing free speech views, expanding commodity markets, and satisfying spiritual entertainment needs. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 60 published by scholink inc. the spoof culture meets the needs of people‟s pursuit of entertainment, creating an abnormal effect through various expression methods such as collage, irony, and imitation, and creation and enjoying the joy of spoof in subversion and deconstruction (cui, 2008). china‟s emerging internet celebrities represented by ma baoguo are the representatives of this kind of main entertainment exporter. the needs of netizens and the tolerance of “spoof” are the widespread spread of ““spoof” works. at the same time, entertainment, as one of the functions of mass media, has been manifested in the spread of “spoof” work (zhao, 2006). with the promotion and support of the entertainment platform, the internet has become an emerging position for individual entertainment. the ma baoguo phenomenon is essentially the status quo of social value consciousness that earns traffic dividends with information capital at the cost of slandering traditional chinese martial arts culture in the form of smearing and passive entertainment. 4.4 the psychological needs of group entertainment under the background of ma baoguo phenomenon the media guru mcluhan once described the media as the greatest driving force leading to social change. according to relevant research, by december 2022, china‟s webcast users will reach 751 million, and china‟s mobile internet users will reach 1.067 billion. the mobile phone, as a basic communication tool, has gradually become a tool for mass entertainment. the entertainment information disseminated by the internet media has become one of the focuses that attract people‟s entertainment psychology and curiosity. the public has evolved its own context and experience in the real society into such a popular cultural phenomenon, which eliminates the pressure, emotions, and encounters in social life. coordination with virtual space (jiang & zhang, 2020). the value of the media lies in spreading positive energy, guiding the public to rationally recognize and face real life, and create a sense of happiness. the entertainment psychology of the people also reflects the social and cultural characteristics under the background of the times. the non-binding nature of the law, the blindness of the group, as well as the star effect and curiosity have created the public‟s aesthetic taste in entertainment. in the pressure of life and the spiritual satisfaction of needs, drawing on common interests and awareness has become the mainstream of the cultural needs of the people. internet users use the characteristics of the internet freely and virtual anonymity in the micro-propagation environment to play their creativity to perform social events and phenomena to drama, ridicule, and entertainment spoofs to alleviate the pressure of real life, release the energy of daily depression, pursue carnival, and pursue carnival life experience (ye, 2016). behind the phenomenon of ma baoguo, there is no doubt that it reflects the entertainment psychological needs of the chinese people today and a true reflection of the use of media. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 61 published by scholink inc. 4.5 the questioning of traditional chinese martial arts and the decline of self-confidence under the background of ma baoguo phenomenon hovland proposed that the higher the authority of the communicator, the greater its influence on the audience, and the better the effect of communication. however, the dissociation of communicators and messages can occur over time. after reminding the audience again of the identity of the communicator, the influence is restored again. the questioning of chinese martial arts stems from the lack of essence of chinese martial arts and the decline of the market. there is a long history of written records of chinese martial arts owners. the essence of chinese martial arts is to prohibit violence and suppress armed warfare, that is, the pursuit of peace for self-protection and a strong military force. as an ancient china in the era of agricultural environment and cold weapons, martial arts are highly valued in military warfare. therefore, martial arts presents more fighting skills that emphasize equipment and fights that weaken boxing limbs. however, with the institutionalization of ancient chinese civilization and the stable development of social ecology, the performance art of martial arts and the health value of martial arts have evolved into a fusion art performance after absorbing many local cultures such as chinese confucianism, taoism, mohism, buddhism, martial arts skills, health care, military fighting and other cultural forms of multiple identities. in particular, the promotion of martial ethics in martial arts ethics, combined with chinese confucian ethics and morals, forms a cultural identity of martial arts groups, which has been respected and imitated by generations of people. at the level of life of martial arts, the martial arts people use health to make the “body appliances” and the objective link that completes the formation of life, and through the educational “body props” and ethical interactive objective connection. the “body weapon” and competitive opponents are compatible with each other (chen, 2022). the offensive and defensive strategies and fighting skills advocated by the ancient army, as well as folk bodyguards pressing goods and guarding homes, and even robbers and bandits in society, all use martial arts as their basic survival skills and survival instincts. the dart bureau has demanded that the spirit of martial arts promotes the spirit of “justice”, “anmin”, “kuang fuzheng”, “seeing righteousness” and the martial arts demanded that it has become the main force of the chinese martial arts spirit (liu et al., 2008). the essence of martial arts is the existence of people‟s needs, the existence of traditional chinese morality, and the existence of “people” and “self-transcendence” (dong & zhang, 2013). however, the emergence and prevalence of modern gunpowder equipment gradually weakened and replaced the military value of ancient martial arts. as a result, the abolition of the social status of martial arts as an official represented by the “martial arts system” and the development of modern weapons, martial arts gradually lost abandoning the original social value, it has evolved into a new-age routine image performing a form of health preservation. chinese martial arts is a process from simple and constantly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 62 published by scholink inc. moving to complex, a process from “strike” to “culture” (wang, 2019). as a result, it has gradually lost its original authentic cultural and social value, and has been questioned by the world. the marginalization of traditional martial arts transmission channels, the weakening of chinese martial arts culture dissemination, the satisfaction of chinese spiritual culture and the impact of western hollywood film and television culture, and the false negative effects of fake martial arts masters in society, the combat value of traditional chinese martial arts has been highly valued question. at the same time, in the context of legalization, the lack of practicality of chinese martial arts has made chinese martial arts gradually become a form of memory and imagination, and traditional chinese martial arts have gradually lost their cultural self-confidence. the martial arts philosophy spread by ma baoguo and the various ugly martial arts images derived from it once again highlighted the embarrassing situation of traditional chinese martial arts, and it is also the social status quo in which traditional chinese values are being impacted in the new multicultural environment. 5. conclusion the phenomenon of ma baoguo is a phenomenon of networked cultural commercialization and an inevitable phenomenon of the development of media studies under the highly integrated culture of economy. from the perspective of communication, the entertainment art phenomenon of false behavior is a normal social phenomenon, but a series of negative entertainment values and aesthetic values reflected and derived by it are worthy of criticism and reflection. in terms of using and satisfying the value of dissemination, the phenomenon of group entertainment is also a kind of spiritual therapy of culture. behind the suppression of the ma baoguo phenomenon is a rational expression of the mainstream values leading the public to be positive under the belief of china‟s economic recovery and national rejuvenation. there is no justice behind culture and entertainment, only ideological approval and controversy. the ma baoguo phenomenon is just a social phenomenon that has been controversial and entertaining due to the high degree of integration of technology platforms with commerce, culture, and entertainment under the background of rapid information development. the era of fragmentation. the phenomenon of ma baoguo highlights the embarrassing and contradictory situation in the breakup period between traditional and modern culture represented by chinese martial arts. the ma baoguo phenomenon is a group cultural phenomenon under the impact of non-mainstream rational values and irrational mainstream entertainment thinking under the information diversification. rational entertainment and values are the mainstream media orientation for the stable development and progress of a country and society, while irrational and entertainment-based distorted spiritual satisfaction is becoming the mainstream of network cultural communication. this contradiction and imbalance between rational non-mainstream media orientation and irrational group blind entertainment spiritual consumption www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 63 published by scholink inc. reflects the potential crisis and development trend of chinese spiritual culture. references chen, q. 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(2016). participation of no boundary: adaptability and cross-cultural dissemination of the cause of the internet. academic research, (9), 45-53. https://doi.org/10.58982/jdlp.v2i2.310 https://www.scilit.net/wcg/container_group/60270 https://www.scilit.net/wcg/container_group/60270 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 34 original paper breast feeding knowledge and practices among primiparous women with caesarean section: impact on breast engorgement in upper egypt hanan elzeblawy hassan1*, galal ahmed el-kholy2, aziza ahmed ateya3 & amal ahmed hassan4 1 maternal and newborn health nursing department, faculty of nursing, beni-suef university, egypt 2 professor of obstetrics & gynecology, faculty of medicine, benha university, egypt 3 professor of maternal and newborn health nursing, faculty of nursing, ain shams university, egypt 4 professor of obstetrics and women’s’ health nursing department, benha university, egypt * hanan elzeblawy hassan, maternal and newborn health nursing department, faculty of nursing, beni-suef university, egypt received: march 10, 2020 accepted: march 26, 2020 online published: april 8, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n2p34 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n2p34 abstract background: the benefits of breast milk are greatly enhanced if breastfeeding starts within one hour after birth. hunan milk contains a host of dynamic and unique feeding properties. breast engorgement is one of the most common minor discomforts confronting nursing women after delivery, especially primiparous. the aim of the study was to investigate the breastfeeding knowledge and practices among primiparous women with a cesarean section and its impact on breast engorgement in upper egypt. the study was conducted in the postnatal unit of beni-suef university hospital. the study design was a descriptive study. the type of sample was a simple random sample. the study comprised 90 primiparous cesarean section mothers; suffer from breast engorgement. tools of data collection were interview questionnaire sheet, knowledge assessment sheet, observational checklist, and engorgement assessment scale. the study revealed that the studied women’s knowledge and technique of breastfeeding were not adequate among the whole study sample. breast engorgement was more prevalent among the younger, less educated, housewives, low social class’s women and those who were rural dwellers. recommendation: providing the mother with guidance and support on positioning and latching and modification of hospital practices are effective in reducing breast problems. keywords primiparous, knowledge, caesarian section, breast engorgement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction breast milk is the natural and optimal food for the newborn infant. it is superior to any alternative form of infant formula and is uniquely designed to meet the nutritional needs of the infant. the benefits are greatly enhanced if breastfeeding starts within one hour after birth. early breastfeeding allows the baby to enjoy the benefits of colostrum and prevent many infant feeding problems. hunan milk contains a host of dynamic and unique feeding properties. studies have demonstrated that the health benefits of breast milk are associated with how long an infant receive it and whether breast milk is given exclusively or supplemented with other feedings (jane et al., 2002; abd-allah et al., 2017). the advantages of breastfeeding are more than just the advantages of feeding a baby on breast milk. breastfeeding protects a mother’s health in several ways and can benefit the whole family, and society (oddy, 2002). education of mother about breastfeeding will increase the like-hood of successful breastfeeding experience. breastfeeding is not instinctive, it is learned. it is a natural process, but takes “know-how”. ideally, each breastfeeding mother should have a breastfeeding evaluation to determine any knowledge deficit and acknowledge. for breastfeeding, teaching topics include comfortable position, appropriate techniques, feeding frequency, the letdown reflex, care of breast, and length of feeding (davidson et al., 2008; abd-allah et al., 2017). breast engorgement is considered among the most significant problems encountered in the 1st week of motherhood (blck et al., 2007). breast engorgement is stated as enlarged and filling of the breasts with milk. lactation literature refers to engorgement as the physiologic condition characterized by the painful swelling of the breasts associated with sudden increase in milk volume, lymphatic and vascular congestion, and interstitial edema during the first two weeks following birth. engorgement is a normal physiologic process with a progression of events, not a result of trauma or injury to tissues (walker, 2010; hassan, 2011). breast engorgement is one of the most common minor discomforts confronting nursing women after delivery, especially primiparous. as a result of increased blood supply to the breast, it causes swelling of the tissue surrounding the milk ducts. the duct may be pinched shut so that the milk does not flow (wilson & lowdermilk, 2006; and riordan & hoover, 2005). the breasts are firm, tinder, swollen & hot and they are throbbing. the skin is taut, shiny, or transparent and low-grade fever. the tenderness & swelling may extend into the axilla. the areola is firm and the nipple may flatten, and the areola is too hard to grasp, making it difficult for a newborn to latch on (wilson & lowdermilk, 2006; mohrbacher et al., 1997). some degree of breast engorgement is normal. minimal or no engorgement in the first week postpartum has been associated with insufficient milk, early supplementation, and a higher percentage of breastfeeding decline in the early weeks. women with mild to moderate hypoplastic breasts with a wide intramammary space (>1 inch) and a tubular shape are at particular risk for producing less than 50 % of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. the milk necessary for the first week (newton & newton., 1951, neifert et al., 1990; huggins et al., 2000; hassan et al., 2020 “a”). moderate to severe engorgement is of more concern. rates of engorgement between 20% and 85% have been reported in the literature based on numerous definitions and are usually limited to the first few days postpartum. such reports described engorgement as peaking between day 3 and day 6 and declining thereafter. however, data from two unpublished masters theses suggest that mothers experience more than one peak of engorgement and that engorgement may continue for as long as ten days or more (riedel, 1991; csar, 1991). if breast engorgement is not promptly treated, it may lead to some complications such as; feeding problems or slow weight gain if the baby is unable to latch on the engorged breast (davidson et al., 2008), sore and cracked nipple due to the baby fumbling on/off as he tries to grasp hold of a too firm breast. (morland et al., 2005), deep breast pain (in most cases this response to improvement of breastfeeding technique and is thus likely to be due to raised intraductal pressure caused by inefficient milk removal). (fraser et al., 2004), thrush; a fungal infection can be formed on the nipple or within the breast (especially cracked nipple or congested breast), as they live on milk. (agamy, 2011), plugged ducts (some mothers experience plugging of one or more ducts, results from accumulation of milk or dead cells that have not been expelled from the breast) (orshan, 2008), damage of the milk-producing cells which may in turn cause an overall decrease in milk supply (mohrbacher et al., 1997), mastitis (acute intramammary), and breast abscess (riordan, 2005a; gregory, 2005; salhan, 2007; hassan, 2011). 1.1 significant of the study breast engorgement is considered among the most significant problems encountered in the first week of motherhood. moderate to severe engorgement is of more concern. rates of engorgement between 20% and 85% have been reported in the literature based on numerous definitions. the main importance lies in the fact that the engorged breast can prevent nursing, leading to a decrease in milk production (hanretty et al., 2003). one of the most important aspects of midwifery care is providing accurate and consistent advice on how to prevent breast engorgement and, if the problem occurs, how to overcome it, to reduce early cessation of breastfeeding. therefore, this study was undertaken to assess women knowledge and practiced regarding breastfeeding. assess the prevalence and severity of breast engorgement among a group of breastfeeding women delivered the caesarian section. apply and find out the effect of some nursing measures that may relief breast engorgement among a group of breastfeeding women with a cesarean section. 1.2 aim of the study investigate the breastfeeding knowledge and practices among primiparous women with cesarean section and its impact on breast engorgement in upper egypt. the aims of this study achieved through: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 37 published by scholink inc. assess the women with breast engorgement among a group of breastfeeding women delivered the caesarian section. 1.3 research questions 1) what is the knowledge adequacy regarding breastfeeding among primiparous women with cesarean section in upper egypt? 2) what is the competence of breast-feeding practices among primiparous women with cesarean section in upper egypt? 3) what is the prevalence and degrees of severity of breast engorgement among a group of breastfeeding women delivered the caesarian section? 4) is breast engorgement among a group of breastfeeding women delivered the caesarian section will be affected by women’s knowledge and practices of breastfeeding? 2. method 2.1 technical design: 2.1.1 study design: this study is a descriptive study. 2.1.2 setting: the study was conducted in postnatal unit of beni-suef university hospital. 2.1.3 subjects: 2.1.3.1 samples size: total study subjects of 90 primiparous parturient women who delivered by caesarian section and suffer from breast engorgement for a period of 6 months were included in the study from the previously mentioned setting with the following criteria; free from medical disease which interferes with breastfeeding (infectious disease as active pulmonary tuberculosis), initiate breastfeeding, her baby is normal. 2.1.3.2 sample type: primiparous women who delivered by caesarean section randomly selected. 2.1.4 tools of data collection: three tools were used to collect the necessary data about the study subjects as the following: tool (1): a specialized designed structured interview schedule was developed based on the review of currently related literature and used by the researcher to collect the necessary data about the study subjects. it comprised of two main parts: part (a): a structured interview questioner: 1) included the general characteristics of the study subjects such as name, age, residence, address, phone number, educational level, type of family, family income, occupation. 2) antenatal assessment sheet to assess antenatal care during the last pregnancy. part (b): knowledge assessment sheet: 1) it included questions related to women’s knowledge regarding breastfeeding. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 38 published by scholink inc. 2) also, included questions related to women’s knowledge regarding breast engorgement concerning its definition, causes, signs & symptoms, complications as well as practices for its management. scoring system for women’s knowledge: puerperal women’s knowledge about breast feeding and breast engorgement. the answers to the questions were divided into two categories; these were a correct and incorrect answer. a. 0 = incorrect answer. b. 1 = correct answer. the correct answers were predetermined according to literature and the questions were coded accordingly. each knowledge question was given a score and the total score for knowledge regarding breastfeeding and breast engorgement was obtained for each study subject. the possible range for the score was from zero to 100 for knowledge regarding breastfeeding, while it was from zero to 30 regarding breast engorgement. women’s total score of knowledge was classified as follows:  if ≥ 75 % correct answer = good score.  if from 50% & < 75 % correct answer = average score.  if < 50 % correct answer = poor score. tool (2): breastfeeding assessment: it comprised of two main parts: part (a): observational checklist: it contains items related to proper breastfeeding technique as the initiation of breastfeeding, the technique used in breastfeeding, duration of breastfeeding, unilateral or bilateral breastfeeding, rooming-in, method of nipple withdrawal, and the number of breastfeeding per day. part (b): breast feeding assessment: during the birthing unit stay, the researcher, carefully, monitor the progress of the breastfeeding pair. a systematic assessment of several breastfeeding episodes provides the opportunity to teach the new mother about lactation and the breastfeeding process, provide anticipatory guidance, and evaluate the need of follow up care after discharge. criteria for evaluating a breastfeeding session include maternal & infant cues, latch on, position, and let down, nipple condition, infant response, and maternal response. the literature provides a previous tool to guide the assessment and documentation of breastfeeding efforts (orshan, 2008). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 39 published by scholink inc. latch scoring table 0 1 2 l latch * too sleepy or reluctant * no latch achieved * repeated attempts * hold nipple in mouth * stimulate to suck * grasps breast * tongue down * lips flanged * rhythmic sucking a audible sound non a few with stimulation *spontaneous & intermittent>24 hours old *spontaneous & frequent <24 hours old t type of nipple inverted flat diverted(after stimulation) c comfort (breast nipple) * engorgement *cracked, bleeding, large blisters or bruises * sever discomfort * filling * reddened * small blisters or bruises *mild/ moderate discomfort * soft * no tender h hold (positioning) full assist (staff hold infant at breast) *minimal assist (e.g. elevate head of bed, place pillows for support). * teach one side; mother does other * staff holds and then mother takes over * no assistant from staff * mother able to position & hold infant a breastfeeding charting & documentation tool. (latch) was created to provide a systematic method for breastfeeding assessment and charting. it can be used to assist the newborn mother in establishing breastfeeding & define areas of needed intervention (davidson m., london m. & ladewig p., 2008). tool (3): engorgement assessment scale: this tool was especially designed to provide the baseline data of the subjects regarding their signs and symptoms of the engorged breast. it was implemented by using an observational checklist which illustrated the breast current condition (redness, swollen or edema of the skin and pain) as well as pyrexia. this tool comprised four main parts: part (a): modified reeda scale (rs) (note 1) the modified reeda scale (rs, 1989) was used to provide the most objective means for evaluating the condition of the engorged breast after delivery concerning to redness (r). mild redness was characterized by presence less than 0.25 cm of redness in the bilateral breasts or less than 0.5 cm of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 40 published by scholink inc. redness in the unilateral breast. moderate redness was characterized by an increase of redness to 0.5 cm in the bilateral breasts or 1 cm in only one breast. severe redness was characterized by an increase of redness to more than 0.5 cm in each breast or more than 1 cm in only one breast. redness was determined through four levels:  no redness = 0.  mild redness (if redness < 0.25 cm bilateral or < 0.5 cm unilateral) = 1.  moderate redness (if redness = 0.5 cm bilateral or = 1 cm unilateral) = 2.  severe redness (if redness > 0.5cm bilateral or > 1 cm unilateral) = 3. part (b): visual analog scale (vas) it is a subjective self-reported scale for description mother self-rating of pain. the scale was used to identify the three pain levels according to la foy and geden (1989) as the following: mild pain was characterized by pinking and/or aching, moderate pain was characterized by pressing, sharp cramping, and burning, while severe pain was characterized by no tolerance to pain. pain was determined through four levels:  no pain = 0.  mild pain = 1.  moderate pain = 2.  severe pain = 3. part (c): newton’s scale (1951) this scale entails measuring the chest circumference just above the nipple in the semi-recumbent position during the first 12 hours after delivery (jacob, 2005; snowden et al., 2005). this measurement is considered to baseline measurement to assess breast edema as the following: no edema was characterized by an increase of chest circumference of less than 1.5 cm. mild edema was characterized by an increase of chest circumference of 1.5 cm to less than 2.5 cm. moderate edema was characterized by an increase of chest circumference of 2.5 cm to less than 4 cm. sever edema was characterized by an increase of chest circumference of more than 4 cm. breast edema was determined through four levels:  no edema = 0.  mild edema = 1.  moderate edema = 2.  severe edema = 3. part (d): pyrexia chart a thermometer is used to measure body temperature (to determine pyrexia). pyrexia was assessed through four levels: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 41 published by scholink inc.  no pyrexia (body temperature = 37 oc to 37.4oc) = 0.  mild pyrexia (body temperature = 37.5 oc to 37.9) =1.  moderate pyrexia (body temperature = 38 oc to 38.4) = 2.  severe pyrexia (body temperature ≥ 38.5 oc) = 3. total scale of breast engorgement: the occurrence of breast engorgement was determined according to the collection of the total scores in tool (3): total (t) = redness + pain + edema + pyrexia. the degree of breast engorgement was estimated according to the following:  no breast engorgement if t < 4 .  mild breast engorgement if t ≥ 4 & < 8 .  moderate breast engorgement if t ≥ 8 & < 12 .  sever breast engorgement if t ≥ 12 .  no engorgement = 0.  mild engorgement = 1.  moderate engorgement = 2.  severe engorgement = 3. 2.2 operational design the study to be completed was passed through different phases as follows: preparatory phase then the pilot study and the field work. 2.2.1preparatory phase tools development:-the tools of data collection were developed by the researcher after extensive review of recent and related literature. 2.2.2 ethical considerations:  the researcher took consent from women included participating in the study.  the researcher tools didn’t embarrass of modesty and didn’t cause any harm or pain for the participant women.  the researcher tools didn’t cause any physical, psychological and social risk.  the participant has the right to withdraw at any time. 2.2.3 pilot study a pilot study was carried out on 10% of women (18 cases) who were excluded from the sample to ascertain their clarity, estimated time, efficiency and applicability and the necessary changes were undertaken. 2.2.4 field work (procedure): the researcher selects lactating cesarean women who fulfilled the criteria. the researcher explained the purpose of the study to every woman, and then her consent to participate in the study was obtained. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 42 published by scholink inc. each interview was conducted individually and in total privacy to assure that information to be obtained will be confidential and will be used only for research purpose. six days per week specified for data collection until the study sample completed for 6 months starting from january till june 2010. women attended to the postnatal ward were interviewed. the average number of the interviewee was 1-3 per day and the time taken for each sheet to complete was 50-60 minutes, depending upon the response of interviewee. the study proceeds as the following: a. the whole primiparous cesarean women were interviewed by the researcher during the first 12 hours after delivery to find out the general characteristics of the sample and assess their knowledge about breastfeeding and breast engorgement. also, the condition of their breasts was assessed during the initial interview according to the pre-designed checklist which is used in newton’s scale. this assessment was considered as the base-line measurement of chest circumference. b. the whole sample (90 lactating women) that was suffered from breast engorgement. they were interviewed by the researcher in the 3rd postnatal day to identify their current signs, symptoms and complain (base-line data of the participants). 2.3 administrative design official permission to conduct the study was obtained from responsible authorities after an explanation of the purpose of the study. 2.4 statistical design the data collected were computerized, revised, categorized, tabulated, analyzed, and presented in descriptive and associated statistical form using the statistical software spss. the necessary tables were then prepared and statistical formulas were used. the following statistical measures were used: a. descriptive measures included percentages, arithmetic mean (x-), and standard deviation (sd). b. statistical tests included: 1) chi-square (x2) test for analysis of qualitative variables. 2) r test for analysis of correlation association. c. graphical presentation included column-chart diagrams. d. the level of significance selected for this study was p equal to or less than 0.05. 3. result table 1 illustrates the distribution of the study subjects according to their general characteristics. it was found that the mean age was 23.25 ± 5.75 and the mean age of marriage was 21.62 ± 6.25. concerning their level of education, it was clear that those who had secondary or equivalent secondary education constituted 40.0% of the studied group. the majority of both the studied women (75.6%) were housewives. the same table shows that 52.2% of the studied women were from rural areas. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 43 published by scholink inc. considering the type of family, it was observed that 51.1% of studied subjects had extended family. concerning to family income, it was observed from the same table that 57.8% of the studied women didn’t have enough family income. as shown in table 2; 70.0% & 17.8% of the studied women did not have nor had less than 4 visits for follow-up during their last pregnancy. no one of them performed breast preparation during their pregnancy. moreover, a sizable proportion of the subject (92.2%) did not receive any information about breastfeeding and breast care and problems associated with breastfeeding during antenatal follow-up visits. it was found in table 3 that 26.7% of the studied women had no information about the benefits of breastfeeding for the mother. moreover, regarding women’s knowledge about the component of breast milk, it was found that 74.4% of them had no or incorrect information about it. as regards women’s knowledge about suitable positions for breastfeeding, it was observed that only 3.4% of the women know the right positioning for breastfeeding and only 3.3% of them had complete knowledge about infant hunger cues, furthermore, and no one of them had a completely correct answer about infant satiety cues. table 4 presents the distribution of the samples according to their knowledge about the breast engorgement. it was found that a large percentage (57.8%) of the studied women reported correct but incomplete answer regarding signs & symptoms of breasts engorgement. it is noticed from the same table that 56.7% form the study sample had no idea about complications of breasts engorgement. it was obvious from figure 1 that mothers’ knowledge regarding breastfeeding and breast engorgement was very poor. the majority of them got an unsatisfactory score of knowledge regarding breastfeeding and breast engorgement, respectively, (87.8% & 86.7%). it is not worthily to mention that only 1.1% of the subject got a good score for knowledge about breastfeeding and breast engorgement. figure 2: summarizes women’s sources of information about their knowledge of the importance & practices of breastfeeding & breast engorgement. it was observed that the main source of information (59.5%) was the midwife or traditional birth attendance. it is observed in table 5 that only 3.3% of the studied women initiated breastfeeding in the first postpartum day, immediately after recovery from delivery. furthermore, all babies for subjects (100%) took prelacted feeds as glucose or sweetened water. fortuity, all of the subjects in our setting reported the practice rooming-in for breastfeeding. when the method of nipple withdrawal was checked among the mothers, the result was that the majority and similar proportion of them (75.6%) usually pull the nipple out from the infant’s mouth. figure 3 presents the distribution of the samples according to the severity degree of breast engorgement. it was observed that moderate engorgement scored the highest percentage (45.6%) for the studied group. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 44 published by scholink inc. figure 4: portrays the distribution of the samples according to the severity degree of signs & symptoms of breast engorgement. it was observed that moderate redness and pain scored the highest percentage (38.9% & 45.4%), while mild edema and pyrexia scored the highest degree (38.9% & 33.4%). table 6 illustrates a strong significant negative correlation association was found between the degree of breast engorgement and the age (r = 0.75) & age of marriage (r = 0.75) for the studied women. the percent of women who were able to read & write, or had basic education (2.5 ± 0.65) had got a high level of engorgement. the same table illustrates that the level of breast engorgement increased in urban areas (2.3 ± 0.7) compared to rural ones (1.82 ± 0.65). also, a strong significant negative correlation association was found between the degree of breast engorgement and family income for both the study and control sample, respectively, r = 0.87. table 7 illustrates a strong significant negative correlation association between the degree of breast engorgement and the numbers of antenatal visits for the studied sample, r = 0.74. in addition, strong significant negative correlation association was found between the degree of breast engorgement and their knowledge about breast engorgement, r = 0.86. table 8 illustrates that the degree of engorgement increased with delaying initiation breast (r = + 0.75). i addition, introducing nipple only into infant’s mouth during feeding (r = + 0.82), and unilateral lactation (+ 0.76) had a higher degree of engorgement. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 45 published by scholink inc. table 1. distribution of the samples according to their general characteristics variables n % age( in years) <20 26 28.9 2034 37.8 2518 20.0 3012 13.3 x± sd 23.25 ± 5.75 education: illiteracy 11 12.2 read & write, or basic education 24 26.7 secondary/technical education 36 40.0 university education 19 21.1 occupation: working 22 24.4 housewife 68 75.6 age of marriage: < 20years 58 64.4 ≥ 20 years 32 35.6 x± sd 21.62 ± 6.25 duration of marriage: ≤5 years 32 35.6 >5 years 58 64.4 mean x± sd 4.05 ± 3.05 residence: urban 43 47.8 rural 47 52.2 types of family: extended family 46 51.1 nuclear family 44 48.9 family size: 35 44 48.9 > 5 46 51.1 mean x± sd 6.025 ± 2.015 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 46 published by scholink inc. family income: not enough 52 57.8 enough for living only 30 33.3 enough & can save from it 8 8.9 table 2. distribution of the samples according to their follow up antenatal care variables n % follow up antenatal care yes 27 30.0 no 63 70.0 reasons for not seeking antenatal care # lack of awareness about antenatal care services 29 32.2 financial factor 44 48.9 have no decision making power 63 70.0 long waiting & overcrowding center 11 12.2 difficult transportation 42 46.7 for high risk cases only & absence of health problems 23 25.6 number of antenatal visit non 63 70.0 < 4 time 16 17.8 ≥ 4 time 11 12.2 breast preparation during pregnancy yes 0 0 no 90 100 is woman received knowledge about breast feeding, care & problem associated with breast feeding yes 7 7.8 no 83 92.2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 47 published by scholink inc. table 3. women’s knowledge & practices regarding breast feeding knowledge n % importance of breast feeding for infant complete & correct 16 17.7 incomplete & correct 50 55.6 don’t know & incorrect 24 26.7 x± sd 1.6 ± 0.65 importance of breast feeding for mother complete & correct 9 10.0 incomplete &correct 44 48.9 don’t know & incorrect 37 41.1 x± sd 1.7 ± 0.65 importance of breast feeding for society complete & correct 4 4.4 incomplete &correct 14 15.6 don’t know & incorrect 72 80.0 x± sd 1.335 ± 0.45 importance of colostrum milk complete & correct 26 28.9 incomplete &correct 63 70.0 don’t know & incorrect 1 1.1 x± sd 2.25 ± 0.5 components of breast milk complete & correct 23 25.6 incomplete & correct 35 38.8 don’t know & incorrect 32 35.6 x± sd 1.9 ± 0.8 steps of breast feeding complete & correct 0 0.0 incomplete &correct 67 74.4 don’t know & incorrect 23 25.6 x± sd 1.76 ± 0.4 factors that affect on breasts milk flow complete & correct 6 6.6 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 48 published by scholink inc. incomplete &correct 59 65.6 don’t know & incorrect 25 27.8 x± sd 1.75 ± 0.55 different suitable positions for infant breasts feeding complete & correct 3 3.4 incomplete & correct 65 72.2 don’t know & incorrect 22 24.4 x± sd 1.8 ± 0.5 indicators of their infant hunger cues complete & correct 3 3.3 incomplete &correct 56 62.2 don’t know & incorrect 31 34.5 x± sd 1.69 ± 0.55 standard measured that infant get all needed of breast milk ( infant satiety cues ) complete & correct 0 0.0 incomplete &correct 40 44.4 don’t know & incorrect 50 55.6 x± sd 1.465 ± 0.5 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 49 published by scholink inc. table 4. distribution of the samples according to their knowledge about the breasts engorgement knowledge about the breasts engorgement. n % it is a one of the problems associated with breast feeding yes 65 72.2 no 25 27.8 x± sd 1.7 ± 0.45 definition of breast engorgement correct answer 41 45.6 in correct answer 49 54.4 x± sd 1.45 ± 0.5 causes of breast engorgement complete & correct 1 1.1 incomplete &correct 47 52.2 don’t know & incorrect 42 46.7 x± sd 1.5 ± 0.5 symptoms of breast engorgement complete & correct 1 1.1 incomplete & correct 52 57.8 don’t know & incorrect 37 41.1 x± sd 1.55 ± 0.5 complications of breast engorgement complete & correct 7 7.7 incomplete & correct 32 35.6 don’t know & incorrect 51 56.7 x± sd 1.5 ± 0.5 preventive measures of breast engorgement complete & correct 2 2.2 incomplete &correct 39 43.3 don’t know & incorrect 49 54.5 x± sd 1.5 ± 0.55 management of breast engorgement complete & correct 12 13.3 incomplete & correct 29 32.2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 50 published by scholink inc. don’t know & incorrect 49 54.4 x± sd 1.6 ± 0.75 figure 1. total score of women’s knowledge about breast feeding and breast engorgement poor * < 50% of the total score, average ** 50 < 75% of the total score, good *** 75 100% of the total score x± sd = 43.0 ± 8.5 x± sd = 43.3 ± 8.8 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 51 published by scholink inc. figure 2. women’s sources of information about importance & practices of breast feeding & breast engorgement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 52 published by scholink inc. table 5. distribution of the samples according to their practices regarding breast feeding variables n % initiation of breast feeding 1st postpartum day 3 3.3 2nd postpartum day 43 47.8 3rd postpartum day 44 48.9 giving prelacted feeds yes 90 100 no 0.0 0.0 newborn positions during feeding cradle position 20 22.2 cross cradle position 28 28.9 lateral ( sidling ) position 44 48.9 football position 0 0.0 women breasts & general hygiene before feeding yes 7 7.8 no 83 92.2 parts that introduced into the infant’s mouth during feeding nipple 68 75.6 nipple and areola 22 24.4 breast feeding is practiced bilateral 29 32.2 unilateral 61 67.8 did you practice rooming in yes 90 100 no 0 0.0 number of breast feeding per day 3 time / day 32 35.6 4-7 time / day 48 53.3 8-12 time / day 10 11.1 mean x± sd 4.6 ± 2.05 duration of newborn lactation (unilateral ) < 10 minutes 44 48.9 10 minutes 31 34.4 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 53 published by scholink inc. 15 minutes 15 16.7 2045 minutes 0 0.0 mean x± sd 11.88 ± 3.75 nipple withdrawal from infant mouth after feeding spontaneously infant left 22 24.4 grasp nipple from the infant’s mouth 68 75.6 figure 3. degree of breast engorgement and its signs & symptoms www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 54 published by scholink inc. figure 4. the severity degree of signs & symptoms breast engorgement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 55 published by scholink inc. table 6. relationship between degree of breast engorgement of the studied women and their general characteristics variables mean x± sd age / year <20 2.35 ± 0.7 202.25 ± 0.65 251.8 ± 0.65 30-40 0.85 ± 0.15 r test 0.75* education illiteracy 2.4 ± 0.4 read & write, or basic education 2.5 ± 0.65 secondary/technical education 1.85 ± 0.65 university education 1.55 ± 0.5 r test 0.78* occupation working 2.3 ± 0.75 housewife 1.95 ± 0.75 r test + 0.78* age of marriage <20years 2.2 ± 0.7 ≥ 20 years 1.85 ± 0.7 r test 0.75* residence urban 2.3 ± 0.7 rural 1.82 ± 0.65 r test family income not enough 2.6 ± 0.6 enough for living only 1.8 ± 0.8 enough & can save from it 1.1 ± 0.5 r test 0.87* * significant association + positive association negative association www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 56 published by scholink inc. table 7. relationship between degree of breast engorgement of the studied women and their antenatal follow up and women knowledge about breast engorgement variables mean x± sd number of antenatal visit non 2.25 ± 0.65 < 4 time 1.95 ± 0.8 ≥ 4 time 2.15 ± 0.25 r test 0.74* women knowledge about breast engorgement complete & correct 1.35 ± 0.5 incomplete & correct 1.85 ± 0.8 don’t know & incorrect 2.5 ± 0.55 r test + 0.86* * significant association + positive association negative association www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 57 published by scholink inc. table 8. relationship between degree of breast engorgement of the studied women and their practices (technique) of breast feeding variables mean x± sd initiation of breast feeding after c.s first postpartum day 1.0 ± 0.0 2nd postpartum day 1.95 ± 0.75 3rd postpartum day 2.2 ± 0.7 r test + 0.75* breasts & general hygiene before feeding yes 1.35 ± 0.5 no 2.5 ± 0.6 r test + 0.81* parts that introduced into the infant’s mouth during feeding nipple 2.5 ± 0.44 nipple and areola 1.6 ± 0.65 r test + 0.82* breast feeding is practiced ( lactation) bilateral 1.4 ± 0.55 unilateral 2.35 ± 0.6 r test + 0.76* nipple withdrawal after feeding spontaneously infant left 2.35 ± 0.55 grasp nipple from the infant’s mouth 2.75 ± 0.55 r test + 0.97* number of breast feeding per day 3 time / day 2.5 ± 0.5 4-7 time / day 1.8 ± 0.7 8-12 time / day 0.89 ± 0.0 r test 0.98* * significant association + positive association negative association 4. discussion breast engorgement during the early puerperium is one of the most common causes of morbidity affecting functions and experience of early motherhood (jelovesk, 2006). breast engorgement is a physiological condition that is characterized by painful swelling of the breasts as a result of a sudden increase in milk volume, lymphatic and vascular congestion, and interstitial edema during the first two www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 58 published by scholink inc. weeks following childbirth. this condition is caused by insufficient breastfeeding and/or obstruction in the milk ducts. breast pain during breastfeeding is a common problem. the occurrence of such condition faced by the mother adds to her apprehension and anxiety may lead to other severe breastfeeding problems for mother with consequent discontinuation of breastfeeding or addition of supplements of animal milk/ commercial infant formula. besides, negligence of breast engorgement may lead to certain serious complication such as mastitis and breast abscess (fraser et al., 2004; hanretty et al., 2003). the present study was conducted to investigate the breastfeeding knowledge and practices among primiparous women with a cesarean section and its impact on breast engorgement in upper egypt. the results of the study reveal that the socio-demographic and general characteristics of the subjects correlate, as expected, with the middle class of egyptian society. where the mean age of the participants was 23.25 ± 5.75 years, and the mean age of marriage was 21.62 ± 6.25 years old, and two fifths (40.0%) of them had secondary or technical education, most of them were housewives and more than one half of them were rural dwellers and live within extended families as usual for rural communities. besides, most of them had unsatisfied income. analyzing these data may help to understand and/or justify the prevalence of forthcoming results of the present study. concerning the utilization of antenatal care (anc) services, who (1997) reported that, in developed countries, 97% of women received antenatal care as compared to 65% or less in developing countries. the lack of an established convention for quantitative measurement of adequacy of anc utilization and the paucity of research data addressing the comparability of available indices continued to hinder the ability of researchers and policymakers to conclude from anc literature (stewart & hunts, 2004; alexander & kotelchuck, 1996). in egypt, the literature review developed by nour (2007) also stressed the importance of follow up during pregnancy, and mentioned that pregnant women should visit the health care center according to the following schedule; the first or initial visit should be made as early as possible, the once every month through the first six months, then once each two weeks through the seventh and eighth months and every week during the ninth month until delivery. however, the expectant mother should attend the antenatal clinic if there is any abnormal variation (farg, 2020; hassan, 2016; hassan, 2005; hassan, 2016; hassan et al., 2019; hassan et al., 2020 “b”). some traditional and cultural practices not only had prevented a large number of women from utilizing the maternity services but also had harmful effects on them, thus detracting from the value of anc (nylander & adekunle, 1990). although all literature had emphasized the importance of anc, further analysis of the results of the present study indicated that only a minority of the studied subjects had utilized antenatal care services in their pregnancy. yet, the majority of them didn’t visit antenatal clinics or less than 4 times. a similar finding was reported in a study carried out in egypt by salem (2004). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 59 published by scholink inc. this study aimed to assess the pattern of utilization of antenatal care in tanta. another research in egypt carried out by hassan (2005) who investigates the traditional practices among pregnant women to overcome their common minor discomforts during pregnancy in rural areas. a third work done by ahmed (2004) added that the most of women ignored the importance of antenatal follow up, and thus had lack of antenatal follow-up visits (hassan, 2020; hassan, 2005; hassan et al., 2016; hassan et al., 2019; hassan et al., 2020 “b” ; sheha et al., 2020). regarding the relationship between utilization of anc services by studied subjects in their last pregnancy and their degrees of breast engorgement, it was observed a significant strongly negative correlation between the number of antenatal visits done by mothers and their degrees of breast engorgement. all literature emphasizes the importance of antenatal education for pregnant women to avoid or decrease the incidence of complications during pregnancy, labor and the postpartum period. during the antenatal period, the maternity nurse should provide the necessary information to a pregnant woman about pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum care. the most important information that should be given to women during the third trimester of pregnancy includes information about puerperium; breastfeeding technique and breast care for lactating mothers (symonds & symonds, 1998; churchill, 1995; sheha e., et al., 2018; hassan et al., 2015; farg and hassan, 2019). the results of the present study reveal an unacceptable finding where the majority of women did not receive any knowledge about breast care and breastfeeding problems. this may reflect the deficiencies in health institutions regarding their role in health education. also, this is probably because the interest of antenatal clinic focuses mainly on serious cases and neglects health teaching about such subjects for pregnant woman, especially primiparae. on investigation of women’s knowledge about breastfeeding practices, the results of the present study revealed an overall lack of knowledge concerning the different variables that were studied. this is probably because primiparous usually lack knowledge and experience. moreover, more than half of the samples were rural citizens with limited educational background & inadequate income. the finding of the present study is supported by (sallem & mahzuz, 1998; reghab, 1996) who mentioned that women with poor knowledge are vulnerable to reproductive health problems because of lack of information and access to health services. the information helps women to understand how their bodies work, dispel myths and correct inaccuracies. more elaborate analysis of the knowledge components related to the baby’s benefits of breastfeeding shows that 17.7% of the studied group mentioned correctly and complete answer. as regard value of breastfeeding for mother, only 10.0% of the studied group stated a correct and complete answer. also, only 4.4% of them mentioned correct and complete answer regarding society’s value of breastfeeding. this shows that not all of them were fully aware of the benefits of breastfeeding. grant (1992) reported that breastfeeding saves lives, breast milk is ideal reflect food for infants, prevents diarrhea, confer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 60 published by scholink inc. immunity, helping to space births, lower the mother’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer and reduces chances of fetal post-partum hemorrhage, promote bounding. many authors stated that women were choosing breastfeeding, not because of cultures influences, but because of knowledge on the benefits for both the mothers and the infant (nikodem, 2006; singh et al., 2003; ip et al., 2008). the american college of obstetricians and gynecologists (acog, 2007) encourages health professionals to support women in attempts to establish and continue breastfeeding. the american academy of pediatrics (aap, 2005) recommends that infants are breastfed for at least the first 6 months of life. obstetricians have unique access to women as they prepare for childbearing. during the months preceding birth, physicians may be able to influence breastfeeding practices by educating and encouraging patients (wambach et al., 2005). concerning the constitutions of colostrum and its value, more than one quarter (28.9%) of the studied group responded completely correct acknowledging about colostrum. the colostrum meets the newborn’s total requirements for the first days and it is very rich in protective factors, rich in calories, contains more protein and vitamin a than mature milk, very rich in immunoglobulin as well as immune factors protecting against many bacteria and viruses and acts as laxative (unicef/who, 1993). most nursing and midwifery texts reported that breastfeeding technique should be corrected, with an improved attachment of the newborn to the breast, otherwise may develop and breast become more firm, painful and hot, and fever is usually present “engorgement” (burroughs et al., 2002). the results of the present study reveal that no one of the studied group had correct and complete knowledge about the steps of breastfeeding. moreover, the majority of them did not have correct and complete knowledge about positions of breastfeeding. ministry of health (2000) and smith & farces (2000) reported the improper positioning of the neonate on the nipple also usually causes sore nipple. correcting the baby’s position on the breast is the most important tactic for prevention and relief of sore nipples. literature emphasized the importance of a mother to know infant hunger and satiety cues (davidson et al., 2008, leifer, 2003; aap, 2005). the results of the present study illustrated that the majority of women did not have correct and complete knowledge regarding infant hunger cues. moreover, no one of them had correct and complete knowledge of infant satiety cues. again this is probably because all of the participants were primiparous with limited educational background. the present study indicates that women lacked basic knowledge regarding breast engorgement. concerning women’s knowledge about causes and signs & symptoms of breast engorgement after birth, the result of the present study revealed that the majority of women in the studied group were unaware of the causes and complications of breast engorgement. this finding may attribute to the fact that all of the participants were primiparous who usually lack knowledge and experience in motherhood crafts. this assumption has been supported by many literature reviews since they indicate that breast www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 61 published by scholink inc. engorgement is one of the most common minor discomforts confronting nursing women after birth either because the lack of knowledge or because they were not properly prepared during antenatal period or early postpartum period. moreover, this is probably because many of them were from rural areas that do not usually have good access to care and information (friel & hodson, 1991). concerning breastfeeding knowledge, findings of the present study revealed many prevalent misconception and wrong believes among the sample. the majority of the studied women had unsatisfactory scores. this means that the sample does not know enough about breastfeeding. this is evident from the very poor knowledge demonstrated by mothers. on the other hand, although about one-fifth of women had a university education, yet, this did not have an impact on their breastfeeding knowledge and practices. baumslag (1989) reported that, generally, in developing countries, the rate of breastfeeding declines as socioeconomic status rises. however, mc kenzie et al. (2008) stated that breastfeeding rates for women of all races have increased in the last decade. breastfeeding rates were highest among women 35 years and older, those who are college-educated, and women participating in the women, infants, and children (wic) dietary supplemental program. women least likely to breastfeed were those younger than 20 years of age, those not employed, those with low income, and those who were black (mc kenzie et al., 2008). who/unicef (1999) indicated that women’s education, from earliest childhood, will influence their attitudes and performance concerning breastfeeding. another important part of knowledge is the women’s sources of information about breastfeeding and its problems. the results of the present study showed that traditional birth attendance (tbas) was the first sources of knowledge, followed by mothers and/or mother-in-law, friends and/or neighbors and the least sources were the professional sources (doctor, nurses) and mass media. this was not amazing since all the studied subjects were from upper egypt and almost of them lived in rural areas, were housewives, had large and extended families, were married before the age of 20 years old and had not enough family income. so, they tended to consult older experienced women as well as friends and relatives. also, this result may reflect how much peers and friends can affect or form one’s knowledge regarding important health issues and/or practices such as breastfeeding. it is well known that receiving information from wrong sources is just as bad as ignorance (who, 1997). isabirye (1990) stated that a support group for breastfeeding mothers can provide valuable information and suggestions for breastfeeding. the mothers, commitment to breastfeeding and the support from her partner, family, and friends greatly increase the chances of success. may (1990) mentioned that a recent study of mexican and mexican-american women found that only significant interpersonal influence on feeding decision was that the husband and/or partner. if the grandmother is an important family figure, she also should be included in teaching. in this way, important people who may significantly affect the course of breastfeeding can gain information and confidence. this may subsequently lead to more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 62 published by scholink inc. available support for nursing mothers. traditional birth attendance (tbas) is considered a community leader and a trustful person for most women, especially in rural areas. they seek her advice in all matters related to reproduction, sexuality, family planning, and even marital problems. abd-el-twab et al. (2000) in raedat ryfyate project was activated and intended to train them to help them to provide helpful and sound care to their client as well as to equip them by the necessary and correct scientific knowledge regarding all related aspects of care. also, a study in the united kingdom by liburd (1998) revealed that midwives had been identified as the highest sources of information. on the other hand, it was striking to find out that health professionals (doctors, nurses) had the least rank as a source of knowledge to the participants in this study which explains the low level and unsatisfactory score of knowledge about breastfeeding and breast engorgement. needless to say, those health professionals are the most important resource person within the reproductive health team. kharboush (1992) reported that physicians and nurses were the most trustable source of breastfeeding information to mothers in damanhour. in ismailia, similar findings were obtained. they are qualified to provide women with the necessary knowledge and guidance that help them to accept the post-partum period with its physical and psychological changes as normal and non-pathologic events and to maintain healthy practices during this period to fulfill important objectives such as prevention of infection. therefore, health education for women during maternity cycle is considered an important component of maternity care within all maternal and child health centers as well as rural health units. however, the role of mass media in different health issues especially reproductive health matters should always be highlighted stressed and activated (mohamed et al., 2020; gamel et al., 2019). mass media is a very beneficial and effective way to disseminate correct awareness among the population at large and specific or targeted sectors of the community in particular. it plays a major role in shaping the development of the future generation. this important and key role should be used to provide the correct and the most needed information about pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care and to improve the level of awareness among people in the community. health education campaigns are also effective channels for promoting the use of health care services and can contribute to healthy behaviors that prevent illness and improve the quality of life and decrease the cost of illness. such health education campaigns should pay special attention to peer groups since they have a great impact on the dissemination of knowledge (bonner, 2001). the second important part of the study deals with breastfeeding practices among breastfeeding mothers. in general, many researches indicate that the incidence of breast engorgement was not influenced by the duration, frequency, and technique of breastfeeding. other interventions, such as providing the mother with guidance and support on positioning and latching, and modification of hospital practices may be more effective in reducing breast problems. therefore, postnatal education is vital for new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 63 published by scholink inc. mothers and it may be supported by visual, written and verbal information covering, simplified breast anatomy, breastfeeding technique, various positions and attachment of the baby and the stage of suckling (pavan & davanzo, 1999; duffy, 1997). according to the results of the present study, it was observed that breastfeeding practices were worse than breastfeeding knowledge in both groups. breastfeeding is recognized to be important for both mothers and baby. effective breastfeeding is influenced by many factors which include antenatal care practices, the time of the first feed, positioning, timing and duration, supplements for babies and mothers and support for breastfeeding mothers. all of these factors can affect the establishment and maintenance of breastfeeding. many of the above-mentioned breastfeeding problems that confront women trying to breastfeed their babies are avoidable through access to accurate information. appropriate and practical help and support, when they need it, are effective (neifert, 1999). early initiation is important; who (2001) emphasized it within the first half an hour after delivery. the establishment and maintenance of breastfeeding should be one of the major goals of good postpartum care. it is recommended that the baby is given to the mother to hold immediately after birth, to improve skin-to-skin contact and for the baby to start suckling as soon as he shows signs of readiness-normally within 1/2 1 hour after birth. spontaneous suckling may not occur until 45 minutes to 2 hours after birth, but skin-to-skin contact can start earlier. numerous studies have demonstrated that a period of early mother-infant contact postpartum is effective in increasing the incidence and/or duration of breastfeeding. initiation rates for breastfeeding remain high in most developing countries and may not be decreasing as fast as has been feared (savage, 1990). the present study indicated that the majority of mothers started breastfeeding after the first day. this is because women delivered by cesarean section usually postpone the initiation of breastfeeding as they have pain which interferes or limit them from the process. this is serious because all literature and researchers, al-hussein (1992), alexandria (1991), and ismailia (1993), emphasized the importance of early initiation of lactation within 50-60 minutes after delivery to prevent the occurrence of breastfeeding problems. the initiation and establishment of breastfeeding immediately following birth are crucial to increase breastfeeding. however, wahba (1991) reported that almost all mothers initiated breastfeeding on the third day after delivery. agency for international development (1990) stated that delayed initiation of breastfeeding is a common practice in both urban and rural areas worldwide. in urban hospitals, breastfeeding initiation is often delayed several hours after delivery, during that time glucose, water or infant formula may be given. there is a great need for health care providers to know more about the early initiation of breastfeeding. it was observed from the study that, the degree of breast engorgement was higher among women who delayed initiation of breastfeeding than those who had initiated earlier. furthermore, a significant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 64 published by scholink inc. strong positive correlation was observed between women’s initiation of breastfeeding and their degree of breast engorgement. this result is in line with yamauchi (1992) who mentioned that early initiation of breastfeeding reduces the occurrence of sore-cracked nipples and breastfeeding problems. moreover, newton and newton (1951) reported that, mother’s experience less severe form of engorgement with early feeding. also, the results of the studies of artola and jimenez (1990) and essawy and ahmed (1998) revealed that most mothers who initiated breastfeeding early eventually protected themselves from breastfeeding problems. ultimately, they continued lactation for up to one year of their infant’s age compared to those who initiated breastfeeding at later times and thus continued breastfeeding for only 5-9 months of their infant’s age. concerning hospital practices, the present study showed that many negative hospital practices regarding breastfeeding were prevalent in our egyptian public hospitals. one of the most common prevalent errors in hospital practices is the use of prelacted feeds. glucose has been reported by previous studies as being common prelacted feeds (mishriky & barrima, 1993). in the present study, the findings reveal that all babies for subjects took prelacted feeds as glucose or sweetened water. kharboush (1992) found that the most frequently using decoction includes sweetened water and glucose. to compare with health care providers practices el-sahwi et al. (1991) reported that the majority of physicians in their sample were using sugar and water as the prelacted feeds given to babies. brady (1990) indicated that prelacted feeds are physiologically unnecessary for either the nutrition or the hydration of normal babies because a healthy baby does not need extra fluid or foods before breastfeeding is established, and it may harmful because it will interfere with appetite and desire of the baby to suckle. babies who have had their appetite satisfied with an artificial feed may lose interest in trying to breastfeed. consequently, they may delay the onset of lactation. prelacted feeds may also introduce infection because the baby is not protected by the anti-infective factors which are concentrated in the colostrum (unicef uk, 1999). another important part of breastfeeding practices is managing the system of feeding properly. on-demand feeding program facilitates each baby’s rhythm and may be less traumatic to the mother’s nipples while not causing excessive weight gain (nikodem, 2006; davidson et al., 2008). demand feeding is critical for the establishment of good breast milk supply. this has been called responsive feeding, or breast on request. may (1990) indicated that rigid feeding schedules, substitutions of other liquids of breast milk, and delaying feeding will gradually decrease the supply of milk. regarding the frequency and duration of breastfeeding, times/day, the finding of this study revealed that, more than one third (35.6%) of the study sample breastfeed their infants less than 3 times/day, and about one half (48.9%) of them feed their infants less than 10 minutes/day. this disappointing observation is serious because all literature reviews emphasized the importance of nursing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 65 published by scholink inc. “on-demand”. newborns need to nurse frequently at least every two hours, and not on any strict schedule, this will stimulate the mother’s breast to produce plenty of milk. later, the baby can settle into a more predictable routine. however, because breast milk is more easily digested than the formula, breast-fed babies often eat more frequently than bottle-fed babies (aarts, 2004; nikodem, 2006). baunmslag (1989) reported that most research findings showed higher rates and longer duration of breastfeeding in rural areas. kharboush (1992), henagel (1989) and okhasha (2000) supported the same findings. in brief, most infants born at term feed 8-10 times a day for approximately 20 minutes (eglash et al., 2008; komar, et al., 2007; kramer et al., 2001). it was observed that the degree of breast engorgement was less among women who breastfed 8-12 times/day. a strongly negative correlation was observed between the frequency of breastfeeding and degree breast engorgement. this result is not incongruence with newton & newton (1951) who stated that, mother’s experience less severe form of engorgement with frequent, self-demand feeding and unlimited suckling times. short frequent feeds were shown to increase engorgement in a study performed by moon & humenick (1989), probably because abbreviated feeds (as short as two minutes) did not allow sufficient drainage of the breast as preventing milk accumulation. hospital practices such as rooming-in have been shown to improve breastfeeding success. however, it has been a common practice in many hospitals to separate mothers and babies and put the babies in a nursery, to allow the mothers to rest and to be observed. no advantages have been proven and outbreaks of infection in nurseries are associated with these practices. the results of this study illustrated that all of the subjects in our setting reported the practice rooming-in. this result is in accordance with all literature which focuses on room-in (komara, et al., 2007; ford & simpson, 2008; pillitteri, 2003). furthermore, shiau (1997) demonstrated significantly less engorgement on day three in mothers who participate in the skin to skincare of their full-term babies rather than standard nursery care. fortunately, most of our general & public hospitals, especially in rural areas are not equipped by available separate room for newborn babies. rooming-in practices varied from one place to another. another study reported that the majority of mothers 89.35% and babies were rooming in confirmed by kharbouch (1992) in damanhour. rooming-in has several important advantages. it facilitated bounding, permits breastfeeding on demand and allows for closer contact with other family members. restricted mother-infant contact after delivery results in significantly more frequent discontinuation of breastfeeding at 1-3 months (pediatric advisor, 2009). it is also in line with salhan (2007) who mentioned that more prolactin is produced at night, so breastfeeding at night is especially helpful for keeping up milk supply. breastfeeding is not supposed to hurt. poor positioning and latch-on are the most common causes of breast problems in the early weeks of nursing. sometimes only a minor adjustment of positioning and latch-on are all that is needed. correct position of the baby during breastfeeding plays a crucial role in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 66 published by scholink inc. both the prevention of sore nipples and the successful establishment of breastfeeding. professionals must understand the underlying mechanisms of suckling and acquire the skill and experience to help a mother to position her baby correctly before they can be a real value to the mother (hahn, 2006; kramer et al., 2001). a proper latch-on is crucial to successful breastfeeding. unfortunately, too many mothers are being "helped" by people who do not know what a proper latch-on is. the trick of breastfeeding is getting the baby to latch-on well. a baby, who latches-on well, gets milk well. a baby who latches on poorly has difficulty getting milk, especially if the supply is low. a poor latch baby will not get much milk. when a baby is latching on poorly, he may also cause the mother nipple pain. and if he does not get milk well, he will usually stay on the breast for long periods and may lead to engorgement of breasts, which become heavier, firmer inconsistency, thus aggravating the pain (newman, 2006; kramer et al., 2001). unfortunately, the results of the present study reveal that almost all of the subjects introduce the nipple only into the infant’s mouth during breastfeeding. this result completely contradicts the literature review which emphasizes that correct positioning of the nipple is essential to prevent sore nipples: the whole areola should be well into the mouth, above the tongue, so that the gums can perform the essential driving action. a proper latch is a key to easy breastfeeding (ilca, 2000). shea (1998) attributed to lack of knowledge of the basic skills concerning breastfeeding in some cultures to decades of public bottle feeding. the international lactation consultant association (ilca 2000) recommends that to prevent problems, women need sensitive and skilled assistance in learning to breastfeed, and follow up care should continue until their infants are breastfed effectively. it was observed from the study that, the degree of breast engorgement was higher among women who introduced nipple only to their baby during breastfeeding than those who introduced both nipple and areola. a significant strong positive correlation was observed between breast engorgement degree and part of the breast which introduced to baby’s mouth. this comes in agreement with righard and alade (1992) who mentioned that, mother’s experience less form of engorgement with babies who demonstrate correct sucking technique. looking into the technique of breastfeeding, the finding of the present study showed that most of the mothers did not know about alternating both breasts during each feeding. around two-thirds of them use only one side to breastfeed their infant (unilateral). this means that mothers need to be aware of the importance and technique of breastfeeding. similar results were drawn out from damanhour (1992) study. leifer (2003) and davidson et al. (2008) indicated that both breasts should be used in each feed so that they could receive adequate stimulation. the mother should start on the breast that she ended with during the last feed. it was observed from the study that, the degree of breast engorgement was higher among women who introduced only one breast to their baby during breastfeeding than those who introduced both breasts. furthermore, a significant strong positive correlation was observed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 67 published by scholink inc. between breast engorgement degree and breastfeeding practices (unilateral or bilateral). this result is in conceding with livingstone (1996) who stated that milk stasis magnified if infants consume less milk, if less milk is pumped, as result, it may place a mother at high risk of engorgement. when the method of nipple withdrawal was checked out among the subjects, the results revealed that the majority of women stated that they usually pull the nipple out of the infant’s mouth. this result is incongruent with the literature review which indicates that the baby should be removed from the nipple either by pressing on his chin or by inserting a finger between his lips and the breast, so gradually releasing the vacuum. roughly pulling out the nipple from the baby’s mouth especially before the end of a feed, would lead to nipple damage and crack (nikodem, 2006; davidson et al., 2008; leifer, 2003). a strongly positive correlation was found between breast engorgement degree and the method of nipple withdrawal from the infant’s mouth after feeding. concerning the preparations for breastfeeding, bobak (1993) stated that most women are motivated by the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy during anc to learn about breast preparation and breastfeeding. fikry (1980) reported that nurses should educate mothers about the importance of antenatal breast care and motivate them to do so. it is important to guide them to adopt the correct technique of breastfeeding. during the last two months of pregnancy, women should be taught that the nipples and areola should be washed, dried, and anointed each day. the same routine may be continued after the baby starts suckling (ziemer & pigeon, 1995). kenner (1996) does not recommend nipple preparation technique for mothers with a history of preterm labor. preparation should be done in the third trimester. every postpartum woman needs to care for her breasts and keep them clean. the breasts should be washed at the beginning of the shower each day. women who are breastfeeding use no soap on the nipples, to prevent drying and cracking. the woman can use disposable pads in her bra to absorb the excess moisture. these should be changed frequently to prevent infection (mustafa, 2005). keeping the nipples clean between feeding helps prevent tissue damage, and wearing a good bra provides necessary support as the breast size increase (who, 1999). results of the present study illustrated that all and the majority of the studied sample had no idea either about breast preparation or breast care during pregnancy. it was not amazing as most of the subjects never visited antenatal clinics or follow up on their pregnancy. also, their main source of information was tbas. kenner (1996), bobak (1993), and unicef (1993) mentioned that usually, the breasts require no care other than daily cleaning with clear water. the mother should avoid using soap on her nipples because of its drying effect. advise the mother to leave a drop of milk at the end of feed on the nipple. it was observed from the study that, the degree of breast engorgement was higher among women who didn’t perform general and breast hygiene before feeding. a significant strong positive correlation was observed between breast engorgement degree and non-performance of general and breast hygiene before feeding. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 68 published by scholink inc. the present study clearly illustrates that all women suffer signs and symptoms (redness, pain, edema, and pyrexia) of breast engorgement. the results of the present study illustrate the degrees of breast engorgement. studies have shown that 20%-85% of breastfeeding women experienced moderate and severe breast engorgement. the degree of engorgement usually lessens with each child. first-time mothers often suffer more from engorgement than women who are nursing their second or third child, because the time it takes for the mature milk to “come in” seems to shorten with each child. when the relationship between certain characteristics of puerperal women and the degree of breast engorgement was investigated, it was revealed that younger women were less likely to develop high degree breast engorgement than older ones. furthermore, a strongly negative correlation was observed between women’s degree of breast engorgement and their age. this may be due to the fact that older primiparae are more likely to be concerned about their babies, thus they followed instructions more accurately and breastfed their babies appropriately. lactational failure, however, leads to the absence of suckling and failure of ejection which may lead to engorgement and stasis of milk (moon & humenick, 1989). it was also evident from the results that better-educated women had less breast engorgement degree, while women with limited educational background had more breast engorgement degree. a strongly negative correlation was observed between women’s degree of breast engorgement and their education. this was expected since educated women are more likely to have better access to the community health care services and source of information that help in early detection and proper management of minor discomforts during puerperium. these results were in line with hassan (2000). it was also mentioned that women who had been educated were open-minded to new ideas (biennial report, 1996). in addition, this finding went hand with el-sherbeni (1998) who emphasized on the importance of education in the prevention and control of maternity health problems. moreover, education should be a mean that enables women to gain access to knowledge. the more educated women received a better contribution to their empowerment. education of women could also improve the health of the entire family. women with more education should also be able to control many events in their lives. thereby, access to education had to be a fundamental human right and a prerequisite to social, cultural and economic well-being (rowley, 1992; gamel et al., 2020). the results of the present study also revealed a strong positive correlation women’s degree of breast engorgement and their occupation. it was no wonder to find housewives and rural women are less likely to develop a higher degree of breast engorgement. this was expected since housewives and rural citizens accept their role as lactating mothers and practice it accurately as they are guided. this is opposite to urban working ones who prepare themselves in the wrong way for employment. salhan (2007), reported that to help the mothers to maintain breastfeeding while working, the nurse should www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 69 published by scholink inc. emphasize to the mother that she must establish a good milk supply, plan how and where she will pump the breast at work as well as planning baby feeding during the mother’s working time. regarding age at marriage of the studied subjects, the results of the present study presented that about two-thirds of the studied group married at age less than 20 years. furthermore, a strongly negative correlation was noticed between women’s age at marriage and women’s degree of breast engorgement. it was not surprising to find that younger women tend to have a higher degree of breast engorgement than older ones. this might be due to the fact that day by day life enhances women’s experience and improves their knowledge. this result was considered by ghulam (1979) who stated that early marriage could have a negative effect on the mother’s education, and also her understanding of how to relieve the minor discomforts during pregnancy. this result was supported by the other researches which indicated the fact that early marriage and pregnancy had hindered women to finish their education and to get a good job and had become financially dependent on their family. therefore, teen mothers were more likely to live in poverty than women who were in delayed childbearing age (pbwrc, 2000; smith & maurer, 2000). moreover delaying age at marriage was a key to improving women’s status and maybe a way of increasing their leverages in the decision-making the process (ibrahim, mensch, el gibaly, 1998). the results of the present study had also revealed a strongly negative correlation between women’s degree of breast engorgement and their family income. degree of breast engorgement was more prevalent among poor women as most women were likely lived in large and extended families. this increased family size might reduce the per capita income and amount of care the mother gained especially during her puerperium. this would affect badly on the mother’s health and her health practices. this was in accordance with abrams & gordon (1961) and william (1967). moreover, poverty, type, and size of the family might increase the burden on women caring for many persons and striving hard for a living (who, 1995). these results were supported by the fourth world conference (1995) which denoted that statistics about women and poverty were all too familiar, where women were the majority of 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty. those poor women were more likely to live in crowded houses. 5. conclusion based on the findings revealed by the present study, it can be concluded: the studied women’s knowledge about breastfeeding was not adequate among the whole study sample. moreover, a sizable proportion of them lacked the basic knowledge regarding breast engorgement; they also lacked the experience in relation to the proper technique of breastfeeding, duration and number of feeding times/day. their main sources of information were their family, friends, tbas whereas the least sources of information were physician, nurse and mass media which explain the low level of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 70 published by scholink inc. knowledge. the degrees of severity of breast engorgement was higher with younger, less educated, working, urban, lower social classes women and those who had limited visits to antenatal clinic, who had limited knowledge about breast engorgement than others and, those who had an improper technique of breastfeeding. 6. recommendations in light of the results of the present study, the following recommendations are suggested: 1) counseling as a practice and technique is vital and significant relevance in allowing the health professionals to have the opportunity of carrying out not only educational but also assistance actions in the common illnesses at the beginning of breastfeeding. hence, the nurse should focus on prevention of breast engorgement by providing counseling to the mother about starting breastfeeding as soon as possible after the birth, to give the baby time to learn to breastfeed before the breasts become full and firm, avoid early use of bottles, once the milk comes in, and breastfeed at least eight times in 24 hours to prevent over fullness. 2) small, informal group health education classes, delivered in the antenatal period, to provide women with accurate information about the importance of breastfeeding for the mother and baby, early initiation and proper technique of breastfeeding, and how to prevent the problem that may arise during the breastfeeding process. 3) providing the mother with guidance and support on positioning and latching, and modification of hospital practices are effective in reducing breast problems. 4) prevention is a key element in reducing breast engorgement potentially among nursing mothers. so, mothers should learn about preventive measures for breast engorgement. 5) correct the negative hospital practices regarding prelacted feeds, especially with c.s delivery, which are prevalent in our egyptian public hospitals. 6) traditional birth attendants already form a considerable part of the basic core of primary health workers for the majority of the rural population in many developing countries. therefore they should be trained and prepared in the field of health education to carry out effective health practices. acknowledgement although it is usually easy to write down words to thank others for their help, my words do fail me to express my sincerest appreciation to my highly distinguished professor who helped me a lot to complete my study. my profound thanks gratefulness and appreciation to the soul of my professor prof. dr. galal ahmed el_kholy, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, faculty of medicine, benha university, for his kind supervision, unlimited support, continuous guidance, and assistance. words cannot express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to him; without his sincere advice, prompt assistance and over lasting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 71 published by scholink inc. helpful support my project and thesis would not have been completed. thanks again and i hope that god will have mercy on him, reassures and relaxes his pure soul, and live him in supreme paradise. references aarts c. 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(2006). maternal child nursing care. usa: mosby co., 596, 777-785. world health organization. (1995). women’s health today: fourth world conference on women. geneva: who, september, 21-105. world health organization. (1999). safe motherhood managing complications in pregnancy and child birth, health home. geneva, 6-7. world health organization. (2001). postpartum care of mothers and newborn. geneva: who. yamauchi, y. (1992). breastfeeding frequency during the first 24 hours after birth in full term n. pediatrics, 86, 171-175. ziemer,, m. m., & pigeon, j. g. (1995). skin changes and pain to the nipple during the first week of lactation. jognn nurs, 22(3), 223. note note 1. the reeda scale is a tool used to provide the most effective means for evaluating the condition of the skin in relation to 5 factors (redness, edema, ecchymosis and healing). “to assess the effect of comfort measures on the healing process by hill (1989)”. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 36 review paper brand machiavelli dr. michael jackson, emeritus professor1* 1 department of government and international relations, university of sydney, australia * michael jackson, department of government and international relations, university of sydney, australia received: may 9, 2021 accepted: may 19, 2021 online published: may 28, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n2p36 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n2p36 abstract in this paper i analyze the reputation of niccolò machiavelli against the criteria of celebrity found in the cultural studies literature. applied to machiavelli these criteria include the detachment of his name from any substance of his works, life, or thought; trading on the recognition of his name; the appetite for biographies of him; and the integration of his very name into the common parlance in the adjective “machiavellian” and the noun “machiavellianism” which are widely used as self-explanatory in the media, press, and you tube videos, music, and social media. the evidence adduced for these conclusions is mainly in books—print and digital—but incorporates film, plays, music, and commerce. in short, machiavelli has accumulated sufficient media capital to be internalized into the popular culture and so rendered an immortal celebrity, i.e., that is brand machiavelli. keywords machiavelli, celebrity, machiavellian, machiavellianism, media studies, cultural studies 1. introduction celebrity studies have taken as exemplars ephemeral rap musicians, eclipsed athletes, obscure royals, cartoon figures, fictional characters, and airheads galore. crowded though it be the celebrity hall of fame has not, until now, included niccolò machiavelli (1469-1527). time to put that right! that status, properly understood, helps explain the flow of biographies of this obscure bureaucrat. how in the world did this paper pusher became the celebrated machiavelli? to find out read on. machiavelli’s name has been occasionally cited in sociologists’ stern and somber analysis of celebrity but only as a confidant to the prince. both john corner and chris rojek refer to the following passage from his most famous, if seldom read, book, the prince, that a ruler should carefully cultivate the public image (note 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 37 published by scholink inc. thus, it is not necessary for a prince to have all the above-mentioned qualities in fact, but it is indeed necessary to appear to have them…by appearing to have them, they are useful, as it is to appear merciful, faithful, humane, honest, and religious…everyone sees what you appear to be, few touch what you really are…for the vulgar are taken in by appearance and the outcome of a thing (note 2). while the obvious way to secure that image is to live up to it, machiavelli recognized that it is not always possible to do that in the frangible world, and that is where image management is needed. death, by the way, is no hindrance to celebrity. it may even smooth the path to fame for some, like machiavelli, when his name recognition outlives his opponents, detractors, and enemies. cardinal reginald pole (1500-1558) was the first to leave a written condemnation of machiavelli, but who has heard of him today outside the confines of a narrow scholarly circle? (note 3) do musicians take his name? do novelists put “pole” into their titles? will restaurants sport the name “pole’s”? do journalists label the shenanigans of others polean? no, no, no, and no. yet all of these uses apply to machiavelli. 2. what does celebrity mean? the latin celebritus means to be “much spoken of” that is, celebrated. of course, those first and foremost much spoken of in latin were saints and not sinners, like machiavelli. saint francis of assisi, saint teresa of avila, and their haloed ilk—worshippers celebrated their birthdays, and gave the same names to children, thus bonding the living to the dead. death does not end fame. though not all celebrities are on the cover of people magazine or the homepage of gossip! one of the most famous celebrities in death is elvis; not even his last name is necessary for instant recognition in much of the world, but for the record, it is presley to whom i refer. the marketing of elvis remains big business, and a visitor to graceland has an opportunity to have a picture taken before a green screen with elvis. well, a holographic elvis that is. every year, apart from those blighted by a pandemic or worse, impersonators gather in look-alike competitions hither and yon to out-king each other. death has not stopped elvis from working. edmund burke was right when he said that a community unites the dead, the living, and those as yet unborn (note 4). as with saints, many a youngster has entered life with his names: elvis, aron, or presley. burke had saints more in mind than elvis’s ilk, but times change. a celebrity is “famous for being famous” (note 5). whereas an athlete, a politician, a composer become well known for their accomplishments. their celebrity was a consequence of their endeavors in sports, in legislation, and in music. their celebrity is achieved from the bottom up. if that celebrity is cashed-in at the end of the career, it has transcended the achieved to the ascribed. yet there are others whose fame is wholly ascribed, resting on nothing but itself, coming from the top down like the houses in jonathan swift’s laputa. the example the exponents of cultural studies never www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 38 published by scholink inc. tire of citing is someone named paris hilton who has made herself famous without any evident achievement except that. becoming famous by the alchemy of hardened air takes wit, will, and stamina to be sure, but this status is ascribed by all those editors, photographers, and consumers who say it is so. in the words of a perspicacious student of celebrity, robert van krieken, a celebrity is “a person whose name has attention-getting, interest-riveting and profit-generating value” (note 6). the name alone is perceived to have the capacity to generate financial income, van krieken continues. yes, this fits machiavelli. 3. machiavelli celebrity! against van krieken’s criteria i shall compile empirical evidence which includes (1) the titles of books that take his name detached from any substance, (2) the fictional works in which he appears seemingly for no other reason than name-recognition, and (3) the extensive, and repetitive, biographical literature on him, and, finally, (4) the extensive use of his name in variety of popular (as distinct from scholarly) contexts. by and large, omitted from these four exhibits are his books themselves, his place in the study of renaissance history, political science, and the origins and development of italian as a literary language. these latter provinces belong to specialists for whom knowing of him is a professional requirement. 3.1 books, books, and more books there are many books that take his name in the title, but where there seems little prima facie or any other reason for the use of his name. examples include the following. table 1. titles alone troy bruner and philip eager modern machiavelli: 13 laws of power, persuasion and integrity (2017) john drennan paddy machiavelli: how to get ahead in irish politics (2014) b. s. thejendra the cosmic machiavelli (2012) jules j. berman machiavelli’s laboratory: a satire (2010). mark crick machiavelli’s lawn: the great writers’ garden companion (2011) nicholas antongiavanni the suit: a machiavellian approach to men’s style (2006) david apostolico machiavellian poker strategy: how to play like a prince and rule the poker table (2005) nick casonova the machiavellian’s guide to womanizing (1995). simon ramo tennis by machiavelli (1984) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 39 published by scholink inc. reader, this is but a sampler of the titles to be found. given that machiavelli is not discussed and not quoted in these books beyond an epigram or two, the conclusion must be that the authors and also the publishers thought there was attention-getting and profit-generating value in his name, choosing to use it, rather than, say, plato or thomas hobbes. nor are all the titles coupled to machiavelli as frivolous as those on table one appear to be. consider the entries of table 2 below. table 2. some serious books neil morton deception: an essential guide to understanding how machiavellian people can hide the truth and use their knowledge of human behavior to manipulate negotiate and persuade (2020) mark powell and johnathan gifford machiavellian intelligence: how to survive and rise in the modern corporation (2017) ronald collins and david skover the judge: 26 machiavellian lessons (2017) melissa aho and erika bennett the machiavellian librarian: winning allies, combating budget cuts, and influencing stakeholders (2014) richard samuels machiavelli’s children: leaders and their legacies in italy and japan (2003) ian demack the modern machiavelli: the seven principles of power in business (2002) beryl radin beyond machiavelli: policy analysis comes of age (2000) rinus van schendelen machiavelli in brussels: the art of lobbying the eu (2002) bernard w. wishy good-bye machiavelli: government and american life (1995) what other explanation could there be than the authors and the publishers hope that affixing machiavelli’s name will increase attention, rivet interest, and generate a profit. then there are the novels that take his name, apparently for the same reasons. table 3. novel titles bella de corte machiavellian (2020) john greaves the fist of machiavelli (2011) penelope rosa introduction to machiavelli: a novel (2011) lawrence uhlin machiavelli’s desert (2010) allan folsom the machiavelli covenant (2006) laramanda williams machiavelli: pastor or pimp? (2006) steve perry the machiavellian interface (1986) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 40 published by scholink inc. in these novels it is left to the reader to guess why niccolò’s name appears on the cover. by the way, several of these titles are independently published, and that exculpates a professional publisher from the decision to attribute some responsibility to machiavelli, on the other hand it does mean the authors were so committed to the titles as to invest their money in them. there are other novels in which machiavelli appears as a character. in a few he has a leading role but in most he is a supporting player. table 4. novels in which machiavelli has a major role michael ennis the malice of fortune (2012) maryann philip a borgia daughter dies (2003) derek wilson the swarm of heaven (2001) somerset maugham then and now (1946) all of these are easy enough to read, but perhaps the one that best captures the personality of machiavelli is maugham’s then and now, whose machiavelli is whip smart, but he discovers to his chagrin that he is not always the smartest guy in the room. table 5. novels in which machiavelli is a supporting role salman rushdie the enchantress of florence (2009) michael scott the magician (2009) george herman the florentine mourners (1996) george eliot romala (1863) three of these are period pieces set in florence of machiavelli’s days and he passes in the background, but scott’s is a fantasy novel with a contemporary setting which features, albeit in a small role, an eternal and charming machiavelli in league with the devil. in table 6 below there are novels that feature machiavelli in such detail as to be biographies. table 6. biographies in fiction anthony wildman the diplomat of florence: a novel of machiavelli and the borgias (2020) maurizio marmostein the making of a prince: a novel based on the life of niccolò machiavelli (2018) sarah dunant in the name of the family: a novel of machiavelli & the borgias (2017) joseph markulin machiavelli: a renaissance life (2013) jean dumont machiavelli—a novel (2013) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 41 published by scholink inc. that machiavelli barely knew one borgia has been enough for some to link his name to theirs through the centuries. by the way, there is a mystery in table 6 and it is that last entry, dumont, machiavelli. i acquired a kindle copy of that title in 2015 and dutifully read it. oh hum. but recently when seeking to confirm publishing details, i discovered this e-book seems to have nearly disappeared from the digital ether, apart from an entry on the good reads web site, nor are there traces of its author. if there is knowledge available will a kind reader send it on that i may be enlightened. the feats of biographical erudition compiled below are all the more impressive when one realizes just how little is known about his life. leaving aside the fact that nothing is known about him before the age of twenty-nine, the sheer volume of biographies indicates the appetite for machiavelli. table 7. biographies alexander lee machiavelli: his life and times (2020) patrick boucheron machiavelli (2017) eric benner be like a fox: machiavelli and his world (2017) christopher celenza machiavelli: a portrait (2015) corrado vivanti niccolò machiavelli: an intellectual biography (2013) philip bobbitt the garments of court and palace: machiavelli and the world he made (2013) robert black machiavelli (2013) miles unger machiavelli: a biography (2011) paul oppenheimer machiavelli: a life beyond ideology (2011) paul strathen the artist, the philosopher, and the warrior (2010) niccolò capponi an unlikely prince: the life and times of machiavelli (2010) ross king machiavelli: philosopher of power (2007) michael white machiavelli: a man misunderstood (2004) maurizo viroli niccolò smile: a biography of machiavelli (1998) sebastian de grazia machiavelli in hell (1989) giuseppe prezzolini machiavelli (1967) roberto ridolfi the life of niccolò machiavelli (1963) j. r. hale machiavelli and renaissance italy (1961) valeriu marcu accent on power: the life and times of machiavelli (1939) pasquale villari the life and times of niccolo machiavelli (1909) one curiosity in the 8,000 or so total pages of these biographers is how few cross-references there are by any biographer to those who have gone before. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 42 published by scholink inc. 3.2 film, video, and music as a bookman, i have concentrated on those, but there is more to media than books. film and music are domains where machiavelli can also be found. in these now digital empires once again his name is largely detached from anything he said, did, or wrote, floating freely as if in a dream, or nightmare. inevitably in the imagination of film school graduates machiavelli’s name conjures mafia. note the evidence the cinematic works enumerated in table 9 below. table 9. mafia films with machiavelli in the title taner tumkayo. machiavelli & company (2011), 24 minutes julio ponce palmieri machiavelli’s the prince (2010), 30 minutes billie redieck machiavellian boys (2004), 19 minutes ephraim horowitz machiavelli rises (2000), 90 minutes the director is named in the left column above. do not be misled by the use of the title the prince in the second title above, for in the film it is applied to the protagonist who holds onto his criminal empire. there are many other films, some of which offer expositions or applications of machiavelli, and which themselves indicate he remains much spoken of. one can also find a host of videos on you tube and films on the imdb by searching for “machiavelli”. turning now to the world of music, according to the internet movie data base there is a belgian eurorock band call machiavel which has been making noise since 1976 (note 7). many tracks from this group can be found on amazon. likewise, american rapper tupac amaru shakur styled himself makaveli (note 8). on the internet archives one finds vincent bergeron’s “machiavélisme magnifique” (note 9). there is no discernable connection to the niccolò machiavelli. while roaming amazon i found—in no particular order—“machiavelli” from the scene is now on songbirds lie (2004), the lyrics of which do refer to machiavelli. then there is lore, glassed wing angel (2006) with a track called “machiavelli” for no apparent reason. then came franky the fly with “machiavelli” on “lord of the flies” (2008). and mo doughy, “machiavelli vs lao tse” (2009). ditto zekwe ramo’s “machiavelique” (2009); peep templ, “thank you, machiavelli” (2012); and bart classen, “machiavelli” (2013). nor should australia’s own “machiavelli and the four seasons (1995) from tism, which stands for “this is serious, mum” be overlooked. 3.3 commercial uses businesses have appropriated his name, from hotels, to restaurants, to products, and more. a few examples make the point. medici leather in florence offers an attaché case called machiavelli in black, ocher, or red. there once was a eurasian chocolatier in manila called machiavelli chocolatier with an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 43 published by scholink inc. amusing web site, but alas, it seems to have voided the ether. as has an elaborate russian web site once called machiavelli luxury boutique that offered yachts, limousines, and their accouterments for purchase online. then there are the restaurants: machiavelli, new york city usa; ser nicolo machiavelli in ghent, belgium; machiavelli restaurant in montreal, quebec; machiavelli’s italian restaurant, southington, connecticut; machiavelli ristorante, seattle, washington; machiavelli kitchen & dining room, covent garden, london; and machiavelli restaurant in sydney, new south wales. transitory as restaurants always are, and more so in the years of the pandemic, some of these may be long gone even now. suffice it to say that machiavelli left behind no cookbooks, recipes, or menus, and no doubt made do on a poor fodder most of us today would not touch. he was no trencherman, at least not according to the above listed biographical sources. the films, the music, the food all demonstrate the disconnection between the man and the use of his name. surely one hallmark of celebrity is when the name alone sells. his name in these businesses just means italian, though if that is the only purpose, one might ask why the name benito mussolini is not used, too. he after all is another well-known italian who was famed for his appetites. 3.4 the language itself and so to the final exhibit in this overwhelming parade of evidence of machiavelli’s celebrity and that is that his name has entered the language where it is used by people who have never, and will never, turn a page in any of his books, and yet take his name, like the lord’s, freely. i refer to the adjective machiavellian which according to the oxford english dictionary, and there can be no higher authority than this, or so they say all over oxford, which chronicles its use since the sixteenth century in the following fashion below set forth in its own truncated nomenclature: 1572 treat. treasons against q. elizabeth pref. sig. a5 i cal a machiauellian state & regiment: where religion is put behind in the second & last place. 1579 j. stubbs discouerie gaping gulf sig. cviij thys absurd manner of reasoning is very macciauelian logick. 1592 greenes groats-worth of witte to gentl. acquaint. sig. f is it pestilent machiuilian pollicy that thou hast studied? 1613 g. chapman reuenge bussy d’ambois iv. sig. h2 these are your macheuilian villaines. 1631 w. gouge gods three arrowes i. xix. 26 what got that machivillian politician achitophell. c1650 j. row & j. row hist. kirk scotl. (1842) 162 divide et regna is an old matchiavilian maxime and trick. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 44 published by scholink inc. a1652 a. wilson hist. great brit. (1653) 185 the true way of treaties is with christian, not machiavelian policy. 1722 w. bond in j. hartcliffe treat. virtues (ed. 2) ded. 5 the refined matchiavillian thinkers have..altered the very nature of ethicks. 1790 e. burke refl. revol. in france 120 where men follow their natural impulses, they would not bear the odious maxims of a machiavelian policy. view more context for this quotation 1847 w. m. thackeray vanity fair (1848) xxiii. 194 so this machiavellian captain of infantry cast about him for some..stratagem. 1878 e. jenkins haverholme 63 conducting his party with machiavellian subtlety. 1928 t. s. eliot for lancelot andrewes 65 no one was ever less “machiavellian” than machiavelli. 1951 r. crossman diary 5 dec. in m. foot aneurin bevan (1973) ii. ix. 373 bevanism and the bevanites seem much more important..and machiavellian to the rest of the labour party..than they do to us. 1971 k. gottschalk in b. de ferranti living with computer v. 45 its machiavellian overtones suggest a ruthless and pragmatic manipulation of men, money and materials to achieve ends concealed from the world at large. 1985 h. carpenter secret gardens ii. i. 111 the machiavellian behaviour of the weasel, who plays every kind of trick on the other animals. (t. s. eliot above in 1928, by the way, was right but that is for another time.) these terms are readily used in the media and few, if any readers on encountering them, would consult a dictionary to find their meaning, so generally known are they now. a search of the new york times archives from 1980 to date on the term “machiavellian” produced 11,857 hits on 21 february 2021. cardinal pole does get a single hit. not one. 4. conclusion i conclude from reviewing this evidence that machiavelli has “accumulated media capital” through his recurrent and compounded representation in media from you tube videos, to feature films, television series, books, and in the very language itself (note 10). in van krieken’s words “once the public face of the celebrity has been elevated and internalized in the popular culture, it indeed possesses an immortal qualify that permits it to be recycled”. the example he cites is elvis. humbly, i suggest that machiavelli is a like example. not even elvis has become an adjective and noun as machiavelli has. brand machiavelli exists. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 45 published by scholink inc. it may be objected that much of machiavelli’s reputation is dark, so dark that in social psychology a condition that includes a machiavelli index is called the dark triad (note 11). does he not recommend unethical, immoral, and unacceptable conduct? though with t.s. eliot among others, i am less sure that he does these things, let us simply leave them aside on the assumption that infame may entwine with fame. notoriety fuels fame, as the bad boys and girls of rock music and sports have long known. acknowledgements my thanks for the advice and suggestions of katie blake, damian grace, and lukasz swiatek along with the anonymous referees. references boorstin, d. (1963 [1962]). the image: a guide to pseudo-events in america. harmondsworth: penguin. burke, e. (1899 [1790]). reflections on the revolution in france. in the works of the right honourable edmund burke (volume iii). london: nimmo. cashmore, e. (2019). kardashian kulture: how celebrities changed life in the 21st century. london: emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/9781787437067 corner, j. (2000). mediated persona and political culture: dimensions of structure and process. european journal of cultural studies, 3(3), 386-403. https://doi.org/10.1177/136754940000300306 driessens, o. (2013). celebrity capital: redefining celebrity using field theory. theory & society, 42(5), 543-560. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-013-9202-3 dyson, m. (2003). holler if you hear me. new york city: basic. erasmus, d. (1997 [1516]). the education of a christian prince (l. jadine, ed. and trans.). cambridge university press. gunter, b. (2014). celebrity capital: assessing the value of fame. london bloomsbury. machiavelli, n. (1958 [1512]). the prince (h. mansfield, trans.). chicago: university of chicago press. paulhus, d., & williams, k. (2002). the dark triad of personality: narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathology. journal of research in personality, 36(6), 556-563. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0092-6566(02)00505-6 pole, r. (1997 [1537]). apologia to charles v. in j. kaye (ed.), cambridge translations of renaissance philosophical texts (pp. 274-287). cambridge university press. rojeck, c. (2014). niccolo machiavelli, cultural intermediaries and the category of achieved celebrity. celebrity studies, 5(4), 455-468. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2014.923163 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 46 published by scholink inc. van krieken, r. (2012). celebrity society. london: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203116340 notes note 1. corner, mediated persona and political culture: dimensions of structure and process, 388 and rojek, “niccolo machiavelli, cultural intermediaries and the category of achieved celebrity”, 456. note 2. machiavelli, the prince, 71. a similar remark can be found by erasmus, the education of a christian prince, 59. note 3. pole, apologia to charles v, 275 where he wrote machiavelli was “an enemy of the human race”, “the hand of satan”, “unworthy of being born”, and “stink of satan’s every wickedness”, whew! the man did not pull his punches. pole was soliciting a pension from the emperor of the holy roman empire in demonstrating his zealous defense of the one true faith, ferreting out its enemies in the pages of books he had not read, a tradition that defenders of the faith continue to this day. note 4. burke, reflections on the revolution in france, 359. note 5. daniel boorstin, the image, 5. note 6. van krieken, celebrity society 15ff. see also cashmore, kardashian kulture, throughout. note 7. http://www.machiavel.be/discography/discography.html note 8. see dyson, holler if you hear me. this hardcover book from a major publisher is a biography of the musician, who had a short life. note 9. try it for yourself at http://www.archive.org/details/artdudesarroi2005 note 10. driessens, “celebrity capital: redefining celebrity using field theory”, 555. see also barrie gunter, celebrity capital: assessing the value of fame (london bloomsbury, 2014) throughout. note 11. delroy paulhus and kevin williams, the dark triad of personality: narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathology, journal of research in personality, 36(2002), 6, pp. 556-563. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 82 original paper research on international cultural diffusion strategies for excellent chinese traditional culture via short videos shanshan zhao 1* , ziqian tang 1 & zitong feng 1 1 faculty of english literature and culture, guangdong university of foreign study, guangzhou, china * shanshan zhao, faculty of english literature and culture, guangdong university of foreign study, guangzhou, china received: may 12, 2025 accepted: may 25, 2025 online published: june 10, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n1p82 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n1p82 abstract short videos have amassed a substantial overseas user base as a vital channel for chinese international communication. a critical challenge is how to harness short video platforms as “amplifiers” to tell china’s stories and spread its voice effectively. this endeavour is essential for the transformation and modernization of chinese international communication strategies, thus establishing a unique chinese framework for global cultural dissemination. this paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of the current status and challenges faced by short video content creation and cross-cultural communication in china. it proposes tailored communication strategies to enhance understanding of chinese culture among audiences from diverse cultural backgrounds, fostering cultural recognition. this study seeks to bridge the gap in understanding between china’s millennia-old traditions and international audiences. by drawing on cultural memory and emotional resonance, it aims to promote the preservation, development, and revitalization of china’s outstanding traditional culture. keywords chinese excellent traditional culture, international cultural communication, short video, communication strategies 1. introduction the central committee of the communist party of china’s decision on deepening reform and promoting china’s modernization drive emphasizes the need to accelerate the construction of a discourse and narrative system with chinese characteristics and comprehensively enhance international communication capabilities. at present, the international environment is undergoing profound changes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 83 published by scholink inc. in a century, and the media ecosystem is becoming increasingly intelligent and socialized. against this backdrop, excellent traditional chinese culture has become a solid foundation for telling chinese stories well and enhancing the effectiveness of international communication. effectively harnessing evolving media technologies to enhance the global reach of china’s traditional culture is a critical priority today (he & jiang, 2024). since the 18th national congress of the communist party of china, the party central committee has issued repeated instructions on protecting, inheriting, and disseminating excellent traditional chinese culture. in june 2023, during the symposium on cultural inheritance and development, chinese government stated: ―continuing to promote cultural prosperity, build a strong cultural country, and construct a modern civilization of the chinese nation at a new scratch line is our new cultural mission in the new era‖. this pivotal assertion has made chinese culture a focal point at home and abroad, further highlighting the urgency of promoting chinese culture ―going global‖. with the advancement of globalization, new media has gradually become a key medium for shaping national images. among these, short video platforms have risen rapidly, fueled by advantages like short duration, strong interactivity, rapid dissemination, and broad reach. they have gained significant global influence. currently, excellent traditional chinese culture faces challenges in international communication including severe cultural discounts, frequent misunderstandings, lack of specialized communication channels, inaccurate content translation and insufficient innovation with monotonous forms. thus, innovations in short video content, production, and platform strategies can help elevate the value of excellent traditional chinese culture, promote china–foreign exchanges, and expand china’s international influence. 2. value implications of excellent traditional chinese culture in international communication 2.1 breaking “western cultural centralism” and enhancing china’s international discourse power today, the competition among great powers extends far beyond traditional political, economic, and military domains into increasingly complex arenas, where cultural soft power has become a pivotal front. for a long time, european and american cultures have dominated global communication orders, evolving into the ideology of ―western cultural centralism‖. under this dominant narrative, western societies often downplay or ignore ―chinese values‖, distort ―china’s image‖ and stigmatize china and its people. some countries even label china as an ―anti-modern civilization force‖ (zhang & pan, 2021). such biased perceptions create obstacles to chinese culture’s global spread. to break this long-standing ―cognitive bias‖, china must take proactive steps to deconstruct outdated cultural communication orders and explore new models for disseminating chinese cultural essence—thus building a more diverse and inclusive global cultural landscape. amid intensifying global political rivalries, actively communicating chinese culture and gaining more initiative in the international www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 84 published by scholink inc. discourse system has become a necessary and urgent choice for building a cultural powerhouse. with the development of digital technology and media, social platforms tell china’s stories and convey chinese concepts in vivid and interactive ways. it not only enhances china’s cultural influence but also strengthens the persuasiveness and appeal of chinese discourse. 2.2 sustaining excellent traditional chinese culture and boosting cultural confidence the enduring vitality of chinese culture throughout millennia stems fundamentally from its remarkable integrative dynamism and inclusive nature. as fei (1992) articulated, its formation and development are characterized by the continuous absorption and harmonious synthesis of diverse elements—from disparate geographic regions, various ethnic groups (han alongside numerous others), and successive historical epochs (p. 62). this intricate fusion forged a unique cultural pattern best described as ―pluralistic unity‖ (多元一体，duoyuan yiti), where distinct components coexist synergistically within a cohesive whole. this profound capacity for integration is not mere assimilation but a transformative process that imbues chinese culture with extraordinary resilience and adaptive innovation (zhang, 2015). when confronting era-specific challenges—be it philosophical contention during the hundred schools of thought, socio-political upheaval, or encounters with foreign civilizations—this inherent flexibility allowed the culture to evolve, reinterpret traditions, and maintain its essence while incorporating new influences. this dynamic adaptability ensures its ongoing relevance and creativity. consider confucianism, a central ideology in chinese history, as an example. its core values such as benevolence, ritual and righteousness not only guide individual behaviors and values but also shape the chinese nation’s distinctive moral and ethical outlooks, deeply rooted in its spiritual heritage. sustaining such a profound heritage necessitates active engagement with contemporary mediums. in an age dominated by ubiquitous short video platforms such as douyin, kuaishou, lies a potent opportunity for innovative cultural transmission. creatively produced short videos can transform abstract confucian virtues into vivid, relatable narratives—perhaps depicting modern scenarios exemplifying ren (compassion) or xin (trustworthiness). this makes profound wisdom accessible and engaging for vast audiences, particularly the younger generation. successfully achieving this fosters a broader social environment that reveres traditional values, thereby significantly boosting collective cultural confidence. this renewed confidence is indispensable, providing crucial spiritual sustenance and ethical grounding for the nation’s ongoing rejuvenation journey, ensuring its cultural identity remains vibrant amidst global change. 3. advantages of short videos as a cultural communication medium 3.1 real-time dissemination and efficient diffusion: the timeliness advantage of short videos the global proliferation of new media has fundamentally reshaped information consumption, and within this landscape, the unique fondness of short videos presents unprecedented opportunities for the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 85 published by scholink inc. real-time dissemination and efficient diffusion of excellent traditional chinese culture. characterized by extreme brevity (typically seconds to minutes), diverse thematic potential, and comparatively low production barriers, the short video format aligns perfectly with contemporary audiences’ fragmented attention spans and preference for instant gratification (zeng & wei, 2024). this structural advantage enables the swift packaging and release of cultural content, allowing practitioners to respond almost instantaneously to events, seasonal festivals, or trending topics with culturally relevant snippets. the power of this timeliness is magnified exponentially by sophisticated algorithmic distribution channels embedded within dominant platforms like tiktok and kuaishou. these algorithms prioritize content discovery based on user preferences and engagement patterns, facilitating the rapid, widespread diffusion of compelling cultural shorts across vast networks within minutes or hours of posting, far outpacing traditional media cycles or even long-form digital content. the sheer scale of the short video ecosystem in china and globally underpins its efficacy as a cultural transmission vehicle. according to the authoritative 55th statistical report on internet development in china (china internet network information center [cnnic], 2025), by the end of 2024, china had reached 1.108 billion internet users, representing a penetration rate of 78.6%. crucially, 1.04 billion of these individuals were short video users, constituting a staggering 93.9% of the total online population. the broader online audiovisual market, encompassing long videos, short videos, live streaming, and audio, solidified its massive economic significance by surpassing one trillion yuan in market size (cnnic, 2025), demonstrating the centrality of platforms supporting short-form content. globally, the reach is equally profound. data from statista (as cited in we are social, 2024) shows that tiktok, the international counterpart to douyin, had amassed over 4.92 billion downloads worldwide by april 2024 and boasted 1.582 billion monthly active users, securing its position as the fifth most popular social platform globally. this unparalleled combined user base and pervasive platform infrastructure provide an unprecedented conduit. when culturally rich and engaging short videos are disseminated through these channels, leveraging their intrinsic timeliness and algorithmic propulsion, they possess an immense capacity to amplify the reach and visibility of traditional chinese culture, not just domestically but across international borders. this efficient, wide-reaching diffusion fosters greater accessibility and familiarity with chinese cultural heritage on a global scale. 3.2 cross-regional communication and multicultural integration: the global advantage of short videos the inherently cross-border nature of the internet, coupled with the unique communicative strengths of the short video format, creates unparalleled opportunities for overcoming geographical and cultural divides to facilitate the global dissemination and integration of excellent traditional chinese culture. unlike static text or complex historical documentaries, short videos leverage powerful symbolic carriers inherent to chinese civilization, which possess a unique capacity to inspire immediate sensory www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 86 published by scholink inc. engagement and spiritual reflection. crucially, short videos achieve multicultural resonance primarily through effective visual storytelling and relatable character portrayals. visuals often function as a ―universal language‖ that can bypass linguistic barriers more readily than textual communication. by constructing narratives around everyday practices, familial bonds, celebrations, or artistic pursuits deeply rooted in chinese tradition, creators can tap into fundamental human emotions– wonder, nostalgia, serenity, or admiration for skill. this non-verbal, emotion-driven communication effectively sparks the interest of global audiences unfamiliar with specific cultural contexts, fostering an initial connection that transcends overt cultural differences and lays the groundwork for deeper appreciation and understanding. the phenomenal international success of creators like li ziqi stands as a compelling empirical demonstration of this global advantage. li’s meticulously crafted videos, characterized by their poetic originality, cinematic aesthetic quality, and deep immersion in rural chinese lifestyles such as traditional farming, cooking, and handicrafts, deliver immense emotional and aspirational value. by showcasing the tranquillity, self-sufficiency, and profound beauty inherent in traditional practices, she constructs an appealing vision that resonates powerfully with global audiences experiencing digital saturation and modern anxieties. li ziqi’s content prompted significant overseas audiences to reassess their perceptions of china, transforming simplistic stereotypes into a more objective appreciation of its cultural depth and ecological wisdom. her approach provides a replicable blueprint: focusing on universal human values (connection to nature, craftsmanship, family, peace), utilizing highly evocative visual aesthetics, and minimizing reliance on overt verbal explanation or cultural didacticism. this model underscores how strategically crafted short videos can function as highly effective ―soft power‖ tools. they enable the organic integration of specific chinese cultural elements into the global digital landscape, fostering multicultural dialogue and understanding while simultaneously enhancing the global visibility of china’s intangible cultural heritage and boosting domestic cultural confidence through international validation. 3.3 multi-sensory synergy: the immersive cultural expression advantage of short videos the profound multi-sensory nature of short videos unlocks unparalleled potential for immersive cultural expression, uniquely positioning the format as a vital conduit for showcasing the richness and depth of traditional chinese culture. unlike text or audio alone, short videos integrate visual spectacle, auditory richness (music, dialogue, ambient sound), rhythmic editing, and kinetic movement into a cohesive sensory experience, closely mirroring embodied human perception (manovich, 2001). this convergence creates an immersive immediacy crucial for presenting china’s intricate cultural heritage—comprising diverse elements like calligraphy, traditional painting (国画，guohua), peking opera (京剧， jingju), martial arts (武术， wushu), tea ceremony (茶道，chadao), porcelain (瓷器，ciqi), and silk (丝绸， sichou). by strategically selecting and artfully integrating these symbolic cultural carriers, content creators can construct a dense, interconnected symbolic network. this network doesn’t merely present isolated artefacts; it weaves them into meaningful narratives, embedding them within stories of historical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 87 published by scholink inc. figures, folklore, seasonal rituals, or philosophical concepts. for instance, a video might depict a calligrapher (chufa jia) composing poetry (shi) while traditional instruments (guzheng) play and ink paintings hang nearby, thereby layering multiple symbolic practices into a single, resonant tableau. this systematic symbolic integration, facilitated by the short video’s audiovisual capabilities, serves a critical function in cross-cultural comprehension. symbolic narrative, as a communication tool, effectively transcends linguistic specifics and regional cognitive frameworks. the simultaneous presentation of visual symbols (the flowing lines of calligraphy), auditory cues (the distinct melodies of peking opera percussion), tactile suggestions (the texture of silk depicted in close-up), and narrative context (a story about a ming dynasty artisan) engages audiences on multiple cognitive levels. this sensory synergy activates what paivio’s (1986) dual-coding theory describes as complementary verbal and non-verbal mental representations, reinforcing memory and understanding. foreign audiences might not grasp the specific historical context of a qinghua porcelain vase immediately, but experiencing it visually alongside the sounds of its creation, contextualized within a narrative about craftsmanship and aesthetic philosophy, fosters a gradual, holistic assimilation of its cultural significance. this multi-dimensional exposure helps demystify complex traditions, moving beyond superficial exoticism towards genuine appreciation, thereby shaping perceptions of china as a culture characterized by approachability (embodied in relatable stories/daily practices), profound respectability (through showcasing mastery and philosophical depth), and credibility (rooted in authentic representation and enduring vitality). the immersive power of the medium turns abstract ―culture‖ into tangible, resonant experiences. 4. current status of traditional culture short videos: creation and international communication 4.1 severe cultural discount phenomenon: recurrent cultural misinterpretations due to cultural differences, excellent traditional chinese culture often faces cultural discount phenomenon in cross-cultural communication (information loss or misunderstanding). first, many concepts and expressions in traditional chinese culture (e.g., idioms, ancient poetry) lose their original artistic conception and atmosphere when translated. second, many cultural symbols and images in chinese tradition have specific connotations. however, due to cultural differences, value conflicts, and lack of background knowledge, foreign audiences struggle to understand traditional festivals, customs, and moral concepts. for example, disney’s mulan rewrote the original ―filial piety and loyalty‖ core as a ―pursuit of personal value‖ (a western narrative), undermining confucian ethics’ cultural foundation (pan & dong, 2023). this dual deviation (from symbolic expression to value core) creates cognitive gaps in cross-cultural communication. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 88 published by scholink inc. 4.2 lack of specialized media and inaccurate content translation at present, short videos have a large overseas user base but lack in-depth cooperation with international media and cultural institutions, limiting global influence. additionally, inaccurate or lively language translation in foreign-language short videos directly affects communication effectiveness. for example, in the documentary the poetic world of li bai, the line ―仰天大笑出门去‖ (yangtian daxiao chumen qu) was literally translated as ―i laugh loudly and go out‖—stripping away the poet’s spiritual awakening from bureaucratic constraints. such reductive cultural decoding lies at the root of why ―china’s narratives‖ stagnate at the level of superficial spectacle. 4.3 insufficient innovation and monotonous forms in the current context, foreign-language short videos on chinese traditional culture often fall into the dual trap of symbolic and rigid forms (gong, 2023). their focus on classic elements—martial arts, calligraphy, peking opera, and ancient texts—often results in homogenized content and uninspired presentations. this superficial approach neglects deeper cultural meanings and historical narratives, leading to aesthetic fatigue and diminished engagement. some short videos still use traditional documentary or interview formats, lacking innovation and fun, making them unattractive to young people. for example, the bbc documentary the story of china uses a linear narrative to interpret confucianism, focusing on static artifacts and scholarly commentary. some overseas audiences noted that while content is rigorous, the slow narrative pace struggles to adapt to short video viewing habits. 5. strategies for international communication of excellent traditional chinese culture via short videos 5.1 strengthen content innovation and deeply explore the cultural core to effectively leverage short videos for transmitting traditional chinese culture globally, prioritizing substantive content innovation is paramount. this necessitates actively countering tendencies towards symbolic simplification and thematic monotony–such as reducing rich traditions to mere aesthetic snippets devoid of context. overcoming this requires methodological rigor beginning with comprehensive audience research. drawing on cultural anthropology frameworks (hofstede et al., 2010), practitioners must deeply analyze the socio-cultural backgrounds, media consumption habits, and cognitive preferences of specific target demographics. for instance, content aimed at southeast asian youth might foreground shared confucian values through modernized musical narratives, while videos targeting european audiences could emphasize universal philosophical concepts like harmony (和，he) using relatable visual metaphors. this granular understanding enables the creation of premium, resonant content that authentically bridges cultural distance. fundamental to this innovation is a profound engagement with the cultural material itself. rather than superficial displays (e.g., showcasing porcelain without explaining its technological and aesthetic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 89 published by scholink inc. evolution), creators must invest in interpretative depth that unpacks historical layers, contextual meanings, and enduring spiritual values underpinning practices (unesco, 2003 convention art. 2). a short video on kunqu opera (昆曲， kunqu), for instance, should transcend costume and melody to explore its literary sophistication as were xiqu (文人戏曲， literati theatre) and its embodiment of ming-qing literati ideals. artistic expression then becomes the vehicle for conveying this substance, demanding linguistic precision and contextual adaptation. this involves moving beyond rigid literal translations to employ idiomatic, audience-appropriate language—explaining 知足常乐 (zhi zu chang le) not merely as ―contentment brings happiness‖ but contextualizing it within daoist wu-wei (无为) philosophy or agrarian life-worlds. furthermore, innovative multimedia integration is crucial. merging traditional art forms such as shadow puppetry, and playing with modern techniques—like 3d animation recreating mythological scenes, augmented reality overlays explaining han dynasty bronze motifs, or spatial audio simulating temple rituals—transforms abstract heritage into sensorial vivid, emotionally compelling experiences. this synergy doesn’t just illustrate tradition; it demystifies and re-contextualizes it, enhancing comprehension and engagement. ultimately, content rooted in deep cultural excavation and expressed through innovative, audience-aware multimedia yields not just views, but meaningful cross-cultural resonance and sustained impact. 5.2 leverage social media platforms and seize communication initiative to maximize the global reach of excellent traditional chinese culture through short videos, proactively harnessing the infrastructure and dynamics of dominant social media platforms is essential for maintaining persistent visibility and shaping coherent narratives. as highlighted by van dijck et al. (2018), platforms like youtube, tiktok, instagram, and facebook operate as ―algorithmically governed attention economies‖ (p. 31), where visibility depends on strategic content adaptation to platform-specific logics. chinese cultural promoters must move beyond sporadic posting to implement systematic channel operations, including algorithm-optimized publishing schedules tailored to overseas audiences’ peak engagement times and consistent thematic branding across campaigns (zhao & belk, 2021). this requires strengthening video script architecture–ensuring narrative clarity within tight time-frames through compelling hooks, logical progression (e.g., problem-solution frameworks), and culturally resonant conclusions. only through such structured, high-frequency content dissemination can practitioners establish continuous cultural touch-points, gradually fostering familiarity and countering fragmentation inherent to digital spaces. this sustained presence transforms isolated cultural artifacts into a cohesive, recognizable digital tapestry that effectively circulates china’s spiritual and aesthetic essence globally. crucially, leveraging foreign creators as credible ―cultural intermediaries‖ amplifies impact and disrupts entrenched stereotypes. influencers with established global follower-ship offer authenticity and relatability often lacking in official channels. their organic china-themed content—ranging from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 90 published by scholink inc. culinary explorations and architectural marvels to participation in local festivals—generates immense virality and trust precisely because it bypasses perceived state narratives, presenting lived experiences over didactic messaging. for instance, during the 2024 surge in international tourism catalyzed by china’s 144-hour visa-free transit policy, foreign visitors flooded platforms like tiktok and youtube with spontaneously created shorts. these videos showcased vibrant street markets in chengdu, breathtaking landscapes in zhangjiajie, and intimate encounters with traditional craftspeople, accumulating billions of views. this organic, user-generated wave constituted a powerful counter-narrative to concurrent ―de-globalization‖ rhetoric and western media distortions, revealing a dynamically modern yet culturally rooted china. it demonstrates how strategically encouraging and amplifying such content (e.g., via hashtag campaigns like #chinaunfiltered or creator partnership programs) empowers international audiences to actively reconstruct their perceptions of china through firsthand digital ―experiences‖, thereby reclaiming communication agency and substantially advancing cultural influence beyond traditional diplomatic channels. 5.3 focus on audience analysis and precisely target groups effective global dissemination of traditional chinese culture via short videos necessitates a data-driven, micro-segmented approach to audience analysis, transcending broad demographic categorizations to identify granular cultural affinities and consumption triggers. for successful cross-cultural communication, utilizing symbols, stories, or values that resonate with local preferences is crucial. rigorous market research must therefore capture regional heterogeneity: while european audiences may respond to philosophical explorations of daoist harmony (道，dao) presented through landscape cinematography, southeast asian viewers might engage more deeply with familial ethics (孝，xiao) depicted in contemporary family stories (chen, 2024). this demands developing multidimensional audience profiles that integrate quantitative metrics (content consumption duration, sharing frequency) with qualitative insights (cultural curiosity drivers, perceived relevance of traditions) across segmented cohorts like ―us gen z gamers interested in mythology‖ or ―latin american eco-conscious travelers‖. precision targeting relies on translating these insights into hyper-localized content strategies. for instance, creators targeting japanese audiences might leverage shared buddhist heritage through videos on dunhuang murals (dunhuang bihua) contextualized within sino-japanese artistic exchange. this localization minimizes cultural discount effects while maximizing psychological proximity. technologically, leveraging ai-driven platform algorithms is indispensable. systems like tiktok’s recommendation engine analyze user interest graphs (e.g., interactions with related hashtags like #chinesecalligraphy or #zengardens) and behavioral data (completion rates, re-watches) to identify receptive micro-segments. finally, live-streaming serves as a dynamic engagement multiplier. hosting sessions with scholars explaining the analects (论语，lunyu) or artisans demonstrating cloisonné (jingtailan) enables real-time q&a and co-created meaning-making. these participatory exchanges www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 91 published by scholink inc. foster a sense of ownership and community—viewers transition from passive consumers to active cultural participants, strengthening long-term affinity and brand loyalty to chinese cultural narratives in a crowded digital landscape. 5.4 strengthen professional talent training and enhance communication efficiency the global effectiveness of disseminating traditional chinese culture through short videos hinges critically on developing specialized, interdisciplinary talent equipped with both technical proficiency and deep cultural-literacy. educational institutions and cultural agencies must collaborate to design rigorous curricula that bridge creative production and strategic communication, thus training more professionals with hands-on experience, supporting industry sustainability. core modules should encompass: cultural content curation, technical production: advanced instruction in cinematography, algorithmic platform literacy, data analytics etc., which should be based on a strong support from big internet platforms like tiktok, kuaishou to meet with evolving market needs. globalization also demands an enhancement on intercultural communication talent quality—strengthening language skills, cross-cultural communication, and media literacy. mainstream media are responsible for training professionals for effective international communication, ensuring china’s voice is heard on the global stage. for example, cgtn’s ―digital heritage ambassadors‖ cultivate bilingual producer-hosts who narrate xi’an terracotta warriors restoration livestreams while fielding real-time multilingual q&a. such initiatives directly enhance content credibility, dismantling misinterpretations through transparency and expertise. meanwhile, mainstream media should cultivate high-quality intercultural teams, using high-quality content to eliminate foreign misunderstandings of chinese culture, promoting exchanges, and enhancing international influence. 6. conclusion from the perspective of intercultural communication theory, cultural information transmission is complex, involving integration, contradictions, conflicts, and solutions among social members from different backgrounds. in short video creation and communication, creators must deeply understand target audiences’ cultural backgrounds to accurately encode culture, ensuring content crosses cultural barriers. in addition, creators should use cultural memory and emotional resonance to bridge the psychological gap between time-honored chinese culture and foreign audiences—achieving a ―soft landing‖ for excellent traditional chinese culture in global communication. in summary, new media tools (represented by short videos) open unprecedented opportunities for international communication of excellent traditional chinese culture. this is not only a response to the modern cultural mission of the new era but also a necessary path to national cultural rejuvenation. through new media, excellent traditional chinese culture rejuvenates globally, showcasing its unique charm and profound heritage. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 92 published by scholink inc. funding a study on the dissemination and reception of the discourse on a community with a shared future for mankind along the belt and road initiative (project code: gd21wzx01-01) references chen, m. (2024). cross-cultural resonance mapping: a framework for segmenting international audiences of chinese cultural content. journal of global media studies, 10(1), 78-96. china internet network information center (cnnic). (2025). 55th statistical report on internet development in china. retrieved from https://www.cnnic.net.cn/n4/2025/0117/c88-11229.html fei, x. (1992). from the soil: the foundations of chinese society. university of california press. (original work published 1947) gong, y. (2023). dilemmas and pathways in disseminating chinese traditional culture in the short video era. journalism and communication science, (2), 249-254. he, t., & jiang, x. (2024). using short videos as a medium: practical approaches to enhance the international communication efficacy of china’s outstanding traditional culture. china editor, (11), 72-80. hofstede, g., hofstede, g. j., & minkov, m. (2010). cultures and organizations: software of the mind (3rd ed.). mcgraw-hill. retrieved from https://www.mheducation.com/search.html?searchquery=cultures+and+organizations%3a+soft ware+of+the+mind+%283rd+ed.%29&page=1&sortby=relevance&order=desc&bu=products manovich, l. (2001). the language of new media. mit press. retrieved from https://mitpress.mit.edu/search-result-list/?keyword=the+language+of+new+media pan, w., & dong, x. (2023). misinterpretations of chinese popular culture overseas and its international communication. china social sciences net. retrieved october, 2023, from https://www.cssn.cn/skgz/bwyc/202310/t20231026_5692940.shtml paivio, a. (1986). mental representations: a dual coding approach. oxford university press. retrieved from https://global.oup.com/academic/search?q=mental+representations%3a+a+dual+coding+appr oach&cc=cn&lang=en unesco. (2003). convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage. retrieved from https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention van dijck, j., poell, t., & de waal, m. (2018). the platform society: public values in a connective world. oxford university press. retrieved from https://global.oup.com/academic/search?q=the+platform+society&cc=cn&lang=en www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 93 published by scholink inc. we are social. (2024). digital 2024: global overview report. (citing statista data). retrieved from https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-global-overview-report. zhang, y., & pan, j. (2021). exchange and mutual learning: a new pattern of global communication from a civilizational perspective. international communications, (10), 71-75. zeng, j., & wei, y. (2024). attention economy and micro-content strategy: how short videos reshape cultural consumption patterns. journal of new media studies, 8(1), 23-41. zhang, d. (2015). key concepts in chinese philosophy. yale university press. retrieved from https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300199789/key-concepts-in-chinese-philosophy/ zhao, x., & belk, r. w. (2021). algorithmic brand management: platform capitalism and the optimization of the china brand. journal of consumer research, 48(2), 180-201. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucab015 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper narratives of rebirth and resistance: exploring identity, redemption, and cultural critique in female-targeted rebirth literature zhou ya 1 , deng yan 1 , & guanbao liu 1* 1 shanghai lida university, shanghai 201609, china * guanbao liu, shanghai lida university, shanghai 201609, china received: november 12, 2024 accepted: december 18, 2024 online published: january 3, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n1p1 abstract rebirth narratives, as a unique literary phenomenon, have recently garnered significant attention in literary studies both domestically and internationally. through protagonists’ rebirth experiences, these novels explore themes of identity reconstruction and life re-exploration, conveying profound reflections on the meaning of life and aspirations for the future. compared to their male-targeted counterparts, female-centric rebirth novels tend to defy stereotypes, challenging gendered identities and conventional perceptions. by employing varied temporal, thematic, and character constructs, these works collectively advance the transformation of narrative structures. this paper aims to investigate the themes and narrative strategies of female-centric rebirth novels, analyzing how dual-layered narrative structures, diversified plot types, and resistance to mainstream culture profoundly express themes of identity reconstruction and life re-exploration. keywords rebirth, narrative, women i. current state of research: domestic and international perspectives research on identity reconstruction and life re-exploration within rebirth narrative frameworks has developed along several notable trends both internationally and domestically. scholars are increasingly adopting an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates theories and methodologies from literary studies, psychology, and sociology to analyze rebirth narratives from a range of perspectives. this cross-disciplinary integration allows for a comprehensive understanding of rebirth as a cultural and psychological phenomenon, enriching the narrative’s interpretative depth (chen, 2024; hu, 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 2 published by scholink inc. in addition to thematic exploration, there is growing scholarly attention to the cultural logic and social critique embedded within rebirth narratives, with researchers investigating how these narratives reflect and critique specific social phenomena of contemporary society. for instance, zhu (2024) suggests that the rebirth theme in contemporary online romance fiction often employs two parallel narrative lines, where characters’ past and present lives mirror and subvert one another, forming a distinctive life cycle. this structure combines entertainment with intellectual depth by drawing on elements from folklore to create a "second life" through the dynamic interplay of life and death, fulfilling readers’ desire for an immersive existential experience. zhu’s analysis highlights how this exploration of a "second life" resonates with modern aspirations for varied modes of existence and an inquiry into the value of life itself. as narratology evolves, there is a growing focus on innovations in narrative strategy within rebirth novels, particularly the use of non-linear storytelling and multi-perspective narration. xiao (2021) observes that many online rebirth novels feature a dual-layered narrative structure that includes both superficial and profound layers. in these stories, memories from the first life often aid the protagonist in shaping decisions in the second, creating a unique interplay between past knowledge and present choices. however, the deeper layer embodies the duality of known and unknown, where the second life remains filled with uncertainties despite past recollections. this dual-layered structure enhances the narrative’s compensatory function, allowing a profound exploration of life’s regrets, the limits of self-understanding, and an aesthetic reflection on the meaning and value of life. ii. thematic analysis of rebirth narratives in rebirth novels, protagonists frequently undergo a process of identity reconstruction after experiencing rebirth. this reconstruction encompasses not only material changes, such as shifts in social status and financial circumstances, but also profound transformations in personality and values. in redemption-oriented rebirth novels, for instance, protagonists often seek to amend past regrets, achieve self-redemption, and reconstruct their identities. in the rebirth of the general’s poisonous daughter, the protagonist shen miao suffers betrayal and abuse in her previous life. following her rebirth, she not only takes preventive measures but also retaliates with resilience, underscoring how rebirth enables her to address past wrongs and reshape her identity. another example is beaten to death and reborn, i abused my entire family, where su an, previously meek and kind-hearted, is sold into an abusive marriage by her father and stepmother. her rebirth grants her the courage to stand up to her family, reject unfair treatment, and alter her destiny. through this newfound assertiveness, she escapes her oppressive circumstances, rebuilds her life, and initiates a new beginning after divorce by leveraging her prior experiences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 3 published by scholink inc. beyond identity reconstruction, rebirth novels delve deeply into life re-exploration. protagonists use the foreknowledge they retain to avoid previous mistakes and forge completely different life trajectories. this re-exploration is evident not only in choices related to life paths but also in profound reflections on life’s value and meaning. in the 1980s mother is the villainess, the female protagonist, reborn as a villainous character, strives to avert past tragedies by compensating the male lead. through her transformation and acts of reconciliation, the novel explores the complexities of human nature and personal growth. similarly, the rebirth of a married couple depicts both protagonists working together after being reborn to strive for familial happiness and love, illustrating how they confront challenges, overcome previous regrets, and collaboratively navigate a renewed life. the devil’s temperature follows bei yao, who dedicates her rebirth to saving pei chuan, ultimately achieving not only his salvation but also her own spiritual redemption and inner rebirth. iii. narrative strategies in rebirth narratives rebirth novels targeted at female audiences often employ a dual-layered narrative structure, enhancing the story’s richness and complexity while also intensifying readers’ engagement. this narrative approach, recognized in narratology, integrates two or more interwoven narrative levels that influence each other. in female-centric rebirth novels, this structure commonly manifests as an intertwining of the protagonist’s past life (or first life) and present life (or second life). the superficial layer serves as a contrast between the two lives. in many rebirth novels, the protagonist’s previous life is marred by regret, pain, or failure, whereas the present life offers a fresh start. for example, beaten to death and reborn, i abused my entire family showcases this contrast vividly. in her past life, the protagonist su an is submissive and silent in the face of injustice, yet after her rebirth, she transforms into a bold and assertive figure. she bravely stands up to her family, parts ways with toxic relationships, and embarks on a new life journey. by contrasting choices and outcomes across these two lives, the novel emphasizes the diversity and possibilities of life, highlighting the protagonist’s growth and change after rebirth. at a deeper level, the dual structure reflects the tension between the known and the unknown. although the protagonist retains memories of a past life, the new life still harbors unpredictability and uncertainty. this duality deepens the narrative, amplifying the novel’s appeal while also delving into existential themes like human fallibility, self-awareness limits, and life’s inherent worth. through this layered structure, rebirth novels fulfill both an entertaining and compensatory role in literature, allowing readers to explore missed opportunities and new beginnings. additionally, rebirth novels employ a narrative strategy known as “branching pathways.” here, protagonists often face life-altering choices that diverge significantly from those of their past lives, creating unique destinies. for instance, in the apocalypse expert travels back to the 1950s, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 4 published by scholink inc. protagonist xia yanru, a survivor of the apocalypse, travels back to the 1950s and uses her intelligence and unique abilities to create an impressive new life in a resource-scarce environment. similarly, in the spoiled girl reborn in the age of literature, han dynasty empress chen ajiao is reborn as a village girl in the 1970s. rather than acting spoiled and entitled, she adjusts to her new identity and pursues happiness through adaptation. by portraying distinct fates resulting from different choices, these novels explore the complexities of life, stressing how past experiences inform wiser choices in the reborn characters’ quests for redemption and growth. female-oriented rebirth novels exhibit a diversity of plot types, including revenge narratives, palace intrigue, empowerment arcs, sweet romance, business entrepreneurship, and science fiction fantasy. these varied plots not only enrich the content of rebirth novels but also demonstrate the protagonists’ different paths and experiences in identity reconstruction and life re-exploration. revenge-driven rebirth novels typically revolve around past injustices and betrayals suffered by the protagonist, who, reborn, seeks vengeance with passion and strategy. these novels are often fast-paced and suspenseful, providing readers with a sense of catharsis and emotional engagement. for example, in spring banquet, princess li huaiyu is poisoned but returns as a commoner determined to outwit her enemies. similarly, after rebirth, i became a face-slapping protagonist follows a protagonist who uses her talents to avenge past humiliations, earning her a formidable reputation. palace intrigue is another popular subgenre, featuring protagonists of noble birth navigating complex familial and political conflicts. the story of minglan, for instance, follows a young woman who matures within a feuding noble family, eventually securing a prominent position. another example, phoenix in captivity, centers on princess liu chuyu, a woman with modern sensibilities reborn in ancient china. through these narratives, the novels explore themes of resilience, intelligence, and social critique. growth-centered rebirth novels depict protagonists overcoming challenges to achieve personal growth. in fat campus belle, the protagonist is mocked for her weight but uses her rebirth as a chance to transform her life and achieve her dreams. similarly, the genius physician and wastrel consort follows a protagonist who overcomes limitations with her skills and resilience, blending elements of adventure and self-empowerment. sweet romance rebirth novels emphasize emotional development and romantic dynamics, often infusing the narrative with warmth and nostalgia. the splendid marriage of the 1980s tells the story of a woman who returns to a crucial turning point in her life, determined to achieve both love and success. with historical backdrops, these novels blend romance and life exploration, highlighting personal empowerment. another example, reborn space wife, follows a protagonist navigating life and love in the 1980s, using magical space elements to add a unique twist to her journey. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 5 published by scholink inc. entrepreneurship-focused rebirth novels emphasize ambition and financial independence, where protagonists leverage past experiences to succeed in business. rebirth as a financial mogul describes a woman using future insights to navigate the 2014 financial market, ultimately creating an empire. likewise, in after kicking out my scumbag husband, i achieved financial freedom, the protagonist defies patriarchal constraints to build a flourishing career, embodying the novel’s feminist message. lastly, science fiction rebirth novels combine speculative elements with rebirth, presenting a vibrant world of superpowers and futuristic adventures. in return to the apocalypse, the protagonist prepares for an impending apocalypse, using foreknowledge to ensure her family’s survival. similarly, in she reborn and became a killer in the apocalypse, a woman reborn with special abilities carves out a powerful role in a post-apocalyptic world. beyond narrative diversity, rebirth novels also embody resistance to mainstream cultural norms. this defiance manifests as a rejection of traditional values, a challenge to patriarchal authority, and a subversion of literary conventions. these novels provide readers with fresh perspectives that encourage reflection on and critique of dominant social values. a common form of resistance is the rejection of traditional values such as forgiveness and self-sacrifice. in classical literature, protagonists often respond to harm with kindness, but in rebirth novels, the protagonist’s past suffering often results in a more assertive stance, valuing self-empowerment over passive endurance. for instance, in the rebirth of the general’s poisonous daughter, the protagonist shen miao, betrayed in her previous life, actively seeks revenge upon rebirth. this principle of “repaying kindness and avenging betrayal” signifies a departure from traditional values of tolerance and patience. rebirth novels also challenge the patriarchal structures that have traditionally dictated social order. in the malicious daughter, li weiyang, originally a powerless illegitimate child, uses her rebirth to claim agency, dismantling family power structures and asserting her place. her journey to prominence critiques the established gender norms, offering an empowering model for readers. finally, rebirth novels subvert traditional literary norms by adopting a lighter, more relatable tone, distinguishing them from the gravitas of conventional literature. through humor and accessible language, novels like the strongest empress redefine rebirth tropes, prioritizing wit and resilience over vengeance. the urban cultivation of rebirth uses popular vernacular to attract younger readers, adding vibrancy to the rebirth genre and modernizing its appeal. these various dimensions of cultural resistance illustrate the genre’s significance to its readers, particularly women, by addressing psychological and aesthetic needs while advancing the genre’s evolution in the literary landscape. however, some rebirth novels may include themes of excessive violence or moral ambiguity, which could potentially impact readers’ perceptions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 6 published by scholink inc. iv. conclusion contemporary female-oriented rebirth novels, through their unique narrative frameworks, illustrate the protagonists’ journeys of identity reconstruction and life re-exploration, highlighting various emotional and experiential facets of these transformations. by employing a dual-layered narrative structure, a diverse array of plot types, and a countercultural stance, rebirth novels fulfill readers’ desires to address life’s regrets while expressing profound reflections on alternate life paths. these novels not only offer readers an enriching literary experience but also hold distinctive value and significance within the broader literary landscape. references chen, h., & zhang, x. (2024). mechanisms of pleasure, youth anxiety, and unfulfilled healing: the superficial games and deep symptoms of online rebirth novels. ningxia social sciences, 3, 207-216. hu, q. (2021). the sorrow of forgetting the river and bidding farewell to the world: a discussion on ancient rebirth and transmigration literature. hundred commentaries, 2, 45-52. xiao, x. (2021). the dual-layer narrative structure in online rebirth novels. chinese literary criticism, 2, 108-114+160. zhu, h. (2024). life experiences behind “rebirth” in online romance novels. zhongyuan literature, 38, 3-5. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper policy responses to addressing the issues of environmental health impacts of charcoal factory in nigeria: necessity today; essentiality tomorrow ajayi folajimi ajibola1, raimi morufu olalekan2*, steve-awogbami oluseyi catherine3, adeniji anthony olusola4 & adebayo patrick adekunle4 1 primary health care department, kwara state college of nursing and midwifery, ilorin, kwara state, nigeria 2 department of community medicine, environmental health unit, faculty of clinical sciences, niger delta university, wilberforce island, bayelsa state, nigeria 3 department of general studies, college of health sciences and technology, ijero-ekiti 4 department of environmental health technology, college of health sciences and technology, ijero-ekiti * raimi morufu olalekan, department of community medicine, environmental health unit, faculty of clinical sciences, niger delta university, wilberforce island, bayelsa state, nigeria received: may 7, 2020 accepted: may 28, 2020 online published: june 9, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n3p1 abstract worldwide trebled of wood charcoal production over the last 50 years from 17.3 million tons in 1964 to 53.1 million tons in 2014 with sixty-one percent of current global production occurring in africa, primarily to satisfy the demand for cooking fuel from urban and rural households with 2.7 billion people relying on wood fuels in the global south, while, the rural populace in nigeria use about 80 million cubic meters of wood fuel annually for household energy. the furnaces of the world are now burning about 2, 000, 000, 000 tons of charcoal a year. when this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7, 000, 000, 000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. this tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. the effect may be considerable in a few countries. with nigeria’s population projected to hit 410.6 million by 2050 and 550million by 2070 and consequently, becoming the third most populous country on our planet, and with an increased population growth rate in this part of the global village is alarming and worrisome, couple with rural-urban migration in key producing states, including kwara, ogun, osun, ondo, ekiti, kogi, etc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. whilst demand for charcoal is projected to increase in nigeria, the availability of woody biomass is declining due to widespread net deforestation and biomass being the only energy source of choice due to large scale poverty and unaffordable prices of other alternatives like gas and electricity. while the human population naturally increases geometrically, the power of the improvements in resources goes up arithmetically leading to disequilibrium. this disequilibrium promotes a lot of crises bordering on economy, security, health, and politics among others. it is a fact that human populations tend to increase much more rapidly than the means of subsistence. given the increasing demand for charcoal, and decreasing availability of biomass, policies are urgently needed that ensure secure energy supplies for urban and rural households and reduce deforestation. there is potential for charcoal to be produced sustainably in natural woodlands, but this requires supportive policies, economic diversification, and investment in improved eco-stoves. new advocacy and public health movement are needed urgently to bring together governments, international agencies, development partners, communities, and academics from all disciplines to address the effects of charcoal factories on health. keywords supportive policies, charcoal production, human populations, household energy, economic diversification, covid-19, nigeria 1. introduction nigeria, a geographic space currently in the throes and stranglehold of unprecedented inequality where wealth and suffering both co-exist in abundance. with so much wealth, many nigerians also suffer so much on a range of issues, including high risk concerning food security, poverty, energy production, massive use of charcoal. and most importantly, unsatisfactory infrastructure and economic development (fgn, 2008; raimi et al., 2019). the snag, however, is that nigerian and indeed, much of the developing world, rely on the use of biomass as the only energy source of choice due to unaffordable prices of other alternatives like gas and electricity which negatively affects nearly a third of humanity globally. schematically, massive demographic changes underway in nigeria and has place urban and peri-urban areas at the crossroads of a range of resource demands and threats to public health and ecosystem stability. as the population increases, so does the demand for energy. for example, population growth as experienced in nigeria in recent decades is significant, coupled with a high rate of urbanization. although little is known about the process of urbanization across the various states. the pace of urbanization is remarkable and managing the challenges of this rapid transformation is a key policy challenge, and yet the evidence base, predominantly in the nigeria context, remains limited. one central question for policy makers is to what degree this process can be managed by policy as opposed to being determined by fundamentals alone. to illustrate this problem, nigerian relies overwhelmingly on solid fuels for household energy needs, causing deforestation and environmental www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. degradation in many places. less than 10% of the population has access to modern fuels, such as electricity, natural gas, or liquid fuels (undp & who, 2009; gift & olalekan, 2020). this need has led to unsustainable levels of deforestation and associated detrimental impacts, including erosion, net releases of ghgs, and loss of biodiversity (olalekan et al., 2019). traditional options to wood-based fuels have also been problematic. livestock waste and agricultural residues, the most common replacement for wood and charcoal, are better suited to fertilise and stabilise agricultural fields. without it, lower fertility, soil erosion, and poor water retention affect agricultural production. in the meantime, premature deaths from household air pollution will likely increase from 3.5 million to 5 million by 2040, although they continue to be heavily linked to poverty and an inability to access modern energy. according to the iea’s world energy outlook (weo), the special report highlights the links between energy, air pollution and health and identifies the energy sector contributions to curb poor air quality, the fourth-largest threat to human health, after high blood pressure, poor diets, and smoking. at the start of 2020, the global energy investment program was on track with the largest annual growth rate in six years. but the covid-19 crisis has halted large swathes of the world economy to a standstill in a matter of months, with investment forecasts expected to plummet by 20%, or almost $400 billion, compared with last year, according to the latest edition of world energy investment report. despite accelerated progress of the past decade, the world will fall short of ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy come 2030 unless efforts are scaled up remarkably, according to the latest tracking of sdg 7 energy progress report. energy production and utilisation, mostly from unregulated, poorly regulated or inefficient fuel combustion are the most significant man-made sources of key air pollutant emissions. almost 85% of particulate matter and all of the sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides. millions of tonnes of these pollutants are released into the atmosphere each year, from factories, power plants, cars, trucks, as well as the 2.7 billion people still relying on polluting stoves and fuels for cooking (mainly wood, charcoal and other biomass). world health organization (2004) projected that more than two billion people utilise solid fuels for cooking by twigs, agricultural residues, dung, coal, etc. the burning of these fuels in very poor combustion efficiency leads to high levels of indoor air pollution. due to poor efficiency of fuel resulting in wastage of resources may cause high fuel demand and in turn, leading to deforestation and desertification, thereby leading to heavy workload on women and children for collecting cooking fuel, while charcoal remains an important source of energy for various applications in the domestic sector as well as other sectors. nigeria appears to be worse hit. for instance, charcoal use range from domestic fuel for cooking, heating, firing of boilers (e.g., in laundry facilities), heating of water in tea shops, and cooking in small restaurants in many emerging countries. it is the world most popular barbecue fuel and it is widely used as a domestic fuel because it produces less smoke while burning, requires little or no preparation before actual use, has a higher energy content per unit mass, while leftover after cooking www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. can easily be transported, stored and reused. charcoal is a more affordable option as fuel for domestic use for many households in developing countries. the use of charcoal has also been on the increase in communities and countries especially those that have been ravaged by the economic depression which has transcended to higher demand for charcoal. nigeria is not spared in this situation, the country has experienced an increase in demand and production of charcoal in recent times as many households are turning to it as their option of domestic fuel for cooking and heating. these have led to increase in the number of local charcoal factories; increased production has been experienced in old sites of production and new sites of production have sprung up within short periods (hosier, 1993; chidumayo & gumbo, 2013). such an increase has impacts on the environment and health of people in such areas and one of the ways of examining such impacts and providing measures to control negative impacts is through environmental health impact assessment (ehia) (raimi et al., 2019; omidiji & raimi, 2019; olalekan et al., 2020). health impact assessment looks at policies, programs, projects, that are not intended to impact health but that have the potential to have negative and/or positive effects on health and health equity (who, 2000; raimi et al., 2019; omidiji & raimi, 2019; olalekan et al., 2020). it is also referred to as a combination of procedures, methods and tools by which a policy, program or project may be judged as to its potential health effects on a population, and the distribution of those effects within the population and the distribution of those effects within the population (louise & julie, 2014; raimi et al., 2019; olalekan et al., 2020). however, environmental impact assessment usually denotes the attempt to predict and assess the impact of development projects on the environment (omidiji & raimi, 2019). within the context of this, ehia considers how these identified environmental impacts will affect the health of the population. ehia is usually considered as a component of eia dealing specifically with human health with the view of offering unique opportunities for protecting and promoting human health (jadav et al., 2002; raimi et al., 2019). an ehia must be considered for the proliferation of local charcoal factories since it has been established that charcoal production affects the environment. this has the potential of maximizing and controlling the effects of these local factories especially on the people and communities in and around the site of these local factories. besides, in the global south, biomass is the main source of energy, with 2.7 billion people worldwide using traditional biomass as their primary cooking fuel (iea 2010). the reliance on biomass essentially wood and charcoal is particularly high in sub-saharan africa. about 81 percent, the proportion of people relying on these fuels is higher than in any other region (undp/who, 2009). wood fuel usage for cooking purposes is associated with various negative effects on people’s living conditions. the emitted smoke is a major health threat: according to who (2009a), 2 million people die every year as a consequence of so called household air pollution, more deaths than malaria have caused (martin et al., 2011). in senegal alone, some estimated 6,300 people die every year because of household air pollution www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. (who, 2009b). in rural areas, firewood often has to be collected posing a burden of workload, especially for women. in urban areas, wood fuels are by and large purchased, incurring substantial costs for households. likewise, in arid countries with relatively low production of biomass such as senegal, this reliance may additionally cause wood to be extracted in an unsustainable manner. the resulting deforestation not only affects the global climate due to a loss of carbon sinks but also leads to more immediate regional and local environmental impacts, including land degradation and loss of biodiversity. the deforestation effect of charcoal, the primary wood fuel in urban centers, is even worse than that of firewood: first, the charcoal production process is intensive and puts more pressure on forest resources than does fuelwood collection, which is carried out by the rural population in a rather extensive way (kammen & lew, 2005). secondly, the production of charcoal in a traditional form tends to be inefficient inferring that charcoal cooking requires roughly twice as much raw wood as does cooking with firewood. not least, due to an increasingly urban usage of charcoal, a result of ongoing urbanization processes, the total consumption of wood fuel in sub-saharan africa is steadily growing (fao, 2008; iea, 2006). besides policy interventions on the supply side, like improved forestry management systems or reforestation initiatives, two approaches can reduce deforestation pressure on the demand side: the usage of more efficient, so-referred to as improved cooking stoves (ics), or switching to non-wood fuels for example liquefied petroleum gas (lpg) or kerosene. in other african countries such as senegal, both strategies have been pursued for decades of years, leading to a situation in which lpg is dominantly used in urban areas. although, charcoal is still used widely. therefore, since the 1990’s the development partners including international donor community and national governments through the ministry of environment have put much effort into disseminating ics in nigeria and other emerging countries. currently, the detrimental effects of biomass usage for cooking purposes and the distribution of ics have received lots of public attention in the wake of the creation of the global alliance for clean cook stoves. as part of the united nations foundation and promoted by the us secretary of state, hillary clinton, the global alliance intends to bring ics or improved fuels like lpg to 100 million homes in emerging countries by 2020. in general, ics is designed to reduce fuel consumption per meal and to curb smoke emissions. the meaning of ics varies from more sophisticated bricked stoves with chimneys leading the smoke out of the kitchen to very meek transportable clay or metal stoves that had just improve the heating process. even though the assumptions surrounding the positive impacts of distributing such cooking devices in decreasing fuelwood consumption and thereby workload and health burdens as well as deforestation pressures seem to be straightforward, rigorous impact evaluations of these development interventions are rare. for health impacts, some evidence exists from latin america and asia. (smith-sivertsen et al., 2009), for example, find a substantial reduction in exposure to indoor air pollution and a reduction in risk for respiratory symptoms in the course of a field experiment for which chimney stoves were randomly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. assigned to replace traditional open fires in rural guatemala (see as well smith-sivertsen et al., 2004). masera et al., (2007) unearths similar outcomes in rural mexico, and diaz et al. (2007) notice a substantial reduction in headaches and eye infections in guatemala, equally likewise after the introduction of chimney stoves. yu (2011) observes the effects of the behavioural intervention in combination with ics measures in rural china and unearths that this double treatment slows down respiratory diseases amongst children below five. this effect seems to be mainly triggered by the behavioural part, though. besides, rigorous research is at present being performed by j-pal in india and bangladesh (see duflo, greenstone, & hanna, 2008a, 2008b). for africa, bensch and peters (2011) evaluate the impacts of ics usage in rural senegal through a field experiment for which ics were randomly assigned to households. they find a substantial reduction of firewood consumption and self-reported respiratory disease and eye infection symptoms. cooking time is likewise drastically reduced, while we no longer find a substantial impact on the collection time of firewood. beyond this study, evidence for africa, in particular for urban areas, is completely lacking. the impacts of ics utilisation in urban centers may be expected to vary significantly from ics impacts in rural areas since different fuels and stoves are used here. 2. charcoal charcoal is a porous carbon material, with a heterogeneous surface and a disorganized pore structure susceptible to change by adequate thermal treatments to be used as adsorbent (pehlivan et al., 2011). charcoal typically is derived from wood. wood is a polymeric structure consisting of carbohydrates (cellulose and hemicellulose) and lignin, with small amounts of extraneous organic chemicals (pehlivan et al., 2011). charcoal, an age antique refined form of wood fuel, nevertheless remains an essential source of energy for domestic cooking and a huge variety of industrial and processing applications which include manufacturing of activated carbon and calcium carbide, reduction of iron ore in the steel industry, black smithies, cloth ironing, heavy-clay soil conditioner, orchid planting medium, etc. charcoal is cheap, has the thermal capacity and a good absorbent for impurities removal in water. the addition of charcoal leads to a significant increase in the temperature of the seawater that resulted to increase in the evaporation rate. since biomass is the main and indeed traditional source of energy for many households in emerging countries. it is the principal energy-producing fuel commonly used in both urban and rural households and institutions for cooking and heating. charcoal is the black carbon lightweight and ash residue hydrocarbon produced with the aid of getting rid of water and other unstable constituents from animal and regularly vegetation substances (chidumayo & gumbo, 2013; zulu & richardson, 2013). though charcoal could be made from peat, coal, wood, coconut shell, or petroleum but wood is the commonest raw materials used especially in the sub-saharan africa. it is produced usually by using gradual pyrolysis; the heating of wood or other materials in the absence of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. oxygen. the benefit of using charcoal rather than just burning wood is to remove water and other components, which permits charcoal to burn at a higher temperature and the fact that the product of its combustion is mostly carbon dioxide, resulting in very little smoke (regular wood offers a good amount of steam and unburnt carbon particles-soot-in its smoke) (hosier, 1993; jones, 2015). charcoal is classified in several categories as lump charcoal, briquette charcoal, and extruded charcoal, charcoal having heating vale of 28-30 mj/kg equal to 70% heating value of kerosene 44 mj/kg (un high commissioner for refugees (unhcr)), due to good heating vale charcoal can be used in various application as cooking fuel, industrial fuel, automotive fuel, purification/filtration of wastewater, horticulture and drawing, making rough sketches in painting. because of various application packages that may be making good opportunities for charcoal as livelihoods option for local people in rural villages. charcoal making from the wooded or different waste call as carbonization because of carbon comprises approximately more than 80%. the stage of carbonization may be pivotal in charcoal production even though it is not one of the most costly. unless it is carried out as efficiently as viable, it places the whole process of charcoal production at risk because low yields carbonization reflects via the entire production chain as increased costs and resource waste. wood comprises three major components namely cellulose, lignin, and water. the cellulose and lignin and a few other materials are composed firmly together and make up the substances we call wood. the adsorbed water is held as molecules of water on the cellulose/lignin structure. air dry or “seasoned” wood still contains 12-18% of adsorbed water. growing, freshly cut or “unseasoned” wood contains, furthermore, liquid water to offer a total water content of about 40 to 100% expressed as a proportion of the oven-dry weight of the wood. the wood containing water has to be driven off as vapour before carbonization can take effect. to evaporate water entails a lot of energy so that using the sun to pre-dry the wood as considerably as possible before carbonization critically improves efficiency. the remaining water in the carbonized wood need be evaporated in the kiln or pit and this power must be provided by way of burning some wood itself which otherwise might be converted into useful charcoal. when firewood is heated in air absence, it loses unpredictable components and gets converted into charcoal as shown in the below equation. its calorific value is higher (33 kjg-1) than wood (17kjg-1). charcoal is blackish residue comprising of impure carbon obtained by eliminating water and other unstable constituents from substances such as animal and vegetation. sugar charcoal, bone charcoal (which comprises a great amount of calcium phosphate), and others may be produced as well. the conversion of wood into charcoal is described by following chemical equation: heat strongly in absence of air wood charcoal + volatile matter + moisture (black residue) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. the use of charcoal dates back to centuries ago and has always been considered cheap compared to other domestic fuel options. also, the production of wood charcoal in locations where there is an abundance of wood dates back to a very ancient period, and generally consists of piling billets of conical pile forms a wood at their ends, bottom openings being left to admit air, with a dominant shaft to function as a flue. the entire pile is shielded with turf or moistened clay. the firing began at the bottom of the flue, and gradually spreads outwards and upwards (jones, 2015). the accomplishment of the process hinges upon the degree of the combustion. below average situations, 100 wood parts yield about 60 portions by volume, or 25 portions by weight, of charcoal; limited production on the spot often yields about 50%, while large-scale became efficient to about 90%. the process is so subtle that it was generally left to colliers (professional charcoal burners) who frequently lived alone in small huts to tend their woodpiles. however, increasing demands have brought about the proliferation of colliers and many more people going into the production and trade as large-scale production of charcoal to be on the increase (adam, 2009). charcoal production on a large-scale, principally in sub-saharan africa, has been a rising concern due to its deforestation threat, land degradation and impacts on climate change. the climate change risk index, which measure the capacity of the country to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of climate change, in 2018 was 68.33, meaning countries faces a high level of exposure and vulnerability to climate related events. citing it as the most environmentally devastating period of this traditional energy supply chain, and notwithstanding it increasing per capita income, higher electrification rates, and important renewable energy potential, charcoal remains the dominant source of cooking and heating energy for eighty percent of households in sub saharan africa (zulu & richardson, 2013). apart from the common charcoal found in most communities, there other types of charcoal; i. sugar charcoal is obtained from the carbonization of sugar and is particularly pure. it is decontaminated by acids boiling to expel any mineral substance and is then burned for quite a while in a chlorine current to evacuate the last traces of hydrogen. it was utilized by henri moissan in his initial endeavour to construct synthetic diamonds. activated charcoal is akin to regular charcoal yet is made particularly for medical use. to create activated charcoal, producers heat regular charcoal in the gas presence that makes the charcoal to develop numerous internal spaces or "pores". these pores help activated charcoal trap chemicals. lump charcoal is traditional charcoal prepared straightforwardly from hardwood material. ii. it usually produces far less ash. japanese charcoal has had pyroligneous acid removed during the charcoal making; it, therefore, produces almost no smell or smoke when burned (hosier, 1993; jones, 2015). iii. pillow shaped briquettes are made by compressing charcoal, typically made from sawdust and other wood by-products, with a binder and other additives. the binder is usually starch. briquettes may www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. likewise comprise mineral carbon (heat source), brown coal (heat source), borax, sodium nitrate (ignition aid), limestone (ash-whitening agent), raw sawdust (ignition aid), and other added additives substances. briquette sawdust charcoal is created by compacting sawdust without additives substances or binders. it is the desired charcoal in taiwan, korea, greece, and the middle east. it has a round gap through the epicenter, with a hexagonal connection. it is utilized basically for barbecue as it produces no scent, little ash, no smoke, high heat, and long burning hours (surpassing 4 hours). iv. extruded charcoal is made by extruding either raw ground wood or carbonized wood into logs without the use of a binder. the heat and pressure of the expelling procedure grip the charcoal together. if the extrusion is produced using raw wood material, the logs expelled are subsequently carbonized (jones, 2015). 3. charcoal production charcoal is generally unadulterated carbon, termed char, made by cooking wood in a low oxygen condition, a procedure that can take days and burns off unpredictable compounds, for example, methane, water, hydrogen, and tar. charcoal making is a traditional and honourable occupation. its roots are lost in ancient times and the traditional techniques for causing it to have transformed surprisingly little from prehistoric times till nowadays. the only new factors are that the basic approaches have been streamlined and that science has confirmed the fundamental procedures which happen during carbonisation and predicted the quantitative and qualitative laws which govern the process. conversely, in commercial processing, the burning takes place in huge cement or steel silos with next to no oxygen and stops before everything turns to debris. the process leaves black lumps and powder, about 25% of the original weight (zulu & richardson, 2013; evans, 2002). generally, common charcoal is produced through a method called pyrolysis of biomass. pyrolysis is an irreversible chemical change brought about by heating the biomass without oxygen. during pyrolysis, biomass experiences a system of changes and typically yields a black carbonaceous solid, called charcoal, alongside a blend of gases and fumes. by and large, the production of charcoal through pyrolysis is amplified in a procedure of low temperatures and gentle heating rates, the supposed carbonisation (senelwa et al., 2008). there are five product kinds and results from the production of charcoal operations: charcoal, non-condensible gases (carbon monoxide [co], carbon dioxide [co2], methane, and ethane), pyroacids (primarily acetic acid and methanol), tars and heavy oils, and water. except for charcoal, these emitted materials with the furnace exhaust. constituents differ, depending upon raw materials and carbonization parameters. organics and co are normally co2 combusted and water before leaving the retort. since the extent of this burning differs from plant to plant, emission levels are relatively variable. some portion of the particular organic compounds that might be found in charcoal oven emissions includes methane, ethane, ethanol, and polycyclic organic matter (pom). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. particulate matter emissions from briquetting activities may be controlled with a centrifugal collector (65 percent control) or textile filter (99 percent control). hardwood charcoal is produced abundantly in nigeria during the dry season (from october to early june of every year) in; ogun, oyo, ondo, osun, ekiti, enugu, rivers, cross river, kwara, kogi, abuja and benue states. here, there are two methods of making charcoal (direct and indirect); the direct method uses heat from incomplete combustion of the organic matter, which is to become charcoal. the ignition rate is constrained by regulating oxygen amount permitted into the burn and is halted by excluding oxygen before the charcoal itself starts to burn; the indirect technique utilizes an outward heat source to “cook” organic matter contained in a locked yet vented airless chamber. this is usually carried out in a metal or masonry chamber (furnace) (chidumayo & gumbo, 2013). furthermore, charcoal has been made by various methods. the traditional method essentially arranges the logs in a pile leaning against a chimney (logs are placed in a circle). the chimney consists of four (4) wooden stakes held up by some rope. the logs are entirely secured with soil and straw permitting no entrance of air. it must be lit by bringing some burning fuel into the stack; the logs burn gradually and change into charcoal in a time of 5 days' burning. if the covering of soil gets torn (cracked) by the fire, additional soil is set on the cracks. as soon as the burn is finished, the smokestack is plugged to prevent the entrance of air. the genuine art of this production technique is in managing the adequate heat generation (by combusting portion of the wood material), and its transfer to parts of the wood during the process of being carbonised. a tough disadvantage of this production strategy is the tremendous emissions amount that is detrimental to human health and the milieu (emissions of unburnt methane) (hosier, 1993). the recent technique employs retorting technology, in which heat procedure is recovered from and exclusively provided by, the gas combustion is discharged during carbonisation. retorting yields are significantly greater than those of kilning, and may stretch 35%-40%. recent approaches which have been presented in certain parts of the developed world have replaced the old technology. their originality does not dwell in the carbonisation principle itself however in the justification of the utilization of heat, handling of materials and labour and in certain cases the recovery of by-products from the smoke given off during carbonisation (climate tech wiki, 2012). there exist industrial technologies about 90% of the process from the growing and harvesting of the wood to the distribution and sale of the finished charcoal is still the same as with the traditional methods. the newness of these industrial technologies resides in the carbonisation step and the replacement of labour intensive methods of materials handling with capital intensive methods (evans, 2002). however, the properties of the charcoal produced depend on the material charred and the charring temperature is also important. charcoal comprises variable hydrogen amounts and oxygen just as ash and different impurities that, together with the structure, decide the properties. good stocks for hardwood charcoal contain considerable low moisture contents, low ash contents and very minimum volatile matter contents www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. (senelwa et al., 2008). another good quality of charcoal hardwood is to be in sizes that are good for the most part between 20-120mm and moderately high carbon contents to suit any utilization. the constituents of good charcoal are percentage moisture contents (8%), max volatile matter (5-10%) max, ash contents (4%) max, wood matter (2-4%), charcoal size: 20-120mm, colour: black or dark grey, carbon contents: 70% min, packaging bulk 30kg pp bags (chidumayo & gumbo, 2013). however, figure 1 below, indicates that the rate of charcoal production has been increasing at a high rate which is over 10% hence demonstrating an increase in the production. implying that the percentage change or increase average is 16.5% (figure 1). figure 1. shows the percentage change of charcoal production over 50 years (1961-2010) adapted from fao, 2017 4. uses of charcoal growth in charcoal demand will probably continue over the coming 25 years, particularly in lower-middle and low-income economic regions, where most citizens lack access to safe and affordable energy. the growth in global per capita energy demand is allied to developments in the standard of living in the global south and directly supports development goals. as energy is a key enabler and central to sustainable and economic development and social wellbeing and lack of access to modern www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. energy services negatively affects nearly a third of humanity. in acknowledgment of energy being an important economic and social development determinant, and of health and wellbeing, the un has declared the un decade of sustainable energy for all. the world’s population must be ready to access clean sorts of energy which will offer these basic needs, which may reduce the health burden from both direct and indirect exposure from future climate change risks. the sustainable development goals (sdgs) have emphasized the role that energy plays in securing a sustainable future for a global nine billion population come 2050 and have outlined four goals to support, which may act as improvement metrics. the indicators assessing improvement on the sdgs for safeguarding sustainable energy for all by 2030 include: ensuring worldwide access to affordable, sustainable, reliable energy services; doubling the share of renewable energy within the global energy mix; doubling the worldwide rate of improvement in energy efficiency; phasing out fossil-fuel production and consumption subsidies that encourage wasteful utilisation, while ensuring secure affordable energy for the poor (open working group proposal for sustainable development goals, 2014). while poor people remain in darkness and ill health, there is often no escape from the vicious cycle of poverty (https://www.reeep.org/poor-peoples-energy-outlook-2012). a lot of nigerians suffer so greatly on an array of poverty issues in the country (see figure 2 below). considering this fact, the united nations report that people are multidimensionally poor when they are poor in many respects including education, health, access to potable water, nutrition, electricity, their assets, among other indices. besides, widespread poverty is directly linked to biodiversity loss. this is because rural livelihoods depend almost entirely on biodiversity. the problem must be addressed by providing alternative livelihood options to rural communities. https://www.reeep.org/poor-peoples-energy-outlook-2012).%20a%20lot www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. figure 2. united nations global multidimensional poverty index for nigeria on poverty rates adapted from olalekan et al., 2020 about 69% of nigeria’s or about 2.7 billion people (almost half of the world’s population) live in poverty which is expected to cost $2/day. thus far, poverty reduction determinations efforts tend to affects all development traits (ebuete et al., 2019; olalekan et al., 2020). it touches all aspects of human advances such as social, economic, and environmental aspects including access to water, agricultural productivity, population levels, and gender-related issues (raimi et al., 2019; olalekan et al., 2019). none of the sustainable development goals (sdgs) can be met without major improvement in the quality and quantity of energy services in emerging countries (ebuete et al., 2019). equally noted that nigeria has significant ways to go in achieving improvement in sustainable energy for everyone and achieving the sustainable development goals (sdgs) target 7 by 2030, stating to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all, as was put forward by the united nations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. there is, therefore, a need to advance and harness renewable energy potential to meet the country’s energy needs (raimi et al., 2018; ebuete et al., 2019; suleiman et al., 2019). although, there is still an increase in the use of forest wood and charcoal by the majority of rural households and some processing industries. the majority of rural households in nigeria rely on wood products i.e. firewood and charcoal for every day local cooking and likewise projects, for example, bricklaying and tea factories. series of studies have shown that firewood and charcoal production is the reason for increased deforestation followed by other land use such as agriculture and settlement. it is evident in the rural areas of nigeria use firewood and charcoal for cooking their meals and boiling water for family use. charcoal is also used by both rural, semi-urban and urban sources of energy for cooking and other domestic or commercial significance. with this, the widest usage of charcoal as fuel for domestic cooking and heating. in nigeria, the popular “coal pot” is usually a small metal structure in which charcoal is put, lit and the cooking utensil (pot, kettle, frying pan) is put on the burning charcoal for cooking and heating. also, it used as fuel in some industries and for powering locomotives. in time past, train engines and some industrial machines have been powered using coal (charcoal) which serves as fuel for such machines. furthermore, activated charcoal is used for filtration. this type of charcoal purifies by absorbing organic compounds, odours, and toxins in gases. charcoal is also used to makes charcoal sticks and pencils specifically for artworks. moreover, medically, charcoal is consumed by some people believing that it aids digestion and also used to clean the teeth (evans, 2002; ministry of pastoral development and environment, 2004). 5. environmental impacts of charcoal production the charcoal production industry is a source of employment and livelihoods for millions all over the world. there are thousands of people who depend on the charcoal business as their sources of livelihoods from the producers, merchants, wholesalers to retailers. most of the producers are found in the rural areas from where merchants purchase the charcoals to be sold in urban centers (a process associated with the development of civilization, it is estimated that 93% of urban growth will occur in developing nations, with 80% of urban growth occurring in asia and africa and up to 600 million people in urban areas in developing regions, nearly 28% of the developing world’s urban population cannot meet their basic needs for shelter, water, and health from their resources. up to half the population of cities in some of the world’s poorest countries are either homeless or living below official poverty levels/life-threatening poverty, women and children being among the poorest people in the world). a recent observation has revealed that charcoal is becoming increasingly exported to countries with low temperatures and used in house warmers thereby expanding the business and making it more lucrative than viewed in previous times. exported charcoal are usually reshaped and packaged in rubber nylons and cartons to preserve it during the long-distance transportation either by air or sea and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. also make it more appealing to potential buyers. this new development has increased the demand for charcoal and also brought more people in the charcoal business due to better financial yield from export (chidumayo & gumbo, 2013). physical observation of areas of kwara state, particularly in ilorin west, parts of ifelodun local governments and other northern areas of the state which has experienced increased charcoal production in recent years. the business in these areas has expanded to the level of large shipper containers being used to load and transport bagged of charcoal usually for export. also, on the road from ilorin township through oke-oyi, towards share junction, there have been observed, numerous charcoal production and packaging sites which reveal the spread of production and business in recent times. indeed, it can be ascertained that more people are earning from the charcoal industry and it has generated employment and source of livelihoods for more people in the country. furthermore, in areas where charcoal production has either increased or become a new trade, there has been increased economic activities which usually transcends to economic growth. this brings about the improvement of standard of living, more jobs and general development in such communities. communities get to enjoy these dividends of increased economic activities (chidumayo & gumbo, 2013). similarly, regarding the ebira ethnic minority group, residing in the peri-urban areas of ado ekiti, nigeria, who contributes towards the economic growth of the area, mainly uses biomass fuel to cook. the peri-urban zone is an interface of rural and urban areas characterised by mixed land uses (oluwakemi, 2012), though close to the urban areas, the communities yet lack basic facilities such as safe drinking water, electricity, hospitals, and roads. these groups of individuals enjoy better market information and lower transaction costs (lynch, 2005), still, disparities in living conditions (s) characterise their milieu as compared to the metropolitan areas. their constructed houses are mainly with mud blocks and wood which don't meet minimum housing requirements which are durable, safe, dry and well ventilated (egunjobi, 1998). also, being an ethnic minority, they are more likely to be poorer than their counterparts in the cities (de sonza et al., 2003). moreover, their living milieu could make them vulnerable to environmental health hazards (lin & kelsey, 2000), particularly when biomass fuels are required to meet energy needs, hence, creating indoor air pollution problem. at the same time, when cooking places are indoors without proper ventilation, the air quality indoor is lower than that outdoor (oluwakemi, 2012). also, charcoal is known to be one of the cheapest fuel known to man from time immemorial and today over two billion people cook badly on slow, inefficient wood stoves that lead to wood waste, cause health challenges and cripple our forests. economic recession and increasing price of fuel from crude oil such as petrol, kerosene, and the popular cooking gas have made a lot of households turn to the use of charcoal which is a more affordable and economical option. a bag of charcoal in the urban centers range from n1,500 n2,000 as it can last a household for a month and beyond depending on factors such as household size, cooking frequency and quantity among other www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. factors. in comparison, the price of kerosene has been fluctuating between n200 n350 per liter in recent times. a liter of kerosene can hardly suffice for cooking in any household a day which makes an expensive fuel for many households in nigeria. the option of using electricity to power cookers have been an abandoned option for many households simply because of the poor power supply in most of the country. also, privatisation of the electricity distribution companies has made power supply more expensive as electricity bills are being strictly calculated based on the amount of power consumed and it is known that electrical appliances for cooking consume a high level of power. this has made this option not viable for many households in nigeria. moreover, popular cooking gas is being widely used in many households but it is still considered the next cheaper option after charcoal. charcoal use offers more economical domestic fuel option which can be used both indoors and outdoors. this significantly reduces the cost of living because food is an essential need which must be satisfied, hence having a cheaper fuel for cooking reduces the cost of meeting such essential needs. the most obvious environmental problems of charcoal production and utilization activities are the level and extent of tree felling, forest clearing and therefore deforestation risks, which tend to rise as coronavirus hinders protection. production of charcoal is linked with vegetation and forest clearing projected to range from 0.087 to 1.33 million hectares yearly because of the low charcoal recoveries of earth furnaces (silos used for charcoal production). low process efficiencies, combined with unregulated actions of many producers, cause large volumes of wood to be harvested from nearby forests (sedano et al., 2016; minten et al., 2013). these zones are frequently segments of collectively-owned land, yet can likewise make up huge parts of federally secured forests. because of weak, unenforced or incoherent forest policies, several countries are experiencing expanded deforestation rates from production of charcoal in protected areas. unlike the fuelwood utilization for cooking and heating, which is frequently provided from ground harvesting and has no significant environmental degradation impact (chidumayo & gumbo, 2013; minten et al., 2013; msuya et al., 2011; odubo & raimi et al., 2019; suleiman et al., 2019; olalekan et al., 2019; raimi et al., 2019), current methods of charcoal production necessitate vast resources amounts for moderately little return. deforestation is the long-lasting obliteration of forests to make the land accessible for other uses and make utilisation of the wood logs as raw materials as in the case of charcoal production. according to the united nations and fao, an estimated 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest are lost yearly. it is also affirmed that deforestation has increased over the last 50 years (hosier, 1993). the effect of climate change is being felt all around the world and one of the major contributory factors to climate change is deforestation. this affects the global carbon cycle; greenhouse gases absorb radiations and their abundance can trigger climate change. when trees die, they release carbon dioxide (co2) which also adds to the concentration of co2 in the atmosphere as a result of the processes involved in charcoal production. people and communities around sites of production of charcoal are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. usually saturated with co2 (msuya et al., 2011). also, the water cycle is affected when trees are lost to human activities such as charcoal production. a lot of water is held in plants and it is also known that trees lessen pollution in water (raimi et al., 2018; raimi, 2019). in addition, trees can play such roles as surface cover for our land, erosion mitigants, carbon sequesters, temperature regulators, they are catchment area for underground water, they serve as upland water shed, advance transpiration and offer shade, they are vital piece in keeping an equilibrium in our ecological systems, offer refuge for many species of mammals that are endangered, birds and reptiles, save the milieu through pollutants filtering from the water, create a barrier that shields coastal areas from storms and tides, they are recognised as salt excluders, have sieves that thwart the entrance of salt through the root surface, they are otherwise called salt secreters, letting the salt access to the plant then rapidly secreting it, frequently through exceptional salt glands on the leaves, their latex has properties that are medicinal in nature and has been utilized to treat sores and stings, they form the source of a complex food web, leaf litter and decomposing vegetation are a basis of food for micro-organisms, many living things makes the tree their habitat, their feeding ground, their breeding habitat, or their nursery, trees are extremely useful ecosystem/regulators of micro climate and forestall surgent wind, they function as nostril for birds and ecosystems, there are many mineral resources been deposited, they are a big lungs of the ecosystems, they are particularly considered to be efficient in reducing concentrations of pollutants, although the capacity can vary by up to 15 times between species (raimi et al., 2018; raimi, 2019). other environmental effects of deforestations include soil erosion which is one of the most striking features of the land surface of south-eastern nigeria which has impacted negatively on overall land use in the region (ayuba & dami, 2011) and has lessened the land quality and reduce the yield of use especially planting yield (raimi et al., 2019; suleiman et al., 2019). desertification is seen as a process by which productive arid and semi-arid land is rendered unproductive economically. it is desert expansion, desert creeps and usually ends up in aridity. it involves interaction among human beings, land, and climate. it is caused by the increase in the human and livestock population, over-grazing, the expansion of agricultural land and demand for fuelwood. it is noticeable that the desert creeps into the land area at the rate of six million hectares per year. more than 11 million hectares of tropical forests are destroyed per year in africa (raimi et al., 2019; olalekan et al., 2019; suleiman et al., 2019; raimi et al., 2019). desertification is another problem that results from deforestation, this brings about so many social and environmental problems including migration and loss of species (plants and animals) among other problems (msuya et al., 2011). similarly, the urban heat island has become a growing concern and is increasing over the years. the urban heat island is formed from industries, charcoal factory inclusive when industrial and urban areas are developed and heat becomes more abundant. in rural areas, a huge part of the approaching solar energy is utilized to dissipate water from vegetation and soil. in urban communities, where less www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. vegetation and bare soil exist, the majority of the sun’s energy is enthralled by asphalt and urban structures. thus, throughout warm sunlight hours, less evaporative cooling in urban areas permits surface temperatures to ascend higher than the local areas. additional city heat is radiated by factories and vehicles, just as industrial and domestic heating and cooling units. this effect causes the city to become 2 to 10o f (1 to 6oc) warmer than surrounding landscapes. impacts also include reducing soil moisture and intensification of carbon dioxide emissions (suleiman et al., 2019). moreover, foreseeable dependence on charcoal, despite drastic attempts to establish reliable electricity and fuel infrastructure, should raise some concerns regarding the sustainability of this essential industry in regards not only to its economic value but the proper management of forest resources as well as livelihoods of those most responsible for producing this fuel. the common situation is that there is a lack of regulation and the use of conventional methods for production permeates the industry (jones, 2005; ministry of pastoral development and environment, 2004; suleiman et al., 2019). the use of traditional earth-mound kilns is commonplace. these “ovens” vary significantly in size and are made completely of organic materials. the time amount necessary to simply set up the kiln for production can be as long as about fourteen days; producers first dig an opening in the ground, saving the soil for later use. the extraction of wood from the surrounding forests is typically the most labour intensive phase in the entire production process. producers go to different sites to cut, collect and haul wood to the production site. once they have reverted to the site, producers arrange the wood in a particular way to guarantee that the wood is uniformly ‘cooked’; this procedure has been refined over generations. when the wood is configured in this way, it is topped with grasses and brush; the soil is added last to permit the wood to experience combustion in the absence of oxygen, this is the same as an aforementioned process called pyrolysis (evans, 2002). these processes bring about a lot of risks and problems such as highly demanding physical stress on the body structure, high consumption of natural resources (trees), high risk of physical injuries, exposure to attacks from animals in the wildlife among other negative outcomes which have direct linkages to negative social health outcomes. notwithstanding the unsafe work conditions linked with the wood extraction, fabricating the furnace and the charcoal packing, doing so frequently establishes a remarkable individual time investment. not including time spent during extraction and packaging, producers will often spend over two weeks vigilantly monitoring the kiln to ensure that the process of carbonization in the absence of oxygen, or pyrolysis, is properly conducted. extreme temperatures combined with volatile chemical compounds, including carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide, create an extremely dangerous environment for any human, especially those without adequate safety protection (chidumayo & gumbo, 2013). producers are frequently known to go through the night inside a few feet of a burning furnace to guarantee that any gaps are swiftly sealed. for instance, it is recognised that pyrolysis, the procedure used for charcoal production, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 19 published by scholink inc. releases remarkable amounts of gaseous by-products, as well as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and others, identified to be deadly to humans in moderate concentrations (adams, 2009; jones, 2015). producers from the rural area are recognised to work inside proximity to high-temperature furnaces that off-gas these extremely toxic compounds, generating potential high threat for poisoning. exposure to toxic gases and extreme temperatures pose a great health risk to these producers. the communities around sites of production are also exposed to these toxic gases which usually result in various respiratory illnesses such as lung irritations, inflammation of the airways and fluid accumulation in the lungs among other conditions. also, the use of primitive tools can potentially lead to moderate or severe injuries, which can prove fatal in rural areas that lack access to adequate medical care. lack of modern tools most often results in the use of human labour throughout the entire production process. authorities have usually referred to the working conditions of charcoal producers as unsafe (sedano et al., 2016; ministry of pastoral development and environment, 2004); however, little attention is paid to these “hazards”. it is important to add that the use of charcoal in poorly designed appliances and houses exposed residents to high levels of carbon monoxide emissions (4166-6147 mg/m3) and other products of incomplete combustion. a study tested charcoal samples from common tree species for carbon monoxide (co), carbon dioxide (co2), nitrogen dioxide (no2) and hydrocarbon emissions using a flue gas analyzer. it is known that these gases at high or accumulated levels do have detrimental effects on health and wellbeing (msuya et al., 2011). a working report featured the perils linked with the industrial production of charcoal in the emerging world as well as the precautionary measures that ought to be taken by producers. the thirty years’ sheer volume of guidelines published, proposes the seriousness and potential risk of these working conditions. in any case, inadequate proper knowledge, institutional capacity, and financial resources forestall these safety measures from being taken in many areas that produce charcoal for residential use, adding to the prevalence of moderate to severe injury and illness. many of the producers have little or no education and are found mostly in rural areas. though there have been publications that have identified the dangers/risks that come with charcoal production and some safety measure that can prevent and control these risks, many of the producers do not have access to these publications either are they sensitized about the subject’s prevention and control of risks associated with their work. 6. control measures for negative impacts of charcoal production the adoption of the united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs) in 2015 is an unprecedented revolutionary step for the international community. the 2030 agenda for sustainable development is a one-of-a-kind roadmap that tackle wide-ranging issues from the eradication of poverty to fostering partnerships to achieve the goals. with virtually all of the sdgs relying in one way or another on environmental resources, thus does not only equip us to recognise the interlinkages www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 20 published by scholink inc. between the sdgs, but also to supporting the development of strategies that are more effective and socially acceptable. while the sustainable development goals (sdgs) strive to achieve the three pillars of sustainable development: environmental, social, and economic. of the 17 sdgs, water, waste, and energy cut across all (see figure 3 below), but goal 7 ensure access to affordable and clean energy. however, ensuring access to energy services and increasing substantially the share of renewable energy [7.1, 7.2] may impair water quality or otherwise introduce pollution into the environment (see figure 3 below) (morufu & clinton, 2017; raimi & sabinus, 2017; raimi et al., 2017; raimi & sabinus, 2017; olalekan et al., 2018; premoboere & raimi, 2018; olalekan et al., 2018; raimi et al., 2019; olalekan et al., 2019; henry et al., 2019; raimi et al., 2019). as covid 19 lockdowns are lifted, policies will be crucial in determining whether mobility changes triggered by the current pandemic are positive or negative in terms of their impacts on energy use, safety and long-term environmental and health outcomes. “even before today’s unprecedented crisis, the world was not on track to meet key sustainable energy goals”, said dr birol. “now, it is likely to become even harder to achieve. this means we must redouble our efforts to bring affordable, reliable and cleaner energy to all especially in the global south, where the need is greatest in order to build more prosperous and resilient economies”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 21 published by scholink inc. figure 3. applying the water-waste-energy nexus improves sanitation, reduces energy dependence on forests, and improves food security (design: unu-flores/claudia matthias) adapted from united nations university institute for integrated management of material fluxes and of resources. “clean air is a basic human right that most of the world’s population lacks”, “no country, rich or poor can claim the task of tackling air pollution is complete. but governments are far from powerless to act and need to act now. proven energy policies and technologies can deliver major cuts in air pollution around the world and bring health benefits, provide broader access to energy and improve sustainability”. however, the total reliance on biomass fuels freely collected from the forests has been the major means of meeting household energy demands in emerging countries. fuels wood burning including charcoal, sawdust, crop residues, and animal dung frequently compromise indoor air quality, particularly during periods of cooking in open fires. the rural areas in the least economically www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 22 published by scholink inc. developed countries (ledcs) are faced with problems of indoor air pollution (bruce et al., 2000). about 80% of the rural populace in sub-saharan africa rely on biomass fuels (wood, charcoal, animal dung, agricultural residues, sawdust) and coal for household energy (dasgupta et al., 2009; ezzati, 2005). a huge amount of those fuels are burnt on open fires in poorly ventilated spaces, thus revealing the householders to health hazards. regular exposure to indoor air pollution from the incomplete combustion of biomass fuels and kerosene results in major health concerns, leading to an estimated 36% mortality from respiratory diseases in developing countries (fullerton et al., 2008; who, 2002). of the pollutants, particulate matter and carbon monoxide increase susceptibility to adverse health risks amongst the rural people, especially to women and children (rehfuess et al., 2011; ezzati & kammen, 2002). therefore, understanding the factors that expose the rural poor in developing countries to indoor air pollution would allow for more appropriate interventions to be provided. the complex interactions between technology, economy, behaviour, and infrastructure have often been neglected in the past (jin et al., 2006). however, an important area of consideration for control measures is policy formulation. the risks and negative impacts of increased charcoal production call for well-structured policies which will cover tree planting and preserving the forests which serve as a source of raw materials for the production of charcoal (mugo & ong, 2006; olalekan et al., 2019; suleman et al., 2019). policies should also focus on addressing control of the sites and areas where the charcoal production process will be allowed. areas that are already burdened with the provision of wood for charcoal production should be protected and regulation should be provided on any land that will be allowed to be a source of wood for producers. for example, regulations can be made such that area, where trees have been fell for the purpose of charcoal production, are being allowed to get replenished by not replanting the fell trees but also staying off such areas as regards to the felling of trees for a while, long enough for such areas to recuperate. furthermore, policies should also protect the communities and environment where charcoal production is taking place, including the health of the people that reside in such communities. it must be ensured that policies are not just made, they must be implemented and their efficiency is continuously evaluated to ensure that the issues and challenges of those policies addressed and are being solved. until now, fuelwood has been the principal raw material for charcoal production and because supplies of wood are fast causing deforestation of so many areas, a variety of agricultural and forestry residues that often remain unused appear to be potentially important raw materials for charcoal production. diversification is required at the level of domestic fuel and raw materials used for charcoal production. this will reduce the burden on the forest reserves due to the increasing demand and production of charcoal. in line with this, several successful projects in the efficient charcoal production have been reported so far. a classic example is the mafia pilot project in tanzania on the utilization of coconut industry waste for energy production which was started in 1985. it had its fund from the german www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 23 published by scholink inc. development agency gtz and implemented by the ministry of water, energy, and minerals of tanzania. this project focused on enhanced kilns and a swing in emphasis to on-farm production of wood with high biomass densities was part of the answer in heavily degraded charcoaling areas to (i) reduce pressure on natural forests and vegetation ecosystems; (ii) generate extra incomes through improved charcoal production with remnant trees for alternative uses and/or rehabilitation (msuya et al., 2013). apart from coconut, another source can be gotten from coal mined from the earth. diversification also applies to provide a cheap alternative source of domestic fuel for cooking and heating to reduce the demand for charcoal. improved technology will significantly reduce toxic indoor air pollutants which will result in improved health conditions, in particular for women and children who majorly those who directly use charcoal and sawdust domestically (raimi et al., 2018; raimi, 2019; raimi et al., 2020). acute respiratory infections rank fourth in the list of diseases in sub-saharan africa and cause reduced productivity and lower life expectancy (raimi et al., 2018; raimi et al., 2020). a small scale charcoal production unit can emit quantities of particulate matter (pm), carbon monoxide (co), nitrate oxides (nox) and sulphate dioxide (so2), hydrogen fluoride (hf), hydrogen chloride (hcl), formaldehyde, phenol, acetic acid, xylene, and toluene. there are still various technologies, which permit a cleaner production of charcoal, such as the social for profit project whose products can acquire eco-label and fair-trade labels (adams, 2009; evans, 2002; raimi et al., 2018). furthermore, improved charcoal use will thus contribute to co2 emission reduction and fuel saving. in calculating the ghg emission reductions (mainly methane), it is recommended to use the accepted methodology for methane emissions mitigation in the wood carbonization activity for production of charcoal project (large scale activities) which has been technologically advanced under the clean development mechanism of the unfccc kyoto protocol (cdm). this methodology aids to work out a baseline for ghg emissions within the absence of the project (i.e., business-as-usual circumstances), how emission reductions below this baseline can be calculated, and how these reductions can be monitored (climate tech wiki, 2012). application of these methodologies will help reduce the level of co2 emissions and also provides fuel conservation which will reduce the demand for charcoal and in turn the burden of negative impacts of increased charcoal production. improved technologies also hold prospects in the modification of charcoal production processes such that processes that pose higher hazards are either eliminated or replaced with methods that pose lesser risks (climate teck wiki, 2012). for instance, processes in the course of production which emit toxic gases at high volumes can be substituted with other processes which lesser risk. also, technology can combat these environmental health challenges associated with charcoal production through well-developed machines and technologies. however, caution must be drawn here; the majority of the charcoal factories are local factories and fall under small scale industries, hence new technologies must be one that will be easily adopted and feasible with local factories. it has been noticed that some new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 24 published by scholink inc. technologies are usually not adaptable by the people who need them. therefore, adaptability and affordability must be considered when developing new technologies. research is another key way of preventing and controlling the negative impacts of charcoal factories. the research provides ways of solving problems which in this case will be proffering solutions to the associated negative impacts of charcoal factories. it is through research that new technologies can be discovered, tested and affirmed to be applicable and usable for the purpose for which it is needed. research also has the prospect of revealing ways of diversification, educating the concerned populace and developing protective devices among other prospects. “education is the best ladder to essential success within the 21st century, and it’s the only most significant modifiable social determinant of health”. thus, awareness and community sensitization may be a key tool for empowering the populace on taking necessary steps to promote their health. awareness creation provides various techniques or knowledge aspects that could be applied to actions, which is effective in coping with the vulnerability and negative impacts of charcoal factories. for the awareness process to be efficient, the exercise should be given to appropriate people, through well-defined activities and assessed through efficient techniques. also, information dissemination has been identified to be one of the vital facets of the negative impacts of charcoal factories and awareness actions towards the community’s readiness is vital. this information can either be with a nature of the emergency or of a casual nature. depending upon the nature of the information, it is significant to establish various means of information dissemination that could enable communities with fast and/or reliable modes of communication. to sustain the community's livelihood of members, their resources most be maintained, distributed and monitored. this procedure strives for the institutionalisation of resource monitoring and implementation management along with an active information transfer on the status of resource availability and quality to regulate community activities and resource consumption (islam & walkerden, 2017). similarly, members of communities housing or around the sites of charcoal factories must be empowered with information on how to protect themselves especially practical steps towards minimizing the proximity of the negative impact of charcoal factories to them. public awareness should be expanded down to the local citizens and local government. the results and risk assessments cannot be restricted to high-level officials and a small selected group of educated people but should be a part of daily life. every member of the local community should be aware of the risk due to charcoal production. education should start at the elementary school and teachers particularly should be trained so that new generations will receive proper knowledge of the health risk that may occur in their locality. also, the workers in the charcoal factories or producers in such factories are to be educated on occupational health and safety measures as regards the risks and hazards they are exposed to. they are also to be informed on the importance of protective equipment and wears which is expected to transcend to owning and utilization of such equipment and wears. besides, there is a need to develop an environmentally literate citizenry. formal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 25 published by scholink inc. and informal environmental education would be an active means of creating suitable awareness of serious environmental concerns (raimi et al., 2019). in particular, formal education is important to increase awareness, sensitize people on environmental issues and build institutional capacities. non-formal environmental education benefits individuals outside the formal education system. communication of environmental information to all stakeholders remains a challenge. public awareness empowers the general public to develop a robust sense of accountability on environmental issues. in addition, actions to deliver access to clean cooking facilities to an additional 1.8 billion people by 2040 are essential to reducing household emissions in developing countries while emissions controls and fuel switching are crucial in the power sector, “there is need to revise our approach to energy development so that communities are not forced to sacrifice clean air in return for economic growth”. similarly, the world energy outlook (weo) special report highlights three key areas for government action in addressing environmental issues: i. setting an ambitious long-term air quality goal, to which all stakeholders can subscribe and against which the efficacy of the various pollution mitigation options can be assessed. ii. putting in place a package of clean air policies for the energy sector to achieve the long-term goal, drawing on a cost-effective mix of direct emissions controls, regulation and other measures, giving due weight to the co-benefits for other energy policy objectives. iii. ensuring effective monitoring, enforcement, evaluation, and communication: keeping a strategy on course requires reliable data, a continuous focus on compliance and policy improvement, and timely and transparent public information. 7. summary charcoal is one of the affordable domestic fuel and demand for it has been on the increase in recent years due to its affordability. this situation has been linked to the recent economic problems which have been faced by some developing countries including nigeria. increasing demand for charcoal has brought a sharp upturn of the number of charcoal factories in the country. charcoal production has both positive and negative impacts not only on the people directly involved in the production but also on those who are residents of the communities housing or around such factories and the environment at large. these impacts range from the source of livelihood and economic development to physical stress and injuries, exposure to high temperature and toxic gases among other impacts. in addition, land degradation has reduced global crops productivity by 23% of the global land surface and as many as 100-300 million people are at risk of floods because of loss of coastal habitat and protection (odubo & raimi, 2019). pollution have become the bane of environmental issues in the global south including nigeria. approximately 300-400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other wastes from industrial facilities are dumped annually into the worlds water. these among other negative trends www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 26 published by scholink inc. have been projected to continue to 2050 and beyond as long as human activity continue to impact on land use change, exploitation of organisms and climate change (olalekan et al., 2018; raimi et al., 2018; raimi, 2019). however, the serious environmental pollution that is being experienced today, would be a child’s play in the next two decades or thereabouts, if the government did not strike an equilibrium between the natural resources available and human population. as environmental protection is an expensive business, but finance should not be an excuse for not protecting the environment. nevertheless, the cost of not defending the milieu is far higher due to the direct and multiplier effects on the nigerian economy and socio-cultural life. yet, the tools of human culture and civilisation destroy the ecological balance on which our very existence depends creating the ironic situation where humanity’s search for a better life, implants the seed for our own destruction. human activities have intensified desertification in the northern part of the country and have led to the shrinkage of the surface area of lake chad. the african continent is losing 10 million acres of forest yearly to climate change and ghana alone losses about 65000 ha of forest annually, representing a 2.03% average annual loss. globally, human activities not only cause climate change, but figures show that in 2018, co2 emissions per capita was 0.68 metric tons compared to the 0.37 metric tons recorded in 1999 with an average annual rate of 4.08%, conversely, it has also lead to what scientists describe as the sixth extinction of life on earth. the sixth is artificially induced by human action. human activity is effecting severe changes in biodiversity which is, in turn, induces the disappearance of plant and animal species at an alarming rate. if these trends continue the world could lose more than 20% of all existing species by 2030 and in 2018 about 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of tropical tree cover equal to 30 football pitches a minute are lost according to monitoring service global forest watch. all these could have a devastating consequence for the survival of the human species has been currently experienced with the covid-19 pandemic outbreak and if it lasts for months, “we will certainly see weakened (forest) protection”. without a doubt, the world is at the precipice of environmental collapse and crisis, covid-19 will disrupt business-as-usual practices for forestry and industrial agribusiness companies. across the continent, leaders in the public, private, and development sectors are already taking decisive action, both to save lives and to protect households, businesses and national economies from the fallout of the pandemic. but several leaders have told us that they need a clearer picture of the potential economic impact of the crisis. at the same time, many african countries are still in the early stages of organizing their responses into focused, prioritized efforts that make the most of the limited time and resources available. 8. conclusion environmental problems are a threat to life on earth, and human continuous survival depend on our collective effort to protect nature, which supplies us with all the things we need; food, air, water and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 27 published by scholink inc. other ecosystem services. nevertheless, continuous destructive activities, which have been at an unprecedented rate, have put the planet under immense pressure, resulting in deep decline in the ecosystem services we enjoy from nature. the scale of the crisis requires partnerships and collaborations across sectors and levels. before involving stakeholders to tackle real-world problems, researchers need to sit together to find an integrative way to break down communication barriers between scientists of different disciplines as well as among scientists and non-scientists. governments, the private sector, and development institutions need to double down on their already proven responsibilities and expand their existing efforts to safeguard the economy and livelihoods across states in nigeria. the government need to foster intense and closely aligned collaboration with the private sector and development partners. as world health organization estimated that over 1.6 million deaths a year is due to smoke burning from solid fuel in cooking and other domestic uses to meet the need for required energy. the drive for searching novel possibilities for energy is 3e viz: economic development, energy security, and environmental sustenance by charcoal. biomass charcoal technology should be permitted in the urban and rural area to enhance the conservation and optimization of the use of inefficient fuelwood, especially in the rural area, however, charcoal remains a neglected subject within the concerned government departments/ministries. what is needed is a bold policy statement making adequate financial, administrative, and extension provisions to encourage sustainable charcoal making as a vibrant activity. all the same, the problem of the negative poverty/environmental linkages will largely hinge on enhanced environmental management and profitable livelihoods, then again on an enabling framework that is supportive. consequently, empowerment and capacity building, good governance, resources tenure, education, and awareness will be as important in changing the negative linkages into positive ones as will be access to improved soil conservation and tree planting techniques. nigerians are poorly aware of their environment and the damages being done to it through various activities like charcoal factory production among others. likewise, the patterns of changing climate and their increasingly dangerous consequences are little valued (raimi et al., 2019). with this, efforts need to be made to minimize the negative impacts of charcoal factories which has been discovered to be on the increase, such efforts include formulation and implementation of good policies, research, developing new and better technologies and purposeful awareness to those involved in charcoal production and members of the surrounding communities. furthermore, the nigerian government, through the relevant authorities, implements existing forest and resource laws to ensure proper usage of the forest-related products. in addition, ensuring sustainability by meeting the livelihoods challenges and preserving the ability of ecosystems to perform long-term regulating and supporting functions requires adjustments and trade-offs. individuals engaged in harvesting of wood for charcoal and fuelwood require trade-offs. there is a need for innovations to devise local solar heating devices that will be inexpensive and yet locally available, and communities are willing to engage in agroforestry or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. silviculture and would provide land to government for mass silviculture. as the communities needs to change or modify some of their farming practices, especially the slash and burn system, but it also needs farming inputs such as herbicides, fertilizers, and modern implements such as tractors, which should be made available at highly subsidized rate (fasona et al., 2014). community members should be actively prepared and willing to adopt alternative livelihoods that will improve the quality of ecosystems in relation to forest conservation and food production. all local government authorities (lgas) should be willing to partner with communities and other stakeholders to drive the process of natural resources management. there are trends of functionality gaps and a dearth of management schemes and tools which according to fasona et al. (2014), about 49% of the lgas are not aware of methods for preserving their forest land and animals; 70% of households have never been trained in forest management and 40% are not aware of the future threats to the sustainability forest and woodland that could result from their actions. in over 70% of the lgas there are no systematic procedures for applying for logging, felling of trees for charcoal and fuelwood harvesting. this implies a lack of regulation or coordination of logging and charcoal businesses by the government. as june 5th 2020 marked the largest global celebration of world environment day (wed) with the theme “time for nature”, it is significant that the world become very conscious of our activities that lead to environmental destruction and loss of forestry products, including biodiversity. there is need to put in the best of effort to minimise our activities that endanger the environment and be mindful that we have the means to ensure a sustainable future for the people and our planet by contributing our quota to a more sustainable approach to doing things in order to protect, preserve and enhance our ecosystem. there is need to care for the environment and this is the time for mainstreaming environmental sustainability in our development agenda as a country and as a people to help in protecting nature to continue enjoying the ecosystem services it provides. additionally, there is a need for legislation of policy on modern and enhanced technological usage of forestry products, particularly for charcoal. compulsory use of improved eco-stoves should be made available to derived and multidimensional poor rural households to ensure efficiency and effectiveness for forest sustainability. it is further recommended that: i. the government should mainstream environmental concerns into poverty reduction programs and strengthening of forest protection programmes to ensure adequate vegetation cover in critical areas and to discourage developments likely to cause harmful changes. ii. develop and implement an environment-friendly job-creation initiative for poverty reduction and green growth development and combine desirable features of the traditional approach (of ecosystems management) with modern scientific methods of conservation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. iii. move production from environmentally polluting and resource-intensive activities by encouraging the use of alternative sources of energy e.g. coal briquettes, efficient wood stoves, solar energy, wind energy, biogas, etc. iv. promote a shift from dirty energy to clean renewable energy options through reducing the percentage of fuel wood consumption in the domestic agricultural and industrial sectors. v. incentivize investment in efficient, clean and environmentally friendly technologies. vi. promote public awareness on the economic and environmental impacts of charcoal production and consumption patterns through encouraging communities to imbibe the culture of tree planting. there is a need to mandate the inclusion of tree planting as a criterion for building plans approval and approving authority shall determine the number of trees based on the size of the land and encouraging viable afforestation and reforestation programmes using tested drought resistant and/ or (local) economic tree species and conserving indigenous tree species that are endangered. vii. prepare periodic public reports on the state of the environment in various states of the federation through strict regulation and enforcement of logging activities and increasing support for non-governmental organizations (ngos) and community tree-planting programmes. viii. forest reserves should be established, protected and properly maintained by both federal and state governments. also, all local government areas should earmark at least 25% of their landmass for forestry and this should be properly manned and protected. other states should ensure the creation of forests on at least 15 percent of their land area. ix. government including federal and state should strengthen and properly fund a reforestation and afforestation agency to handle all anti-desertification projects. the stern review found that, if deforestation were avoided, emission savings from avoided deforestation could potentially reduce co2 emissions for under $5/tco2, possibly as little as $1/tco2. afforestation and reforestation may perhaps save a minimum of another 1gtco2/year, at an estimated cost of $5/tco2 to $15/tco2. the review determined these figures by assessing eight (8) countries responsible for 70% of global deforestation emissions. x. integrated human development issues including income generation, increased local control of resources, local institution strengthening, capacity building, and greater involvement of community based non-governmental organizations and lower tiers of government as delivery mechanisms. xi. enhancement of food security through improved ecosystem-based management and ecosystem restoration. series of studies show the benefits of implementing strategies to improve ecosystem management as a means to increase not only food security but also to achieve other social goals. examples include collaborative management of mangrove forests to promote conservation, mitigation of climate change and alleviation of poverty among people dependent on the mangroves and adjacent marine ecosystems (dulvy and allison, 2009). such plans necessitate supportive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. institutions, partnerships, teamwork with farmers’ innovation networks, and connections from sustainable farms to markets. xii. design and implement a national environmental inspection programme (neip). xiii. compile and domesticate all environmental treaties signed or ratified by nigeria. xiv. coordinate the activities of involved ministries in a nexus approach. xv. provide a locally-adapted regulatory path for the safe use of charcoal and its residues. xvi. assess the value of ecosystem services provided by charcoal and reuse. benefits that can be quantified include improved soil, forest and wetland resources; nutrients, water, and energy recovered; ghg emissions reduced, and improved human health. xvii. establish incentives for communities to encourage them to implement a nexus approach and to cooperate in its implementation. for example, identify how operation costs and the resources produced are shared across the community. data availability statement the data availability used to support the findings of this study are included within the article. competing interests we declare that we have no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research reported. this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. consent all authors declare that written informed consent was obtained from the participants. references adam j. c. 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(2019). 21st century emerging issues in pollution control. 6th global summit and expo on pollution control may 06-07, 2019 amsterdam, netherlands. raimi, m. o., abdulraheem, a. f., major, i., odipe, o. e., isa, h. m., & onyeche, c. (2019). the sources of water supply, sanitation facilities and hygiene practices in an island community: amassoma, bayelsa state, nigeria. public health open access, 3(1), 134. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3338408 raimi, m. o., omidiji, a. o., adeolu, t. a., odipe, o. e., & babatunde, a. (2019). an analysis of bayelsa state water challenges on the rise and its possible solutions. acta scientific agriculture, 3(8), 110-125. raimi, m. o., tonye, v. o., omidiji, a. o., & oluwaseun, e. o. 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(2009a). global health risks—mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks. world health organisation. geneva. who. (2009b). country profile of environmental burden of disease—senegal. world health organization, geneva. who. (2000). health impact assessment (hia). report of an inter-regional meeting on harmonization and mainstreaming of hia in the world health organization. a partnership meeting on the institutionalization of hia capacity building in africa. who. (2002). the world health report: reducing risks, promoting healthy life. switzerland: world health report. yadav, c. s., aryal, s., & jha, h. b. (2002). national environmental health impact assessment guidelines for development projects. who paper prepared by nepal health research council. zulu, l. c., & richardson, r. b. (2013). charcoal, livelihoods, and poverty reduction: evidence from sub-saharan africa. energy for sustainable development, 17, 127-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2012.07.007 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 101 original paper memory in linguistic narrative vs. postmodern multitasked multimedia art memory vesna srnic1*, emina berbic kolar1 & igor ilic1 1 department in slavonski brod, faculty of teacher education in osijek, j.j. strossmayer university of osijek, croatia * vesna srnic, department in slavonski brod, faculty of teacher education in osijek, j.j. strossmayer university of osijek, croatia received: august 28, 2018 accepted: september 13, 2018 online published: september 20, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n2p101 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n2p101 abstract in addition to the well-known classification of long-term and short-term memory, we are also interested in distinguishing episodic, semantic and procedural memory in the areas of linguistic narrative and multimedial semantic deconstruction in postmodernism. we compare the liveliness of memorization in literary tradition and literature art with postmodernist divisions and reverberations of traditional memorizations through human multitasking and performative multimedia art, as well as formulate the existence of creative, intuitive and superhuman paradigms. since the memory can be physical, psychological or spiritual, according to neurobiologist dr. j. bauer (das gedächtnis des körpers, 2004), the greatest importance for memorizing has the social role of collaboration, and consequently the personal transformation and remodelling of genomic architecture, yet the media theorist mark hansen thinks technology brings different solutions of framing function (hansen, 2000). we believe that postmodern deconstruction does not necessarily damage memory, especially in the field of human multitasking that utilizes multimedia performative art by means of anthropologization of technology, thereby enhancing artistic and affective pre&post-linguistic experience while unifying technology and humans through intuitive empathy in society. keywords memory, linguistics, multitasked multimedia-art, perfomative affect, anthropologization www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 102 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction: linguistic vs. multimedial memories in narratives by comparing memory in two crucial narratives: linguistic and multimedial/audio-visual, from lively oral tradition and written literature to modern times, with particular reference to the postmodern deconstruction of linguistic narrative, and parallel to the area of visual discourse read by consistent iconographic semantics in the history of art up to modernism, we conclude that through performative multimedial artistic communication and intermediacy in the period of postmodernism, deconstructed reality is read by kaleidoscopic multi-memory but again performatively as in the language process, with special affective, human multitasking in superhuman—intuitive, empathic vision. it’s not cyborgization nor dataism, it’s anthropologization and humanization of technology. 2. vital memorizing in literary tradition—experience from practice in croatia slavonian dialect is one of the most archaic dialects of croatian language. it is spoken in the republic of croatia, but also abroad in bosnia and herzegovina, the republic of serbia and the republic of hungary. slavonian dialect features are: the absence of the sound /h/, the reflex of the sound jat (stsl. ĕtъ) which appears as ikavian, jekavian, ekavian, but also ikavian-jekavian, softer sounds /l/ and /n/ into lj (/ʎ/) and nj (/ɲ/), language phenomenon šćakavizam, contraction of the vowel group ao into o, a typical change of semi-compounds. it is located in slavonia and baranya, around nova gradiška up to vinkovci and vukovar, across slavonski brod to đakovo and osijek and in north up to donji miholjac, valpovo and našice. this is a large geographical space which hides inexhaustible linguistic treasure yet to be researched. so far, two vernaculars have been protected as intangible cultural goods of the republic of croatia: siče vernacular in posavina village siče and the vernacular of stari perkovci. both vernaculars pertain to brod-posavina county and vernaculars located around slavonski brod are central vernaculars of slavonian dialect. the term of language has been a synonim for a nation throughout the history. if so, slavonian dialect is the basis for the development of slavonian identity and slavonia people as members of the ethnic group, of course in this context we can talk about the šokci and the culture of šokci. we want to present slavonian dialect in the context of defining identity and preserving intangible cultural heritage. language is what we are, it determines us in every sense, it is our past, present and future and is the foremost bearer of a cultural identity that differentitates us and makes us recognizable in the global village called the earth. 3. memory preservation in slavonian dialect of the croatian language problems with preserving the slavonian dialect and its vernaculars arise because of the oral tradition in conveying the language and its fragility, as well as the numerous problems that come with sustaining smaller language communities. the research emphasizes the sustainable preservation of the slavonian dialect vernaculars in terms of the digitization of vernaculars and popularization. the biggest problem is disorganized and insufficient documentation and the dispersion of collected documentation. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 103 published by scholink inc. project implies the possibility of connecting modern technology with the scientific approach of language data processing, which is the best and the safest permanent preservation possibility. the preservation of language heritage can be divided in to four stages: data collection (digitization), data processing, appropriate storage of information and data dissemination towards users. the second problem is the insufficient popularization of the slavonian dialect among the young population. it should be emphasized that this project will stimulate the popularization of dialectology, in particular the slavonian dialect (berbić kolar, galzina, & matanović, 2014). key social factors in preserving the slavonian dialect are scientific and educational institutions which conduct language research. one such institution is the faculty of education in osijek which will provide experts in order to preserve and popularize the vernaculars in an appropriate way. certainly, local government support is needed in each of these countries to disseminate research results and to create a cooperation between communities. what is more, schools in the target area are an important factor because the slavonian dialect is a native idiom of their students. important factors are also local, primarily rural, associations which take care of the development of their community (berbić kolar, 2011). the definition of a native speaker of the slavonian dialect used in the project is the one which describes the native speaker as a person who was born and lives in the target area and speaks in slavonian dialect. the statistics on the number of inhabitants living in slavonian dialect area in the republic of croatia are devastating. population trends, as well as population development, is entirety influenced by numerous demographic and non-demographic factors (economic, social, socio-psychological, historical-political, geographical, health, etc.) (berbić kolar, 2009). in the republic of croatia there were many factors which led to a decrease in the number of speakers of the slavonian dialect: wartime circumstances, emigration of the population, poverty, modern trends and others. today, when the linguistic revitalization of the slavonian dialect is being sought after, the data of the croatian bureau of statistics show a drastic reduction in the number of native speakers. it is not possible to keep track of population figures due to different censuses, but according to the last 2011 census, slavonian dialect counties count on the decline. the project will also include the research of the exact number of native speakers in areas outside croatian borders, which were previously mentioned. through several case studies in each country, project research will obtain not only language information, but also information on population trends and their life and culture. basically, within one large case study of the slavonian dialect there will be smaller case studies of each country: croatia, bosnia and herzegovina, serbia and hungary (berbić kolar, kolenić, 2014). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 104 published by scholink inc. 4. stream of consciousness as narrative mode and memory here is the example of the slavonian speech: maškȁre (carnival) tô je bĩlo…jâ sam imȁla tȅtku u brȍdskom bȑdu. jȅdnu rođȅnu i jȅdnu od tatȉne sestrȉčne. i tȁko se skȕpi njȉja i u svȁšta se sprẽmalo. nî se ònda sprẽmalo u lĩpo. ònda su maškȁre bĩle u strâšno. spremȁlo se u lĩpo kad se ȉde na zâbavu. vȁko kad se ȉde ònda se sprẽmalo u svȁkako, nȁopako pa i u stȁre trȕlje pa natrpȁje slȁme unũtra mȅđu. jâ curȉca bĩla mãla, a òni dõšli k nȁma, a môj tȁta u ȁmper iz pĩvnice vĩno donȉjo. tô se igrȁlo, pjevȁlo, zȅmlja u kȕći. tô je bĩlo ko kad ȉdeš u bãšču, a kȉša pȁda. a jâ ȉšla iz škôle, òni ȉšli kȕći. jôj, kad sam jâ čȕla štȁ je-bjȅži. tȅtka mȍja vĩče: “ne bôj se, jâ sam!” ma kakî, mî smo bježȁli. spremȁlo se; ljũdi oženȉti, starȉji, svȁkakvi. pjevȁlo se, igrȁlo. nĩ se pȁzilo po kȕći ȍćeš srȕšit nȅke tabletȉće ili nȅšta, nî tȍga bĩlo. zȅmlja, pròlij pa pomèti. tãncaj i brȉga te. kata bosančić, born 1929, podvinje. dogodõvštine iz djetĩnjstva (childhood events) svȁšta smo mî znȁle ko curȉce naprȁvit. bȉjo jȅdan mȍmak tȗ, a òn je bȉjo sâm u mȁtere. bȉjo je bȍgat i sâm, mȉslim ko bȉjo je starȉji. a òn je ȕvik mȅtio si kišnȉcu, bȕre si mȅti kad òvako pȁda kȉša, da mu se nakȕpi kišnȉce. ònda se òn u kišnȉci kúpa. tô je bȉjo ȁndra ćȕškovića. a mî ȉšle s čijâla, bĩlo nas jȅdno dvadȅset cȕrica iz ònog krȁja, a òn je bȉjo tȗ iz kȅrdenija. mî mu se upišȁle u kišnȉcu. dȍšō òn sȕtra u sálu pa se sve mȉriše, a mî ȉdemo za njîm i vĩčemo: “što tî smrdĩš, što tî smrdĩš!” ònda smo mu rȅkle šta smo napravȉle, a òn kad nas ni ubȉjo. ana božić, born 1935, podvinje čupȁva, garȁva ukrȁla si škũdu, tȕžiću te gȁrava kȍtarskome sũdu. i ako sȁm, neka sȁm. prȁvo sam imȁla. dãla sam je svôme đȅrzu da kũpi akcẽzu. marija lazić, born 1951, podvinje (berbić kolar, 2009) 5. postmodern view on the social role of collaboration and remodelling of genomic architecture according to the theory of dr. joachim bauer (das gedächtnis des körpers, 2004), the brain-body-soul interaction through social relations influences the creation, maintenance and re-creation of memory. dr. bauer believes that restructuring of genomic architecture occurs parallel with personal transformation and evolution. considering that dr. bauer (2011) in his research deals with negative phenomena in society, social pathology of violence and aggression (e.g., pain memory after abuse), we will conduct the thesis on transformations through human multitasking and performative multimedia art as a positive example of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 105 published by scholink inc. affective experience in artistic performance. the specialty of performative affects in “humanly multitasked multimedia art” (srnic, 2014) is that they enable the emergence of expressive artistic insights through the use of multimedia technology as a means of enhancing the experience, which can be applied not only in the acquisition of artistic maturity and evolution but also in education through performance arts for the needs of expressing deep feelings, thoughts and knowledge (we see possible use in healing the autistic persons, especially in the spectrum of asperger’s syndrome). in the next chapter we will explain our vision of human multitasking and its importance in performing multimedia art. 6. human multitasking in glocal multimedia art unlike ordinary direct connectivity of multitasking skills with technology and technological multimedia, it is important to recognize the crucial role of humans in performing art expression that use multitasking in the sense of processing synesthetic synchronicity of various artistic procedures for reprogramming: movement, music performance, postlinguistic silence, astonishment, engagement of audiences, photography, video recording.... by releasing the focus or anthropological “assemblage point” (castaneda, 1985) of artistic performance in terms of emanating glocalization through spontaneous slip through the event, the audience just as the artist enters its inner refined perception of event and establishes a new view of reality through re-evaluation (as the anthropologist castaneda (1985) would say “clustering the clusters of emanations”), and re-creating the previous look at new interpretation of the world. such artistic practice is a prerequisite not only for personal, but also for collective transformation through a performative multitasked multimedial work of art and artistic experience. 7. multitasked multimedial semantic deconstruction in performing new discourse of glocal postmodernism the above-mentioned form of artistic expression is a performative event of enhancing the aesthetics of living. when we add to the artistic and affectively enhanced performative work the importance of using numerous technological additions, then we can talk about multimedia or according to the theoretician of the media mark b. n. hansen (2000) about “technesis” in the sense of embodying reality through technology via certain “innervation”. hansen also speaks of the artistic “involuntary memory” in which the thought is written into experience, we would say through a certain “stickiness”, but also stresses the “voluntary” intellectual memory which does not lead to ordinary experience, but to aestheticization of reality, often associated with consumer society (hansen, 2000). in this regard, hansen (2000) attributes the strengthening of the economics of memory to the thinking subject, although he recognizes that it is important to associate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 106 published by scholink inc. oneself with reality through aesthetics and concludes that it is necessary to “reconceptualize experience as the correlate of the new material reality”. in this sense, it is important to emphasize that the emergence of postmodernism and the use of multimedia technology deconstruct the former linguistic experience (mostly used and abused as religious, national or institutional psychologically measurable cognizing) and that new existential and memory parameters emerge as cognitive experience, based on multimediality, on the fading of the peculiar, sound and visual process, or visualization in the existential/phenomenological formula. despite the dangers of partialisation of memory, the synesthesia process embodies a serialized and fragmented reality experience. since every sudden disintegration experience is shocking to the artist, he is reprogrammed and transformed through “re-invention” in his artistic work. 8. conclusion: anthropologizing the technology as artistically superhumanizing glocal society by enhancing his artistic experience and artistic activity through multiple uses of technology in multimedia art, the artist empowers herself/himself as a creative and empathic/human being, but through a certain loop of addressing the audience and the overall environment in which he/she lives-provides through the surprisingly presented work getting public or environmental feedback. the artist uses technology as his/her “increased mind/body/spirit” by incorporating it into his/her human existence through the wondrously created concept of advanced artistic multimedia artwork of glocal orientation. our experience in “performative multitasked multimedial art” has enabled us to place artistic intervention on the city square itself, resulting in strong creative “media-via” or “pleasant antagonism” while interpreting the inner reality of people of different worldview and perceptual abilities, by educational aesthetics of waking and mutuality. thus actions speak louder than words: 1) https://media-via.net/2018/05/07/situationally-performative-smartphones-orchestra 2) https://media-via.net/2017/05/20/world-image-and-performativity-of-the-glocal-consciousness 3) https://media-via.net/2017/04/13/post-modern-dystopic-deconstruction-for-mobile-phone-orchestra 4) https://media-via.net/2016/06/12/orchestrated-glocal-performative-trine we agree with the well-known canadian clinical psychologist and professor dr. jordan b. peterson (1999) who correctly noted: “creative individuals destroy old values and threaten with chaos—but also bear light, and the promise of better things. it is in this manner that the ‘sacrifice of the revolutionary savior redeems and rekindles the cosmos’”. although the stream of consciousness in modern narrative mode as a vital memory and a nonlinear, disrupted narrative memorizing in postmodern literature as not so vital are unalike linguistic discourses, yet “multitasked multimedial performative glocal art” creates stronger memorizing in technologically supported and enhanced humanly processed performative narratives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 107 published by scholink inc. in that sense, technology used through the glocalization as a “performative multitasked multimedia art” is the affective enhancer of our memory and experience. it is the example of our mastery of multimedia aids through the anthropologization of technology as well as the entirely inventive promotion of the existing culture, not as mere transhuman or cybernetic dataism but rather empathic human society in the art of memory. references bauer, j. (2011). the memory of the body/pamćenje tijela (p. 111). planetopija, zagreb. berbić kolar, e. (2009). govori slavonskoga dijalekta brodskoga kraja (doctoral disertation). osijek (in the manuscript). berbić kolar, e., & kolenić, l. j. (2009). slavonski dijalekt u školi. magyar tannyelvu tanitkepzo kar, szabadka berbić kolar, e., & kolenić, l. j. (2014). sičanske riči. osijek. berbić kolar, e., galzina, v., & matanović, d. (2014). towards a safeguarding concept of the intangible cultural heritage in slavonia, baranya and syrmia—aspects of digitization, processing, conservation and dissemination of sound, image and shape. medijska istraživanja, zagreb. castaneda, c. (1985). the fire from within (p. 124, p. 157). great britain: black swan. hansen, m. (2000). embodying technesis: technology beyond writing (p. 233, p. 240, p. 243). the university of michigan press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11092 kolenić, l. j., & berbić kolar, e. (2007). govor starih perkovaca. šokačka rič, 5, 83-92. vinkovci. peterson, b. j. (1999). maps of meaning: the architecture of belief (p. 221). routledge. srnic, v. (2014). glocal multimedia art, e-book (pp. 57-67). jesenski i turk, zagreb. retrieved from http://www.jesenskiturk.hr/?active=knjiga&book=107634&lang=en https://bib.irb.hr/prikazi-rad?&rad=751148 https://bib.irb.hr/prikazi-rad?&rad=751148 https://bib.irb.hr/prikazi-rad?&rad=751148 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 69 original paper how do films reflect our societies today? an analysis of films and film genres zirong lu1* 1 shanghai weiyu high school, shanghai, 20023, china * zirong lu, shanghai weiyu high school, shanghai, 20023, china received: october 5, 2023 accepted: november 7, 2023 online published: november 29, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n4p69 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n4p69 abstract “avengers: endgame”, released in 2019, became the highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing $2.8 billion in worldwide box office revenue. its massive success demonstrates the immense popularity and widespread appeal of blockbuster films, attracting millions of viewers and generating significant economic impact. thus, today, films are not only a form of art, but also play a significant role today as a powerful medium of storytelling, entertainment, and reflection of culture and society. in the digital age, films have evolved to encompass various genres, styles, and distribution methods, making them a powerful medium that continues to play a significant role in shaping our world. keywords films, film genre, influence 1. introduction films provide a snapshot of the prevailing attitudes, norms, and concerns of a particular time and place. through storytelling and characterization, films shed light on social events and cultural diversity, fostering empathy and understanding among audiences. thus, it’s important to analyze the role of movies today. 2. changes in main forms of genres in general, films can be classified into these main genres: action, comedy, drama, fantasy/sci-fi, horror, mystery, romance, and the western (aldredge, 2022). however, as the art of film evolved, more and more genres developed as filmmakers moved towards finding new and creative ways to subvert and combine them” (aldredge, 2022, p. 21). one example of this fusion is the “star wars” franchise. it blends elements of science fiction, fantasy, and action, creating a unique and captivating cinematic javascript:%20void(0) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 70 published by scholink inc. experience. the series incorporates action-packed sequences, epic battles, and a richly developed universe, appealing to audiences across different genres and age groups. by merging these diverse elements, “star wars” has become a cultural phenomenon and a prime example of genre fusion in film. 3. what films do in modern society media giants such as disney and warner bros. have emerged in the development of capitalist societies, creating one global blockbuster after another. the films produced by these studios have garnered countless fans and spawned a series of intellectual properties (ips), even leading to the construction of theme parks around the world. the characters portrayed in these movies serve as both the fantasies of children and the embodiment of heroism for adults, profoundly influencing people’s lives. hence, films have extended their influence beyond the screen. 3.1 movies as a form of entertainment films are primarily a form of entertainment, offering an escape from reality and providing audiences with enjoyment, excitement, and emotional experiences. they can transport viewers to different worlds, evoke various emotions, and provide a shared experience for people to connect with each other. the harry potter film series, based on the books by j.k. rowling, can be categorized as fantasy films. the films transport audiences to the magical world of hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, where they follow the adventures of harry potter and his friends. the films offer a captivating escape from everyday life by immersing viewers in a richly imagined world filled with magic, spells, mythical creatures, and epic battles between good and evil. they provide a sense of wonder and allow audiences to experience the excitement of discovering a hidden realm beyond the boundaries of the ordinary. by combining elements of fantasy, adventure, drama, and even elements of mystery and coming-of-age, the harry potter films appeal to a wide range of audiences. they offer a magical and immersive experience that allows viewers to temporarily escape from their everyday lives and be transported to a world of enchantment and imagination. 3.2 movies as a reflection of culture films often reflect the values, beliefs, and aspirations of a society or culture. they can depict societal trends, social dynamics, and cultural practices, providing insights into the way people live and interact. by portraying characters from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, films can promote inclusivity and foster understanding among different communities. films can critique and comment on social, political, and cultural issues by providing social commentary. through storytelling, they can address topics such as inequality, discrimination, gender roles, environmental concerns, and more. films can challenge the status quo, provoke thought, and encourage dialogue and debate about important societal issues. “parasite” (2019)—directed by bong joon-ho, this movie depicts two families’ lives, park’s family and kim’s family, where the social conditions and the daily lifestyles are very contrastive. park’s family is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 71 published by scholink inc. rich while kim’s family is poor. this south korean film delves into socioeconomic status, class supremacy, and social injustice. it offers a thought-provoking critique of the wealth gap and the struggles faced by the lower class. films in genres like science fiction, fantasy, and superhero movies offer audiences a chance to escape from reality and immerse themselves in imaginative worlds. these genres often explore themes of heroism, morality, and the human condition, providing allegorical narratives that reflect and comment on real-world issues. for example, “the lord of the rings” trilogy (2001-2003)—directed by peter jackson, this epic fantasy shows the enchanting world of middle-earth, filled with diverse landscapes, mythical creatures, and magical elements. from the majestic beauty of rivendell to the treacherous depths of mordor, the films create a rich and immersive fantasy setting that allows audiences to escape into a realm different from their own (angelo, 2020). 3.3 movies as a catalyst for change movies can also be a catalyst for social and political change. many movies have addressed sensitive issues such as racism, gender equality, and lgbtq+ rights, bringing attention to these issues and sparking conversations that can lead to change. for example, the movie “milk” directed by gus van sant is a biographical drama based on the life of harvey milk, the first openly gay elected official in california. the film depicts milk’s activism and his fight for lgbtq+ rights. “milk” provides historical context by portraying the lgbtq+ rights movement in the 1970s. it educates viewers about the challenges faced by the lgbtq+ community during that time, including widespread discrimination and the fight for equal rights. understanding this history can motivate people to continue the ongoing struggle for lgbtq+ rights today. 4. case study 4.1 case study: “frozen” “frozen” is an animated musical fantasy film directed by chris buck and jennifer lee and produced by walt disney animation studios. the story revolves around two royal sisters, elsa and anna, in the kingdom of arendelle. elsa possesses magical powers to create ice and snow, which she struggles to control. the film explores themes of self-acceptance, love, and the bond between siblings. “frozen” became a cultural phenomenon, captivating children and families around the world. the film’s catchy songs, endearing characters, and enchanting visuals appeal to young viewers. “frozen” has become a beloved part of many children’s lives, and taught children valuable life lessons. through the plot and characters, the film offers messages of self-discovery, the importance of familial love, and the power of embracing one’s true self. “frozen” became a cultural phenomenon among children and families worldwide. the film’s relatable characters, catchy songs, and heartwarming story resonated with young audiences, capturing their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 72 published by scholink inc. imagination and becoming an instant favorite. it inspired a sense of wonder and sparked a wave of merchandise, costumes, and themed parties, creating a lasting impact on children’s entertainment and family experiences. “frozen” has been hailed as a feminist film due to its emphasis on strong female characters. the story subverts the traditional princess narrative, portraying elsa and anna as independent and capable individuals. the film encourages girls to be confident, embrace their uniqueness, and reject societal expectations. it has become a symbol of empowerment for young girls, inspiring them to be brave, resilient, and true to themselves. “frozen” had a significant impact on popular culture, with its songs, such as “let it go”, becoming global sensations. the film’s success led to merchandise, theme park attractions, and a sequel, solidifying its place in the disney canon as well as its place in popular culture. it also contributed to the revitalization of the animated musical genre, sparking a resurgence of interest in musical storytelling in animated films. 4.2 case study: “the social network” (2010) “the social network” is directed by david fincher, and is a biographical drama that chronicles the founding of facebook by mark zuckerberg and his legal battles with his co-founders and associates. the film explores themes of ambition, betrayal, and the impact of technology on society. the success of “the social network” lies in capturing the fever of facebook’s startup. “the social network” resonates with those interested in the tech industry and its impact on modern society. the film offers insights into the creation of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms and delves into the complexities of entrepreneurship and innovation. it sparks discussions about the ethical and societal implications of technology’s pervasive role in our lives. the film’s exploration of legal disputes and business negotiations appeals to audiences with an interest in law and entrepreneurship. it provides a behind-the-scenes look at the legal battles that accompanied the rise of facebook, shedding light on the challenges faced by young entrepreneurs navigating the complexities of corporate law. “the social network” prompts conversations about the ways in which technology has reshaped communication and interpersonal relationships. the film’s portrayal of the creation of facebook and its subsequent cultural impact invites viewers to reflect on the ways in which social media platforms have transformed how we connect, share information, and interact with others. 4.3 case study: “the godfather” (1972) directed by francis ford coppola, “the godfather” is a classic crime drama based on mario puzo’s novel. the film chronicles the saga of the corleone crime family and their patriarch, don vito corleone. it delves into themes of power, loyalty, and the complexities of organized crime. the film’s influence extends beyond its genre, as it has become a cultural touchstone. it is frequently referenced and parodied in popular media, and its iconic quotes and scenes have become part of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 73 published by scholink inc. collective consciousness. “the godfather” has left an indelible mark on cinema history and has contributed to shaping popular perceptions of organized crime. “the godfather” appeals to fans of crime dramas and organized crime narratives. the film’s intricate portrayal of the corleone family’s dynamics and its exploration of the criminal underworld resonate with viewers who are intrigued by themes of power struggles, loyalty, and moral ambiguity. it offers a deep dive into the psyche of characters involved in illegal activities. “the godfather” also sparked discussions and debates within the italian-american community. while some praised the film for its compelling storytelling and cinematic achievements, others criticized it for perpetuating negative stereotypes about italian-americans and their association with organized crime. many italian-americans were initially unhappy with their representation in hollywood films and tv. the order sons of italy in american (osia), for example, is the biggest and oldest national organization for men and women of italian heritage in the united states. it was founded in 1905 and has thousands of members. according to one osia study, up to 40 percent of movies featuring italian-american characters, 40 per cent are depicted as being involved in organized crime—and they did not like this. 5. reasons for genre persistence crime dramas like “the godfather” continue to be made because they offer a compelling lens through which to examine human nature, morality, and societal structures. these films provide a platform to explore themes of power, loyalty, and the consequences of criminal activity. additionally, the genre’s exploration of moral ambiguity and ethical dilemmas allows filmmakers to engage audiences in thought-provoking narratives that resonate with our fascination with both the darker and more complex aspects of human behavior. as a drama film, films like “the social network” examine the evolving landscape of technology and its influence on society. the drama genre allows filmmakers to explore real-life events and figures, providing audiences with insights into the human stories behind major technological advancements. additionally, the film’s focus on ambition, betrayal, and the complex dynamics of human relationships taps into timeless themes that continue to captivate audiences across generations. moreover, fantasy films, particularly animated ones, have a unique ability to evoke strong emotions and create deep emotional connections with audiences. the colorful and expressive animation, coupled with compelling storytelling, can evoke joy, laughter, sadness, and empathy. “frozen” effectively tugs at the heartstrings of viewers through its memorable characters, heartfelt moments, and emotional arcs. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 74 published by scholink inc. 6. factors that would make some genres become less relevant in today’s society 6.1 cultural relevance western films often depict the american old west, a historical period characterized by cowboys, outlaws, and frontier life. as society has evolved and become more urbanized, the cultural connection to this specific historical setting has weakened. audiences today may find it harder to relate to the themes and settings of traditional westerns. western films were particularly popular during a specific period in american history when the westward expansion and cowboy culture held a significant place in the national consciousness. as society has progressed and become more diverse, the relevance and resonance of western films may have diminished for many viewers. in addition, western films often depicted a specific portrayal of native americans, which has been criticized for perpetuating stereotypes and historical inaccuracies. as societies become more aware of cultural sensitivities and strive for more accurate and inclusive representations, the western genre may face challenges in finding a balance between historical authenticity and cultural sensitivity. 6.2 changing audience preferences while musicals have a rich history in cinema, they have become less common in recent years. one reason could be that modern audiences may have different expectations when it comes to storytelling and pacing. additionally, successfully executing a musical requires a unique blend of acting, singing, and choreography, which can be challenging to pull off convincingly. 7. summary serving as a platform for social commentary, films can shed light on topics such as inequality, discrimination, political unrest, environmental concerns, and more. in addition, films play a crucial role in representing diverse cultures and identities. they can showcase different ethnicities, religions, genders, sexual orientations, and socio-economic backgrounds. film genres often reflect societal trends and interests. for example, superhero films have become prominent in recent years, reflecting our fascination with larger-than-life heroes, and exploring themes of power. thus, films play a significant role in reflecting and influencing our collective consciousness, shaping public discourse, and providing a lens through which we can examine and understand our contemporary societies. references aldredge, j. (2022). a guide to the basic film genres (and how to use them). retrieved from https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/guide-to-basic-film-genres/ angelo, c. (2020). how “the godfather” shaped perceptions of italian american culture | angelo calfo. reynolds’s news and miscellany. retrieved form https://reynolds-news.com/2020/04/07/how-the-godfather-shaped-perceptions-of-italian-ame www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 75 published by scholink inc. rican-culture-angelo-calfo/ communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 51 original paper is it real history or illusion?—exploration of narrative strategies in ambrose bierce‟s “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” zexi ouyang 1* 1 undergraduate of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china * zexi ouyang, undergraduate of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china received: may 20, 2024 accepted: june 12, 2024 online published: june 29, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n1p51 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n1p51 abstract this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of ambrose bierce’s “an occurrence at owl creek bridge”, exploring the confluence of historical context, narrative ingenuity, and thematic depth in his work. born during the tumultuous civil war era, bierce’s experiences as a union soldier profoundly influenced his literary focus, notably in his portrayal of war’s brutalities and psychological impact. the paper examines how bierce’s narrative style, characterized by a blend of stark realism and surreal elements, set him apart in the late 19th-century literary landscape. his most acclaimed work, “an occurrence at owl creek bridge”, is dissected for its innovative narrative structure, symbolic language, and exploration of existential themes such as the fragility of life, the inevitability of death, and the human psyche’s struggle with freedom and fate. the study highlights bierce’s unique contribution to the short story genre and his lasting influence on american literature. keywords ambrose bierce, civil war, narrative innovation, psychological realism, existential themes 1. introduction this paper embarks on a comprehensive journey through the intricate layers of bierce‟s most acclaimed short story-“an occurrence at owl creek bridge”. set against the tumultuous backdrop of the american civil war, bierce‟s narrative masterfully intertwines the stark brutality of war with the ethereal realms of fantasy and illusion. this exploration delves deep into the psychological complexities of the protagonist, peyton fahrquhar, as he teeters on the precipice of life and death. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 52 published by scholink inc. paper aims to dissect the nuanced interplay between the vividly realistic settings and the protagonist‟s surreal experiences, shedding light on bierce‟s innovative narrative techniques and his profound thematic explorations. from the philosophical contemplation of existence to the harrowing impact of war on the human psyche, this study seeks to unravel the layers of meaning in bierce‟s story, positioning it as a pivotal work in the realm of american literature. the journey through “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” is not just an academic endeavor but a deep dive into the universal themes of reality, illusion, and the human condition, as envisioned through bierce‟s discerning lens. 2. overview of ambrose bierce and his works 2.1 brief biography ambrose bierce, a noteworthy figure in american literature, was born in 1842 in ohio. raised in a literate family despite financial hardships, he developed an early interest in literature. his experiences as a union soldier during the civil war deeply influenced his literary themes and style, leading him to explore the brutal realities of war and its psychological impacts. after the war, bierce became a prominent journalist and short story writer in san francisco, where he was known for his cynical view of human nature and his dark humor. bierce‟s writing is distinguished by his acute attention to detail and his innovative narrative structures, which blend realism with fantasy elements. his most famous work, “an occurrence at owl creek bridge”, exemplifies his mastery of the short story genre. this story is renowned for its exploration of the boundaries between reality and illusion, marked by a twist ending that challenges the reader‟s perceptions. the psychological depth and the stark portrayal of the human condition in his works not only set him apart from his contemporaries but also left a lasting impact on both the horror and suspense genres. bierce‟s work reflects his fascination with themes of death, fate, and existential struggle, often incorporating elements of the supernatural and the macabre. his distinctive approach to storytelling contributed significantly to the development of the short story as a respected literary form. the enigmatic end to his life, disappearing in mexico in 1914, only adds to the intrigue surrounding his legacy, which continues to captivate and inspire readers and writers alike. 2.2 historical context of the creative period the historical context of ambrose bierce‟s creative period is deeply rooted in the tumultuous era of the american civil war, a time that profoundly influenced his literary works. born in 1842, bierce‟s formative years were marked by the growing national conflict over slavery and states‟ rights, which eventually erupted into the civil war. serving as a union army officer, bierce experienced firsthand the brutalities and horrors of war, which left an indelible mark on his psyche and later found expression in his writings. this period was characterized by a significant shift in american literature, with a move www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 53 published by scholink inc. away from romanticism towards realism, reflecting the grim realities of war and its aftermath. the social and political upheaval of the time, coupled with the rapid technological and industrial changes, provided a rich backdrop for bierce‟s exploration of themes such as death, the futility of war, and the human condition. his most famous work, “an occurrence at owl creek bridge”, exemplifies this, offering a stark, unflinching look at the impact of war on the human psyche. bierce‟s stories, often laced with dark irony and a cynical view of human nature, resonated with readers who were grappling with the disillusionment and societal changes of the post-war era, making him a significant figure in the landscape of american literature during this pivotal historical period. 2.3 literature review in the world of literature, each narrative is a reconstruction and reinterpretation of reality. k. e. b. (2019) analyzed the narrative strategies in ambrose bierce‟s “an occurrence at owl creek bridge”, noting that bierce‟s detailed depiction of war scenes strengthens the boundaries between reality and illusion. k.e b. also believes that bierce‟s work reveals how history and personal experiences intertwine, influencing people‟s perceptions and understanding of reality. peter k. (2019) conducted a detailed analysis of bierce‟s short story and its two different film adaptations, focusing on the treatment of the theme and atmosphere of sardonic death. peter k. argues that these works demonstrate the ability to enhance the story‟s mood of melancholy and mystery, especially in portraying the protagonist‟s psychological state and the inevitability of death. he also explored how these three narratives use dark visual and language styles to reflect the deep-seated human fear and struggle with death and fate. cheatham g. and cheatham j. (2015) conducted an in-depth analysis of bierce‟s famous short story, particularly focusing on its narrative structure and thematic expression. they point out that bierce‟s use of complex temporal structures and shifts in perspective enhances the suspense and depth of the themes, especially in exploring the boundaries between reality and illusion. they also discuss how bierce uses the war backdrop to reflect the complexity of human nature and the impermanence of fate. tabachnick e s (2013) explored the potential influences of other literary works on bierce, particularly in the conception of the ending of “an occurrence at owl creek bridge”. tabachnick suggests that bierce might have drawn from popular literary forms and themes of the time in crafting narrative twists and turns. the article further analyzes how these influences enable bierce to effectively blend elements of realism and surrealism, thereby enhancing the thematic depth and emotional impact of the story. these scholars‟ perspectives provide a solid foundation for further exploration of bierce‟s works, revealing the profound intertwining of history and personal experiences as well as the critical role of narrative techniques in shaping readers‟ perceptions of reality and illusion. the forthcoming research will delve deeper into the narrative strategies in “an occurrence at owl creek bridge”, exploring how bierce skillfully constructs a narrative labyrinth that is both real and illusory between history and fiction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 54 published by scholink inc. 3. publication and reception of “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” ambrose bierce‟s “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” not only captivates with its narrative but also stands as a poignant reflection of the historical context and the adept use of realism that bierce integrates throughout the story. 3.1 the historical background and realistic foundation of the story ambrose bierce‟s works are steeped in the historical background of the civil war, a period marked by intense social and political upheaval that profoundly influenced the realistic foundation of his stories. the era‟s ideological clashes and significant human costs form a vivid backdrop against which themes of loyalty, sacrifice, and the brutal realities of war are explored. bierce captures this turbulent social environment with deep empathy, providing insight into the personal struggles and moral dilemmas faced by individuals, thus painting a stark portrait of the period‟s grim reality. bierce‟s authentic depiction of military elements further enhances the realism in his narratives, particularly in “an occurrence at owl creek bridge”. drawing from his own civil war experiences, he meticulously details military tactics, battlefield environments, and soldiers‟ psychological states, avoiding glorification to focus on the harsh truths of conflict. through the character of peyton farquhar, a civilian caught in a fatal act of sabotage, bierce critiques the romanticized illusions of war, offering a stark contrast to more glorified war narratives. this critical perspective not only enriches the narrative but also resonates deeply with readers, providing a nuanced understanding of the war‟s impact on individual fates and societal structures. the intertwining of character fate and reality reflects the harsh and unpredictable nature of life during the civil war, emphasizing how personal choices and societal forces shape destinies in profound and often tragic ways. 3.2 application of realism techniques realism techniques in “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” are a masterful display that enhances the narrative‟s impact through meticulous attention to detail and structural layout. the story opens with vivid descriptions that set a tangible stage, such as the depiction of the protagonist peyton farquhar‟s physical constraints and the detailed natural surroundings. these initial scenes are not only sharply drawn to anchor the narrative in palpable reality but also serve to heighten the tension and foreshadow the impending doom. bierce‟s use of sensory details further blurs the lines between reality and illusion, plunging the reader into the psychological state of farquhar as he perceives the swirling water beneath him and feels the noose tighten around his neck. in addition to detailed description, bierce‟s narrative is characterized by a realistic use of language that enhances the sensory experience, deepening the reader‟s immersion into the story. the precise language and rich sensory details set the physical scene and prime the reader for farquhar‟s intense psychological journey. this realism extends to the structural layout of the narrative, where bierce manipulates time and perspective to transition from farquhar‟s dire circumstances to his imagined www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 55 published by scholink inc. escape. the story‟s structure culminates in a poignant twist where farquhar‟s perceived escape is revealed to be a mere hallucination, emphasizing the themes of illusion versus reality. through these techniques, bierce not only tells a compelling story but also invites the reader to feel the profound complexities and emotional depths of the human condition during war. 3.3 the confluence of reality and history ambrose bierce skillfully integrates the american civil war into the narrative, not just as a backdrop but as a critical element that deeply influences the story‟s emotional and thematic fabric. the setting during the civil war allows bierce to draw on his own wartime experiences, providing a rich, historically authentic portrayal of the era‟s harsh realities. through the character of peyton farquhar, a southern planter entangled in the conflict, bierce explores the devastating psychological impacts of war. farquhar‟s involvement in the war, described as “no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier” (bierce, 1890. p. 14), encapsulates the complex interplay of duty, honor, and survival that marked the personal struggles of individuals during this tumultuous period. bierce‟s narrative goes beyond mere historical recounting, blending real and fictional elements to deepen the exploration of universal themes such as the futility and destructiveness of war. farquhar‟s character, a composite of real-life figures of the time, embodies the collective experiences and emotional turmoil of southern sympathizers, allowing bierce to vividly convey the era‟s spirit through both stark realities and vivid hallucinations. the precision in setting details and the psychological depth given to farquhar‟s character illustrate how personal stories reflect broader societal attitudes and the grim atmosphere of the era. particularly poignant is the twist ending where farquhar‟s imagined escape is revealed as a hallucination, “all this had merely been a dream” (bierce, 1890. p.15), underscoring the brutal psychological effects of war and the fragility of human life. this blending of historical authenticity with creative storytelling does not merely serve to enrich the narrative but makes it a timeless commentary on the complexities of human experience in times of war, demonstrating how the civil war shaped not only the fate of individuals but also the cultural and existential contours of american society. 4. weaving realism into the fabric of fantasy in “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” within the narrative, the interplay of fantastical elements skillfully intertwines with the stark realities of war, blurring the lines between the conceivable and the imagined, and imbuing the story with deep symbolic meaning and a distinct literary innovation. 4.1 the boundary between fantasy and reality the narrative masterfully explores the fluid dynamics between the tangible and the surreal, creating a complex tapestry where time, space, and mortality converge in unexpected ways. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 56 published by scholink inc. 4.1.1 distortion of time and space ambrose bierce intensifies the real versus imagined tension through the inner experiences of peyton farquhar, who is moments away from execution. the narrative vividly captures farquhar‟s shifting perception as he imagines escaping his fate: “he unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him... and then all is dark and silent” (bierce, 1890, p. 15). this juxtaposition of the serene, detailed descriptions of the surrounding landscape with farquhar‟s surreal experience illustrates the stark contrast between the brutal reality of his situation and his psychological escape into an imagined reality. bierce meticulously crafts these moments, highlighting the psychological strain under which farquhar operates, which distorts his sense of time and reality. this narrative choice not only deepens the exploration of farquhar‟s psyche but also encapsulates the broader themes of the story, showcasing how individuals might cope with imminent death through fantastical denial. bierce uses the surreal escape to underscore the themes of illusion versus reality within the harsh context of the civil war. the detailed account of farquhar‟s sensations as he believes he is escaping, “he felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck... he was now in full possession of his physical senses” (bierce, 1890, p. 16), paradoxically serves to both enrich the realism and enhance the surreal quality of his final experience. this technique brilliantly illustrates how the mind can create a vividly immersive alternate reality as a coping mechanism against grim truths. the stark return to reality, with the abrupt cessation of this imagined escape, highlights the power and limits of human perception and imagination. bierce‟s narrative, by oscillating between detailed realism and profound introspection, invites readers to reflect on the blurred lines between reality and illusion, emphasizing the tragic, yet universally relatable, human capacity to seek refuge in fantasies, especially under extreme duress. 4.1.2 the intertwining of reality and dream bierce crafts a gripping opening that immediately immerses the reader into the dramatic core of peyton farquhar‟s plight. bound and awaiting execution on a bridge, farquhar is vividly introduced: “the man‟s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. a rope closely encircled his neck” (bierce, 1890, p. 14). this precise, stark imagery not only sets a foreboding tone but also anchors the narrative in a palpable reality. as farquhar stands on the precipice of death, bierce masterfully shifts the narrative into the psychological realm. the impending doom triggers a profound psychological reaction in farquhar, leading to a surreal escape sequence in his mind, where “he felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck... he closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children” (bierce, 1890, p. 15). this sequence, blurring the lines between reality and hallucination, vividly illustrates the human capacity for escapism in the face of death. the stark return to reality, revealing that his escape was but a desperate fantasy, underscores the fragility of human perception and highlights how, under extreme stress, the mind can fabricate a comforting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 57 published by scholink inc. alternative to an unbearable reality. this powerful juxtaposition not only deepens the narrative‟s emotional impact but also offers profound insights into the psyche‟s coping mechanisms during critical moments. 4.1.3 the blurred boundaries of death and illusion reality is often overshadowed by the figments of our imagination, especially when the mind clings to the last shreds of hope. the story introduces peyton farquhar in a scenario filled with acute detail: “a sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as „support‟, that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest—a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body” (bierce, 1890, p. 16). this meticulous depiction sets a realistic stage that starkly contrasts with the surreal experiences that soon consume farquhar. as the execution nears, farquhar slips into a hallucinatory state, where “he saw the light of the sun shining upon the landscape of his dreams in dazzling radiance; the forest seemed to stir and shake, which was but the agitations of his trembling heart” (bierce, 1890, p. 15). this dreamlike sequence, rich in sensory detail and distorted perception, emphasizes the fragile line between his imagined escape and the harsh reality of his impending execution. bierce crafts these moments to not only deepen the narrative impact but also to reflect on the psychological and existential themes of human existence, illustrating how, even at the brink of death, the human spirit clings to hope, however illusory it may be. 4.2 symbolic significance of fantastical elements the story employs fantastical elements not only to enrich its narrative depth but also to serve as powerful symbols that reflect transitions, the cycle of life and death, and the psychological intricacies of its characters. 4.2.1 the bridge as a symbol of transition the bridge stands as a powerful symbol of transition, marking the boundary between life and death, reality and illusion. the narrative meticulously details the scene on the bridge, where peyton fahrquhar, bound and surrounded by his executioners, teeters on the edge of mortality. this railroad bridge in northern alabama, a stark structure above the swirling waters, becomes a threshold between the tangible world and the ethereal realm of fahrquhar‟s imagination. as he is about to be hanged, the physical details of the bridge—the loose boards, the stout cross-timber, the position of the soldiers—are described with an almost hyperreal clarity, underscoring the bridge‟s role as a portal to the unknown. 4.2.2 the symbolic meanings of death and rebirth bierce intricately crafts the symbolic themes of death and rebirth, emphasizing these motifs through the setting and actions of peyton farquhar. as farquhar stands on the bridge, bierce describes his observations: “he noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass” (bierce, 1890, p. 16). the intense focus on minute, vibrant details at the moment of impending death www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 58 published by scholink inc. enhances the theme of rebirth, juxtaposing the stark finality of death with a poignant sense of beauty and continuity in life. the bridge, as a structural element in the story, not only serves as the literal point of farquhar‟s execution but also symbolizes a passage or transition, reinforcing the notion of moving from one state of being to another—life to death, reality to illusion. bierce deepens these themes through farquhar‟s hallucinatory escape where he experiences an intensified perception of his surroundings: “the humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragonflies‟ wings, the strokes of the water-spiders‟ legs, like oars which had lifted their boat” (bierce, 1890, p. 17). this surreal enhancement of sensory experiences as farquhar imagines fleeing towards freedom vividly represents a psychological rebirth. his senses are momentarily liberated from the imminent reality of death, suggesting a rebirth into a realm of heightened awareness and potential escape. however, this perceived rebirth is abruptly shattered by the return to the grim reality of his actual fate, illustrating the tragic illusion of escape and reinforcing the inevitable finality of death. through this poignant interplay of death and rebirth, bierce explores the complex human psyche under extreme duress, capturing the desperation and profound yearning for life even in the face of certain death. 4.2.3 mapping fantasy onto character psychology bierce masterfully captures the psychological turmoil of peyton farquhar as he oscillates between harsh reality and vivid fantasy during his final moments. as farquhar is bound on the bridge, facing imminent death, his mind desperately seeks refuge in a detailed and sensory-rich fantasy: “as he is about to clasp her, he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon” (bierce, 1890, p. 18). this intense moment underscores his psychological escape from reality, imagining himself successfully fleeing and nearing the embrace of his family. the detailed fantasy, from the sensations of running to the imagined sounds and sights of his escape, mirrors his intense longing for life and freedom, showcasing the mind‟s capacity to create elaborate illusions as a coping mechanism against the inevitability of death. the brutal disruption of this fantasy by the sudden, stark realization of death highlights the tragic futility of his escape, intensifying the emotional impact of the narrative and providing a deep exploration of the human psyche‟s struggle with mortality, making his psychological journey both a poignant reflection on human vulnerability and a commentary on the power of human imagination under extreme stress. 4.3 the tradition of fantasy in literature and the innovation of “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” this exploration delves into how the narrative stands at a crossroads of traditional fantasy literature and pioneering literary techniques, marking a significant departure towards new forms of storytelling. 4.3.1 traditional fantasy literature versus bierce‟s innovation bierce crafts a narrative that intricately weaves fantasy elements within the harsh realities of the civil war, showcasing a distinct departure from traditional fantasy literature. as peyton fahrquhar, bound www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 59 published by scholink inc. and facing execution, stands on the bridge, bierce delves deep into his psyche, transitioning from a detailed depiction of the immediate surroundings into a profound psychological escape. this moment is marked by fahrquhar‟s intense sensory experience as he imagines his escape: “he felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck... he closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children” (bierce, 1890, p. 18). here, bierce blends the tangible elements of fahrquhar‟s environment—the ropes, the bridge, the river—with a vivid, almost hyperrealistic fantasy of escape that starkly contrasts with his imminent death. this innovative narrative technique highlights bierce‟s unique approach by anchoring the fantastical within a believable context, which not only deepens the character‟s inner turmoil but also underscores the human tendency to seek refuge in illusion when confronted with unbearable realities. bierce‟s story diverges from conventional fantasy by embedding these fantastical flights within the protagonist‟s mind, offering a poignant exploration of the boundary between reality and fantasy and the profound impacts of psychological escape on human perception. this blending of reality with psychological fantasy is a radical innovation in the genre, distinguishing bierce‟s work from traditional fantasy narratives that often construct entirely separate fantastical worlds. 4.3.2 fantastical techniques in “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” the story centers on peyton fahrquhar, a man condemned to hang from a railroad bridge. bierce uses detailed descriptions of fahrquhar‟s sensory experiences to blur the line between reality and illusion. as fahrquhar stands on the brink of death, his perception alters dramatically; the slow movement of a piece of driftwood, the swirling water beneath the bridge, and the distinct sound of his watch ticking resonate with symbolic significance. these elements are not just mere observations but are intricately woven into fahrquhar‟s fantasy of escape. bierce‟s narrative technique here is innovative, as he delves deep into the protagonist‟s psyche, portraying his internal struggle and desperate clinging to life. the story‟s climax reveals the imagined nature of fahrquhar‟s escape, a fantasy born from his intense fear and desire to return to his family. this juxtaposition of the grim reality of his execution with the vividness of his imagined escape highlights bierce‟s mastery in using fantastical elements to explore themes of perception, reality, and the human psyche‟s resilience in the face of inevitable death. bierce‟s approach contrasts traditional fantasy literature by anchoring the fantastical within a believable and relatable context, making the story a profound exploration of the human condition. 5. the interplay of reality and fantasy: a dual exploration of theme and technique in delving into the thematic and technical intricacies of the narrative, the examination reveals a nuanced interplay between the realms of reality and fantasy, each enriching the other to form a complex tapestry of human experience and literary expression. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 60 published by scholink inc. 5.1 thematic exploration the narrative deeply engages with existential themes, probing the philosophical underpinnings of life and death, the human condition during war, and the complex dynamics of freedom and fate. 5.1.1 philosophical contemplation of life and death the story transcends a mere narrative about peyton fahrquhar‟s execution, evolving into a deep exploration of existential themes. fahrquhar‟s final moments, suspended between life and imminent death, become a canvas for exploring the human psyche‟s confrontation with mortality. bierce challenges the reader to consider the blurred boundaries between life‟s tangible reality and the abstract realm of death, revealing how the human mind grapples with its own demise. this exploration is heightened by fahrquhar‟s hallucinatory escape, which symbolizes humanity‟s innate desire to transcend death and cling to life. bierce subtly infuses existential questions regarding the value of life, the inevitability of death, and the subjective nature of time and reality. the story‟s stark ending, where fahrquhar faces the truth of his situation, acts as a jolting return to the harsh reality of mortality, leaving the reader to ponder the fragile and fleeting nature of human existence. 5.1.2 reflection on war and human nature the setting of the civil war not only serves as a backdrop but also becomes integral to understanding the complexities of human motivations and actions in times of conflict. bierce portrays war as a catalyst that exposes the multifaceted aspects of human nature, ranging from bravery and sacrifice to deception and delusion. the character of peyton fahrquhar, a civilian entangled in a military conflict, exemplifies these complexities. his eagerness to support the confederate cause, despite being a civilian, reflects a romanticized view of war, contrasting starkly with the grim realities of his execution. bierce‟s depiction of war through fahrquhar‟s experiences and perceptions challenges the glorified narratives often associated with war, highlighting the moral ambiguities and psychological toll it imposes on individuals. the story subtly critiques the societal and personal illusions that lead individuals to romanticize war, ultimately revealing the harsh consequences of such idealizations. 5.1.3 exploration of freedom and fate ambrose bierce delves into the complex interplay between freedom and fate, a theme deeply rooted in existential philosophy. peyton fahrquhar‟s intense desire to escape his fate and reunite with his family illustrates a profound struggle for freedom against the inevitabilities imposed by external circumstances. this scenario echoes the existential assertion by jean-paul sartre that “man is condemned to be free” (sartre, 1943, p. 168), suggesting that even in the face of unavoidable fate, individuals experience the burden of freedom to make choices. bierce portrays fahrquhar‟s imagined escape as a temporary liberation, a psychological retreat from the harsh reality of his imminent execution, which underscores the existential theme that human beings, despite their freedoms, are often entrapped by their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 61 published by scholink inc. circumstances. fahrquhar‟s fate—his execution—reveals the ultimate illusion of this freedom. his journey, marked by an intense psychological struggle, reflects the philosophical musings of arthur schopenhauer, who argued that “a man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants” (schopenhauer, 1839, 106), emphasizing the limitations imposed on human will by fate. bierce‟s narrative challenges readers to question the nature of freedom and fate, suggesting that while individuals may strive to control their destinies, they are often constrained by forces beyond their control. this exploration raises critical questions about the limits of human autonomy and the extent to which destiny shapes our lives, providing a poignant reflection on the role of personal agency in the shadow of inevitable outcomes, set against the dramatic backdrop of the civil war and personal tragedy. 5.2 technical exploration this section delves into the sophisticated narrative techniques employed, examining both the structural innovations and the symbolic depth that enrich the storytelling. 5.2.1 analysis of innovative narrative structure the story‟s structure, which deftly shifts between the protagonist‟s present experience and his imagined escape, exemplifies a sophisticated use of stream of consciousness combined with a nonlinear narrative. this approach not only enhances the thematic depth of the story but also encapsulates the tumultuous state of the protagonist‟s mind in his final moments. bierce‟s narrative technique is revolutionary in its depiction of time and consciousness, presenting a fleeting moment of execution as an elongated sequence filled with vivid imagery and intense emotion. the abrupt transition from fahrquhar‟s fantastical escape to the stark reality of his hanging jolts the reader, effectively conveying the shock of the protagonist‟s realization. this structural choice challenges traditional storytelling norms and invites readers to engage more deeply with the narrative, questioning the nature of reality and the reliability of perception. 5.2.2 symbolism and implications in language “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” stands as a monumental work in american literature, reflecting a confluence of historical authenticity, thematic depth, and innovative narrative techniques. bierce‟s story, set against the grim backdrop of the civil war, delves deeply into the psychological complexities of its protagonist, peyton fahrquhar, offering a profound exploration of themes such as life and death, freedom and fate, and the interplay of reality and fantasy. the story‟s structure marked by its non-linear narrative and intricate symbolism, challenges traditional storytelling norms, thus inviting readers into a multi-layered experience that fosters multiple interpretations. bierce‟s masterful blend of detailed realism and surreal elements not only distinguishes his work from his contemporaries but also contributes significantly to the evolution of the short story as a literary form. the enduring appeal of “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” lies in its ability to resonate with universal human experiences, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 62 published by scholink inc. making it a timeless piece that continues to captivate and intrigue readers. bierce‟s legacy, remains firmly entrenched in the annals of literary history, his work a testament to the power of storytelling in exploring the depths of the human psyche and the complexities of the human condition. 6. conclusion in the intricate weave of historical context and narrative invention in ambrose bierce‟s “an occurrence at owl creek bridge”, we observe a powerful interplay between reality and illusion, masterfully encapsulated through the protagonist peyton farquhar‟s experiences. set against the tumultuous backdrop of the civil war, the story extends beyond a mere fictional account, delving into the profound psychological and emotional turmoils wrought by war. by blending stark realism with elements of fantasy, bierce not only challenges the boundaries of traditional storytelling but also compels the reader to confront the harsh truths of human existence and warfare. through peyton farquhar‟s illusory escape from death, bierce explores the fragility of life and the inevitability of fate, casting a critical eye on the romanticized perceptions of war. this narrative technique not only highlights the psychological impacts of war but also serves as a somber reminder of the human propensity to escape into illusion when faced with unbearable realities. it is here that bierce‟s narrative urges us to reflect on the broader implications of war—not just as a historical occurrence but as a catalyst for deeper existential crises that resonate through the ages. the story underscores the need for peace and the importance of recognizing the often-overlooked psychological scars left by war, advocating for a more profound understanding and humanitarian approach to the aftermath of conflict. conclusively, “an occurrence at owl creek bridge” stands as a testament to the enduring power of storytelling in exploring and understanding the human condition. by forging a narrative that oscillates between the brutal realities of war and the comforting veils of illusion, bierce articulates a poignant narrative about the human spirit‟s resilience and vulnerability. in doing so, he not only enriches the literary canon but also invites us to cherish peace and cultivate empathy, emphasizing that behind every historical event are the deeply personal stories of individuals who endure, dream, and remember. acknowledgments jilin international studies university has been a nurturing pond of spring water for my growth. with its picturesque campus throughout the seasons, harmonious relationships between teachers and students, and a rigorous academic atmosphere, i have been able to focus on my studies and research with peace of mind. the abundant resources and positive scholarly environment provided by the university laid a solid foundation for my exploration of bierce‟s narrative strategies. i am sincerely grateful for the education and support from the university, which have steadied my steps on the academic path. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 63 published by scholink inc. camaraderie with my classmates has also been a crucial support in completing this paper. i am thankful for the help and encouragement they provided in both studies and personal life. together, we discussed academic issues, shared insights, and mutually encouraged each other towards collective progress. the understanding and support from my family have been the eternal driving force in my academic journey. i thank my parents for their meticulous care and continuous encouragement, which have allowed me to focus on my studies without worries. their love flows like water to the east, endless and continuous; their expectations shine like the sun, bright and far-reaching. lastly, i dedicate this paper to everyone who has cared for and helped me. as the poet du fu wrote, “what fears have they to die a twin, who‟ve lived a phoenix and a dove?” through this academic research, i‟ve come to understand more deeply that the ocean of knowledge is boundless and the path of scholarship, long. i hope to continue applying what i have learned, never forgetting my initial resolve, and to keep striving forward in the days to come. references b., k. e. (2019). civil war cycloramas and ambrose bierce‟s interventional realism. american literary realism, 52(2). burns, a. t. (2019). the game of life: idealism, reality and fantasy in the nineteenthand twentieth-century versions of a milton bradley game. canadian review of american studies, 9(1). cheatham, g., & cheatham, j. (2015). bierce‟s an occurrence at owl creek bridge. the explicator, 43(1). megan, r. (2016). reality and illusion: achieving a balance in the exhibition and treatment of robert gober‟s untitled wax legs. studies in conservation, 61(sup2). peter, k. (2019). dark, darker, darkest: the mood and genre of sardonic death in an occurrence at owl creek bridge as told by ambrose bierce, robert enrico, and rod serling. genre, 52(2). tabachnick, e. s. (2013). a possible source for the conclusion of ambrose bierce‟s an occurrence at owl creek bridge. anq: a quarterly journal of short articles, notes and reviews, 26(1). note(s) this paper is the periodical research result of the jisu academic project on the “ studies of ambrose bierce‟s narrative techniques”. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 111 original paper challenges and opportunities for increasing media coverage of climate change in kenya amb. dr. john o. kakonge1* 1 president, the association of former international civil servants in kenya (afics-kenya) * amb. dr. john o. kakonge, president, the association of former international civil servants in kenya (afics-kenya) received: march 23, 2020 accepted: april 7, 2020 online published: april 20, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n2p111 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n2p111 abstract globally, media coverage of climate change has been disappointing in both advanced and developing countries, kenya included. this article addresses the need to educate and train african journalists so that they can report adequately on climate change and in doing so, help not only to raise awareness of climate change but also to increase understanding of the multiple aspects of the phenomenon. although kenya has an elaborate governance structure in support of climate change, coordination across key ministries, departments and institutions at national and county levels has been wanting. coverage of climate change by kenya’s main print media houses and television stations over the last decade (2010-2019) is investigated and found to be minimal. a survey of the opinions of the local media sets the parameters for a discussion of the current challenges faced in increasing media coverage of climate change. lack of journalistic capacity, conflicting media priorities and inadequate funding to train and support journalists are major concerns. the paper concludes with a discussion on how media coverage could be improved to close the gaps in science journalism and, in particular, coverage of climate change in kenya. keywords climate change, media, funding, disasters, capacity, opportunities www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 112 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction given the continued threat of climate change, there is an urgent need to educate the general public about the issue. the media are perfectly positioned to do this and yet in many countries coverage of climate change is sparse, and globally, the problem of climate change persists. a bbc (2009) documentary entitled: least responsible, most affected, least informed, suggested that african citizens are among the least informed about human-induced climate change, its causes and its consequences. despite having a comprehensive set of policies around climate change in place, media coverage of issues related to climate change is scant in kenya and the lack of awareness of climate change issues by the general populace in kenya is typical of the bbc’s african citizens. this article addresses the need to educate and train african journalists so that they may report on climate change and in doing so, help not only to raise awareness of climate change but also to increase understanding of the multiple aspects of the phenomenon. a decade ago, tagbo (2010) noted that media coverage of climate change is disproportionate to the level of threat that it poses to the african continent, kenya included. her observation is just as true today. this paper, therefore, considers the challenges associated with, and opportunities for, much better media coverage of climate change in kenya. 2. methodology a literature review was carried out to develop an overview of general global trends in media coverage of climate change over the last few decades. the politics of climate change in kenya was then reviewed with regard to the role of national ministries, legislation, ngos and civil society. having provided the political context in which the local media operates, a web-based survey was undertaken to determine the extent of climate change coverage by the print and television media in kenya over the last decade (2010-2019). guided by the literature and results of the online survey, a questionnaire was developed and used to gather the opinions of professionals working within the local print and television media regarding the challenges associated with increasing coverage of climate change. their opinions inform the discussion of how media coverage could be improved in kenya. 3. results 3.1 politics of climate change in kenya kenya has extensive climate change governance structures, ranging from national policies, acts and ministries, to other government institutions, county governments, the private sector and civil society. the national climate change framework policy of 2016 was developed to provide guidelines on responding to climate variability and climate change and to support the national climate change action plan of 2013. it outlines the system of climate change governance through low carbon growth, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 113 published by scholink inc. an enabling regulatory framework, efforts to enhance climate resilience and adaptive capacity, and the mainstreaming of climate change into planning processes. the national policy is in line with vision 2030, which is the kenyan government’s blueprint for development projects. it provides opportunities for low carbon development for both individuals and communities. the climate change act of 2016 also addresses the development, management, implementation and regulation of mechanisms to enhance low carbon development and climate change resilience for sustainable development in kenya (koee, 2018). the ministry responsible for the coordination of climate change response in kenya is the ministry of environment and forestry. numerous departments within the ministry have been established to deal with different aspects of climate change. the national climate change secretariat has the mandate to develop policies, strategies and action plans. other departments that also play a role in climate change response include the national environment management authority, the kenya meteorological department, the mines and geology department, the directorate of environment and the department of resources, surveys and remote sensing. the ministry of environment and forestry is the national focal point for the united nations framework convention on climate change (koee, 2018). the national environment council, which is chaired by the ministry of environment and forestry, is responsible for policy formulation under the environment management and coordination act. this act sets out provisions in such areas as climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance. in addition, the national drought management authority, established in 2011, has as its role the supervision and coordination of drought management and climate change adaptation in the country (koee, 2018). other ministries which are responsible for aspects of climate change include the ministry of energy, which is mandated to produce clean, sustainable, affordable and secure energy while protecting the environment and addressing climate change. the ministry of agriculture implements various climate change programmes and projects, such as that on climate-smart agriculture, and the ministry of water and irrigation has prioritized the streamlining of climate change adaptation in the water sector by implementing the 2030 national water master plan. besides the ministries, other government institutions which have climate change units and focal points, including the kenya wildlife services (kws); the kenya forest services (kfs); the kenya agricultural livestock research organization (kalro) and the kenya forestry research institute (kefri). at the county level, the county governments act of 2012 requires each county government to develop a climate change adaptation plan within a framework that integrates economic, physical, social, environmental and spatial planning. the private sector plays a big role in the delivery and design of many adaptation services in kenya, such as weather observation technology and early-warning systems, the distribution of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 114 published by scholink inc. drought-resistant seeds and other agricultural products, and water management infrastructure and technologies. the private sector also provides financial support for the above activities. equally, civil society plays a role in monitoring and evaluating the progress of climate change projects, and in raising popular awareness of the need for concerted climate action (koee, 2018). clearly, the current kenyan climate change governance structures are elaborate and extensive. their impact on the ground, however, is minimal at best and the country is grappling with the negative impacts of climate change. a serious omission of the national climate change governance structures is that it does not incorporate the ministry of information, communication and technology which regulates the media sector. one of the objectives of the national climate change action plan, as outlined in its preface signed by former president kibaki, is to strengthen nationwide actions towards climate change adaptation and mitigation. president kibaki emphasized that the national climate change action plan was people-centred, ensuring that climate change actions support kenya’s achievement of its development agenda (gok, 2013). sadly, the role of the media was not clearly spelled out in the national plan and it is doubtful whether the government will apply section 9 of the national plan which focuses on knowledge management and capacity development and bring in the media to cover and disseminate climate change information to all segments of kenyan society. 3.2 global trends in media coverage of climate change the extent of media coverage of climate change differs from one nation to the next (kansas university, 2019), but generally, coverage is poor, leading thysen (2019) to lament that the media have essentially ignored the climate crisis for three decades. in the usa in october 2018, following the ipcc release of its landmark special report on the impacts of global warming, documenting the 1.5 per cent rise in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels, only 22 of the country’s 50 biggest newspapers covered the report (pope & hartsgaard, 2019). kansas university (2019) argues further, that although rich countries have been covering climate change for over 30 years, they have not slowed the warming of climate. in fact, the kansas university report states that if rich countries want to increase public awareness of climate change, the media need to address the phenomenon as a matter of urgency. by considering how the media have portrayed climate change, we can better understand how to improve their coverage of the issue, with the hope of giving it a priority status that is reflected in policy. in a journalism workshop in peru funded by usaid, it was observed that climate change continues to be perceived as a threat and bad news. media coverage of flooding, retreating glaciers, droughts and failed crops presents a bleak and depressing scenario. the workshop concluded that by changing how the media report on climate change, this bad news could be given a positive spin. for example, addressing climate change could be seen as a chance to be prepared, to grow in a sustainable way, to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 115 published by scholink inc. improve our crops, to promote group collaborations, and so on. although some editors fear that climate stories will not sell papers, thysen (2019) observes encouraging signs that some media outlets are trying different approaches which may, in turn, deepen the understanding and engagement of targeted groups for a longer duration. for example, cdkn (2018) suggests that journalists should find human interest and development angles to convince editors and audiences that climate change really is a story about people’s lives and well-being and about sustainable economies. moreover, reporting on a recent workshop organized by the earth journalism network and the solutions journalism network on how media coverage of climate change could make a difference, schonhardt and mccann (2019) recommend the following:  don’t make people look like victims or heroes.  don’t promote silver bullets or a one-size fits all solutions. there is no one solution or answer to the climate crisis.  don’t avoid other factors. natural disasters such as wildfires are caused by drought and rising temperatures but also development decisions and policies.  look at what’s working.  don’t overstate the role of climate change. individual weather events are sometimes difficult to link to climate change.  start with a local example of action and then tie that into a broader trend or issue.  avoid activism by focusing on an approach.  connect stories to people or places. look at impacts on food, health, gardening, travel (things people care about and are familiar with).  good practices (adaptive measures) have taken on new urgency; move the conversation forward.  tell diverse stories. climate change will affect different communities in different ways, and similar communities may learn from one another. unesco (2018) adds that through informed reporting, journalists can shine a light on the wealth of activities that people are undertaking to respond to climate change. at the local level, covering climate change can help to save lives, formulate plans, change policy and empower people to make informed choices. writing about developing countries, kakonge (2012) suggests that the way forward for journalists and editors is to humanize climate change messages and stories. 3.3 media coverage of climate change in kenya kenya is among the countries which are particularly vulnerable to climate change. recurring droughts and floods are frequent. rainfall is unpredictable and current projections are that temperatures will rise by 2.50c by 2050. consequently, it might be expected that media coverage would be representative of the seriousness of the problem. reporting in 2011, however, kakonge found systemic apathy in the media with regard to covering climate change. to determine if this is still the case, a web-based survey www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 116 published by scholink inc. was conducted of the number of climate change articles published in three of the national newspapers and the number of programmes produced in three of the national television stations, between january 2010 and october 2019. the results of the surveys are presented below. 3.3.1 newspaper coverage of climate change the daily nation and the standard are the two largest national newspapers in kenya. founded in 1902, the standard is the country’s oldest newspaper, while the nation group was established by the aga khan over 60 years ago. the star began circulation in july 2007 as the nairobi star and was rebranded as the star in 2009. all three papers cover a wide range of topics, namely politics, governance, agriculture, county, regional and international news, business, entertainment, culture and sports. the number of articles related to climate change carried by each newspaper over the last decade (january 2010-october 2019) is reflected in figure 1. these figures are dependent on how well the online archives are structured. data for the star were only available for 2013-2019. analysis of the data clearly demonstrates that, before 2018, there was scant coverage of climate change issues. not one of three papers reported more than eight stories in an entire year, supporting an earlier observation that developing countries’ editors and their audiences appear to lack interest in climate change (kakonge, 2011). between 2017 and 2018, climate change coverage increased fourfold in both the daily nation and the standard, from 5 to 22, and 1 to 4, in the two papers respectively. the star, which on average covered more stories annually than the other papers, also upped its coverage almost threefold, from 7 to 20 in the same period. this new reporting vigour has been carried through to 2019, with all papers having published significantly higher numbers of climate change stories than ever before. by october 2019, when the data for this study were collected, 106 articles had already been reported in the three papers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 117 published by scholink inc. figure 1. local printed media reporting on climate change by three of kenya’s national newspapers (2010-october 2019) note: data for the star were only available for 2013-2019. the stories covered by the kenyan print media tend to focus on politics, scandal, crime, sports, culture, with little interest shown, until very recently, in climate change-related activities. the reason for this is because the print papers and television channels are driven by a single objective: to make money, failing which they will go out of business. for the kenyan papers to survive, they must cover stories which can sell. while coverage of climate change has increased substantially over the last one-and-a-half years, an examination of the content of the stories shows that, in most cases, they focused on the negative impacts of climate change at both national and county levels, namely floods, drought, malaria and hunger. some of the stories also referred to global warming and greenhouse emissions. in addition to local news, the daily nation featured international stories covered by the un and other agencies geared towards climate change. the star featured both international and national stories on climate change and a few articles on drought within the country. the standard also covered renewable energy. clearly, most of the stories carried by the national papers referred to climate change in terms of disasters. the papers carried these stories because of their sensational impact and immediate relevance to readers, in particular, those living in areas that have been affected or who know someone from those areas. 3.3.2 television coverage of climate change ktn (kenya television network) is the oldest free-to-air privately owned network in africa. it began its operations in 1990. citizen tv was established by royal media services in 1999 and relaunched in june 2006. it broadcasts mainly in english and swahili. national tv was established by the nation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 118 published by scholink inc. media group in 1999. it was revamped as ntv in 2005 and is a general entertainment channel. from a review of the online archives, it was possible to determine the number of television programmes that focused on climate change (see figure 2). again, it is important to bear in mind that these figures are dependent on the accuracy of the archives. it is clear that very view television programmes have addressed climate change. in the review period, the citizen only aired a total of six programmes, ntv eight and ktn nine. one positive sign is that, so far in 2019, the amount of coverage on two of the three networks has been greater than over the nine previous years combined. figure 2. local television reporting on climate change (2010-october 2019) 3.4 challenges facing the kenyan media with regards to covering climate change in light of the sparse reporting on climate change by the newsprint and television media, the next stage in this research exercise was to collect the opinions of people working in the media in kenya in an attempt to understand the reasons for this disregard. based on the literature, a questionnaire was developed and sent to journalists and editors working for various media organizations and also to freelance journalists. the questionnaire comprised open-ended questions on such issues as coverage of climate change by the main local papers; why papers only cover crises or disasters; challenges facing climate change journalists; the framing of climate change articles; the improvement of climate change coverage; and opportunities for media coverage of climate change. the 10 participants’ views, which are based on their expertise and personal opinions, are integrated in the discussion that follows. three www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 119 published by scholink inc. major themes emerged from their responses, namely: a lack of journalistic capacity, the focus of media priorities, and a lack of funding for science journalists. 3.4.1 journalistic capacity most of the literature acknowledges that the lack of coverage of climate change information is due to the limited capacity of journalists and editors. according to corner (2011), quoting catherine mwesigwa, most journalists in newsrooms have arts backgrounds and have little understanding of the science of climate change. in fact, even tagbo (2010) acknowledges that a lack of understanding of the issues surrounding climate change makes it difficult for most african journalists to do a good job of reporting it. this is a view supported by the organization koee (2018), which attributes the challenges facing climate change reporting to inadequate understanding by journalists of the complex nature of the subject. the war to combat climate change cannot be won without a strong and credible media. strengthening the capacity of journalists in kenya and elsewhere is crucial and it must be a continuous exercise and not a short-term affair. according to one respondent: “kenyan journalists lack the requisite skills to cover issues not just of climate change, but many other environmental issues as well. i think we do not have specialists in this sector who can contribute great content on these issues. most journalists want simple political stories that make no significance in society and are soon forgotten… besides those journalists who cover climate change in the country who do so out of sheer interest in this sector. but these are few and far between.” some studies, such as those of corner (2011), koee (2018) and tagbo (2010), suggest that efforts to build the capacity of journalists need to be carried out in collaboration with editors and media owners. this will ensure teamwork and support of the climate change stories being covered by journalists. however, while the media is an important source of information on climate change, many journalists find it difficult to get editors’ buy-in for stories on climate change. 3.4.2 media priorities kenya is not alone when it comes to inadequate coverage of climate change by the media. other analysts, such as tagbo (2010), confirm that the media focus on politics, corruption, entertainment and business, because copy on those topics sells better and, in that way, they can command the lead in newspaper placements. in short, as the previous respondent noted, there is a tendency by the kenyan media to concentrate only on political stories and scandals, hyping and sensationalizing mundane matters at the expense of serious journalism. consequently, climate change only becomes a topical issue when there is an opportunity to write a sensational story. 3.4.3 financial constraints one of the challenges identified by a number of studies, including corner (2011) and koee (2018), is the cost of training both journalists and editors to cover and report about climate change issues www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 120 published by scholink inc. effectively. the training of journalists to cover climate change is not cheap and necessitates the support of many sponsors, governments, development partners, donors, media owners, and others (kakonge, 2012). unfortunately, this has not been the priority of the kenyan government, media houses or donors. while a few development partners have supported training workshops for journalists in climate change, the impact has been minimal. given the continued threat of climate change, there is a need for aggressive fundraising, not only to train journalists and editors in the science of journalism but also to buy dedicated space with the local papers (the daily nation, the standard, the star) for climate change issues. for example, the daily nation has a dedicated space for innovative and smart agriculture, known as “seeds of gold”. another example may be seen in the guardian in the uk, which has a dedicated section for environmental issues and, by extension, climate change. after the twenty-fourth meeting of the conference of the parties to the un framework convention on climate change, known as cop 24, the kenyan government promised to issue sovereign green bonds, and establish the climate change fund and disaster risk finance strategy. all these instruments are intended to cushion the economy from fiscal risks arising from the effects of climate-related shocks and natural disaster. in addition, in 2018, garissa county launched its county climate change fund and allocated the amount of 60 million kenyan shillings (some 600,000 us dollars) to help in mitigating the harmful effects of climate change (ngotho, 2019). four other counties—makueni, wajir, kitui and isiolo—have also established county climate change funds to identify, prioritize and finance investments to reduce climate risk and achieve adaptation priorities (iisd, 2018). these examples should be instructive to other counties. moreover, during his address at cop 24, the kenyan minister of environment, keriako tobiko, emphasized that lack of adequate funding has hindered implementation of the national climate change action plans of many developing countries, including kenya (mwangi, 2018). of course, this has implications for funding programmes relating to the media and climate change. iied (2011) observed the extensive need for predictable and adequate funding to strengthen the media’s capacity to cover climate change issues. the availability of such funding would help countries like kenya to plan and implement national programmes to increase public awareness and understanding of climate change issues, and these, in turn, would support the country in meeting its international obligations. likewise, cdkn (2018) has emphasized that no matter whether the amounts concerned are small or targeted, funding can make all the difference in enabling journalists to get out and cover the climate change stories that otherwise would go unreported. 3.5 opportunities and best practices for covering climate change it is not easy to report on climate change. even when journalists have capacity, when there is buy-in from the media houses, and when funding is available, the complex nature of the subject and its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 121 published by scholink inc. associated scientific terminology often make it difficult for the public to understand. cdkn (2018) observes, however, that communication from the ipcc and other scientific bodies has improved over recent years and many more press releases, headlines, documents and slides are available and accessible to ordinary people. the media has a crucial role to play in educating the public about climate change. the following paragraphs set out some ideas about how the media in kenya can be supported to develop their capacity and coverage of climate change. 3.5.1 government support ideally, the elaborate kenyan government framework on climate change should benefit journalists by giving them access to a broad spectrum of climate change issues. this review of the scant climate change coverage provided by the country’s print and television media demonstrates, however, that communication with government structures is inadequate and, in some cases, altogether lacking. there is a need to revisit the national climate change governance structures in the country to ensure that there is better coordination among the ministries, institutions and organizations vested with climate change responsibilities. proper coordination between climate change experts and journalists could enable better and routine coverage of climate change issues. 3.5.2 increase journalistic capacity participants in the study were generally of the view that climate change is not covered by kenya’s main local newspapers and television stations because some journalists do not know how to articulate climate change issues. other journalists pointed to the lack of sponsorship, which has limited research and investigative work concerning climate change. further, participating editors also noted that local papers and television networks lack a dedicated desk for reporting science-based issues such as climate change. to improve the coverage of climate change in kenya, journalists and editors must be trained on substantive issues, myths about climate change need to be challenged and corrected, and strong networks and relationship with experts need to be built to encourage routine sharing of climate change updates. 3.5.3 provide funding the issue of funding is closely related to that of journalistic capacity. lack of funding was one of the challenges cited by all journalists who responded to the questionnaire. all journalists and editors confirmed that media houses dedicate very little funding to climate change stories, which means that insufficient information is published or aired on these issues. the way forward, as president kenyatta acknowledged, is for all stakeholders, both governmental and non-governmental, to undertake and share responsibility for climate change initiatives. the study participants recommended that a national media fund with flexible bureaucracy should be established and be accessible to journalists who are interested in covering climate change stories and who want to attend climate change conferences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 122 published by scholink inc. 3.5.4 encourage proactive reporting globally, there is a tendency for the media to focus on crises or disasters that result from climate change. feedback from participating local journalists and editors indicated that issues around climate change only receive limelight and publicity when catastrophic events like droughts or floods occur. while some participants argued that covering disasters provides them with an opportunity to inform and educate the public, others noted that coverage of these crises is directed primarily towards exposing the failures of either the national or county governments to respond to climate change. in addition, as noted by some journalists and editors, organizations will sometimes sponsor media houses to cover crises in order to acquire information. ngos, for example, can use that information to solicit money from their sponsors. regardless of the motives, kenyan media coverage of climate change tends to be reactive rather than proactive. adopting a more informed, proactive approach, focusing on the human stories of people making a positive contribution to curbing climate change, through better agricultural practices, for example, could have a direct and benefic impact on the way people respond to climate change. 3.5.5 sponsorship support for proactivism as noted above, media sponsors tend to favour stories of disasters such as floods, droughts and famine. while sensationalism will always sell papers, a more informed public will also relate positively to stories of a more sustainable, proactive nature. if sponsors can be encouraged to support these stories, then coverage of climate change should improve. one idea worth exploring is the institution of awards for both journalists and media houses that give priority to and good coverage of climate change. sponsors could also be encouraged to support these awards. 3.5.6 target university students finally, to grow a new generation of scientifically savvy reporters and journalists, science graduates should be encouraged to take postgraduate journalism and communication courses. these students should be financially supported and provided with mentors to hone their skills. 4. conclusion the media coverage of climate change in kenya is very much like that in most developing countries. although print media coverage has increased substantially over the last year and a half, television coverage remains minimal, and stories still tend to focus on natural disasters and other sensational events. without strong political and financial support, the media will find it difficult to maintain their momentum and produce informative and engaging stories. climate change is a complex subject and journalists, reporters and editors working on climate change stories need to understand the science behind the subject. journalists who are passionate about climate change and the environment should be encouraged and supported in efforts to deepen their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 123 published by scholink inc. understanding and to develop their networks of specialists. editors and media houses must enable more extensive and regular coverage of climate change, not only when disasters happen, but also to highlight stories that present proactive approaches to the issue. by engaging their readers and viewers with inspiring stories about such good practices, public empathy with be encouraged, and this, in turn, could result in changes in attitudes and more responsible behaviour. the kenyan government’s climate change governance structures should be revised to reflect the current realities. in particular, the ministry of information, communication and technology need to make provision for and support extensive and informative media coverage of climate change. the government should devise innovative ways to support climate change coverage in print, television and radio media. national and county governments should establish climate change funds to cover the training of journalists and editors and also to enable them to travel to affected areas and provide comprehensive media coverage. recent cases of established climate change funds in garissa, makueni, isiolo, wajir and kitui counties are instructive in this regard. implementation of the climate change action plan calls for a strong political will and commitment. accordingly, allocating adequate funds from the government’s budget will demonstrate national commitment, this commitment is essential before funds can be solicited from partners and donors. above all, as justin trudeau, prime minister of canada, affirmed in april 2016, upon signing the paris agreement on behalf of his country: “climate change will test our intelligence, our compassion and our will. but we are equal to that challenge”. echoing his sentiment, we marginalize the media at our peril. the media must be recognized as a critical partner in the war to combat climate change and be supported to develop informative, accurate and humanized coverage of the multiple aspects of climate change. acknowledgements i wish to acknowledge the substantial contribution made by cyprian ogoti and nobert maina to this paper. i also am grateful to the following for responding to the climate change and media questionnaire, namely: georgia achia (science africa), sharon atieno (science africa), otula owuor (science africa), henry owino (science africa), david aduda (daily nation), samuel waweru (catholic mirror), namuswa nanjinia (the standard), lorna kivuta (anecland science), marietta musyoki (journalist schipi), aga khan university, leopold obi (daily nation). however, they bear no responsibility for the contents of this paper. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 124 published by scholink inc. references bbc. (2009). least responsible, most affected, least informed: public understanding of climate change in africa. policy brief, oct.2009. cdkn (climate and development knowledge network). (2018). communicating climate change: a practitioner’s guide. netherlands. corner, a. (2011). communicating climate change in uganda: challenges and opportunities. panos eastern africa, kampala, uganda. gok (government of kenya). (2013). kenya national climate change action plan: 2013-2017. nairobi, kenya. iied. (2011). why the media matters in a warming world: a guide for policymakers in the global south. policy brief 2011. iisd. (2018). kenya’s county climate change funds. policy brief 2018. kakonge, j. o. (2011). the role of media in the climate change debate in developing countries. global policy essay, november 2011. kakonge, j. o. (2012). fostering partnerships with media organizations to improve climate change coverage in africa. science communication, 35(3), 411-416. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012464216 kansas university. (2019). how media around the world frame climate change news: rich countries politicize issue, while poor countries present climate change as international concern. science daily, 13 august 2019. koee (kenya organization for environment education). (2018). what ill’s the climate change? nairobi, kenya. mwangi, m. (2018). insufficient funding hurting climate plans. the star, 17 december 2018. makower, j. (2019). two steps forward: climate change and the media: more news is good news. greenbiz, 17 september 2019. ngotho, a. (2019). garissa allocates ksh60 to fight climate change. the star, 2 august 2019. pope, k., & hertsgaard, m. (2019). why are the us news media so bad at covering climate change? the guardian, 22 april 2019. reichel, c. (2018). covering climate change: what reporters get wrong and how to get it right. journalist’s resource. schonhardt, s., & mccann, s. (2019). reporting on climate change from a solutions lens. earth journalism network and the solutions. retrieved from https://earthjournalism.net/program-updates/reporting-on-climate-change-from-a-solutions-lens tagbo, e. (2010). media coverage of climate change in africa: a case study of nigeria and south africa. reuter institute oxford university, uk. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 125 published by scholink inc. the star. (2018). uhuru tells counties to sort climate crisis. the star, 11 october 2018. thyssen, m. (2019). is one week of environmental courage enough? euro news, living/2019/08/29/170. unesco/ipdr. (2018). getting the message across: reporting on climate change and sustainable development in asia and the pacific. a handbook for journalists, paris, france. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 7 original paper a study on the impact of enterprise social media visibility on employee job satisfaction wenjie li 1 , kailin li 1* , & dong wu 1 1 faculty of art, design and communication, guangzhou xinhua university, guangzhou, china * kailin li, faculty of art, design and communication, guangzhou xinhua university, guangzhou, china received: november 14, 2024 accepted: december 18, 2024 online published: january 4, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n1p7 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n1p7 abstract the widespread use of enterprise social media has significantly impacted employee job satisfaction. however, “visibility”, as a crucial variable, remains underexplored. this study investigates how the visibility of enterprise social media affects employees’ psychological states and behaviors through mechanisms such as transparency, social comparison, and emotional feedback, ultimately influencing their job satisfaction. the paper also examines the positive and negative effects of different levels of visibility and explores the moderating role of organizational culture in this process. finally, it provides practical recommendations for optimizing enterprise social media usage to enhance employee job satisfaction. this research not only expands the theoretical boundaries of social media studies but also offers valuable insights for enterprise management practices. keywords enterprise social media, visibility, job satisfaction, social comparison theory, organizational culture, employee behavior 1. introduction with the rapid advancement of digital technology, social media has become an essential tool in modern enterprises, playing an irreplaceable role in improving communication efficiency, enhancing employee collaboration, and shaping organizational culture. social media provides employees with open and flexible channels for interaction but also introduces new managerial challenges, such as increased information transparency, complexities in privacy protection, and shifts in workplace social dynamics. among these factors, “visibility” is particularly noteworthy. visibility refers to the degree to which employees’ behaviors and information are observed or perceived by others on social media platforms. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 8 published by scholink inc. this variable can significantly impact employees’ psychological states and behavioral patterns through mechanisms such as transparency, social comparison, and emotional feedback, ultimately influencing their job satisfaction. however, existing research in this area is insufficient, particularly regarding how visibility specifically affects employee satisfaction. against this research backdrop, this study aims to explore the potential pathways through which enterprise social media visibility impacts employee job satisfaction. by reviewing relevant literature and analyzing theoretical frameworks, this paper examines how visibility fosters trust through transparency, induces psychological pressure via social comparison and attribution, and enhances satisfaction through emotional feedback. it also analyzes employees’ psychological and behavioral responses under low, medium, and high visibility levels to further clarify the positive and negative impacts of visibility on job satisfaction. additionally, this study explores the moderating role of organizational culture, focusing on how open and inclusive cultural environments can alleviate the stress caused by high visibility and amplify its positive effects. as a conceptual study, this paper does not involve empirical analysis but relies on literature review and theoretical framework construction. the findings not only provide theoretical support for understanding the impact of enterprise social media usage but also offer practical guidance for enterprise managers in designing and optimizing social media usage strategies, ultimately helping organizations improve employee job satisfaction and overall efficiency (yang & pitafi, 2023). 2. theory and concepts enterprise social media serves multiple roles in modern enterprise management. by improving communication efficiency, enhancing collaboration, and shaping organizational culture, social media has become a crucial platform for facilitating employee interaction and enterprise operations. to fully understand how the visibility of enterprise social media affects employee job satisfaction, it is essential to analyze its functions and roles. 2.1 functions and roles of enterprise social media the functions of enterprise social media can be categorized into information dissemination, team collaboration, and cultural shaping. first, in terms of information dissemination, the immediacy and wide coverage of social media enable employees to access and share information more quickly, reducing the risks of information asymmetry. this not only enhances work efficiency but also strengthens transparency and trust among employees. second, in team collaboration, social media provides a platform for cross-departmental and cross-regional employees to collaborate, particularly in project management, problem-solving, and innovation practices. for example, through instant messaging, group discussions, and file-sharing functionalities, employees can efficiently allocate tasks and track progress, thereby improving team productivity. additionally, social media can strengthen social bonds among employees, fostering greater team cohesion. more importantly, enterprise social media excels in shaping www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 9 published by scholink inc. organizational culture. by promoting open communication and diverse expression, social media contributes to building an inclusive and supportive cultural environment. for instance, enterprises can use social media platforms to share employee recognition, organizational activities, and development visions, enhancing employees’ sense of belonging and organizational identity. furthermore, employees’ sharing of experiences and perspectives on social media helps create a culture of knowledge sharing. however, social media functions may also come with negative effects, such as information overload, privacy breaches, and misinformation dissemination, which can undermine employees’ trust in the platform and negatively affect job satisfaction. in summary, enterprise social media is a multifunctional platform with both advantages and risks in information, collaboration, and cultural domains. by managing these functions appropriately, enterprises can strike a balance between improving efficiency and enhancing employee satisfaction. however, as a critical factor influencing employees’ psychology and behavior, the issue of visibility requires further theoretical exploration and management optimization (sun et al., 2020). 2.2 key factors influencing job satisfaction job satisfaction is a comprehensive reflection of employees’ attitudes toward their work content, environment, and organizational atmosphere. it is a critical psychological variable that significantly impacts employees’ behavior and performance. over the years, scholars have conducted extensive research on the factors influencing job satisfaction from various perspectives, which can be broadly categorized into job characteristics, organizational support, social relationships, and individual psychology. first, job characteristics are one of the core factors influencing job satisfaction. these include task variety, skill requirements, job autonomy, and feedback on job outcomes. well-designed tasks enhance employees’ sense of control and achievement, thereby improving their satisfaction. for example, high job autonomy allows employees to manage their tasks flexibly, facilitating better alignment between personal and professional goals. second, organizational support is a key determinant of employees’ job satisfaction. research shows that when employees perceive organizational attention and support, such as competitive compensation, career development opportunities, and psychological support, they are more likely to exhibit a positive attitude toward their work. transparent communication mechanisms and fair performance evaluations, particularly in team collaborations, effectively enhance employees’ trust in the organization and their overall satisfaction. social relationships also play a vital role in shaping employees’ job satisfaction. healthy coworker relationships, positive team interactions, and effective leadership support have a favorable impact on employees’ mental health and job satisfaction. for instance, when employees feel respected and recognized within a team, it facilitates their integration into the organizational culture and strengthens their alignment with organizational goals. lastly, individual psychological traits significantly affect job satisfaction. the degree to which an individual’s values and psychological needs align with their job determines their perception and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 10 published by scholink inc. experience of work. furthermore, employees’ adaptability to external environments, emotional regulation abilities, and stress-coping strategies also influence their job satisfaction. in the context of enterprise social media, these factors may influence job satisfaction through new mechanisms. for example, social media usage can improve information flow and enhance team cohesion. however, excessive visibility might trigger social comparison and stress, potentially diminishing satisfaction. therefore, integrating traditional factors influencing job satisfaction with the dynamics of social media usage provides more comprehensive guidance for enterprise management practices (zhu et al., 2021). 2.3 theoretical foundations of visibility and employee behavior in the context of enterprise social media usage, “visibility” is a key variable that refers to the degree to which employees’ behaviors and information on social media platforms are observed by others. visibility not only impacts employees’ psychological states but also alters their behavioral patterns through complex social and organizational mechanisms. understanding the effects of visibility requires theoretical support from frameworks such as social comparison theory, attribution theory, and situational transparency theory. first, social comparison theory provides a critical foundation for understanding visibility (chen et al., 2020). this theory suggests that individuals tend to evaluate their abilities and achievements by comparing themselves to others. in enterprise social media environments, employees’ actions and work outcomes are often publicly displayed, prompting them to compare themselves with colleagues. such comparisons can yield both positive and negative outcomes: on the positive side, employees may feel motivated by exemplary behaviors, enhancing their performance; on the negative side, excessive comparisons may lead to anxiety, reduced self-efficacy, or even feelings of jealousy, negatively impacting job satisfaction and mental health. second, attribution theory explains how employees interpret others’ actions and organizational decisions in high-visibility environments. according to this theory, individuals attribute observed behaviors and outcomes to specific causes based on visible information. on enterprise social media, employees may openly observe and interpret managerial decisions or colleagues’ actions. for instance, an employee might attribute a peer’s success to ability, effort, or access to resources, influencing perceptions of fairness and organizational support. this attribution process can subsequently alter employees’ attitudes toward their work and shape the broader organizational climate. furthermore, situational transparency theory highlights the nuanced relationship between visibility and trust. high-transparency environments can enhance trust within organizations by making power dynamics and resource allocation more equitable. however, excessive transparency or perceived threats to privacy may induce stress, burnout, or even resistance. for example, excessive exposure of work performance on social media platforms may lead employees to feel excessively scrutinized, adversely affecting their psychological well-being and behavior. in conclusion, visibility exerts complex effects on employee behavior through social comparison, attribution mechanisms, and transparency. these effects must be analyzed in the specific context of enterprise social media www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 11 published by scholink inc. applications. in management practice, organizations should carefully design visibility settings on social media platforms to balance the tension between transparency and privacy, minimizing negative impacts while maximizing the positive influence of social media on employee behavior. 3. theoretical framework and analysis 3.1 psychological mechanisms of visibility’s impact on employees 3.1.1 enhanced transparency and its effects the visibility of enterprise social media profoundly affects employees’ attitudes and behaviors through multiple psychological mechanisms, including enhanced transparency. high visibility in social media fosters greater openness and transparency within the organization, reducing information asymmetry (sun, 2020). employees can use social media to track colleagues’ work progress, team goals, and organizational policies, thus boosting their trust and identification with the organization. this transparency also strengthens employees’ perceptions of fairness, making them more confident that resource allocation and performance evaluations are equitable. however, excessive transparency may impose psychological burdens on employees, especially when they feel their work behaviors are constantly scrutinized, potentially leading to anxiety or unease. 3.1.2work-life balance and its impact the use of social media also impacts work-life balance, leading to technological stress that can cause employees to feel fatigued, pressured, and burned out. the blurring of boundaries between work and personal life due to the excessive use of social media results in employees frequently accessing social media during non-working hours, affecting their quality of life and job satisfaction. this excessive use can lead to information avoidance behavior, where employees choose not to focus on important work tasks to avoid boredom or fatigue. it can also result in technology-work conflicts, where the use of social media clashes with work tasks, affecting work efficiency. furthermore, excessive social media usage behaviors, such as over-socializing, over-entertainment, and over-cognitive engagement, lead to social media overload and technology-work conflicts, causing emotional exhaustion and ultimately impacting job performance (kasim, fauzi, yusuf, & wider, 2022). 3.1.3 social comparison and its double-edged impact social comparison is a double-edged mechanism of visibility’s psychological impact. high visibility enables employees to observe colleagues’ work performance and achievements, often triggering social comparisons. positive comparisons can stimulate competitive spirit and drive employees to improve their performance. however, excessive social comparisons can lead to negative outcomes, such as diminished self-esteem, increased psychological pressure, and reduced job satisfaction. this negative impact becomes more pronounced when employees perceive their performance to be inferior to that of their peers, resulting in emotional distress and decreased sense of belonging. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 12 published by scholink inc. 3.1.4 emotional feedback and its influence emotional feedback is another significant factor in visibility’s influence on employees. on social media platforms, employees’ work results or behaviors are often met with immediate feedback from colleagues and management, such as likes, comments, or public praise. positive emotional feedback can enhance employees’ self-efficacy and sense of achievement, reinforcing their positive attitudes toward work. conversely, a lack of feedback or exposure to negative comments over time may harm employees’ mental health and job satisfaction. public emotional feedback may also provoke jealousy or dissatisfaction among other employees, potentially undermining team cohesion and harmony. 3.1.5 privacy pressure and its negative impact privacy pressure is a major source of negative psychological impact in high-visibility environments. when employees’ behaviors and information are continuously exposed on social media platforms, they may feel their privacy is invaded, losing control over personal information. this privacy pressure can lower employees’ psychological security, causing a sense of detachment from the organization and ultimately reducing job satisfaction. therefore, when designing visibility policies for social media, organizations must pay special attention to employees’ privacy needs, offering sufficient options and control to mitigate the negative impact of privacy pressure. visibility impacts employees’ psychology in multifaceted and complex ways. balancing transparency with privacy, motivation with pressure, and positive feedback with fairness is critical for managing enterprise social media effectively. by optimizing visibility design, organizations can maximize social media’s positive psychological effects on employees, enhancing job satisfaction and organizational performance (pitafi & ren, 2021). 3.2 impact analysis of different visibility levels 3.2.1 low visibility: privacy and limitations low visibility typically refers to situations where employees’ behaviors and information are visible only to a limited audience, such as direct supervisors or team members. in this context, employees often feel a high degree of privacy and psychological safety, allowing them to express opinions and share information more freely. however, low visibility can lead to communication inefficiencies and a lack of transparency, limiting the effectiveness of team collaboration and cross-departmental communication. employees might miss opportunities to showcase their performance to a broader audience, negatively affecting career development and job satisfaction. 3.2.2 medium visibility: balance and benefits medium visibility represents a balance, where employees’ behaviors and information are shared within a reasonable scope, such as among their team or department. this level of visibility strikes a balance between transparency and privacy, enabling employees to gain recognition and feedback in a public setting without feeling overly exposed. medium visibility is often considered the most favorable for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 13 published by scholink inc. enhancing job satisfaction, as it effectively promotes team collaboration, strengthens employees’ sense of belonging, and avoids the adverse effects of excessive transparency. 3.2.3 high visibility: exposure and constraints high visibility refers to scenarios where employees’ behaviors and information are publicly accessible across the organization or even to a broader audience. such high transparency significantly enhances the flow of information and resource sharing, providing employees with greater opportunities to showcase their skills and achievements. however, high visibility may also impose substantial psychological pressure and behavioral constraints. employees might exhibit defensive behaviors out of fear that mistakes could be magnified or their privacy infringed upon, leading to a decline in psychological safety and job satisfaction. the impacts of low, medium, and high visibility levels on employees vary significantly. enterprises should flexibly adjust the design of social media visibility based on specific management goals and employee characteristics, finding a balance between information transparency and psychological comfort. by doing so, organizations can maximize job satisfaction and improve overall efficiency (yang, ye, & wang, 2021). 3.3 moderating role of organizational culture the impact of visibility in enterprise social media usage on employee job satisfaction is often significantly moderated by organizational culture. organizational culture, which encompasses collective values, norms, and behavioral patterns, not only influences employees’ ability to adapt to the social media environment but also directly determines the extent to which visibility either pressures or motivates them. in high-visibility environments, the openness, inclusivity, and fairness of organizational culture play a critical role in mitigating potential negative effects and amplifying positive outcomes. 3.3.1 open culture and transparency first, an open culture helps alleviate the anxiety and pressure that high visibility may bring. in organizations with an open culture, there is an emphasis on transparent communication, equal dialogue, and innovative expression. this openness extends to the transparency of organizational decision-making processes, which can be significantly enhanced by the use of social media. when employees are privy to the rationale behind decisions and can engage in discussions through social media platforms, it fosters a sense of inclusion and trust. employees in such a culture are more likely to accept high visibility on social media, as they trust that their behaviors and information will be treated fairly rather than being used for negative evaluations or control. for example, in companies with an open culture, high visibility fosters the sharing of ideas and obtaining feedback, thereby encouraging personal growth and teamwork. in contrast, in environments lacking openness, high visibility may be perceived as a form of surveillance, leading to a decline in job satisfaction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 14 published by scholink inc. 3.3.2 inclusive culture and support second, an inclusive culture helps reduce the social comparison and competitive pressures that visibility can trigger. in organizations with a strong culture of inclusivity, employee diversity and individual needs are respected, and mistakes or shortcomings are tolerated. in such a cultural environment, employees are more likely to view high visibility on social media as an opportunity to gain support and resources, rather than as a risk of criticism or exclusion. for instance, an inclusive culture fosters the development of trust and positive interactions among employees through social media, enhancing team cohesion and a sense of belonging. in such a culture, employees are more likely to appreciate the constructive aspects of social media visibility, seeing it as a tool for recognition and career advancement. however, in organizations with lower levels of inclusivity, employees may experience heightened stress and anxiety due to increased visibility, perceiving it as a source of judgment or exclusion, which negatively impacts job satisfaction. 3.3.3 fair culture and equity lastly, a fair and equitable culture strengthens employees’ perceptions of transparency and fairness in the visibility process. when employees feel that organizational processes, such as performance evaluations or resource distribution, are conducted fairly, high visibility can lead to a more positive work environment. this extends to the transparency of decision-making, where employees value the openness with which decisions are communicated and the opportunity to provide input. in such a culture, employees are more likely to appreciate the constructive aspects of social media visibility, seeing it as a tool for recognition and career advancement (huang & zulkifli, 2023). however, in organizations lacking fairness, employees may perceive visibility as a tool for favoritism or bias, leading to dissatisfaction and reduced motivation. 4. practical implications the impact of visibility in enterprise social media on employee psychology and behavior is complex and multifaceted. it can lead to positive collaboration effects but also trigger negative emotions due to privacy concerns or social comparisons. to maximize the positive impact of social media while minimizing potential negative effects, businesses need to establish well-designed management strategies and practices that optimize social media usage and enhance employee job satisfaction. first, organizations should establish clear visibility rules to balance transparency with employee privacy protection. by providing flexible permission settings that allow employees to control the visibility of their information, companies can effectively reduce anxiety and discomfort caused by excessive exposure (li et al., 2021). for example, discussions on sensitive projects or personal matters can be restricted to specific teams or direct supervisors, thus alleviating privacy pressure. additionally, these rules should be guided by principles of openness and fairness, ensuring that all employees can work in a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 15 published by scholink inc. transparent environment without feeling unequal due to information asymmetry. second, organizations need to design effective feedback mechanisms to leverage visibility in enhancing employees’ positive experiences and job satisfaction. providing timely positive feedback and recognition on social media—such as likes, comments, or public praise—not only boosts employees’ sense of achievement but also strengthens their identification with the organization and their sense of belonging. management should actively engage in social media interactions, publicly supporting employees’ work accomplishments and team collaborations, which helps to reinforce trust. such positive interactions can alleviate employee concerns about high-visibility environments and foster greater team cohesion (moqbel et al., 2020).training and education are essential components of managing enterprise social media effectively. companies should regularly conduct training on social media usage guidelines and skills, helping employees understand the potential impacts of visibility on both individuals and organizations. additionally, employees should be taught how to use social media appropriately for communication and collaboration, ensuring they can navigate the platform with confidence while safeguarding their privacy and well-being. by adopting these practices, organizations can create a social media environment that maximizes its benefits, promotes positive employee experiences, and ultimately enhances overall job satisfaction. 5. conclusion the visibility of enterprise social media usage has a multifaceted impact on employee job satisfaction. in high-visibility environments, transparency can enhance trust and collaboration, but it may also introduce negative effects due to social comparison and privacy pressure. organizational culture plays a crucial moderating role in this process, as openness, inclusivity, and fairness can amplify positive effects and mitigate negative ones. by establishing flexible visibility rules, creating positive feedback mechanisms, enhancing employee training, and ensuring fairness, organizations can effectively optimize social media usage, thereby improving employee job satisfaction and overall organizational performance. future research could further validate these theoretical assumptions through empirical data. acknowledgement 1) teaching reform in interdisciplinary courses: case study of course of “new media data analysis and application 2) strengthening all-media communication systems in universities references chen, x. y. et al. (2020). how do enterprise social media affordances affect social network ties and job performance? information technology & people, 33(1), 361-388. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 16 published by scholink inc. huang, x. y., & zulkifli, n. (2023). how enterprise social media shapes employee job performance: a technology affordance lens. international journal of innovation and technology management, 20(07), 2350043. kasim, n. m., fauzi, m. a., yusuf, m. f., & wider, w. (2022). the effect of whatsapp usage on employee innovative performance at the workplace: perspective from the stressor-strain-outcome model. behavioral sciences, 12(11), 1-15. li, y. f. et al. (2021). a review of enterprise social media: visualization of landscape and evolution. internet research, 31(4), 1203-1235. moqbel, m.et al. (2020). enterprise social media: combating turnover in businesses. internet research, 30(2), 591-610. pitafi, a. h., & ren, m. l. (2021). predicting the factors of employee agility using enterprise social media: moderating effects of enterprise social media-related strain. internet research, 31(5), 1963-1990. sun, y. et al. (2020). the sustainable positive effects of enterprise social media on employees: the visibility and vicarious learning lens. sustainability, 12(7), 2855. sun, y., liu, y. j., & zhang, j. (2020). excessive enterprise social media use behavior at work: role of communication visibility and perspective of uses and gratifications theory. ieee access, 8, 190989-191004. yang, q, & pitafi, a. h. (2023). a moderated mediation investigation of the influence of enterprise social media visibility on work stress. acta psychologica, 241, 104084. yang, x. p., ye, h. j., & wang, x. w. (2021). social media use and work efficiency: insights from the theory of communication visibility. information & management, 58(4), 103462. zhu, m. y. et al. (2021). impact of task characteristics on employee agility: the moderating effect of enterprise social media visibility. internet research, 31(3), 931-960. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper a study of gurnah’s memory narrative and diaspora identity yujin du1& dan cui2* 1 graduate student of jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 postdoc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china; doc of literature, professor, dean of institute of international languages and cultures, leader of comparative literature and cross-culture discipline, jilin international studies university, changchun, jilin, china; doc supervisor of yanbian university, yanji , jilin, china * dan cui, correspondence author, summerelephant@126.com received: july 3, 2022 accepted: july 15, 2022 online published: august 1, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n2p1 abstract the nobel prize for literature has been won by 70-year-old tanzanian novelist abdulrazak gurnah for “his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugees in the gulf between cultures and continents”. “refugees” highlights the issue of identity, while the transferring of cultural continent highlights diaspora, and memory narrative is a characteristic of his writing, which can be adopted to explore the symptoms of identity exfoliation and diaspora. this paper, by focusing on the theories of memory and diaspora identity from the perspective of gurnah’s memory narrative, aims to explore the racial identity, focusing on the antagonism and hatred between races in the post-colonial context, the hybrid identity in the context of family diaspora, the social identity in the context of group culture, and the female identity in the development of individuality.memory is an important texture that underlines gurnah’s writing and his perception and deep thinking on identity provides a multidimensional entry point for the international literary world with unique personal characteristics and humanistic care in the global context. racial identity, focusing on the antagonism and hatred between races; hybrid identity, the impotence of immigrants, unable to establish their own identity; social identity, the alienation of marginalized people and the young generation’s powerless sense of colonial culture; female identity, women’s weightlessness under gender pressure. keywords abdulrazak gurnah, memory narrative, diaspora, identity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the nobel prize for literature was won by 70-year-old tanzanian novelist abdulrazak gurnah. as a “dark horse”, a used-to-be unknown elected nominee, the news that gurnah became the eventual star-picker caught everyone by surprise. the day after the announcement, internet was flooded with interviews and introduction to him. gurnah’s works have been well received abroad, and have even been praised as “masterpiece” by many reviewers, though previously his novels used not to be sold as well as his editors had expected and his works were not popular with many readers. after the nobel prize announcement, publishers all over the world joined the battle fighting for the entitlements to publish gurnah’s works. simultaneously, the studies on african english literature in china again become prospering and flourishing. this thesis analyzes and discusses gurnah’s writing style and artistic expressions by which his important themes are conveyed: from the perspective of his memory narrative, the thesis examines his profound thinking on the identity exfoliation and diaspora. this paper takes “memory” and “diaspora identity” as the central perspectives to explore gurnah’s typical short stories and novels, especially cage, bossi and dottie to investigate the post-colonial african key issues ranging from colonization, race, ethnicity, identity, immigration etc. 2. overview before gurnah won the prize, few readers and critics at home and abroad had appreciated himand less began to study some of his works. after he was nominated for the prize, both domestic and international critics flood to investigate into his writing, and several of his outstanding features have been discussed and researched in depth, including diaspora literature, refugee life and identity crisis. 2.1 brief introduction to gurnah and his literary writing features born in 1948 in tanzania, gurnah moved to britain as a refugee in the 1960s. he received the bachelor of education from the university of london in 1976 and taught at astor high school in dover, kent. between 1980 and 1982, gurnah returned to africa to teach at bayer university in nigeria while studying for a doctorate at the university of kent. he received the degree in 1982 and served as the professor of english and postcolonial literature at the university of kent in canterbury in 1985 until his retirement. he has been teaching “colonial and postcolonial discourse” and studying postcolonial literature related to africa, the caribbean, india and other regions (wang, 2021).he is a patient and calm teacher. he motivates his students and encourages them to explore new ideas and search for better forms of expression in writing. gurnah has been a contributing editor of wasafiri magazine since 1987(wang, 2021).he edited two volumes of essays on african writingin1993and 1995 and published a series of essays on contemporary postcolonial writers and their works, including naipaul, soynka, rushdie, tiango and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. other immigrant writers, they are all his research objects, and his research has led to global recognition in literary circle of their “diaspora writing”. he viewed naipaul critically and argued naipaul’s views on africa, islam, iran, pakistan and other muslim countries are not so much entirely accurate that naipaul’s writings lack analysis and his understanding of islamic issues remains stagnant (wang, 2021). perhaps it was due to his identity as the critic that he is more critically while observing issues. gurnah did not intend to be a writer initially, but it was the exile in britain that prompted him to put his thoughts into writing. from then on, homesickness and the anguish of being alone in the foreign land made him reflect over a series of issues that he hadn't touch upon before. he found himself on a mission to record what he had seen and experienced, and some grievances and regrets needed to be appealed. through his writing, he endeavored to bring awareness of the diaspora life to the people and to exposes the colonization to the public. in 1987 gurnah published his first novel memory of departure, and since then, he has published nine novels, including pilgrim ways, dottie, paradise, admiring silence, by the sea, desertion, the last gift, afterlives, etc. one of the most representative works is paradise. in his works, gurnah cares much of africa, especially the negative impact of colonial history on african people, and his dissatisfaction with the reality of africa is reflected in his crusade against colonial evilness. most of his works centered on refugees, and focuses on identity, ethnic conflicts and history writing, and his portrayal of living is considered to possess the social significance to a great extent. having experienced colonial ruling, the socialist revolution in zanzibar, and exile in a foreign lands, gurnah’s literary works are closely related to his own experiences (lucinda, 2015). his works revolve around the legacy of colonial ruling, mainly focusing on refugee identity and cultural distortion, with particular emphasis on identity and the living conditions of people. most of his works are descriptions of stories based on a memory, just as the official comment of the nobel prize for literature: “memory is always an important theme in gurnah’s writings”. 2.2 research status and representative ideas a certain number of studies on gurnah in english and american literary circles have been conducted at home and abroad and naturally most of researches focus on his typical writing of identities. 2.2.1 the studies at abroad foreign studies on gurnah’s literature are more timely advanced and updated since the initial studies can be traced back to the 1990s. furthermore, the research perspectives are broader, the paradigms more diversified, and the results more abundant. researches have been concentrating on gurnah’s works in view of refugee diaspora, post-colonial identity construction and other issues, cosmopolitanism, homogeneity and his narrative method etc. firstly, in view of refugee diaspora, sissy helff published illegal diasporas and african refugees in abulrazak gurnah’s by the sea in the journal of commonwealth literature in 2009, which reproduced www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. the suffering of the african refugees and the illegal refugees in gurnah’s typical novel by the sea. this article adopts kauss’s concepts of the illegally separated person and unconditional hospitality. as for post-colonialism, some scholars focus on the colonialism and racist ideology of gender oppression and racial discrimination against women. esther pujolras-noguer proposed gurnah resisted western colonialism through gender writing and revealed the nature of imperial colonization and racial discrimination. “abandonment” subverts the white and male imperial duality and counteracts the ideal imperial masculinity inspired by colonial literature. as for cosmopolitanism, the researchers examine imperial evilness and colonial legacy from a global context. using relational theories developed by martin buber and édouard glissant, tina steiner emphasized the importance of crossing borders, it is argued that gurnah’s novel attempts to redefine “africa” by focusing on the relational space in order to get rid of dystopian rejection of politics and violence caused by nationalism and ethnic ideology” (hand, 2010, p. 124); and shanti moorthy surveyed current thinking in regard to cosmopolitanism in indian ocean studies and examined how gurnah contests depictions by indian ocean scholars of apparently idyllic pre-modern east african societies (shanti, 2009). next, in view of homogeneity, kate houlden published in english studies in african 2013 “it worked in a different way”: male same-sex desire in the novels of abdulrazak gurnah’s” and after close reading of paradise and by the sea, houlden found a pattern of sophisticated old men hunting innocent young boys, and pointed out gurnah emphasizes the corrosive influence of trade and colonization on east african sex economy. lastly, in view of gurnah’s narrative, charne lavery studied gurnah’s works and found he used the exploration of space to express literature. his novel depicts a unique east african coastal space that connects the shores of the indian ocean through travel, trade and culture (charne, 2013). while felicity hand focuses on the role of cultural modes in shaping identity in colonial countries, hand explored the tension between individual perception of history and collective consciousness by studying the characteristic of gurnah’s writing: memory influences historical stories (hand, 2010, p. 124). his popularity skyrocketed after he won the nobel prize for literature in 2021. by 2022, almost a dozen of academic papers have been published, and most centered on the post-colonialism and identity, “rejection of victimhood in literature: by abdulrazak gurnah, viet thanh nguyen, and luis alberto urrea” compares and analyzes the commonalities of several writers who have been increasingly opposed to adopting refugees, exiles, immigrants and their descendants as symbols of victims (lucinda, 2015). “askari, colonial encounters, and postcolonial war commemoration in afterlives by abdulrazak” published by anna branach-kallas discusses that the war and colonialism as interconnected factors (anna, 2022).foreign scholars will dig gurnah’s works deeper on the basis of the previous. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. 2.2.2 the studies at home domestic researches on gurnah’s works have been increasingly conducted in view of translation of gurnah’s major works. among his10 published novels, several short stories and essays, bossi and cagehave been translated into chinese as representatives of east africa in the anthology of african short stories. before abdulrazak’s award, only two published studies could be found in china: walking between center and edge—abdulrazak’s concept of diaspora writing (zhang, 2012) and review and prospect of the study of abdulrazakgurnah(jiang&sun, 2017).zhang fenganalyzes the relation between gurnah’s diaspora experience and his works, and the diaspora literature styleruns throughout his 8 typical novels. jiang xueshan began studying gurnah’s works in 2016, joking the time she spent studying gurnah as a graduate student was the closest to winning the nobel prize for literature (jiang& sun, 2017). in her report in 2017 she summarized the research status of gurnah at home and abroad, and found gurnah had attracted certain attention abroad at that time, due to his uniqueness, novelty of writing and diversity of topics. in the end, it is concluded gurnah’s perspective and diverse themes have made great contribution to both african literature and immigrant literature. after the prize winning, gurnah’s works were finally brought to the world’s view, and domestic research ideas were gradually expanded. chinese academic studies turned their attention to the thematic analysis of by the sea (zhu, 2022), identity construction and cosmopolitanism (huang, 2022). after 2021, many more studies coming out focusing on memory writing. memory, language, heterogeneity, and locality in postcolonial literature: a review of abdulrazak gurnah’s thought on writing and criticism (zhang, 2022) discusses the unique value and contribution of gurnah’ s ideas in the context of post-colonial literature studies from memory narrative and reshaping history, post-colonial writing, african cultural nationalism and reflection and transcendence of post-colonial and world literature. 2.3 research issues and ideas to sum up, we can see presently both domestic and foreign studies have focused on gurnah’s literature to a great extent and have deeply analyzed and discussed several of his prominent characteristics. however, deeper examination of his memory narrative and identity is still the center of academic concern. as we can see from his ten works, he has been concerned with the identity of africans in diaspora. it is also the profound influence of contemporary society on gurnah’s works. based on the study of memory narrative, this thesis aims to analyze gurnah’s reflection on immigration identity, and taking memory as the approach to interpret the elements of different dimensions in gurnah’s articles—race, society and gender, as well as his concern for the fate of refugees and his uncompromising firmness in the current of the times. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. 3. memory narrative and diaspora identity theory memory narrative is not only the narrative mode and literary theme, but also possesses the aesthetic significance and cultural connotation. this chapter adopts the memory carrier in memory writing to deeply understand the uniqueness and artistic charm of the writer’s memory writing by analyzing the present gurnah’s memory narrative and diaspora identity. 3.1 theory of memory the memory concept can date back to plato in 4th century b. c. he compared our mind to a wax tablet, everything we see, hear, feel, and realize is imprinted on wax, leaving an imprint, as if with a seal ring (theaetetus, 1992). then aristotle came up with a more scientific concept at the end of the 4th century bc. he argued that few of the functions of the brain that we think of today were thought of primarily as functions of the heart, which he realized were pertinent to blood and memory is based on the blood flow. in fact, amnesia occurs mainly as a result of reduced blood flow. in the middle of the 17thcentury, the “associationism” school of psychology represented by hobbes and locke appeared in britain. the first systematic experiment on memory in the history of psychology is the famous german psychologist ebbinghaus. the research on memory cognition theory has been gradually improved over time. in the 20th century, it is considered that memory is the recognition, retention and reproduction (recall and recognition) of an individual’s experience. as people’s cognition of the world becomes more and more profound, philosophy advocates to see the world from the perspective of dialectics and diversity rather than from a single, one-sided and systematic perspective. therefore, the theory of multiple memory structure emerges at the historic moment. later, after the theory of collective memory was put forward, memory involved not only psychology and pedagogy but also social, religious and cultural environment. habwah’s on collective memory also presents his thoughts on this. in his opinion, memory is collective, and the generation, awakening, inheritance and continuation of memory all occur in groups. moreover, group culture and religion are collective consciousness, which is an external dominant feature of the crowd. when the concept of collective was put forward, many scholars criticized the singleness and one-sidedness of individual memory, and even completely denied individual memory, believing that the development direction of individual memory is determined by collective memory. but we can't separate collective memory from individual memory. 3.2 theory of diaspora the word “diaspora” originated from greece that refers to the dispersal of seeds by the wind. in the old testament, it specifically designates the diaspora of the jewish people who had no place to settle. therefore, “diaspora” refers to people who have been persecuted and scattered to different parts of the world (william, 1991). in the mid-1960s, “diaspora” was gradually adopted by western academic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. circles to refer to contemporary international immigrants who cross national boundaries and maintain ties with their ancestral countries. due to the changes of politics, economy, culture, war and other factors in the history of human society, the word “diaspora” will not always be the exclusive appellation of the state of jewish wandering and diaspora (li, 2008). the conquest of war, the change of dynasties, the advancement of science and technology, and the exploration of the unknown world by human beings will all lead to the migration and exchange of different races, the concept of diaspora is no longer a single plane, but a more diverse one with more factors and perspectives. the migration trend caused by various reasons, such as the great nautical discovery, the african slave trade, the overseas export of chinese workers, and the process of globalization, have greatly expanded the living space of the global diaspora and increased the number of diaspora groups. the concept “diaspora” refers to the status of various immigrant groups, and it has been changed from specific to general. diaspora phenomenon has become a focus that cannot be ignored. diaspora goes from proper noun “diaspora” to “diaspora”, and the lower-case word diaspora has changed from a specific reference to the jewish diaspora to a group of people globally. diaspora is a derogatory word at the beginning, and later transformed into a neutral word. with the increasing number of diaspora groups in the world, attracting academic attention, the translation of the word “diaspora” in china has also undergone a complex process. the concept of science, anthropology and other disciplines, the process of expanding from a narrow sense to a broad sense, which also refers to the internal reason for the diaspora’s translation diversification, and the four translation methods and usages of “live scattered”, “dissociation”, “diaspora”, “fly apart” occupy the vast majority (yang , 2016). diaspora literature has gradually become popular with the emergence of diaspora phenomenon. diaspora writers leaving away from their native land have taken up their pens to write about the exotic customs and sentiment of missing of their homeland. simultaneously, they also adopt their own special marginal identity to reflect over their diaspora experience. their special writing group communicate with the local culture at the cultural level depends on the location of the foreign diaspora, and analyzes the cultural identity, identity anxiety and culture shock from the third perspective. 3.3 conceptual interpretation of identity erikson is the founder of the theory of self-identity and a key figure in introducing identity theory into the field of psychological research. he believes that the formation of self—identity is to confirm a psychological process. as the essence of personality, self—identity includes commitment to ideology, role and values. social psychologist teifer believes that identity is a part of an individual’s self-concept, including knowledge, values and emotional meanings that derived from his/her membership in the social group to which he/she belongs. individuals improve self-esteem by gaining and maintaining positive social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. approval. much of this positive identification comes from comparisons between in-groups and relevant out-groups. to sum up, identity is a person’s cognition of his or her own identity. people’s identification with themselves, dependence on family, belief in religion, confidence in culture, continuation of tradition and identification with the country constitute identity in various aspects. but once set in the colonial background where the social system is challenged, the social structure is reconstructed, the collective subject identity changes with the chance of the social collective consciousness, so individuals in the group will suffer from a great spiritual tribulation and ideological division in pain and confusion for existence and their own value. exactly as emigrants leave their homeland to live in a foreign country, the change of geographical space and the living environment, the strangeness of cultural traditions will make people feel at a loss. when they encounter with these problems, they will have identity anxiety and identity confusion. therefore, diasporas are often associated with issues of identity. 3.4 gurnah’s memory narrative and diaspora identity memory, whether explored from the individual’s perspective or collective level, ultimately forms the capacity for self-awareness (identity). identity, in turn, is related to both time and memory. human self is a diachronic identity established through the “time object”. past memories stitch together and form a complete image of a person, and people’s cognition of themselves comes from this memory. writers record these memories, weave real reflection and time-consumed memory together to write in the article, trace back those historical stories, and perpetuate these memories in the form of paper, such a special narrative is memory narrative. memory narrative always focuses on the vivid experience of individuals or groups in historical time and space, conveys an invisible voice and breaks the monopoly of grand historical narration. literature should not only focus on the facts seen by people, but also take the responsibility to dig out the facts that are thought not to exist because they are hidden. it provides readers with “multiple memories” of a single historical narrative through language description. simultaneously, the literary writing of individual or collective memory in the oppression of historical events also makes researchers reflect on the possibility of studying memory beyond the paradigm of sociology, which may be a new research path from collective memory and individual memory provided by literary creation for memory theory. memory narrative is not only the composition of the plot content of the novel, but also the approach of the author's self-expression and ethical thinking. the french critic maurice blanchot believes that memory has a certain positive power on the writer’s creation, and chinese writer and critic yu dafu believes all novels come out of the author’s “autobiography”. from a certain point of view, writers’ writing records what happened and so that it is the summary of “absence”. gurnah’s memory narrative exerted an important internal connection on his life experience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 9 published by scholink inc. memory is an essential element of identity, and identity is an external manifestation of memory. it is precise because memory narrative makes those memories continue that collective memory will also be superimposed, memory narrative connects the past with the present, and directly participates in people's identity construction. gurnah’s special identity and personal experience give him the ability to look back onto the past and compare the pain of reality in his warm memory. it can be said that memory narrative is a way and channel to acquire identity, and he records his sense of wandering loneliness and weightlessness. gurnah uses memory writing to extend external experience and performance, and uses the family memory framework to reflect the inheritance of memory, psychology and behavior against the background of colonial inter-generational influence; and his personal memory description reflects the sense of weightlessness and wandering from a personal perspective. born in tanzania but educated in britain and brought up in an english-speaking environment, gurnah, as an immigrant writer, is more sensitive to refugee issues and more attuned to the identity conflicts of the diaspora. as a wandering individual, he writes about his own hardships and pain. as a bystander of his hometown, he used words to express his reflection and helplessness on colonial issues. he saw the exclusion and hatred between different races, the separation of identities that could not establish their own identity, the social nobodies drifting on the edge, and the tininess and fear of women in the patriarchal society. he passed down these memories and feelings into his own writing. 4. memory in the historical background—racial identity most of gurnah’s stories take place in the post-colonial period, an indelible historical memory passed down from generation to generation, and its consequences are brutal and profound, and one of the most prominent problems is hatred and exclusion between different races. 4.1 hatred and exclusion between white and other races “identity” is formed by individuals in the continuous development of society, and it is an indispensable part of individual spiritual construction (zhang, 2021). when black africans were a relatively closed society, they had few opportunities to communicate with the outside world due to their dependence on groups with natural conditions, and they also did not need complex social labor system. however, when western society breaks their peace, the internal tranquility of the original ethnic group was broken, and they had to contact with the external social relations, and gradually became a part of the formation of this relationship. whether black or white, when different ethnic groups come into contact, ethnicity will show its exclusivity. in dottie, people of all races meet together in britain, and contradictions between the black and the white exist everywhere. white britons regard colored people as dirty “rubbish”, and gratuitous discrimination and humiliation are intolerable. therefore, hatred between races is endless and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. comprehensive, but the ideology of binary opposition will eventually be reflected on everyone, which exerts a great impact on individual life. the animosity between them took the form of racial hatred. like taymor’s experience, he settled in cardiff, a community of colored people, where he felt relatively safe. actually, he still underestimated the anger of new yorkers against blacks, who were picking quarrels, rioting, beating color people. such acts of violence and injustice are motivated by racial hatred. this phenomenon, as a collective memory, runs through colonialism and racism, inflicting double racial trauma on both white perpetrators and african victims. 4.2 the identity and status gap between black and white accompanied by xenophobia, white people think themselves the most superior race, so the status of black people is naturally low. in hall stuart’s opinion, cultural identity is “not permanently fixed in a certain essential past, but subject to the constant ‘play’ of history, culture and power”. it is a kind of “production” that never ends and is always in process (hall, 1996). in britain, it is due to race, family, cultural background etc. that the black people cannot obtain the legitimate social status.under such long-term strong oppression and violence, black people could hardly resist. they lost their identity recognition in such a wide gap of identity status, and gradually split and lost themselves under the force of cruel social environment. in such a social situation, there is a huge gap between the status of black and white people. one of gurnah’s masterly ways of dealing with the plot is that in handling bilkisu’s problems with her off springs, he deliberately allows bilkisu to conceal the family memory, since “she did not want her children to worry about such things”. she lived with the name sharon, denying all memories of the past. the distortion of an individual’s memory does not affect the collective memory and may even lead to family tragedy. the children never know their origin, and they suffered both psychological and physical torture at the bottom of the society. where there’s no family memory, there is no home and no anchor. when sharon died of a serious illness, the children had no support, suffered from mental pain, and they had to find a place to live immediately. they suffered from the discrimination of white people, and any action they took was wrong in the eyes of white people. in this inferior status, their identity cognition was severely distorted. the younger brother, hudson, began to interact with white teenagers and distance himself from his sisters. in order to resist the shackles of status, hudson’s many practices: skipping classes, fighting, taking risks, being misled into drug addiction, forced to sell their own body... all of these actions are the reactions against his unconscious loss of self in the midst of the huge status gap. hudson finally died in the hudson river in the united states, which proves that his way of defiance and resistance to the society is unworkable and symbolizes the complete collapse of a utopia. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. 5. diaspora memory—hybrid identity the diaspora groups in a foreign country are like the boats floating over the sea without a lighthouse. filled with fear, they try to find their own spiritual shelter in the crevices of their own country and other cultures, expecting their wandering soul to reach the shore. being deeply influenced by the memories of their parents and families, it becomes a big problem for the vagrants to choose and deal with their identities in the face of the motherland culture and the foreign culture. 5.1 identity confusion as immigrants charles taylor once pointed out in the politics of recognition that “one’s identity is to some extent created by the recognition of others. if it is not acknowledged by others, or acknowledged by others in a gentle way, it can affect one’s identity” (zhao, 2009). this is to say that lack of recognition or just distorted recognition can be harmful. it can be a form of oppression, which can keep people imprisoned in a false, distorted and derogatory way of being. dottie’s confusion of self-identity recognition is caused by the diaspora of the whole family. dottie’s family history is a process of constant migration, which started with her grandfather’s settlement in the uk. later her mother left home to live alone, deliberately blurring out her memories of her family. dottie has no clear idea of who she is or where she comes from. dottie’s alienation from the african race in time and space as well as her indifference to british culture in consciousness and reality are two emotions that confused her in the dual identity and dual consciousness, wandering in the gulf between the two races. dottie is not clear about her own identity and genus. such confusion of self-identity recognition is caused by the diaspora of the whole family. in establishing dottie’s “past”, gurnah adopts a nonlinear narrative strategy of fragmentation and disorganization, which is actually in line with the development of individual memory. specifically, there are two main sources of dottie’s memory fragments: one is the narration of her mother bilkisu, and the other is the arrangement and construction of her own memories. dottie was christened dottie badoura fatma balfour. this name came from a chinese princess, and this story is taken from “one thousand and one nights”. dottie’s mother, bilkisu, liked the story so much that she added it to her daughter’s name to express her longing for love, and her best wishes for her daughter. but bilkisu spent most of his days in sickness and confusion, and dottie did not know why her name was so long, how it had been acquired, or what it meant. clearly, dottie loved the beautiful, unusual, exotic name, and often dreamed of romantic stories to explain it. as dottie became curious about her name and began to search for its meaning, she gradually got a certain picture of her birth and family behind her name. the glorious history of her maternal grandfather, the cultural background of her immigrant family, and the memories passed down from generation to generation all enabled her to have a deeper understanding of the black culture and traditions rooted in her own. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. gurnah adopts the name as an image to carry the weight of memory, from personal memory to family memory, which truly reflects the feeling of powerlessness and weightlessness standing in the flood of time under the colonial background. 5.2 the sense of crisis in multiple identities nie zhenzhao considers that an ethical dilemma is the irresolvable contradiction and conflict that ethical confusion in literary texts brings to the characters. when people choose to deal with a certain ethical issue, they will make their determination according to two reasonable but conflicting values: the choice of characters faces a kind of paradoxical dilemma that both are wrong (huang, 2022). the crisis of multiple identities comes when people are caught in an ethical dilemma. dottie’s complicated family background and social atmosphere give her multiple identities. identity is complex because identity is not static, since it is constructed through one individual interaction with another individual or group and it is not fixed at birth, as people grow up, the changes of social status and family relationship, the superimposed identity give the meaning of individual or group of people. in the text of dottie, dottie’s ethical dilemma is obviously caused by the identity confusion in by her acting as a mother but actually in position as an elder sister. she is unable to coordinate the contradictions and conflicts brought by these two identities, especially when her individual ability alone is not enough to support the whole family. dottie is burdened with different responsibilities and tasks, and is under the endless pressure and exploitation. dottie ignores her own personality needs and blindly satisfies others. dottie’s multiply identities satisfy the needs of others and lead to alienation of personal responsibility and identity crisis. she wants to be herself, but responsibility gets in the way and the weight on dottie's shoulders leaves her breathless. she must find a balance between her multiple identities and her essential self. 6. memory of group culture-social identity the content of cultural memory is the past shared by a social group. in a white-dominated society, immigrants are marginalized as a minority. they are often ignored by the mainstream, and it is also difficult for them to break out of their inner shackles. 6.1 social marginalization of immigrants diaspora is a cultural position that wanders between the center and the edge. it neither depends on the center nor sticks to the edge. in the words of homibhabha, “third dimension”(homi,2009) characterized by “promiscuity” implies an epistemological advantage, a dual perspective of “inside and outside”, which provides a creative and subversive writing space. originally referring to the relationship between the former colonial periphery and the imperial center, the term marginality has been used to define the mental state of diaspora writers who are being both in and out of the part: in the encounter of the self and the other, the emigrants can be simultaneously in double externalities, and he www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. or she belongs to both cultures. but they don’t identify with either of them. individual circumstances vary, but there is a common edge. gurnah is particularly adept at dealing with this sense of marginalization in his work. in a white-dominated society, immigrants act as a medium of intercultural communication, hovering between two cultures to form a specific group. they are insignificant and unacceptable existence relative to the mainstream group, and they are marginalized to form a stable but simultaneously changing circle. they have absolutely no sense of belonging in the mainstream group, and they can only feel a little reassured by shrinking in a safe space, which is reflected in cage. harden vaguely remembers when fajir took him to the mosque, the old man would go to the market to teach him about those colorful vegetables. but since the old man was too sick to move, he never stepped out of the supermarket. he was afraid of the swamp, and the darkness outside the supermarket. harden can only move within the range that they are most familiar with in this city, and he never dares to take a step forward outside. the only times when harden appears out of his comfort zone without fearing are deeply recollected as a way for gurnah to highlight the fear and marginalization of immigrants in a group culture. living in two confronting cultures, but hardly belonging to either, the immigrant group seriously lacks a sense of belonging (zhang, 2012), so the only way out is that they shrink into a the corner amid divisions and lack of self-confidence, no longer communicates with the outside world, and no longer seeks fresh food, by defaulting he will not be accepted. they were unable to separate the influence of their own nation and unable to integrate into the new environment, and gradually became separatists on the edge. 6.2 feebleness of young generation after a long period of colonization, the colonies suffered all the hardships, and there was no way out and no direction forward. due to the cultural output and mind controlling of the strong, the colonized did not possess a strong sense of resistance, but were not completely disillusioned, so they were born at a loss. generation after generation, the youth of colonial descendants are meaninglessly depraved and alienated during despair and inaction. “bossi” is filled with invisible cries. every character has his or her own characteristics. for example, eunice, his brain is full of sailing knowledge, even those sailors call him the captain, but he never applies this knowledge to make a living, but was just immersed in his own world and determined to build a boat to go home. bossi is an excellent swimmer and has strong sailing skills. he is an all-around young man, but he uses all his ingenuity to make fun of eunice. these meaningless actions seem ordinary but are actually a kind of unconscious dissolution. they are forced to accept western systems and education in a lifeless social environment. they know that they do not belong to the west at all, but their own family has no education to speak of, nor their own cultural identity, not to mention cultural self-confidence, which can only dispel their anxiety and doubts from unconscious actions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. the novel is narrated from a first-person perspective, the main character witnesses the ongoing issues, and experiences the matters as a participant. it is this kind of witness and participation that brings the feeling of powerlessness to the fullest. when “i” and bossi went on an adventure to prison island, he swore that his mother and sister would not be left alone, but he was submerged in the sea on the way home, all promises came to nothing, and he missed a lot of cruelty things. he didn't help haji, who couldn’t sail or deal with the wind and waves. he missed haji being beaten as an arab and missed karim’s letter and didn’t know his own younger sister had become a prostitute, he missed a lot... bossi missed everything, just like the author gurnah himself set off far away from his own land, lonely and sad, witnessing his homeland suffering so much but couldn’t do anything except recording it in dismay. his repetitive calling back of the past ceaselessly reminds him of the familiar or the strange continent. but his internal heart is like haji, desperate and helpless, seeing others trample his hometown, ravage the spirit of the residents but can’t do anything. gurnah is both a bystander and a participant of hesitance and powerlessness. 7. personality development in collective memory-female identity in the post-colonial world, the status of women cannot be ignored. gurnah reflects the dilemma of female identity from the life experience of women and their mental state description. in the patriarchal society, how to survive, and how to extricate women themselves from the predicament of identity and find a way out is a long and arduous process. 7.1 the issue of objectifying female french sociologist jean-creud kaufman divided the woman’s body into three types: the first is the general body, the second is the erotic body, and the third the aesthetic body (anneh, 2017). in such a post-colonial period, the female body was regarded as the “erotic body”, usually considered as a symbol of desire, and the role of women was to satisfy such desire in male’s gaze. in white-centrism and colonial society, women have always been at the bottom of the oppression and exploitation, especially black women. they were not only oppressed by white people for granted, but also by men of their own race. squeezed by race, class and gender, they occupied no place in society. social resources were in the hands of men, and if they wanted to obtain resources, they had to exchange benefits, while they had nothing but their bodies. therefore, in the context of that era, women could only use their bodies as bargaining chips to price themselves for things they needed. in cage, the problem shifts from the society objectifying women to women objectifying themselves. when problems cannot be overcome and new problems arise, it is unavoidable for individuals in the overall social environment. suggestions are given to individuals under the influence of collective memory. when the beautiful girl rukia came to an unfamiliar town, she was coveted and molested by men. it can be seen that in this colonial context, women themselves have been “ideologically www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. colonized”, and they have been subtly objectified, which had a huge impact on the deformed female identity at that time. the objectification of women is a basic phenomenon in society. as long as it involves gender and living conditions, this phenomenon will definitely be mentioned. therefore, every novel of gurnah reflects such point. as he expressed, stories are the way to describe the world, and when things that people take for granted gradually form a social convention and continue to perpetuate in the collective memory, then everyone is not a bystander (wang, 2021). gurnah is in this society and sees that it is not only a problem of the past tense, but also a problem of the present tense. it will still be passed down with memory and habits. the only thing he can do is to write these stories out for the public to read and comprehend this problem. 7.2 female under the control of patriarchy while being objectified by men, women have tacitly regarded as appendages of male, they cannot have their own thoughts and actions, and they are to be attached to men. just as white people are above all skin colors and all species, men also oppress women with power. such an unequal patriarchal society is not a natural attribute, but a result of the development of social productive forces. women, as a vulnerable group, struggle to survive under oppression. gurnah described dottie’s struggle and self-redemption vividly in dottie. facing the default rules of social groups, she sensed that it was inappropriate and tried to confront them, and found herself and improved herself in female education. dottie’s quest for independence is mainly reflected in two things: the first is to buy a house, a house of her own in the uk. second, she changed her job and gained professional status as an office typist by taking secretarial courses. but dottie couldn’t afford to buy on her own, so she didn’t say no when patterson offered her help. patterson provided a spacious accommodation when dottie and sophia were living in their squalid and cramped house. patterson did help dottie solve her anxiety about living space and material problems, but he tried to take full control of dottie’s life with the help of male dominance and wanted to juggle the two sisters at the same time. as hillis miller said, “dislocation of community means that the link and joint are broken and cannot maintain the original union state.” the contrast between patterson and dottie suggests that in her journey towards independence, she could not rely entirely on men as companion (huang, 2022, p. 52). the patriarchal society functionalizes women, believing that the role of women is to satisfy men’s desires, but also to imprison and objectify women. after being oppressed by society for a long time, women begin to try to escape, and this process is also the manifestation of women’s awakening. the days of being controlled by her body and her mind were unacceptable. finally, dottie stepped out with the encouragement of her good friend estella and found a job by her own efforts. gurnah finally arranged a perfect love for dottie, which also indicates that under the oppression of power, women must keep a sober head like dottie, constantly receive new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. education and knowledge. the process of dottie’s independence is the process of a woman finding her own identity under the oppression of male power. conclusion memory runs throughout the life, since a series of impressive moments including parting, scattering, settling etc.,are sealed in memory. gurnah’s mission is to offer those migrants an opportunity to record in their own particular experiences what they saw, heard and felt in their own way. they will naturally pay more attention to the fate of refugees, and will be more delicate and multi-faceted when looking at issues. with an uncompromising and compassionate vision, he provides insight into the impact of colonialism and refugees living in the gap between different cultural continents’ fate. those international migrants living outside their homeland are separated from different social cultures, have difficulty adjusting their chaotic identities, and encounter an identity crisis. of course, this is only a social status quo at the spiritual level. only when they have the ability to live can they pay attention to the spiritual level. and more refugees are mixed with both physical and psychological crises. they have no education, no skills, and it is difficult to create value with their hands. refugees who can support themselves will also be treated extremely unfairly. this series of problems is seen by gurnah. he focuses on the displacement and mental trauma of this group. he runs through memories and brings deep feelings. he uses diaspora literature to arouse the attention of immigrants themselves to seek self-identity. the generalization of the phenomenon of diaspora has accelerated mankind into the era of globalization, but the antagonism and conflict between races have always existed. the colonizers used a hegemonic attitude to suppress the exploited, and they forcibly exported their own culture. africa was educated by white people and rule, following their rules and regulations. when western civilization was introduced into africa, the order of the african ethnic groups set into the chaotic. conflicts and violence began to arise within them. under the notice of power, they gradually alienated and divided themselves. as a writer of african race, gurnah saw a nation divided by racial discrimination as a bystander. they closed themselves under a narrow space and could not see their own needs, but they were divided from each other under the manipulation of racism and resent each other. gurnah understands and presents africa as an african, warns his compatriots from a profound perspective, and also opens up the world's thinking. acknowledgments many people have offered me valuable help on my thesis writing, including my instructor, my parents, my friends and jisu.first of all, i would like to extend my sincere gratefulness to prof. dan cui, my instructor who supported me patiently and encouraged me consistently. she gave me much aid through www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 17 published by scholink inc. offering me insights, important reference materials and professional revising suggestions. she revised my thesis ceaselessly from the theoretical perspective, structure arrangements, supportive proofs, etc.i admire her very much for her serious and responsible attitude towards academics. i also extend my gratefulness for my parents for their support, as graduation is approaching, they have been encouraging me to pursue my dreams and tell me never to give up. they helped me much mentally and financially. finally, i would like to thank my friends, with whom we spent a full and fruitful period together in the university. references anneh, d. e. 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(2013). postmodern materialism in abdulrazakgurnah’s dottie: inter-textuality as ideological critique of englishness. english studies in africa, 56(1), 39-50. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 18 published by scholink inc. tina steiner, m. o. (2013). critical perspectives on abdulrazakgurnah.english studies in africa,56(1), 1-3. william, s. (1991). diasporas in modern societies: myths of homeland and return diaspora. diaspora: a journal of transnational studies, 83-99. huang, h. (2022). reconstruction of ethical identity and imagination of community in gurnah’sdottie.foreign literature studies, 44(02), 46-54. li,m.h.(2010). diaspora:definition, differentiation, aggregation and reconstruction. world nationalities, 5, 1-8. li, s. (2008). diaspora writing in the perspective of globalization.sichuan normal university. wang, n. (2006). diaspora literature and cultural identity. social science, 11, 170-176. jiang, x. s.,& sun, n. (2017).review and prospect of abdulrazakgurnah studies at home and abroad.journal of hefei university of technology (social science edition), 31(03), 66-69. wang, s. (2021).into the literary world of abdul razakqurna.literary and art newspaper, 2021-10-13(005). yang, z. (2016).the chinese translation of diaspora and the discourse construction of diaspora poetics.journal of shandong normal university (humanities and social sciences), 61(02), 34-45. zhang, f. (2012).walking between center and edge—an overview of abdulrazakgurnah’s diaspora writing. trends in foreign literature, 3, 13-15. zhang, j.l. (2022). research on xuzechen’s works from the perspective of identity theory.liaoning university, 4. zhao, x.f. (2009). postcolonial theory. beijing: peking university press. notes note1. this paper is the periodical research result of project on “the anxiety and transcendence of john keats’s individual identity construction” sponsored by national social science foundation of china (21fwwb015); of project on “a study of the construction of john keats’s national identity” sponsored by the fellowship of china postdoctoral science foundation (no: 2021m700496); of project on “a study of english major course system construction with valueshaping based on ‘global village’ as the foreign language lab” sponsored by the academy offoreign language teaching attached to the institute of higher education of china (no:21wyjyzd08); of project on “a study of routes applied to cultivate the inter-cultural competenceof english major students” (no: gjjx20201130); of project on “the establishment and practice of vista mode of development and transformation of english-major teaching faculty’s proficiency under new arts prospect” sponsored by chinese private higher education association(canfzg22417);of project on“the construction and practice of mode of development and transformation of foreign language teaching faculty’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. proficiency in international studies of universities under multiple-discipline background” sponsored by jilin higher education association (no: jgjx2022d316); “a study of john keats’s national identity writing and forging chinese national community consciousness” sponsored by education department ofjilin province. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper exploring the new interpretation of the fengshen story jiashen wang 1* 1 the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong sar, china * jiashen wang, the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong sar, china received: june 17, 2024 accepted: june 28, 2024 online published: july 14, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p1 abstract as a classic chinese mythology novel, fengshen yanyi (investiture of the gods) is famous for its cultural value, historical value and social value. the story of “fengshen” is also considered a rich source of inspiration for entertainment and cultural industries in china, influencing a wide range of audiences with diverse backgrounds. as developing the potential “story universe” of fengshen has become a hot topic in the chinese film market, reinterpreting chinese mythology needs to be focused on. based on the case of the “fengshen story”, this study aims to explore the new context of chinese mythology by collecting and analyzing secondary research, categorizing and organizing the findings, and discussing further research from different perspectives, thereby understanding the modern adaptations of traditional chinese mythology and suggesting a bright future of conducting interdisciplinary research on chinese mythology in the new context. keywords chinese mythology, investiture of the gods, transmedia storytelling 1. introduction in today’s media environment, more and more traditional stories are being delivered through a broad range of media, from traditional communication such as magazines, newspapers, novels and books to stage plays, movies, animations, television series and other forms of new media. in this process, media plays an important role in which more opportunities are provided by media platforms to make the audience engage with the stories, changing the way audiences gain the story experience. fengshen story and its adaptations have influenced not only chinese audiences but also audiences who are fascinated with traditional chinese culture. as media evolve rapidly today, traditional stories are presented to audiences in different ways, giving audiences new experiences and providing diverse perspectives for audiences to understand traditional stories from multimedia platforms. in addition, many traditional literature works are adapted based on audiences’ tastes and their social needs, which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. makes it necessary to explore and understand traditional stories in the new context. chinese mythology stories have rich historical and cultural resources which could be considered valuable research objects for building a potential ―story universe‖, however, so far, the academic value of mythological storytelling has not been noticed adequately (zhang, 2022). some researchers also mentioned that the theory of transmedia storytelling could be considered a potential research method for the new development of chinese mythology (shen et al., 2020; wall, 2019). according to the theory of transmedia storytelling, each medium ideally makes its unique contribution to the unfolding of the story (jenkins, 2007) which could be one of the essential elements to critically interpret the meaning of chinese mythology in the new context. in this paper, the main characteristics of the fengshen story in the new context are reviewed and the concept of ―fengshen universe‖ is used to interpret relevant attributes. based on the literature review, relevant findings are categorized into subtopics for better understanding certain phenomena and interpreting the story in the new context, and further demonstrating the value of developing certain concepts. in recent years, there are many influential works have appeared in chinese film markets which could be seen as valuable cases for this research. through analyzing the case of the fengshen story, conducting research on chinese mythology and exploring the interdisciplinary study with transmedia storytelling lens are suggested, and opportunities for developing chinese mythology in the new context are identified. 2. story and values fengshen yanyi (also known as investiture of gods or fengshenbang) is a well-known chinese novel that integrates historical events and many tales of chinese mythological figures. it was written during the ming dynasty (1368–1644), mainly based on the history of the battle between shang and zhou, talking about many adventures in the battle in which many humans, deities, and spirits are involved (haase, 2008). same as most chinese mythologies, fengshen story includes ideological attributes and narrative forms based on unique historical and cultural trends (liu, 2017), which could be seen as the origin of many forms of art and literature works, providing an inexhaustible source of inspiration for cultural industries around the world (shen et al., 2020) and making this study a chance to see the primitive society of china and more importantly the cultural origin of chinese identity (lei, 2024). as a trend of studying the mythical elements especially the elements in films and other new media, the cultural meaning of the mythical symbols could be revealed (zhang et al., 2021). chinese mythology includes complex genealogical relationships (zhao & dolah, 2024), to a certain extent, the scattered and fragmented stories are not systematically organized (yang et al., 2008). fengshen story is based on rich chinese mythology resources as it includes some concepts and settings from other mythologies, such as the myth of goddess nüwa which is originally from the classic of mountains and rivers. in the novel fengshen yanyi, the number of characters is significantly large, as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. there are over 300 gods in the ―investiture‖ and many more relevant characters mentioned in the story. as a long tradition, many characters and plot settings have changed due to various reasons in the historical process (zhao & dolah, 2024), whereas different values that the same character represents in different stories could enrich the content of each story. as a classic mythology story, fengshen yanyi has certain connections in terms of the plots and characters with the journey to the west, one of the best classic chinese novels, while the fengshen story’s background is set about 1700 years earlier than the ―journey‖, and some characters are depicted differently in the two works, for instance, in fengshen story, nezha is a ―superboy‖ who supports the zhou army and finally wins the battle and becomes a god, representing a role model of justice, however, he is depicted as a member of the ―heavenly army‖ who supports jade emperor of heaven to prevent monkey king from fighting for freedom in the chapter the monkey king: uproar in heaven of the journey to the west. unlike traditional media experience, the experience of the ―chinese mythology universe‖ and the story's transformation from transmedia storytelling create more social attributes or patterns that influence the chinese collective unconscious, symbolically reflecting the transformation of human experiences in china (whyke & mugica, 2021). so far, many terms are used to describe the concept regarding building a potential fantasy world from chinese mythology or specifically for the story world of fengshen in the media industry. researchers from different fields often borrow the word ―universe‖ in discussions which are inspired by the marvel cinematic universe (mcu), such as ―mythology cinematic universe‖ (yang & ning, 2021), ―god universe‖ (chen et al., 2022), ―coloroom’s apotheosis universe‖ (chen et al., 2022), ―domestic animation universe‖ (bai, 2022) and so on. like mcu, the ―story world‖ is frequently described as ―universe‖ because the main story could be connected by several subplots, and as mentioned above, it is a huge collection of stories which include complicated characters’ relationships in different plots, whereas understanding this concept of the so-called ―fengshen universe‖ is better for interpreting the fengshen story. 3. adaptation and renewal the fengshen story has been adapted from mythology text to different media forms, bringing new experience of traditional story to audiences in various ways, especially through the tv series and animated films. some adaptations use modern media technologies to retell the story based on the original novel, such as the tv series the investiture of the gods (1990) and the legend and the hero (2007), while some adaptations feature rebuilding the story by only including the essential elements of the story, especially some independent films that feature famous chinese mythological characters such as nezha, jiang ziya and yang jian, giving audiences brand-new experiences with modern elements. recent adaptations that include the potential of ―fengshen universe‖ could be categorized into two types, one is the historical fantasy film that utilizes the classic plots to retell the story without www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. significantly changing the original plot settings, represented by creation of the gods i: kingdom of storms (2023) and following ―fengshen trilogy‖ which could be seen as a chinese version of ―the lord of the rings‖ (wei, 2019), another one is the animated film that features building new story with traditional elements represented by ne zha (2019) and its ―coloroom’s apotheosis universe‖ (chen et al., 2022). animated film and historical fantasy film could be considered the two main types of adaptations which are becoming the trend for retelling the fengshen story in today’s chinese film market. the combination of the new settings and the original settings has become a main strategy and inspiration in recent adaptations. the original story’s background, elements and settings of the plot are essential for the adaptations of the fengshen story, enhancing the audiences’ experience and maintaining the consistency of the story. to deliver the story from new perspectives, the adaptations always include the basic settings based on the traditional understanding of the original story. in the main settings of the background, there are certain common and essential concepts about hierarchy for reflecting the relationship between ruler and subjects, such as by using the concept of the heaven and the realm of mortal world (xu, 2023). similar to the setting of the conflict between protagonist and antagonist in films, the contradiction between two powers is common in many adaptations, however, they are not always strictly opposite in the chinese philosophical context (xu, 2023), as it is blurry to judge certain actions and outcomes so that there is no absolute standard to determine what is right or wrong. also, the innovative settings of the plot (lv, 2019) are common for adaptations in today’s film market. same as the effect that disney redefined the meaning of ―true love’s kiss‖ in maleficent (2014), ne zha (2019) recreated the traditional plot of ―stirring the ocean‖ by setting a new challenge of ―saving the city‖ for new protagonists, bringing a distinctive experience of the story to the audience. the new adaptation is also about placing the traditional story in a modern context instead of retelling and recreating it (zhao & dolah, 2024). since chinese audiences focus more on their real life than the supernatural world (yang & an, 2008), some topics about what values films convey are frequently discussed among audiences, especially for animated films about heroic stories. the portrait of nezha in fengshen story used to be designed as a hero who challenges the power hierarchy by sacrificing his life to protect people (tang & ma, 2021), showing how the father-son ethic controls the children's rights (yu, 2023). as the function of chinese mythology evolves along with the ideology of different times (liu, 2017), certain realistic topics in today’s society are added to adaptations so that critical discussion about the story could be inspired, for instance, ne zha (2019) reflects some social realities that are closed to audiences’ real life such as the value of individualism (tang & ma, 2021) and educational value for both children and parents (lv, 2019). in that sense, the diversity of value attributes in adaptations develops the meaning of the fengshen story. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. 4. storytelling and communication media plays an important role in shaping public opinions and societal values (semetko, 2004), furthermore, media environment is not only changing the way that audience perceive information but also influencing the development of integrated storytelling through different media platforms (von stackelberg & jones, 2014). in today’s chinese film market, different storytelling strategies have been applied for retelling traditional mythology stories, including classical mythology resources which are commonly used for narrative purposes (zhao & dolah, 2024). the theory of transmedia storytelling is used by some researchers for better understanding the adaptation of fengshen story and ―fengshen universe‖ based on the construction of the story world (shen et al., 2020). compared to traditional communication, retelling the fengshen story through various adaptations may form a culture in the new context, creating different experiences and values in media platforms. jenkins (2007) explained that creating a unified and coordinated experience requires integral elements across multiple channels, and each medium should make a unique contribution to the whole story. there is a mutual connection between the mythical content and the forms from multiple media, and the mythical narrative and transmedia storytelling are bridged by their performative dimension (blanariu & popa, 2018). shen et al. (2020) stated that the key to successful transmedia storytelling lies in the construction of the story world when understanding the evolution of nezha’s portrait in fengshen story. according to jenkins’s theory, focusing on the flow of content across media, adding new elements to the world-building process, and deepening audience engagement are essential, reflecting how users consume content on a multimedia level (atarama-rojas, 2019). the effect of transmedia storytelling is positive for building the ―fengshen universe‖ as different media forms could be used to extend audiences’ fantasy space and increase their curiosity, for instance, in ne zha (2019), the conspiracy planned by two villains is hidden in the ester eggs clip at the end of the film (huang & li, 2023). hence transmedia storytelling could be considered as a theory to understand the fengshen story in terms of storytelling in cultural context and fan cultures, as well as delivering transmedia brand stories and creating more entry points (granitz & forman, 2015). moreover, there is a strong connection between the main story and individual characters in the ―fengshen universe‖, which is essential for enhancing the meaning of the fengshen story in the new context due to the importance of the choice of characters. to some extent, the experience of the fengshen story is delivered through the ―fengshen universe‖, as well as individual characters and their transmedia adaptations. some characters in the fengshen story become well-known fantasy figures in adaptations from different media, such as nezha and jiang ziya. for instance, as an important narrative element in the fengshen story, the figure of ―nezha‖ evolves in which the image is produced in different creative products and extended in different channels (shen et al., 2020), as well as the story is presented in an environment affected by different international flows of technologies, aesthetics and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. story structures (whyke et al., 2021). in recent years, there have been some positive explorations in the chinese animated film market in terms of linking different characters-based works for building ―fengshen universe‖, however compared to mcu, the current techniques for building intertextuality of character story’s text (li, 2023) and building empathetic characters in the contexts (zhao & dolah, 2024) still need to be improved. fan culture also plays an important role in the creation of the meaning-making of certain cultural texts (schiller, 2018). current fan groups of fengshen story come from a wide range of origins, and audiences’ story experience could be influenced by their different levels of understanding of chinese mythology. therefore, focusing on the study of audience preferences of mythological films (ye, 2021) and different media forms (e.g., picture-story book, magazine, film or even video games) that audience encounter (breen et al., 2017) is meaningful. however, current audience groups of the fengshen story are limited to audiences’ age and region restrictions (shen et al., 2022). to respond to the increasingly important influence from the groups of fans, an enhanced diversity of characters and story world representations should be focused on (schiller, 2018). the degree of participation between producers and fans is also crucial (ryan, 2015), and many activities related to the recreation of mythology stories can bridge the divide between narratives with traditional chinese cultural elements and contemporary societal expectations (wang et al., 2023). currently, there is a transformative potential for the audience to create certain content for the story from digital shared platforms, such as bilibili, a digital platform that is popular in china (wang et al., 2023), which could be used for fans to rebuild their own fengshen story. based on these findings, the potential for the development of the ―fengshen universe‖ in terms of storytelling and communication could be explored. as mentioned before, transmedia storytelling is strongly related to user-generated content in which both the producers or writers of the original story and the audience could extend and enrich the story through their creativity and sharing from a variety of social media platforms (atarama-rojas, 2019). moreover, based on the potential of the audience in terms of contributing to the recreation of narratives, an in-depth understanding of the incentives that encourage diversity of fans to engage with the story is suggested for developing the story universe. 5. cultural symbol and construction branding and advertising influence the audience experience in which stories’ narratives are enriched and boundaries are blurred (gu & zhao, 2021). with the rise of the global animation and film industry, the diverse reinterpretation of the story has gradually become the focus of ―fengshen‖ cultural intellectual property (ip). as modern reconstruction of the traditional stories’ meaning becomes more common in recent adaptations, different practices are conducted to make fengshen story more readable in terms of cultural contents, such as telling a new story or even criticizing the original story (liu, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. 2020). also, mythological ips can show modernity through the development of traditional texts (chen & cho, 2024) or ―postmodernism‖ by adding the spirituality of the characters (tan, 2023). based on the attributes of the cultural content and the position of the brand in the new context, ―fengshen universe‖ would be a new cultural symbol that connects today and the past. in recent years, some films and animations in the chinese entertainment market are considered huge potential for the development of local cultural ip through transmedia storytelling. some films produced by famous companies and creative teams are easier to gain the trust of audiences and other entertainment consumers, which is also beneficial to the development of the brand (fan et al., 2022). on the other hand, china has so far produced very few ―transmedia‖ examples, and creators’ understanding of ip rules is still insufficient (gilardi & lam, 2021), making the construction of cultural symbol an important topic to focus on. currently, cultural ip consumers focus on content quality, culture and creative innovation about the meaning of the brand, and there are certain connections between consumers’ perception and their emotion (fan et al., 2022). in today’s chinese media industry, different creative methods have been used to build fengshen cultural ips based on specific attributes. coloroom pictures and light chaser animation studios are two famous companies that focus on building ―fengshen universe‖, their works interpret fengshen story through new perspectives by using different creative strategies to create chinese-style ―superhero‖ and adding different levels of popular culture in their films (tan, 2023). however, for the adapted historical fantasy films, the effects of heroes and reflection of individualism could be weakened to certain extent, making it more challenging in terms of modernity rewriting, for instance, the storyline in creation of the gods i: kingdom of storms (2023) is relatively vague because it includes too many characters, information and values from different levels (zhang & huang, 2023). through the analysis of chinese fantasy films, zheng et al. (2024) summarized the advantages and problems of narratives and proposed a few strategies for developing the ip ecological process, such as building a ―unified world‖ by creating a narrative ecosystem and deepening the relationships of characters. so far, as mentioned, the chinese mythology brand is in the developing stage, due to the incomplete construction of the grand worldview and the lack of interaction between operators and audiences (liu, 2019), building fengshen cultural ip and symbol still needs to be explored in terms of the audience engagement and their perception. 6. conclusion and discussion based on the discussion above, it could be seen that the adaptations of fengshen story and the transformation of characters’ images are made according to different social contexts, audiences’ preferences and trends of media cultures. through the analysis of the literature, the value of exploring the ―fengshen universe‖ and the significance of conducting further research to understand chinese mythology have been discussed, which could be helpful to deepen the cultural meaning of the story in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. the new context and form a unique cultural symbol. although some previous research focused on the study of audiences’ difference and the comparison among different cultures (chen et al., 2022), the study about audiences’ motivation, behavior and experience are still inadequate. it is also necessary to highlight that most findings were made based on the feedback from chinese audiences or audiences with chinese backgrounds, while the opinions from other entertainment consumers with diverse cultural background should also be included for exploring a broader understanding of the fengshen story and amplifying the voice of chinese culture in the new context. further research about the diversity of fan groups with various cultural backgrounds and experiences could be conducted with audience-centred studies, such as how transmedia storytelling of chinese stories occurred by including audiences' experience and engagement in different lenses. therefore, there should be a gap that could be bridged by interdisciplinary studies to develop fengshen story and other chinese mythology stories. by reviewing the principles of transmedia storytelling and other researchers’ interpretations based on the theory, as well as the cases from previous research, the main features of the communication in the fengshen story are summarized, more importantly, the opportunities of developing the narratives and potential story universe could be identified. it is possible to use the ―fengshen universe‖ to describe and interpret the fengshen story in the new context. in general, the fengshen story in the new context is influenced by diverse values, linking to the audiences’ daily life rather than merely building a fantasy world. by adding new elements from different resources, the fengshen story is being retold by new adaptations in which its meaning is deepened and enriched through transmedia storytelling and building cultural ip. the animated adaptations and historical fantasy films are used as the cases of media forms in the discussion, while their interrelationships should be explored further because the two categories are different in terms of the story structure, plot setting, storytelling and even building cultural symbol, which should be discussed separately by using more cases. the value of exploring the ―fengshen universe‖ lies in its rich resources, adaptations of portraits, and plots that connect to the audience’s real life, also there is a mutual influence between the characters in the story and the story’s audience. in this paper, representative films are used as the cases of adaptation for demonstrating and explaining relevant concepts, while other media forms such as tv series or video games are not included due to less relevant research, which could also be the focus of further research. references atarama-rojas, t. 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(2020). devil or god: image transformation of chinese mythology character ―nezha‖ (1927-2019). cartoon and animation studies, 159-200. doi: 10.7230/koscas.2020.58.159 tan z. (2023). from motif reproduction to cinematic universe: a study on the mythological reconstruction path of chinese animated films (2015-2022). (master’s thesis, soochow university). retrieved from https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbname=cmfd202401&filename=1023129137.nh www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 11 published by scholink inc. tang, h., & ma, y. y. m. (2021). a reversed construction between deities and demons: a case study of ne zha: i’m the destiny. journal of educational theory and management| volume, 5(01), 50-55. https://doi.org/10.26549/jetm.v5i1.6369 von stackelberg, p., & jones, r. e. (2014). tales of our tomorrows: transmedia storytelling and communicating about the future. journal of futures studies, 18(3), 57-76. wang, a., whyke, t. w., & dean, l. (2023). the interplay between digital platforms and user-generated content in reinterpreting and recreating mythological narratives with traditional chinese cultural elements: the animated series yao-chinese folktales. creative industries journal, 0(0), 1-22, doi: 10.1080/17510694.2023.2252423 wall, b. (2019). dynamic texts as hotbed for transmedia storytelling: a case study on the story universe of the journey to the west. international journal of communication, 13, 2116-2142. whyke, t. w., mugica, j. l., & brown, m. s. (2021). contemporizing the national style in chinese animation: the case of nezha (2019). animation, 16(3), 157-174. https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477211049354 whyke, t. w., & mugica, j. l. (2021). calling for a hero: the displacement of the nezha archetypal image from chinese animated film nezha naohai (1979) to new gods: nezha reborn (2021). fudan journal of the humanities and social sciences, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-021-00335-5 wei, x. (2019, dec 21). harvesting china’s rich mythology for film. shine. retrieved from https://www.shine.cn/feature/entertainment/1912218377/ xu, y. (2023). review of new gods: yang jian. sfra review, 53(2), 111-114. retrieved from https://sfrareview.org/2023/04/21/review-of-new-gods-yang-jian/ yang, l., an, d., & turner, j. a. (2008). handbook of chinese mythology. new york: oxford university press. yang, c. & ning, w. (2021). kua meiti xushi shiyu xia zhonguo ―shenhua dianying yuzhou‖ de kaifa [the development of china’s ―mythological film universe‖ in the perspective of transmedia narratives]. movie literature, (08), 92-96. doi: cnki:sun:dylx.0.2021-08-019 ye, s. (2021). a study of chinese audience preferences for mythological film and television works. in p.-l. p. rau (ed.), cross-cultural design. applications in arts, learning, well-being, and social development (pp. 95-106). springer international publishing. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77077-8_8 yu, s. (2023). from unconsciousness to consciousness: chinese children’s rights awareness in the evolution of nezha’s image. journal of humanities, arts and social science, 7(9), 1704-1713. doi: 10.26855/jhass.2023.09.001 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 12 published by scholink inc. zhao, h., & dolah, j. (2024). discusses the narrative elements of retelling traditional myths in chinese animated films: a case study of new gods: nezha reborn (2021). herança. retrieved from http://revistaheranca.com/index.php/heranca/article/view/816 zhang, d. (2022). review of research on chinese mythology. in 8th international conference on education, language, art and inter-cultural communication (icelaic 2021) (pp. 239-247). atlantis press. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220306.038 zhang, p., liu, m., li, d., & dong, y. (2021). the audience’s perspective: decline of mythical elements in films. sage open, 11(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211040801 zheng, x. y., zhang, x. y., & jiang, x. c. (2024). innovative research based on chinese fantasy film narrative-centered on the integration of film and game. journal of arts and cultural studies, 3(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.23112/acs24012204 zhang, y. & huang, s. (2023). creation of the gods ⅰ: kingdom of storms: modernity rewriting and typological exploration of chinese mythological epics. movie review, (17), 16-20. doi: 10.16583/j.cnki.52-1014/j.2023.17.003 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 27 original paper nigeria’s unity, development and civil society: the imperative of good governance emma e. o. chukwuemeka1*, walter ezeodili2 & aloysius aduma2 1 department of public administration, nnamdi azikiwe university, awka, nigeria 2 department of public administration, university of science and technology enugu, enugu state * emma e. o. chukwuemeka, department of public administration, nnamdi azikiwe university, awka, nigeria received: april 22, 2018 accepted: may 7, 2018 online published: may 16, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p27 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p27 abstract before the arrival of the british imperialist, there was no united entity called nigeria. there was also nothing like political infrastructure known as “regions”. nigeria comprises of about 250 ethnic groups who were doing things as entity of their own before the british colonizers integrated nigeria to be one. the merger could be described as “forced union”. the introduction of indirect rule by the british imperial master orchestrated divide and rule in nigeria, it also gave rise to ethnic consciousness. it is on this backdrop that this study evaluated the role of governance in nigeria’s unity with a view to identifying the areas of problems. survey research method was adopted. data collected through questionnaire were analyzed using z-test. myriads of factors were identified as responsible for disunity and separatist agitation in nigeria. the factors were critically discussed and suggestions proffered. essentially it is the position of the paper that there should be reduction of scarcity and inequality through revolutionary development. development which should be predicated on equity and fairness. the rotation of power to ensure that all ethnic groups are given opportunity is also recommended. also the paper recommended that the emphasis on ethnicity/tribe or place of origin in official forms should be abolished. keywords unity, integration, leadership, ethnicity, good governance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 28 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the trouble with neo-colonial nigeria is simple and squarely a failure of leadership (achebe, 1983). there is nothing wrong with our land, climate, bureaucracy, political ideology and public policy or anything else. the problems are multifarious ranging from “nigerian factor”, ethnicity, corruption, poor policy implementation, politics of balanced federalism, unwillingness or inability of the leaders to rise to the responsibility of their calling, lopsidedness in the sharing of democracy dividend and self-serving leadership. to say the least, nigeria is at a critical stage of what i am wont to describe as fledgling democracy. those in power tend to serve only the people in their ethnic bloc. same goes with distribution of political appointment (igwe, 2017; chijioke, 2014). the problems are too numerous to mention. however the crucial ones are discussed in turn in this treatise. 2. statement of problem basically, governance refers to the use of political authority and exercise of political control to manage state resources for social and economic development (tony, 2010). it is also described as the process by which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development. in this case and as potter (2000) notes, governance entails development management, equity and fair play. however, when the word good is prefixed to it entails efficient and effective management of the resources of the state, and ensuring that same is equitably distributed. good governance again and according to unescap (2010) is closely linked to the extent to which government is committed to improving public welfare and responsive to the needs of its citizens, competent to ensure rule of law and order and deliver public services, create an enabling policy environment for productive activities and equitable and democratic in its conducts nigeria as multi ethnic state has a catalogue of leaders but each applied lopsidedness in distribution of social amenities which in multitude of cases result in conflict among the federating units. distribution of political and public service appointments are based on ethnic cleavages and party loyalists. the political and administrative inertia have resulted in mediocrity in the public service and has also impaired uneven development. these abnormities have heightened separatist agitation and self-determination. to say the least, nigeria federalism is beset with structural imbalance. but true federalism implies that the constituent or federating units should pursue their own developmental programmes at their own pace, utilizing resources within their territory and under their control. but nigeria’s federating units continue to be on the increase resulting in greater pressure being put on available resources. such pressure makes it impossible for any unit to get fully satisfied with regard to its shares. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 29 published by scholink inc. 3. objectives of the study the broad objective of this study is to critically evaluate the working of nigeria unity and good governance the specific objectives therefore are : (a) to examine the effect of lopsidedness in distribution of social amenities on separation agitation. (b) to examine the extent lopsidedness in distribution of political and public service appointments pose threat to nigeria’s unity. 4. hypotheses (a) there is a relationship between lopsidedness in distribution of social amenities and separatist agitation in nigeria. (b) bias in the distribution of political and public service appointments pose threat to nigeria’s unity. 5. literature review 5.1 conceptual framework good governance: basically, governance refers to the use of political authority and exercise of political control to manage state resources for social and economic development (tony, 2010). it is also described as the process by which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development. in this case and as potter (2000) notes, governance entails development management. however, when the word good is prefixed to it entails efficient and effective management of the resources of the state, (tony, 2010). good governance again and according to unescap (2010) is closely linked to the extent to which government is committed to improving public welfare and responsive to the needs of its citizens, competent to ensure rule of law and order and deliver public services, create an enabling policy environment for productive activities and equitable and democratic in its conducts (unescap, 2010). inferring from the above definitions, we can take, as our working definition here, that good governance is the management of the affairs of the state in positive and progressive manners such that it is beneficial to the greater majority of the citizens and enhances national development. 5.2 promoting good governance: the place of the civil society the place of the civil society in promoting good governance in any polity cannot be overemphasized. as ayo (2013) argues, without civil society, government may just feel inclined to do always what it wants and with impunity. indeed, as kukah (1999) notes, good governance can be sustained not just by the good will of the ruling class but more by a concerted effort of organs and institutions of the civil society. in reality, it is essentially through the activities of the civil society that arbitrary use of state powers could be curtailed and good governance significantly institutionalized. specifically, the civil society through its various activities serves as a catalyst for regime change, acts as a check on the state power and its excesses, promotes proper democratic practice and strengthens good governance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 30 published by scholink inc. mechanism generally. for the purpose of a better appreciation of the roles of the civil society in promoting good governance, they are further discussed in detail under the following sub-leadings: 5.3 the role of the civil society in promoting democratic practice the role of the civil society in promoting democratic practice is very critical particularly in the developing nations where democratic culture is low and severance institutions are weak (focal, 2006). low democratic culture is usually manifested in one party dominance, unrepresentative legislature, rigged elections, lack of separation of powers, absence of rule of law etc (ugwuanyi, 2013). in such societies, as noted by liebenberg (2000), civil society becomes the building block of democracy as it helps in various ways to strengthen and sustain proper democratic practice. the roles and contributions of the civil society in promoting democratic practice specifically centers around the following: 1) promoting credible elections: the process of electing freely and fairly representatives of the people into political offices is one that has become all the more challenging in many states of the world especially in the developing nations. for instance, election in nigeria has, over the years, been characterized by rigging, violence and other forms of electoral fraud and misconducts (ugwuanyi, 2011; nwaorgu, 2012). the end results of all these had usually included the coming into power of people not preferred by the electorates, electoral litigations and nullifications. it is in such circumstance that the role of the civil society in promoting democratic practice through educating the voters is necessary and prominent. the civil society, for instance, assists in ensuring free and fair election by educating the voters on the dangers of participating in or supporting electoral violence. again, civil society educates the citizens on the importance of participating in the electoral process and the need to vote for the best candidates. in nigeria, for instance, high level of political apathy arising from poor political representation, illiteracy, bad governance and violence during elections have largely affected the zeal and willingness of the people to come out to vote in elections (ugwuanyi, 2011; ukegbu, 2013). as such, the citizens need to be extensively educated to understand the importance and power of their votes and the implications of their refusal to participate in electoral process generally. the civil society plays this role of educating the voters through the media and by organizing seminars, rallies and workshops through which the citizens are enlightened on the need for participation in elections, the importance of free and fair elections and the gains in voting for the most suitable candidates. the civil society in nigeria, for instance, played positive roles in enhancing the fairness, freeness and credibility of the 2011 general elections in nigeria (ukaegbu, 2013). 2) monitoring election processes and procedures: a fundamental important role of the civil society towards promoting proper democratic elections is the monitoring of elections to ensure that the basic rules and regulations guiding electoral conducts are followed. the civil society usually monitors elections by putting physical modalities in place for observing elections at the polling centres. this may include placing election monitors at the polling booths and arranging for live media coverage of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 31 published by scholink inc. elections. doing this effectively, however, requires a broad coalition of civil society organizations unconnected to political parties or candidates that can deploy neutral monitors at the different polling stations to ensure that voting and vote counting is free, fair, peaceful and transparent. ogu (2011) argued that it may, indeed, be difficult to have credible and fair elections particularly in new and developing democracies unless the civil society plays this role. 3) engaging in the political education of the citizens: the civil society educates the citizens on their fundamental and political rights and obligations in democratic dispensation and state governance generally. the civil society helps to encourage and develop, through political education, the citizens skills to work with one another to solve common problems and to debate public issues and express their views and other values of democratic life like compromise and respect for opposing views (emine, 2000). they civil society can do this by organizing political programs, town hall meetings, opinion pools and political debates (ukaegbu et al., 2013). 5.4 the role of the civil society in limiting and controlling the powers of the state this is another vital area in which the civil society plays very important role. this role is very necessary in the developing states particularly those ones emerging from decades of dictatorship (focal, 2006). indeed, in such states, there is the need for the civil society organizations to check, monitor and restrain the powers of political leaders and state officials. ukaegbu (2013, p 34) affirms this need in his comment thus when a country is emerging from decades of dictatorship as it is the case in most african countries, it becomes imperative to checkmate, monitor and restrain the powers of political leaders and state officials. the civil society perform this function by watching how state officials use their powers, the kind of policies or programmes that government formulates and implements and ultimately raising of concern or alarm about abuse of state powers and the implications of obnoxious policies and programmes. usually, where the civil society perceives problem with given government actions or policies, it conscientizes the public, creates awareness about the implications of such government policies and through these galvanize the people or the masses into action against such policies. through such actions, government could be pressurized into either reforming or changing such policies. instance of such roles by the civil society in nigeria include the agitation or demonstration against the structural adjustment programme (sap) in 1989. that demonstration notably championed by the national association of nigerian students (nans) and the nigerian labour congress (nlc) eventually forced the government, under the leadership of president ibrahim babaginda, to introduce sap relieve measures to cushion the bitting effects of the programe. another instance is the respective agitations by the civil society against fuel price hikes in 1989, 1990, 1993, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2012. in 2012, for instance, government increased fuel price from n65 to n140 per litre. the agitation against the hike principally organized by the nigerian labour www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 32 published by scholink inc. congress (nlc) eventually compelled the government to reduce the price to n97 per litre. again, the civil society in nigeria played prominent roles in controlling the exercise of state powers by government leadership during the june, 1993 presidential election. the result of the presidential election was arbitrarily annulled by the military leadership then led by ibrahim babaginda who wanted to continue in office. the activities of the civil society organizations notably, national democratic coalition (nadeco) and the campaign for democracy (cd) forced ibrahim babaginda to set up an interim national government (ing) and to step down from office (kukah, 1999). in 2007, the civil society in nigeria played another prominent role in controlling the exercise of state power by agitating against and eventually frustrating the third term agenda of the president then chief olusegun obasanjo. chief olusegun obasanjo was on the verge of introducing some political and constitutional reforms that were intended to enable him contest and continue, for the third time, as the president of nigeria. all these, the civil society were able to do by mobilizing the support and solidarity of the masses or the citizens to agitate against those anti-people policies and programs. beyond the use of mass agitation or demonstration to influence and control state powers, the civil society equally influences the way government or state powers is used through peaceful means (ukaegbu et al., 2013). this could be by presenting their views in national, state or local government parliament, contacting individual members of the parliament and testifying before parliamentary committees. the civil society can also attempt to influence the content of policies and programs by establishing dialogue with the relevant government ministries and agencies and bobbing for policies to be formulated and implemented in a particular way. indeed, the civil society need not just be in antagonism with the state. the fact that the civil society is independent of the state does not mean that it must always criticize and oppose the state. in some circumstances, the civil society may have to work towards strengthening the citizens support and respect for the state and promoting their patriotic values and positive engagement with it. with such respect and support to the state, the civil society can create positive relationship with the former and which can even result to more peaceful and positive monitoring and controlling of the state by the civil society. 5.5 development: a theoretical perspective in an attempt to define national development, it becomes imperative for us to examine first and foremost, the concept of development. development refers to man’s progressive qualitative and continued improvement of human labour (ugwu, 2014). it is first and foremost a phenomenon associated with changes in man’s creative energies. development does not lie on products of the efforts of people to apply their creative energy to the transformation of local physical, biological and social cultural developments. the issue of development or under development in nigeria argues eze (2015) has been explained by three basic schools of thought: the modernization theory, dependency and marxian model. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 33 published by scholink inc. 5.5.1 modernization theory the theory is championed by liberal scholars. they argue that underdevelopment is a natural stage (udeze, 2010). they attribute underdevelopment especially in nigeria to lack of skilled manpower, high incidence of corruption, politicization of ethnicity, absence of adequate institutional structures, non-availability of modern technology, inability of the third world countries to explore its national resources, absence of effective leadership jenkins (2000). in the opinion of the school, the only way to overcome this is for third world countries to adopt open door policy, which will enable western technology and values to be transferred to nigeria. in the final analysis, development will come through diffusion of capitalism and value. the mode of thinking has influenced nigeria development strategies since independence.this theory has been widely criticized by scholars like (johnpaul, 2010; chukwuemeka, 2016, udo, 1999). the argument is that after several years of pursuing an open door policy, the nigeria society for instance is yet to attain a meaningful development. therefore the school failed to provide answer to nigeria economic predicament and under development. 5.5.2 dependency school this school is led by dependency scholars like asogwa (2009), thompson (1985) and odibo (1988) which is a critic of liberal theory. the theory argues that nigeria underdevelopment can only be attributed to her continuous interaction with international capitalism. the interaction, which is, based on unequal relationship has distorted nigeria development and at the same time stagnated the development of its productive force. this relationship only helps the center to develop and the periphery to under develop. it is the view of this school that even after independence, this relationship has continued to exist. this is exploitative because the periphery constitutes into the production of the raw materials and consumes manufactured products. this type of relationship has been maintained and encouraged by the ruling class who are the agents of international capital. the school therefore recommends that for nigeria to develop, it should delink from the world capitalist system, since her interaction with international capitalism is causing her underdevelopment. this theory has been criticized because (i) it lays much emphasis on external forces and ignores internal problems; (ii) it ignores class formation and class struggle, which is very vital in understanding underdevelopment; (iii) it ignores relations of production (who owns the means of production); (iv) the policy recommendations is vague—after delink, what next? however, despite the above defense, the theory helps us to identify the particular pattern of development experienced by nigeria, which has continued to reproduce underdevelopment today. 5.5.3 marxian theory the school agrees specifically with dependency theory by saying that nigeria’s underdevelopment is as a result of her incorporation into the world capitalist system. it argues that although external factors are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 34 published by scholink inc. important, other factors such as relations of production and class formation help in understanding nigeria underdevelopment. it recommends that for nigeria to develop, there must be a fundamental structural transformation of the society. nigeria should not delink, but transform that relation of production. therefore nigeria can only develop by adopting socialist party as a mode of production. 5.6 features of development (i) self-reliance, i.e., self-generating growth a linkage between agriculture and industry must exist. (ii) independent control of the economy to include nationalization of finance houses and monitoring the movement of money. (iii) equalization of economic opportunities i.e. the re-organisation of production relation in agriculture and industries and socialization of the means of production, which runs counter to privatization. (iv) a developed country must have ability to solve internal problems. (v) a developed country must be able to supply the basic necessities of life to its citizens, i.e., food, clothes, shelter and health care services. so in discussing development, we don’t use the indices of gross national production (gnp), per capita income because this explains only the growth rate (chukwuemeka, 2008). 5.7 underdevelopment by underdevelopment, we mean a situation in which the institution of a country in the periphery of international capital maintains a dependent relationship with one or several countries at the centre of international economy. underdevelopment does not mean absence of growth, but it is characterized by unequal distributions, slow growth, and the sub-ordination of internal economics and political institutions to the influence from the center. it therefore means the loss of real economy. it is characterized by a high incidence of poverty and a distorted economy. we argue that a state can either be developed or underdeveloped. the word “developing” is deceptive. 5.8. features of underdevelopment (i) corruption (ii) politicization of ethnicity (iii) political hegemony and shenanigan (iv) non availability of modern technology (v) absence of effective leadership (vi) cultural domination (vii) lots of import substitution (viii) marginalization of the peasantry (ix) pre-dominance of a comprador bourgeoisie over the national bourgeoisie capital (x) monopoly capitalism i.e. absence of competition because the industries are dominated by the mncs leaving no room for new industries to spring (xi) mono-cultural economy—dependent on mineral or one item for economic survival therefore www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 35 published by scholink inc. making it susceptible to uncertainties in international economy. any change seriously affects them (xii) enclave economy—suppliers of raw materials. the materials are unrefined and most of its labour forces are engaged here (xiii) poverty of ideology—unidentified ideological interest. underdeveloped country wallows in ideological confusion in the pursuit of development strategies (xiv) there is a divorce between resource and need, i.e., most underdeveloped third world countries are very wealthy in terms of natural resources endowment but poorest in the type of good and services provided for their citizens (xv) domination of commercial activities instead of production 5.9 causes of disunity in nigeria a wide range of factors are responsible for disunity in nigeria which has raised the question whether we are still one nigeria or not. this has also resulted to the fervent call for restructuring of the federation and agitations from different ethnic cleavages. critical among others are: 5.9.1 the politics of revenue allocation and resource control revenue allocation has been a problematic issue right from the colonial period (chukwuemeka, 2016). this is predicated on the various committees or commissions that have worked on this subject. revenue allocation, resource control, and the politics of true federalism have caused a lot of problems in nigeria. the revenue allocation more often than not is suspected to favor some parts of the country at the expense of the others. this has impaired even development and have created tension and instability in the system. 5.9.2 ethnic consciousness and ethnic militia ethnicity is the soldiering slogan or concept employed by the elites to mobilize and unify a category of people who may have a common culture, myth of common origin and inhabit a particular territory and who speak the same language. the objective indicator of oneness especially the myth of common origin and common language were manipulated by the elites particularly the petit-bourgeoisie to ensure a monolithic support in politics. many theoretical efforts have been made to explain ethnicity in nigeria. prominent among them are the following three schools: 5.9.2.1 modernization model the modernization scholars argue that ethnicity is an indicative of underdevelopment which will wither away as a non-modern or traditional society becomes modernized. for this school, to be modern is to acquire characteristics of western society by having more urban centres. a higher rate of literacy, fly over etc. 5.9.2.2 detribalization or supertribalization school the school contends that the emergence persistence and silence of ethnicity are facilitated and exacerbated by the very process of modernization. modernization encourages laissez faire competition. (true market economy) as resources and benefits are scarce, ethnicity thrives as a medium of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 36 published by scholink inc. competition. because the state of modernization is never even, given the national endowment of various groups in terms of resources and their varied exposure to modernization, competition is heightened between ethnic groups. 5.9.2.3 capture theory the proponents of this school argue that competition between ethnic groups in a heterogeneous politics should be seen in terms of the attempts by their political parties to capture power. the petit bourgeoisie who mobilize and manipulate the ethnic populace for support are the real propagators of ethnicity. consequently, ethnicity is a mask for class privileged because ethnic movement may be created and instigated to action by the petit bourgeoisie in furtherance of their own special interest. having captured power, the members of the party try to perpetuate their domination by placing the members of the ethnic group which the party represents in government positions and to ensure a concentration of government activities and amenities in its home based. 6. root causes of ethnicity in nigeria scores of factors could be adduced to have caused and heightened ethnicity in nigeria argues nnoli (1988). they are: 1) the colonizers domination of social economic and political activities caused alienation among nigerians. because the hausa people allowed the british imperialist to settle in their place first, they love them and made them see people from ibo and yoruba as different people. 2) there was location of industries in areas of gainful exploitation without considering the need for inter sectional and inter regional balance in socio-economic achievements for this reasons, certain linguistic and communal home lands became better “developed” socio-economically than others. this imbalance deepens anti party between ethnic groups. 3) the introduction of official forms and documents by the colonial bureaucrats containing information about the origins of the local people reinforcing ethno-centric sentiments of ethnicity and parochial loyalty of the colonized. 4) the colonial policies kept the nigerian tribes divided rather than wield them together. this they achieved through political policies like indirect rule, which was more or less divide and rule. the british oppressors made each tribal group to understand that they were important to themselves. 5) scarcity of jobs in the colonial civil service led to competition for employment among nigerians. those in authority in the bureaucracy tend to secure more jobs for their tribal groups. this heightened ethnicity. 6) it should be understood that ethnicity served the colonialist as mechanism to divide the colonized and therefore maintain domination over them. the petit-bourgeosie who took over from the british oppressors continued to employ the same strategy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 37 published by scholink inc. 7. rise of ethnic militia and ethnic agitation the proliferation and emergence of ethnic militia in nigeria is worrisome. the egbesu, opc, arewa, massob, mosob, ipob, niger delta avenger, afanifere, perennial pastoralists/farmers clashes and other ethnic cleavages abound and are getting out of proportion. the invasion of oil companies by restive youths in the niger delta region, the incessant harassment of traders in lagos, every day herdsmen and farmers clashes in plateau, taraba, benue, zamfara and other states of nigeria, persistent massob/ipob unrest in the eastern states pose a lot of questions to the very ideal of success of government administration in nigeria. the imbalance in the distribution of social amenities, employment, and distribution of appointments have heightened ethnic crises in nigeria to say the least. the hegemonistic and chauvinistic tendencies in nigeria democracy is pushing separatist agitators to call for secession. this poses a serious threat to nigeria unity. 8. changing morals of politicians and governing elites the cherished tradition of elected representative serving the people and dying for the people is no longer tenable. the people are now dying for their elected representatives in multitude of cases. most of our politicians preferred setting the whole house on fire provided the rat is caught. the reminiscences of herbert macualay, nnamdi azikiwe, obafemi awolowo, tafawa belewa are now fairy tales. today most politicians sought for state power and political space to serve people from their ethnic and tribal group on the expense of the vast masses of people in other regions in nigeria. 9. bribery and corruption corruption has been defined by nye (1958) as behavior, which deviates from formal duties of a public role because of (private clique) regarding pecuniary. this includes such behavior as bribery (use of reward) to pervade the judgment of a person in position of trust, nepotism (bestowal of patronage by reason of astrictive relationship rather than merit), extortion and misappropriation of public resources for private regarding uses. today in nigeria corruption has employers and employees. 10. nature and ramification of corruption nature—the nature of corruption is primarily determined by socio-economic formation of the society. in a socialist society like cuba, soviet union to mention a few, there is an outright limitation on the extent the individual could legally accumulate private property. the socialist prohibits private accumulation of property in a way that is detrimental to the interest of the vast majority of the people. in post-colonial and neo-colonial states like nigeria, the prevalent mode of production is such that the capture of state power is simply the capture of authority to accumulate wealth by the ruling elites and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 38 published by scholink inc. their allies, at the expense of the vast majority of down trodden masses. 10.1 ramification this may take three forms: -manipulation of government machineries -embezzlement acquisition of property and -skewed patronage, coercive intimidation. 10.2 causes of corruption corruption has been explained by two schools of thought: 10.2.1 modernization model the school argues that corruption occurs as a result of the unresolved contradiction between the values of the traditional and modern societies. in other words, much of what is considered as corruption is in fact a continuation of traditional gift giving practices, which recently has been re-christened “pr” (public relations). only the imposition of western form had transformed traditional gift exchange into corruption. it is further argued that corruption is more prominent in less developed countries because of great inequality in distribution of wealth, weakness of social and governmental enforcement mechanism and conflict between changing moral goals. 10.2.2 capture model the school explains corruption in nigerian from the point of view of the nature of the neo-colonial state. it argues that the use of state power for property accumulation tends to be logically linked with the weak economic base of the ruling class and their ambition to create a powerful economic base for themselves, their siblings and clients. politics in nigeria is generally conceived as a commercial venture. the concern of the politicians appear to be the capture of state power with which they could accumulate wealth for themselves and quickly too. it will appear that the endemic political corruption in nigeria is caused by the social economic formation of the state. the phenomenon will be sustained and exacerbated by the nature of the ruling class and the role of state power as instrument of property accumulation. 11. methodology 11.1 research design the survey was used to gather data on the basis of its usability with large samples as was the case with the present study where n=100. the study is largely interpretive because it focuses on qualitative and quantitative data. 11.2 sample fifty seven respondents formed the sample for the study. the sample had diversity in terms of age, sex, social economic status, and experience among other variables. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 39 published by scholink inc. 11.3 instrumentation questionnaire items were used to source data from the respondents. the items sought to which the respondents understood the problem of governance in nigeria as they were conceptualized in the literature review. the questionnaire was pilot tested and rated highly by raters with extensive experience in the use of the instrument for research purposes. the ease of access to the respondents by the researcher, allowed for a personal administration of the instrument which ensured hundred percent return rates thereby eliminating non-return bias. in depth interviews were conducted with the 57 respondents as a follow-up to the questionnaire in order to glean the subtle aspects that questionnaire items could not adequately elicit. interviews focused mainly on the respondents’ justifications for particular response options to questionnaire items. 11.4 data presentation and analysis responses that were relevant to the objectives and hypotheses formulated were used. the method applied in the analysis was difference in proportion, and, in testing the hypotheses formulated, z-test was used. 12. presentation and analysis of data the aim of the analysis is to test for significant difference between the proportions of responses p1 and p2. because the sample size was large and the parameter, assumed to be normally distributed, the test concerning that parameter is carried out using the z-test. it is used in testing the hypotheses ho: p1 = p2 (i.e. p=0.5) as h1: p1 >0.5). this is obviously a one-tailed test. z = /p1 – p2/ pq n where p1=the proportion of the population that say “yes” p2=the proportions of the population that say “no” q=1–p p=0.5 n=sample size test of hypotheses ho: there is no relationship between lopsidedness in the distribution of social amenities and separatist agitation in nigeria. h1: there is relationship between lopsidedness in the distribution of social amenities and separatist agitation in nigeria. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 40 published by scholink inc. table 1. balanced fiscal federalism could only be achieved in nigeria if federal government adjust ensure that there is even distribution of social amenities yes n o total no of respondents 39 18 57 proportion 0.68(p1) 0.32(p2) 1.00 /0.68 – 0.32/ (0.5) (0.5 57 =5.4 using the normal distribution table at a = 0.05, the tabulated z–value is 1.645, hence one-tailed test for equality of the two; proportion (i.e., ho) is rejected in favour of h1. conclusion therefore, is that p1 is significantly greater than p2. decision—since the value of z-calculated is greater than the value of z-tabulated, the ho is rejected. conclusion: p1 is significantly greater than p2 which means that there is no relationship between distribution of social amenities and separatist agitation in nigeria. hypothesis 2 ho: bias in distribution of political and public service appointments do not pose threat to nigeria’s unity. h1: bias in distribution of political and public service appointments pose threat to nigeria’s unity. table 2 strongly agree agree disagree not sure total no of respondents 28 19 7 2 58 proportion 0.5 0.33 0.13 0.04 1.00 since there are four responses, the natural thing is to assume, under ho that the proportion of responses are equal, hence assumption is that p=0.25. p1=0.5, p2=0.33, p3=0.13 and p4 =0.04 and compare them each with the population proportion of p=0.25. for “strongly agree” ho: the proportion of p1 is 0.25 (i.e., p1=p) h1: p is not equal to 0.25 (i.e., p1=p) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 41 published by scholink inc. test statistics z, since sample size is large (i.e>30) so /p1 – p/ p(1-p) n = /0.5 0.251/ (0.25) (0.75) 56 = 4.32 for α = 0.05, for a two-tailed test, z from the normal distribution table is 1.96. decision: since the calculated z (4.32) is greater than the tabulated z (1.96), ho is rejected. conclusion therefore is p1 ≠ p hence, sufficient evidence abound that the proportion of respondents who strongly agree is significantly greater than 0.25. there is also need to test “agree” responses for significant difference from p1=0.05. the procedure is to carry on as before. z = /0.5-0.251 / (0.25) (0.75) = 1.38 56 for α=0.05, the tabulated z=value is 1.96.since z=calculated is 1.38 which is less than 1.96m ho is accepted. conclusion is that the proportion who agree to the opinion is not significantly higher than 0.25. for “disagrees” an “not sure” pinions, it can be seen that the figures are very small. considering the result from 0.33 figures an inference can be made that the outcome of the “disagree” and “not sure” opinions will not be significantly higher than 0.25. and this will amount to testing the obvious. conclusion: bias in the distribution of political and public service appointments pose threat to nigeria’s unity. 13. recommended solutions to foster nigeria unity 1) nigeria should be restructured—we need a mutually agreed arrangement that allows every component to take charge of the security of lives and properties of citizens through decentralized policing, while the federal government takes care of defending our territorial integrity. we need a federal arrangement where the best excel and does not have to be sacrificed in the name of federal character. we need a structured federation where every nigerian can live and ply his or her business without any form of discrimination, molestation and destruction of his or her life and property on the flimsiest excuses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 42 published by scholink inc. 2) reduction of scarcity and inequality through revolutionary development programme which should be predicated on equity. 3) there should be uniform formulation and application of rules, norms and regulations throughout the country. 4) power should rotate between the east, south, west and north. there should be no slogan like “born to rule” or “born to serve”. 5) the emphasis on ethnicity/tribe or place of origin in official forms should be abolished. 6) emphasis should be shifted from the sharing of national cake to creative production of the cake 7) wealth should be de-emphasized as basis for social status and replaced by the level of creative production of goods, services and ideas. 8) it is also recommended that the funds meant for the creation and consideration of states and local governments should be diverted to create employment for teaming youths and also the formation of viable associations for poor peasants, workers, petty traders, artisans and the underemployed and unemployed. 9) consultation, dialogue, friendly and informative public relations will go a long way in reducing high tide of hostility, mistrust and suspicion among the major stakeholders in nigerian wealth sources. references achebe, c. (1983). the problem with nigeria. enugu: 4th dimension publishers. chukwuemeka, e. o. (2008). administration and politics in nigeria: past, present and issue. lagos: vinez publishers. udeze, b. o. (2010). politics of fiscal federalism in nigeria: the way forward. onitsha: afp. chukwuemeka, e. o. (2016). leadership and nigerian question: a keynote paper presented at women development centre abakaliki on the occasion of merit award. prime magazine. chioke, g. o. (2014). nigerian political development: identifying the missing link. journal of policy and development studies, 5(2), 33-42. igwe, s. (2014). nigeria governance and unity: the nexus. international journal of social sciences, 5(3), 33-46. emine, u. (2000). democratic governance, imperatives of transparency. journal of research in management, 6(3), 33-34. ugwu, g. i. (2014). the havoc of ethnicity in nigeria. way out journal of social development, 4(3), 56-62. ugwuanyi, b. (2011). local government and rural development in nigeria. international journal of social sciences, 8(1), 22-41. ukegbu, t. (2013). the substance of public service in nigeria. enugu: providence publishers. eze, o. (2015). politicisation of ethnicity in nigeria. international journal of humanities, 5(2), 81-90. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 43 published by scholink inc. nwangu, s. o. (2012). elements of community development: nigeria perspective. lagos: vinez publishers. ogu, n. (2011). the dangers of inequality in governance: implications for sustainable development. journal of policy studies, 5(2), 60-71. jenkins, u. (2000). globalisation and the rest of us. journal of research in management, 2(1) 45-50. johnpaul, a. (2010). nigeria government and politics: a contemporary perspective. enugu: providence publishers. potter, m. (2000). research methods. delhi: gosen publishers. chukwuemeka, e. (2016). the politics of godfatherism in nigeria: the foundation source of nigeria instability. journal of policy and development studies, 2(5), 22-40. udo, n. (1999). management in a depressed economy. in okeke v (ed.), readings in social sciences (pp. 44-66). enugu: echris publishers. asogwa, f. (2009). understanding international relations. enugu: metro publishers. odibo, s. e. (1988). politics and administration in nigeria. onitsha: mcpep publishers. thompson, h. i. (1985). imperialism and albatross. new york: mcgraw hill publishers. nnoli, o. (1988). ethnic politics in nigeria. onitsha: african fep publishers. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 240 original paper a linguistic memetic account of identifiable features of online rumors meisong chen 1 1 college of liberal arts, nanjing university of information science & technology, nanjing, china received: august 9, 2024 accepted: november 2, 2024 online published: november 18, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p240 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p240 fund project this study is supported by the project of social science foundation of jiangsu province(grant no. 21yyb001), the project of philosophy and social science research in colleges and universities in jiangsu province(grant no. 2021sja0156), and by the institute of national and regional culture, nanjing university of information science & technology. abstract in the era of information explosion, online rumors have become a global issue that urgently needs to be addressed. within the framework of linguistic memetics, this article delves into the content, form, and process of the dissemination of online rumors, aiming to uncover their recognizable features. the study finds that online rumors are highly relevant to the lives of the hosts in terms of content, exhibit formulaic features that are easy to replicate in form, and demonstrate periodic recurrence in their disseminating process. this research could not only enrich the theoretical perspectives of rumor studies but also provide practical guidance for the identification and prevention of online rumors. keywords online rumors, identifiable features, linguistic memetics, china 1. introduction the history of rumors can be dated far back to ancient times and is among the oldest forms of mass communication (kapferer, 2008). throughout the progress of human civilization, rumors have accompanied society as a phenomenon, often termed the “goddess of rumors” due to their mysterious, elusive nature and enormous impact and harmfulness (neubauer, 2004). with the boost of network technology, rumors have become increasingly rampant, and their influence on society cannot be ignored. only through systematic research and analysis of online rumors can we identify appropriate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 241 published by scholink inc. countermeasures and methods to promote the construction of a harmonious internet and a harmonious society. this study, from the perspective of linguistic memetics, attempts to summarize the identifiable features of online rumors concerning the content, the form, and the process of dissemination, aiming to reveal the transmission laws of online rumors, provide a new perspective for rumor research, and offer valuable references for effectively identifying and preventing online rumors. 2. research on rumors rumor is a complex phenomenon that is difficult to define. to understand this intricate social phenomenon, academia has proposed more than twenty definitions of rumors from various perspectives, including some classic and famous interpretations. the most frequently cited classic definition in the field of rumor research comes from the pioneering studies of american psychologists allport & postman. in their 1947 book “the psychology of rumor”, they proposed that a rumor was a propositional statement related to an event, passing along from person to person, with the intention of being persuasive but without specific data to confirm its truth (allport & postman, 1947, p. 3). this insightful definition has provided a beacon for subsequent rumor researches. another widely accepted interpretation came from difonzo & bordia, who defined rumors from three perspectives (2007, p. 13), namely, context (rumors arising in specific environments or psychological demands), content (revealing potential threats in the environment), and function (raising people’s awareness of their surroundings). they argued that rumors were unverified yet widely disseminated pieces of information, with uncertain content that implied potential threats in the environment and can heighten people’s vigilance. french scholoar kapferer’s definition is also influential which deemed that rumors were information that arose and circulated in society without official confirmation or had been officially refuted (kapferer, 2008, p. 15). despite the different definitions in rumor research, they share some commonalities. in essence, rumor lacks hard evidence and are unverified; in terms of content, they are generally related to current events and people’s interests or concerns; in terms of purpose, rumor aims to persuade others; and in terms of origin, a multitude of factors contribute to the emergence of rumors. in terms of the content and perspectives of researches on rumor, scholars mainly study the characteristics of rumors, mass psychology, mechanisms of influence, coping strategies, and the interactive relationship between individuals and society from sociological, psychological, historical, and communication perspectives. this body of researches involve theories such as collective memory theory, collective behavior theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and social change theory from sociology and communication studies. more specifically, the social psychology perspective mainly focuses on the generation and spread of rumors; the communication perspective discusses the communication process, effects, and coping strategies from the angles of communication studies, public opinion studies, psychoanalysis, and functionalism; the historical perspective is primarily about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 242 published by scholink inc. the relationship between rumors and history and the historical value of rumors. these studies propose the stages of rumor dissemination and analyze the reasons for the emergence and spread of rumors from social, psychological, and historical aspects. they also propose responding strategies such as understanding the patterns of rumor dissemination, providing sufficient information, and guiding public psychology. overall, these rumor studies cover a wide range of fields, focusing not only on the inherent characteristics of rumors and rumor control strategies but also examining the characteristics of rumor dissemination in the new media environment. they provide a strong theoretical basis for understanding the essence of rumors and have certain enlightening significance for this article. 3. linguistic memetics based on the theory of darwinian evolution and the concept of genes in the biological field, the renowned british zoologist and behavioral ecologist richard dawkins put forward the concept of meme and the fundamental ideas of memetics in 1976 to explain cultural evolutionary phenomena. interpreted from the perspective of memetics, cultural communication is achieved through the self-replication of memes, which are the units of cultural transmission and the cultural replicators that spread through imitation in interpersonal communication. memetics posits that successful memes share common characteristics including longevity, fecundity, and copying-fidelity. this means that memes persist for a long time in written form or in the human mind, have a strong ability to produce and replicate, and maintain a high degree of fidelity during the replication process (dawkins 1976: 197). moreover, successful memes are often practical and convey a strong expressive need of the host or align with the host’s psychological tendencies, and the background events that give rise to them often receive significant social attention. after its emergence, memetics was quickly applied in various fields of study, such as psychology, criminology, architecture, anthropology, and linguistics. linguistic memetics is a set of views or propositions about language use that absorbs the tenets of memetics, aiming at explaining the mechanism of cultural evolution. it has evolved from darwinian cultural evolution to memetics and then to linguistic memetics. mr. he ziran was the first in china to apply memetics to the study of language use phenomena, prompting a group of scholars to conduct research on various language topics (chen, 2017), demonstrating the powerful explanatory power of linguistic memetics. for instance, he ziran (2005; 2008; 2023) has analyzed the practical application of language in social life using meme theory, explaining many interesting linguistic phenomena in everyday life. other scholars have used a memetic perspective to analyze various linguistic phenomena, such as rhetoric (he, 2008), internet slang (lin, 2022; wang & liu, 2024), advertising language (yang & wang, 2017), and news language (zhou & shi, 2022). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 243 published by scholink inc. these research achievements have made a significant contribution to the promotion and development of memetics in the chinese academic community, especially in the field of linguistics. they fully demonstrate that memetics can provide a reasonable and sufficient explanation for the replication and transmission of language and should also offer new avenues and perspectives for analyzing and studying online rumors, providing some theoretical support for explaining the regularities of the occurrence and development process of online rumors. therefore, based on the views and understandings mentioned earlier, this study uses linguistic memetics as the theoretical basis to analyze the content, form, and process of the spread of online rumors, aiming at revealing their identifiable characteristics. 4. features of online rumor memes based on the perspective of linguistic memetics, we analyze the content, form, and process of online rumor dissemination to uncover their identifiable features. utilizing a corpus of officially debunked online rumors from authoritative platforms, search engines, news websites, and instant messaging tools, the research reveals several key characteristics: high host relevance in content, focusing on daily life concerns and hot topics; reproductivity of dissemination forms, featuring clear structures and keywords; and periodic recurrence in the dissemination process, with certain rumors persisting and reemerging over time. 4.1 host relevance in terms of the content of dissemination for a meme to be successful, it must be capable of infecting new hosts and entering into their memory. one essential condition is notability, meaning that the meme must have sufficient salience to attract the attention of new hosts, be adaptable to the cognitive structure of potential hosts, and the new hosts must be willing to believe the meme (heylighen, 1998). driven by data, we arrived at a content-based categorization of online rumors. among which, social life-related rumors have the highest proportion (constituting 54%), followed by public crisis-related rumors (17%) and public management-related rumors (16%), with rumors about public figures accounting for 6% of the total. 4.1.1 close association with hosts’ daily lives among the most prevalent types of online rumors, those related to social life are particularly striking due to their direct connection to public concerns. firstly, food safety has become a major focus of online rumors. according to a statement made by yan jiangying, a spokesperson for the state administration for food and drug regulation at a seminar on food rumor management on april 17, 2017, data shows that food safety information accounts for 45% of online rumors. the reporting center cyberspace administration of china, in collaboration with the china association for science and technology’s publicity department, released the “2024 first half of the year social and people’s livelihood domain online rumor refutation list”, which still highlights www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 244 published by scholink inc. food safety as a high-incidence area of rumors and misconceptions in the public’s concern for social and people’s livelihood issues. this indicates that the governance of food safety rumors is an ongoing process that requires joint efforts and supervision from various sectors. rumors such as “meat buns stuffed with paper”, “cotton meat”, “plastic instant rice”, “low-sodium salt being lethal” and “crayfish being small insects” have repeatedly shocked the public, affecting their confidence in food safety and disrupting their consumption decisions. secondly, with economic development and rising incomes, people’s expectations for health and quality of life have increased, which also to a proliferation of online rumors related to health and wellness. for instance, rumors emerged about the “pregnant mode” introduced by routers branded as 360, claiming to reduce radiation intensity and protect the health of pregnant women; rumors stating that “breastfeeding infants requires sterile water”, claiming that it is produced using world-class sterile production techniques and meets infants’ special needs for drinking water; and rumors that “placing a phone next to the pillow while sleeping can cause infertility, premature aging, or even cancer”. similar cases happen with topics about the climate. as abnormal climate changes have brought inconvenience and harm to people’s lives and health, it led to a series of online rumors, particularly those related to haze. examples include false forecast information about “chengdu experiencing its most severe haze in over 2,000 years, with the aqi expected to exceed 700 and some areas possibly reaching the lung cancer threshold of 800’; and online articles titled “china is secretly burning a dirtier fuel than coal” and “haze and high-sulfur petroleum coke”, claiming that china imports over 10 million tons of petroleum coke annually, which is the cause of severe air pollution; and rumors about the harms of haze, such as “haze cannot be expelled from the body and lungs” and “children inhale more haze than adults”. lastly, with the increasing normalization of online communication, there has been a surge in rumors related to internet usage and cybersecurity. rumors such as “china’s internet surveillance is undergoing a cleanup, requiring wechat group members to change their profile pictures to real ones, or else their groups will be locked and their phone numbers controlled”; and “from november 11th, qq and wechat profiles, nicknames, and other information can only be modified five times in a year” have sparked heated discussions among netizens. some rumors about internet security even masquerade as debunking information, such as a rumor circulating around the “army day” that the peoples daily app’s h5 work “military uniform photo” is a scam, claiming that the photo’s ip address is on a server in canada, and it is just a new scam method by a fraud company posing as the people’s daily app to obtain citizens’ personal information. this message has raised the vigilance of many wechat users, leading them to stop participating in “military uniform photo” displays and even discourage friends from doing so. in response, the people’s daily had to issue a statement confirming the security of the program and also pointing out the deceptive nature of the “debunking” information. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 245 published by scholink inc. 4.1.2 reflecting hosts’ interests in contemporary hot topics firstly, natural disasters and sudden accidents often trigger a series of rumors due to their sudden and impactful nature. rumors centering on the “mh370 missing flight” incident consist a typical example. during the initial period, from march 8 to march 29, 2014, xinhua news agency’s “truth seeking” column collected 48 debunked online rumors, focusing on important information such as the cause of the accident, location, and outcome. the content covered a wide range of aspects, including predictions of location and cause, accountability supervision, and hearsay (luan, 2015). nearly ten years later, the release of the netflix aviation documentary “mh370: the plane that disappeared in march 2023 once again stirred up rows of rumors including conspiracy theories about “where the plane went”. similarly, the super heavy rain on july 20, 2021 in henan province triggered a series of rumors, such as “truck drivers from other places drowned in dengzhou”, “luying town in wolong district suffered severe damage, and helicopters conducted rescues”, and “heavy rain in nanyang caused a three-story building to collapse”. what’s more, during the covid-19 pandemic, a myriad of rumors related to the epidemic situation, prevention and treatment methods, and other aspects emerged. secondly, major meetings, events, and sports competitions also provide a fertile ground for the emergence of rumors. for example, before the g20 hangzhou summit, rumors circulated widely on social platforms like wechat moments and weibo, with security-related rumors being the most prominent, including traffic control (such as “no entries but exits only in highways 1-5”, “hangzhou passenger transportation center station to be closed during g20”, “all logistics trucks banned from entering zhejiang” etc.), security checks (such as “a driver was required to open and drink from each of his 20 bottles of mineral water”, “no liquid or powder parcels allowed in and out of beijing within 300 km of hangzhou”, etc.), stability maintenance (such as “most gas stations in hangzhou to be closed during the g20 summit”, “no open flame cooking allowed in the west lake scenic area, all meals to be delivered by the police”, etc.), and financial expenditure (such as “each security police officer receives a subsidy of 100,000 yuan”, “a budget of 16 billion yuan for g20 hangzhou summit ”,etc.). before the “belt and road” international cooperation summit forum, rumors under the disguise of “arrangement notices” about rests and holiday adjustments for central and state organs, institutions, social groups, and related units in beijing. additionally, around major sports events, there is also the spread of online rumors, such as “syrian national football team wins china, leading to the announcement of 48-hour ceasefire”, “u.s. flag falls at the rio olympics” and “an olympic athlete wearing chinese-made clothes got nearly naked”. scholars have observed that the language memes selected for dissemination are those that can capture and sustain public attention, primarily due to their compelling content (he & chen, 2014, p. 10). the content of online rumors, which serves as a vehicle for these language memes, is crucial in their ability to resonate with the audience. online rumors that pertain to everyday life, trending topics, and public www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 246 published by scholink inc. figures have a high degree of relevance to the public, thereby exerting a strong pull on their attention. as a result, these types of online rumor memes are more readily embraced by the public and tend to spread more extensively compared to other types of content. this highlights the significance of content representation in the success of language memes within the competitive landscape of information dissemination. 4.2 reproductivity of syntactic forms a successful meme, as emphasized by he ziran and colleagues, must possess the quality of replicability to ensure its ongoing spread (he et al., 2007, p. 132). this attribute of being easily replicated is pivotal for the functional linguistic expression of online rumors. focusing on the case of online earthquake rumors, it becomes evident that the majority of these rumors are anchored around the “forecast” of an impending earthquake event. this is often seen in the precise and detailed nature of the information presented in these rumors. for instance, a post that gained widespread circulation online claimed that “nanjing will have a 7-8 magnitude earthquake on june 13”. this case illustrates the compelling and specific details that such rumors often include, which are designed to make them easily shareable and believable among the public. the format and content of these rumors are crafted in a way that they can be quickly understood and disseminated, highlighting the importance of meme replicability in the spread of online misinformation. example 1. “the national earthquake bureau issued a level nine emergency earthquake defense notice at 7:27 today: there will be a 6.5 to 7.2 magnitude earthquake centered on baotou (a city in inner mongolia autonomous region of china) at 13:19 beijing time on april 15th.” after the 7.1 magnitude earthquake in yushu (i.e., yushu tibetan autonomous prefecture, qinghai province, china) on april 14, 2010, rumors began to circulate online about impending earthquakes in beijing, baotou, langfang and xingtai in hebei province(with example 1 as one of them). as shown in the above example, the information conveyed in online earthquake rumors typically includes specific sources of information, location and time of the happening, and the exact magnitude, implying the accuracy of the “forecast”. however, due to the limited technological capabilities, successful earthquake forecasts are extremely rare, and it is not possible to predict earthquakes with such precision. in fact, global earthquake forecasting is still at a low level of exploration, and the view that earthquakes cannot be predicted is the mainstream opinion of the scientific community in the united states, which is also recognized by most scientists around the world. china’s successful short-term forecast of the offshore earthquake in 1975 is the only one internationally recognized, mainly because the pre-earthquake signs were too obvious: example 2. “during the first half of 1976, the songpan, maowen, heishui area might experience an earthquake of magnitude 6 or above, and attention should be paid to strengthening monitoring.” (from the 1976 sichuan earthquake situation conference held in november 1975) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 247 published by scholink inc. comparing example 2 with example 1, we can see that the official forecast also includes time, location, and magnitude elements, but the official forecast uses less certain language like “might”, with approximate numbers for time and magnitude, and suggests strengthening monitoring. on the other hand, rumors assert that the earthquake will definitely occur with precise magnitude numbers. in summary, the syntactic form of online earthquake rumors is typically expressed in a “meme schema”, consisting “source of information + clear time + specific location + precise epicenter, magnitude, and extent of damage”. this operational convenience and high fidelity reflect the typical characteristics of language memes. similarly, the form of online rumors is characterized by simplicity, ease of understanding, and ease of imitation, which facilitates the realization of the widespread dissemination. 4.3 repetitive occurrence in the dissemination process the replication of online rumor content is a phenomenon that is particularly noticeable in trending topics, often resurfacing at regular intervals, as highlighted by fearn-banks in 2013. this pattern of recurrence is not limited to new rumors; it extends to those that have been circulating for years or even decades, which continue to make periodic appearances on the internet. these rumors exhibit a transient yet recurring nature in their dissemination—they may fade from public view after a period of incubation and spread, only to reemerge when circumstances align. this intermittent visibility suggests that such rumors do not vanish completely but lie dormant, ready to be reignited by opportune conditions. once the right context presents itself, these rumors are prone to resurface, capturing the public's attention anew and potentially leading to multiple cycles of renewed interest. this cyclical pattern can be distilled into two primary scenarios, which will be further explored in the subsequent discussion. it is this very recurrence and the ability to recapture attention that underscores the resilience and impact of certain online rumors, making them a persistent feature of our digital landscape. 4.3.1 repetition of the meme prototype with unaltered content during the dissemination of online rumors, certain core meme prototypes, due to their strong spreadability and influence, can repeatedly appear in different times and spaces, almost without any change. these meme prototypes typically contain concise and powerful information that can quickly attract the public’s attention and often touch people’s emotions, whether it be fear, anger, or sympathy, creating a strong resonance in social culture and prompting people to forward the information without thinking. the “rumor smashing machine” on guokr.com found that some rumors with “tough” vitality would spread every now and then, some even for over ten years, and sorted out top ten pieces of online misinformation. our credibility survey results show that they are still approved to varying degrees by the hosts. over 50% of the audience believes in the two online rumors of “the lunar crescent on nails is a health indicator”and “rat urine on coke cans spreads a lethal virus”. these messages continue to appear, constantly reinforcing the public’s memory and opinion. additionally, the people’s daily www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 248 published by scholink inc. “seeking truth” column also collected a batch of rumors with a “vintage” feel but still active. these examples illustrate the persistent nature of certain rumors and their ability to resurface with minor alterations, despite repeated debunking. this includes “outsiders from sanya(a city in guangdong province) stealing children”. after investigation by the shijiazhuang internet police in hebei province, it was found that the source of information dissemination can be traced back to the “emergency notice” spread in a wechat group of parents in a certain primary school in december 2016. in essence, it was a targeted malicious slander against others. later, it was repeatedly denied by the internet police of quanzhou (a city in fujian province), internet police of guiyang (a city in guizhou province), and public security of heze (a city in shandong province). despite of all these efforts, the rumor resurfaced in 2024 with variations like “children kidnapping in dalianfa supermarket in qingdao(a city in shandong province)” , “human traffickers disguised as crab vendors kidnapping children” and “human traffickers openly stealing children on a street in nanning (a city in jiangsu province)”. these rumors caused widespread panic among parents and had negative social impacts. the repetition and variation of these rumors highlight the challenges in controlling their spread. even when old rumors are debunked, new versions with slightly altered details can continue to circulate, often exploiting people’s fears and vulnerabilities. this underscores the importance of continuous education and vigilance in combating misinformation and the need for effective communication strategies to counteract the spread of such rumors. these rumors, as noted for their persistence and impact on society, often lead to widespread panic and significant social repercussions, particularly among vulnerable groups such as parents. the recurrence of these rumors underscore the formidable challenge in managing their dissemination. despite efforts to debunk old rumors, they can resurface with slight modifications, preying on people’s fears and vulnerabilities. 4.3.2 repetition of meme variants with renovated content many rumors are often old news that has been debunked before, renovated and reheated on the internet to create a new round of dissemination, which is referred to as “old rumors with new spins”. in the high-incidence area of food safety, there are many such cases. rumormongers use food safety events as the background, trimming and renovating what has already happened, repeatedly attracting attention and misleading the hosts’ information consumption. in december 2015, guokr.com’s “rumor smashing machine” set a mini-list “how could it be you again?” for the session of classic old rumors, and “inedible crayfish” was one of them. the series of rumors about crayfish can be considered as “evergreen” in the rumor circle. observation of the corpus shows that the rumors about crayfish convey the same message, the inedibility of crayfish, through various angles, such as the conspiracy theories of crayfish being introduced to china as “a biological weapons” or “genetically modified”, the dirty environment in which they grow, and their extremely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 249 published by scholink inc. unhealthy physical characteristics. over time, new representations of “abnormal” crayfish keep emerging. for example, on may 3, 2018, a video titled “crayfish accident! just look and you’ll know!" was circulated on wechat, claiming that a girl in suzhou (a city in jiangsu province) coughing up blood and had a fever was diagnosed with paragonimiasis, possibly due to the consuming of unclean crayfish. by may 8, when the “shanghai rumor refutation network” debunked the rumors, the video had been viewed over 1 million times. this “crayfish case” took a different angle, warning people about the “severe consequences” of eating crayfish, reinforcing the same message: it’s not safe to eat crayfish. despite continuous debunking, rumors about crayfish resurface every peak season, prompting debunking efforts from media outlets like the paper in 2024. whether the content remains unchanged or is repackaged, these online rumors are repeatedly hyped up, which is inseparable from their tenacious memetic vitality. 5. conclusion this study, based on linguistic memetics, has conducted an in-depth analysis of the content, form, and process of the spread of online rumors, revealing their identifiable characteristics. it is found that online rumors demonstrate a high degree of host relevance in terms of their content, display a programmatic feature that is easy to replicate, and exhibit a periodic recurrence in their dissemination process. firstly, this study examined how online rumors are closely related to the daily lives of their hosts, with a significant portion of rumors being related to social life, public crises, and public management. these rumors tap into public concerns about everyday issues and current events, making them more likely to be accepted and spread by the public. examples include rumors about food safety, health and wellness, and major incidents like natural disasters and large-scale events, which resonate with the public’s interests and fears. secondly, about the reproductivity of syntactic forms, this paper discussed the syntactic forms of online rumors, as particularly represented by those related to earthquake predictions. these rumors often include specific details, such as the source of information, time, location, and magnitude, which make them easily shareable and believable. the format of these rumors is simple, clear, and easy to imitate, facilitating their widespread dissemination. thirdly, the paper discussed the recurring nature of online rumor content, especially in trending topics. rumors that have circulated for years or even decades continue to resurface periodically on the internet. these rumors may fade from public view after spreading but can reemerge when conditions are right, capturing public attention once again. this pattern is seen in two main scenarios: the repetition of meme prototypes with unaltered content and the repetition of meme variants with renovated content. the persistence and impact of certain online rumors highlight the challenges in controlling their spread and the need for continuous education and effective communication strategies to combat www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 250 published by scholink inc. misinformation. although these characteristics do not have absolute sufficiency, they provide valuable references for identifying online rumors. through this study, we have not only enriched the theoretical perspective of rumor research but also provided practical guidance for the identification and prevention of online rumors. we hope that these findings will enhance the ability of online communicators to recognize and counteract rumors, offering predictive advice for official entities to effectively reduce the spread of online rumors, their probability, and intensity. future research can further delve into other characteristics of online rumors, such as their variability during the dissemination process and the interpersonal strategies and contextual factors that contribute to their widespread dissemination. through continuous research, we can better understand the complexity of online rumors and provide a more solid theoretical foundation and practical guidance for building a harmonious online society. references allport, g. w. (1947). the psychology of rumor. new york: holt, rinehart & winston. chen, x. r. (2017). a linguistic memetic account of lexico-grammatical innovations: a case study of the “causativization” of english unergative verbs. journal of foreign language education, 2017(3), 12-16. dawkins, r. (1976). the selfish gene. new york: oxford university press. fearn-banks, k. (2013). crisis communication:a casebook approach. shanghai: fudan university press. h, z. r., xie, c. q., & chen, x. r. (2007). three pragmatic theories: relevance, adaptation and memetics. shanghai: shanghai education press. hans joachim, n. (2004). translated by gu, m. rumor goddess. beijing: zhongxin press. he, z. r. (2008). linguistic memes and their rhetoric effects. foreign language research, 2008(1), 68-73. heylighen, f. (1998). what makes a meme successful? selection criteria for cultural evolution . in: jean, r. (ed.). proceedings 15th international congress on cybemetics. namur, 418-423. jean-noël, k. (2008). translated by zheng, r. h. on rumor. shanghai: shanghai people’s publishing house. lin, k. q. (2022). “face scor”: its route of birth, meaning of development and argument of emboidiment-cognition from the perspective of linguistic phenomenon. contemporary foreign language studies, 2022(05), 49-57. luan, l. l. (2015). the causes, spread features of internet rumors and strategies: a case of sina microblog. anhui university. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 251 published by scholink inc. wang, l., & liu, x. (2024). a multivariate analysis of the new construction “ying(应) x jin(尽) x”. journal of guangzhou university(social science edition), 2024(03), 165-173. yang, x. s., & wang, q. (2014). memetic analysis of network buzzwords and inspiration to the creation of advertising words. journal of contemporary communication, 2014(06), 87-89. zhou, x. y., & shi, x. l. (2022). a pragmatic study of language memes in the official tik tok news report of people’s daily. journal of sinogram culture, 2022(07), 1-3. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 209 original paper study on national image construction and international communication in china on the move amid deconstructionism and constructivism pang ya-qi 1 & cui dan 2* 1 undergraduate student of school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 doc of literature, professor, dean of institute of international language and culture, leader of comparative literature and cross-culture discipline, jilin international studies university, changchun, jilin, china; school of foreign languages, yanbian university, yanbian, jilin, china; postdoc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china * cui dan, corresponding author, e-mail: summerelephant@126.com received: september 10, 2024 accepted: october 15, 2024 online published: november 5, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p209 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p209 abstract national image documentary is a key part in shaping a country’s brand, fostering cultural exchange. however, china has faced challenges in presenting a dynamic and multidimensional national image on the global stage. in recent years, china has intensified its international communication efforts, leveraging various media formats to portray a more comprehensive image. the paper critically analyzes the contradictions inherent in the construction of national image and its overseas translation and communication, focusing on the biases of logocentrism and egocentrism. taking china on the move as a case study and examining its production, characterization, narrative, and translation strategies to summarize patterns and practices from a series of high-quality sino-foreign co-produced documentaries. the analysis explores how the deconstructionist strategy of decentralization contributes to the joint-shaping of national image, and how an emphasis on marginalization reflects broader societal structures through the lens of ordinary lives. the deconstructionist translation strategy underscores the translator’s active role and the importance of “creative rebellion”. conversely, the constructivist strategy elucidates the underlying logic of china’s image for international audiences, promoting empathetic communication by seeking common ground while acknowledging differences. the constructivist translation strategy also imposes necessary limitations on “creative rebellion” to ensure coherence in the translation process. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 210 published by scholink inc. keywords national image construction, joint-shaping, deconstructionism, constructivism, translation and communication 1. introduction the study of china‟s national image construction, along with its overseas translation and communication, constitutes an interdisciplinary field that integrates insights from philosophy, psychology, communication studies, as well as translation theory. this integrative approach is essential to understanding the processes involved in the creation and global dissemination of national identity. in recent years, the advent of big data and the proliferation of new media have significantly influenced the role of documentaries as a pivotal medium in constructing and reflecting national images. compared to traditional platforms such as newspapers, literary works, and radio, documentaries uniquely blend authenticity with artistic expression, providing a compelling visual impact and fostering emotional engagement. their effectiveness in cross-cultural communication, combined with diverse narrative approaches, renders them a vital instrument for international communication. this paper employs china on the move as a case study to examine the application of jacques derrida‟s deconstructionist strategies and jean piaget‟s constructivist approaches within the domains of documentary production, narrative techniques, interview dynamics, and translation practices. the objective is to analyze how promotional documentaries contribute to national image formation and examine the dissemination strategies that address the challenges posed by international communication, which remains substantially influenced by western media. by doing so, the study aims to facilitate cultural exchange between china and western countries, while also contributing to a more nuanced understanding of china, countering prevalent stereotypes. the literature informing this analysis encompasses research on national image construction methodologies, deconstructionism, constructivism, cognitive development theory, and medio-translatology. 2. generalization of china on the move china on the move is a two-season documentary series, with its 1 st season co-produced by shanghai media group (smg) and the uk‟s lion television, while the 2 nd season was a collaborative effort between smg and discovery church international (dci). the documentary was broadcast across multiple international television channels, including sino vision in the united states, odc in north america, bfc in italy, and atv spirit in hungary. additionally, it was distributed on overseas digital platforms such as facebook, twitter, youtube, and shanghai eye, where it garnered widespread acclaim from global audiences. adopting a sino-foreign co-production model, the documentary takes on an international perspective, utilizing vivid personal narratives and extensive interviews to portray a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 211 published by scholink inc. multifaceted, contemporary image of china. the series addresses five key areas—economy, governance, science and technology, ecology, and livelihoods—while also emphasizing significant initiatives such as poverty alleviation and pandemic response. the documentary has received several prestigious awards, including best documentary short at the 13th chicago independent film festival and the gold award for television documentary at the 44th annual telly awards in the united states. moreover, the french version of the 2 nd season was featured at two prominent offline events: the inaugural paris china-france forum at unesco headquarters and the “china audiovisuelle exhibition” organized by the national radio and television administration in paris. 3. literature review research on the methods of constructing china‟s national image has largely concentrated on the conventional dichotomy between self-shaping and other-shaping. these studies typically characterize self-shaping as a positive force, while other-shaping is perceived as detrimental to the formation of china‟s national image. although self-driven dissemination efforts are somewhat constrained by cognitive biases and various external factors, it is widely recognized that china is making concerted efforts to enhance its self-shaping capacities and transform the predominance of other-shaping within the global media landscape. however, this perspective is increasingly regarded as one-dimensional and subjective, as it overlooks the fact that china‟s international image construction still operates within the broader context of a relatively weaker cultural communication system. in response, scholars such as shao peng, associate dean and professor at the college of humanities, zhejiang university of technology, have underscored the positive potential of joint-shaping strategies in the international promotion of chinese culture. these scholars contend that by integrating the controllability of self-shaping with the expansive dissemination channels of other-shaping, it is possible to mitigate the limitations of both approaches. furthermore, studies of cognitive development theory suggest that self-shaping often leads to “egocentric bias” (samuel et al., 2019, p. 3), affecting both message senders and recipients. this bias is influenced by various factors, including “physiological similarities” (wu menghui et al., 2022, p. 138; muto et al., 2018) and “cultural differences between east and west” (wu menghui et al., 2022, p. 138; zhai et al., 2021), all of which shape china‟s international image to varying degrees. to minimize egocentric bias, it is crucial to adopt a “visual perspective taking (vpt)” (michelon & zacks, 2006, p. 327). research on deconstructionism and constructivism has primarily focused on the core tenets of these theories. deconstructionism is not simply a method of breaking down and analyzing components. rather, it is a strategy—specifically one of anti-logocentrism that emphasizes decentralization and marginalization (du xiaozhen, 2000, p. 95). one of deconstructionism‟s defining features is its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 212 published by scholink inc. openness, as evidenced by the dissolution of binary oppositions and the concepts like différance (wang quan, 2004, p. 69). this deconstructionist strategy permeates the entire documentary. conversely, jean piaget‟s constructivism emphasizes the interpretation of current situations through existing experiences, evoking empathy in audiences and thereby mitigating egocentric bias. this constructivist approach underpins the documentary‟s narrative structure. medio-translatology (xie tianzhen, 1999), a sub-discipline of comparative literature, focuses on linguistic variation within translation studies. this field has expanded beyond traditional translation concerns, addressing factors such as the reading habits, cognitive styles, and ideological contexts of target-language audiences, which directly influence the effectiveness of international communication. current translation practices often prioritize the act of translation itself, overlooking the constraints imposed by these external factors (xie tianzhen, 2014, pp. 5-7). for example, studies on translating subtitles for documentaries aimed at international audiences are popular among scholars, but they do not figure out the fact that overseas viewers often find subtitles disruptive to the viewing experience. the importance of the translator‟s subjectivity and “creative rebellion” as fundamental principles should be emphasized in cross-cultural communication (xu jun, 2003, p. 8). at the same time, constructivist translation theories provide necessary constraints on deconstructionist strategies, ensuring that creative liberties remain within appropriate boundaries (lü jun, 2005, pp. 36-37). this balance further validates the rationality of combining deconstructionist and constructivist strategies in the translation and communication of china on the move. while there has been limited research on china on the move, existing studies have largely focused on cross-cultural communication strategies, multimodal discourse analysis, narrative techniques, and the role of media rituals in constructing national identity. han guozhen et al. (2024) explored the “7w” model in cross-cultural communication, analyzing the communication subjects, content, and audience, and concluded that documentaries should cater to international audience preferences, adopt an international narrative perspective, and lower the barriers to global dissemination. mu yujia (2023) conducted a multimodal discourse analysis using visual grammar, examining the representational, interactive, and compositional aspects of china on the move, highlighting the positive impact of visual construction on cross-cultural communication. yang yingying et al. (2024) examined narrative choices in the 2 nd season of the documentary, focusing on topic selection, narrative strategies, structure, and perspective, and emphasized the importance of co-productions considering international audience preferences, finding common cultural ground, and adopting foreign perspectives to enhance credibility and facilitate acceptance by overseas audiences. zhan weizhen et al. (2022) discussed how media rituals create national identity across temporal and spatial dimensions, offering insights into how chinese promotional films could utilize media rituals to strengthen national identity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 213 published by scholink inc. overall, research on china on the move has been fragmented, lacking a comprehensive analysis of the philosophical and psychological frameworks underpinning the documentary‟s strategies. this study seeks to fill that gap by providing a macro-level examination of the documentary as a whole. 4. strategies for national image construction 4.1 approaches to national image construction the construction of a country‟s international image typically encompasses both “self-shaping” and “other-shaping” approaches. self-shaping refers to the proactive efforts of a country to create and project its image, positioning itself as the primary agent of communication. in contrast, other-shaping transpires when a country‟s image is passively constructed by external actors, often other nations (liu zhen, 2013, p. 106). a critical aspect of this process is the identity of the individuals or groups involved in image-shaping activities, as their identity significantly affects the audience‟s capacity to relate and identify with the projected image. historically, china‟s international image has been largely shaped by external forces, particularly through the lens of western countries, with the united states assuming a leading role. western media that dominate over 90% of global news dissemination (yan wenbin, 2016, p. 17), have largely controlled the narrative. this media monopoly, akin to monopolistic market structures, tends to impede the evolution of narratives, as the absence of external checks and balances frequently culminates in a stagnation of perspectives and a violation of communicative equity. within this unilateral narrative framework, china‟s image has progressively become one-dimensional, biased, and stereotyped—a consequence of sustained monopolistic dominance. according to a survey by the pew research center conducted in april 2024, 81% of americans reported a negative perception of china, marking the highest percentage recorded since the survey‟s inception. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 214 published by scholink inc. figure 1. survey on opinion of china (from pew research center, april 30, 2024) 4.2 constraints of logocentrism in national image construction china has long sought to rectify western misconceptions through self-driven efforts to shape its international image. however, owing to the information asymmetry engendered by the media monopoly, these initiatives have attained only limited success. additionally, china‟s focus on constructing its image solely from its own perspective has struggled to disrupt the prevailing information flow patterns from high-density to low-density regions, and at times, has even yielded unintended negative consequences. “it has been argued that china has been unable to shed its image of an „international propagandist [that has been] inherited from the years past‟” (ho, 2021, p. 94). given complex international factors, it is understandable that china, for a time, concentrated on self-shaping while resisting external influences. this approach, shaped by logocentric thinking, is evident in practices such as the addition of subtitles to documentaries, exclusive reliance on domestic media for dissemination, and the presentation of exclusively positive interviews with national experts. these actions illustrate the limitations imposed by logocentrism. logocentrism, a concept introduced by german philosopher ludwig klages in the 1920s, emphasizes the primacy of logos in philosophical systems, forming the core of western metaphysics. a key feature of logocentrism is its reliance on binary oppositions, such as male and female, truth and falsehood, wherein one side typically dominates. within the context of national image construction, self-shaping and other-shaping are treated as binary opposites, with self-shaping regarded as central and original, whereas other-shaping is deemed secondary and marginal. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 215 published by scholink inc. 4.3 deconstructionist strategy china on the move diverges from conventional approaches to national image construction by incorporating deconstructionism, as the production team employed innovative strategies and communication techniques to transcend the logocentric model typically used in international promotion. deconstructionism, introduced by french philosopher jacques derrida in the 1960s, critiques the structuralism and logocentrism inherent in western metaphysics, challenging binary oppositions and centralism while emphasizing marginalized individuals and groups. the documentary utilizes deconstructionist concepts such as différance and supplementarity to make self-shaping and other-shaping complementary, thereby dissolving the subjective-objective dichotomy in national image construction. as sino-foreign co-productions increasingly dominate china‟s international communication efforts, deconstructionist strategies have become increasingly prevalent. for instance, china central television (cctv) documentary channel co-produced in partnership with big pacific with natural history new zealand, and speed kills with the smithsonian channel and south africa‟s earth touch. both documentaries employ nonlinear narrative techniques, rejecting traditional chronological structures in favor of fragmented timelines and juxtaposed scenes or themes. this non-conventional structure challenges the audience‟s expectations of linear storytelling, prompting active engagement in constructing meaning from the fragmented content. similarly, winter gold, co-produced with the dutch insight tv, reinterprets the symbolic meanings of “winter” and “gold medal” by focusing on the unique appeal of winter sports in china and the athletes‟ journeys, thereby expanding these concepts beyond seasonal or competitive contexts. in smart china: start up revolution, co-produced by the china international communication center and the uk‟s meridian line films, the entrepreneurial ecosystem in china is explored through the perspectives of entrepreneurs, investors, and scholars. this multi-perspective approach challenges the limitations inherent to singular narrative, encouraging viewers to consider diverse viewpoints. 4.3.1 decentralization in deconstructionist strategy in documentaries, visual footage offers the most immediate impact on the audience, with the identities of characters playing a pivotal role in evoking emotional resonance. in selecting character shots and interview subjects, the footage is categorized into self-shaping (chinese participants), other-shaping (foreign participants), and joint-shaping based on the identities of the interviewees (group dynamics). this categorization is accomplished using a combination of keyframe extraction techniques and descriptive statistical analysis. 4.3.2 application of deconstructionism in character portrayal in the 2 nd season of china on the move, british director arthur jones emerged from behind the scenes for the first time to engage directly with the audience. by gathering diverse perspectives and conducting on-site investigations, he portrayed a favorable image of china‟s economy. the 2 nd segment, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 216 published by scholink inc. which centers on the economy, examines how china balances its domestic and international markets, sustains high-quality economic growth under the dual pressures of environmental concerns and trade conflicts, and explores its potential to inject new vitality into the global economy. the documentary features 269 character shots in total, with 125 focusing on chinese individuals (approximately 46%) and 78 showcasing foreign individuals (some 28%). these character portrayals, serving as a crucial visual communication instrument, directly correspond to the concepts of self-shaping and other-shaping, wherein chinese and foreign individuals representing each approach, respectively. 4.3.3 application of deconstructionism in selecting interview subjects while selfand other-shaping are widely acknowledged as two primary methods of national image construction and have been extensively analyzed in academic discourse, they do not the entirety of possible approaches. deconstructionist strategies blur the boundaries between these two methods, organically merging them to produce a third, often overlooked approach—joint-shaping. this strategy offers a more “moderate” method for the construction of national identity. in the economy segment of the documentary, 66 instances feature both chinese and foreign individuals together, representing approximately 26% of the total shots. when otherand joint-shaping are combined as non-first-person perspective methods, they account for 54% of the documentary, while first-person perspectives constitute 46%. by strategically arranging the identities and appearances of individuals or groups in these shots, the documentary fosters a sense of identity among international audiences, thereby reducing ideological resistance in cross-cultural communication. figure 1. the types of figure shots for national image shaping (s2e02) the figure above illustrates the frequency and distribution of interviews from various perspectives in the politics segment of china on the move. according to the statistics, interview content is directly cited 34 times: 15 citations from foreign interviews (other-shaping), 9 from chinese interviews (self-shaping), and 10 from interactive interviews (joint-shaping). the frequency distribution of these three shaping methods creates an “inverted trapezoid” pattern in the figure. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 217 published by scholink inc. ·other-shaping ·self-shaping ·joint-shaping figure 2. the arrangement of interviews from different perspectives (s2e01) figure 2 illustrates the distribution of self-shaping, other-shaping, and joint-shaping interviews across different time dimensions in s2e01. the horizontal axis represents the duration of the documentary. by employing frame-capture techniques, the first frame in which interviewees appear in each type of interview is pinpointed, thereby revealing their distribution throughout the entire documentary. the frequency and distribution of foreign interviews correspond with the upper base of the inverted trapezoid, spanning the longest duration. the documentary introduces its first interview at 5:10, featuring western scholar daniel a. bell discussing his perspective on china‟s meritocratic political system, and concludes at 33:37 with john ross, former director of economic & business policy for the mayor of london, providing a comprehensive assessment of china‟s political system. consequently, the documentary begins and ends with an other-shaping approach. of the 15 foreign interviews cited, 11 are situated in the final ten minutes, while the remaining 4 appear within the first ten minutes. the production team strategically employs the primacy and recency effects (ladins, 1957) by positioning foreign interviews at the outset to create a “primacy effect” that shapes overseas viewers‟ initial impressions of china‟s image (ma yan, 2009, p. 62). furthermore, the “recency effect” reinforces the audience‟s memory of the high-frequency other-shaping content at the end of the film, making it more impactful than the self-shaping segments in the middle. this symmetry from beginning to end deepens the connection with international audiences and reinforces their sense of identification. therefore, selfand joint-shaping gradually unfold like a scroll throughout the documentary, with chinese and interactive interviews alternating to propel the narrative forward. as a more moderate approach, joint-shaping occurs with a frequency and distribution corresponds to the lower base of the inverted trapezoid, spreading more evenly than the other two methods. this relatively subtle joint-shaping method cirumvents the perception of excessive self-promotion while preserving objectivity and neutrality (shao peng, 2020, p. 119). on a broader level, the documentary itself, as a sino-foreign co-production, exemplifies the joint-shaping approach. by targeting shared denominators in storytelling, it enables the audience to feel as though their own stories are being conveyed, thus forging a connection between the chinese narrative and the viewers, which is vital for achieving www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 218 published by scholink inc. optimal communication effects (shao peng, 2018, p. 13). china on the move employs the deconstructionist concepts of différance and supplementarity to alternate and the integration of the three shaping methods in character shots and interviews. by mitigating egocentric bias, the documentary presents a comprehensive, and objective portrayal of a multidimensional, vivid, and authentic image of china to its audience. 4.4 marginalization in the deconstructionist strategy two fundamental aspects of the deconstructionist strategy are the decentralization of focus and emphasis on marginalization. the documentary achieves decentralization through its production choices, shot selection, and the diversity of interview subjects. in terms of character roles and content, it strategically highlights marginalization. conventional approaches to constructing a national image frequently focus on portraying china from a macro perspective, emphasizing economic growth and showcasing the nation‟s development and contributions, while downplaying its challenges. although understandable, this macro-level portrayal could make it difficult for ordinary people to emotionally connect with such distant narratives. for many, these large-scale presentations feel too remote; they are more interested in learning about daily life and personal stories from foreign lands than hearing content resembling a state of the union address. moreover, a sole focus on positive aspects may risk being perceived as propaganda. china on the move adopts a strategy of emphasizing marginalization, reflecting china‟s broader image through the everyday experiences of ordinary people (petty narratives). instead of relying on grand narratives, the documentary foregrounds the challenges china has faced and the solutions implemented, replacing realism‟s grand narratives with postmodern, engaging stories. differences in political systems and ideologies have long posed sensitive issues and obstacles in the international communication of national images. nevertheless, china on the move integrates elements of the superstructure into the everyday lives of ordinary individuals. for instance, it recounts the story of zi yang-ping, a jino ethnic doctor from the jino mountain township health center, who also served as a member of the national committee of the chinese people‟s political consultative conference (cppcc). her village, once on the migration route of wild asian elephants, suffered annual damage to houses and crops. after conducting field visits, gathering local feedback, and listening to opinions, zi submitted an “elephant proposal” during the 2022 two sessions, which was eventually adopted and implemented. consequently, the government began compensating residents for damages caused by wild animals. that year, cppcc members like zi, submitted 6,000 proposals, all of which were addressed or processed within the legally mandated timeframe. through the story of a jino ethnic doctor and a group of wild elephants, china on the move introduces international audiences to the concept of the whole-process of people’s democracy, illustrating how china‟s political system, socialism with chinese characteristics, functions in operates. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 219 published by scholink inc. 5. constructivism strategies for national image construction 5.1 reasons for adopting constructivist strategies in the context of global communication of china‟s national image, conflicts between the constructed image and foreign audiences‟ preconceptions could lead to resistance. china on the move addresses this by acknowledging the challenges faced by china, rather than solely promoting its achievements. it aligns the narrative with the concerns of foreign audiences, using these tensions to subtly guide viewers in reconstructing china‟s image. this approach reflects jean piaget‟s theory of constructivism, which emphasizes that knowledge and problem-solving are actively constructed through interpreting new situations in light of existing knowledge and experience. 5.2 principles for adopting constructivist strategies “effective communication requires adopting the perspective of others; however, we often make errors by relying on our own subjective experiences to predict others‟ reactions” (kelley & jacoby, 1996, p. 173). this tendency, known as egocentrism bias, constitutes a primary cause of communication barriers and failures in social interactions (wu menghui et al., 2022, p. 179). china on the move applies deconstructionist strategies to address egocentrism bias. despite china‟s efforts to mitigate this bias in constructing its national image, effective communication remains a bidirectional process. a collaborative study by michigan state university, the university of chicago, and indiana university analyzed 104,365 adults from 63 countries, revealing that individuals across individualistic societies tend to exhibit lower levels of empathy compared to those from collectivist societies (chopik et al., 2017, pp. 8-22). additionally, cultural comparisons between east and west indicate that individualistic societies, which emphasize independence, generally foster lower empathy than collectivist societies that promote interdependence (markus & kitayam, 1991, pp. 247-248), which presents a cross-cultural communication challenge for both the national image construction of china and the understandings of audiences. the long-standing imbalance in cultural information flow between east and west reinforces entrenched knowledge and experiences, posing challenges for some foreign audiences to fully recognize china‟s evolving international image, even when presented with factual content in the documentary. to address this, china on the move adopts a constructivist strategy, engaging with international concerns and clarifying the logic behind china‟s current achievements. 5.3 application and effects of constructivism the stereotypes of china, propagated by western media, tend to deepen as individuals mature. it is fact that the national images are formed mostly in childhood (boulding, 1959, p. 122). given that, the process of constructing china‟s national image is essentially an address of pre-existing stereotypes. however, imposed images are fragile by comparison with those which are deeply internalized (boulding, 1959, p. 122). it is urgent to shift strategies in content selection and narrative during the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 220 published by scholink inc. process of constructing the national image. 5.3.1 content selection china on the move adheres to the principle of “the globalization of local media and the localization of global media” (michael, 2019, p. 188), integrating global values, western culture, and contemporary elements into the construction of china‟s national image. “by employing universal communication techniques, the documentary interprets its culture and core principles, leveraging international platforms to convey china‟s stories, solutions, and models, aligning with global trends and promoting its culture” (shao peiren & shen jun, 2017, p. 73). in selecting content, it incorporates global challenges such as human rights, gender equality, climate change, and desertification to showcase china‟s contributions to the world, balancing its distinct characteristics with global values. 5.3.2 narrative in its narrative, the documentary applies a storytelling technique that contrasts with the monotonous rhythm typical of conventional documentaries. by interweaving conflict and resolution, it effectively combines the “record” elements of documentary filmmaking with the “narrative” aspects of feature films (li zhongzhi, 2016, p. 82), resulting in a dynamic and engaging storyline. empathy functions as a catalyst in the constructivist approach, encouraging foreign audiences to actively engage in constructing china‟s image. “while telling stories with facts is essential, effective communication techniques are equally important. these techniques allow for skillful and precise delivery of information, engaging the audience emotionally and fostering strong empathetic communication” (shao peng, 2020, p. 119). china‟s poverty alleviation efforts stand as a prominent “national card”, highlighting its significant contribution to global poverty reduction. over an eight-year period, china successfully lifted 98,990,000 people out of poverty by the end of 2020 (from poverty alleviation: china’s experience and contribution), becoming the 1 st country to achieve the united nations millennium development goals (mdgs) and leading the world in the number of people lifted out of poverty. this achievement has been recognized by the united nations and offers a “chinese solution” to other countries. ·conflict ·mitigation figure 3. the arrangement of the conflict and mitigation (s1e01) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 221 published by scholink inc. figure 3 displays the distribution of conflicts and solutions in s1e01. the horizontal axis represents the duration of the documentary. the black dots below the axis indicate conflict points, while the above denote solutions. the alternating appearance of these points presents a stable, zigzag wave pattern, which illustrates how the 1 st season of the documentary employs a narrative structure of “posing a problem—analyzing the problem—solving the problem”, interweaving conflict and resolution to demonstrate how china accomplished its poverty alleviation goals. table 1. the abstracts of the conflict and mitigation conflict [(x)] mitigation [x] (1) women lack of opportunities a. integration of fashion and ethnic elements (2) cheap labor, low income b. embroidery cooperated with garment industry (3) land desertification for farmers c. ant forest app for tree planting (4) poverty due to desertification d. ant forest jobs and reforestation (5) low land utilization in yunnan province e. coffee cultivation based on demand (6) unscientific coffee farming practices f. starbucks-cfpa coffee support project the documentary introduces six points of conflict, which are grouped into three pairs, with each pair leading to a corresponding solution. these conflicts and solutions unfold progressively, increasing in complexity. for instance, the sequence “(1) → a → (2) → b” illustrates one such pair, demonstrating how bouyei women integrated traditional handicrafts with the modern fashion industry to lift themselves out of poverty through entrepreneurship. the other two groups represent marginalized communities: farmers battling desertification and coffee plantation owners lacking farming experience. these perspectives emphasize the “solutions with chinese characteristic” in the fight against poverty. rather than merely listing china‟s poverty reduction achievements—represented as grey points in the figure—it presents the process of constructing china‟s international image through a spiral of problem identification and resolution. this approach enables the audience grasp not only what was achieved but also how and why these successes were realized. 6. translation and communication of constructed national image translation and communication play a pivotal role in the international dissemination of a nation‟s image, directly influencing how effectively the pre-constructed image is conveyed abroad. today, conventional translation practices, with their limited scope, no longer suffice to meet the demands of international exchange. as a form of cross-cultural communication, the dissemination of a national image overseas requires not only employing effective translation strategies but also considering the factors that constrain and shape the translation process. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 222 published by scholink inc. 6.1 the deconstructionist strategy in translation the strategy of emphasizing marginalization through grand themes conveyed by petty narratives is a hallmark of deconstructionism and is prominently employed in promotional films. this approach aligns the documentary‟s content more closely with the lives of grassroots individuals, creating a more authentic and relatable style. characters in these stories often come from diverse ethnic backgrounds, regions, and local cultures. during interviews, the presence of dialects and ellipses in speech challenges translators to move beyond literal translation. instead, they must apply the deconstructionist principle of “creative rebellion”, using their subjective initiative to reveal the underlying meanings of the original content but not just focusing on “loyalty”. in doing so, the translator takes on a more active role in shaping the message conveyed to international audiences. the deconstructionist strategy in translation was inspired by roland barthes‟ 1968 concept of “the death of the author”, which challenges the conventional centrality of the author in interpreting a text. barthes, a key scholar in deconstructionism, proposed that the completion of a work marks the end of the author‟s dominance, allowing readers—and in the case of cross-cultural communication, translators—to interpret the work independently of the original intent. the “hollow onion” theory by barthes suggests that texts have multiple layers and dimensions, and it is the role of the reader, or translator, to peel back those layers and construct meaning based on their own perspective. this approach directly challenges the notion of textual centralism and allows for a more flexible, dynamic interpretation of the original work. with the growth of intercultural communication, translators have emerged as a third entity between the author and reader. historically, translators acted as “ferrymen”, striving to remain faithful to the author by translating as accurately as possible. however, the rise of deconstructionism and concepts like “textual indeterminacy” and “creative rebellion” have challenged conventional translation practices. these ideas question the authority of the original work and the feasibility of achieving complete equivalence between source and target languages (xie tianzhen, 2002, p. 31). attempting such equivalence could result in mistranslation, which may hinder the dissemination of a nation‟s image. deconstructionism emphasizes the translator‟s subjective initiative, allowing for the systematic disruption and reassembly of the original text. this process enables the work to survive and reach new audiences through translation (huang zhending, 2005, p. 21). in this context, readers engage more with the translator‟s reinterpretation than the original author‟s work. the quality of the translation directly influences the audience‟s ability to accurately comprehend the documentary‟s intended message. for example: original text：我的手，小的时候七岁，跟父母干农活，为了轧糖，轧断了左手。后来就是说我 干别的，抬也抬不动，扛也扛不了，自己慢慢想来学刺绣，要有耐心一点（每天）要学 6 个小时。 到今年的话就是 40 多年了。(the sentence is selected from an interview in the documentary.) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 223 published by scholink inc. translation：when i was seven years old, i was doing farm work with my parents, my left arm was crushed (by the machine making sugar). (i needed a job to make a living,) but i couldn‟t lift or carry things, (so) i thought about embroidery. (at first,) i had to be patient and learned (the skill) for six hours (a day). (i‟ve been doing embroidery) for over 40 years. (the translation has been provided in the interview) the characteristic of chinese having a higher information density than other languages, which means it could convey the same amount of information with fewer characters. this often results in the omission of implied meanings during translation. deconstructionist translation strategies allow translators to apply their subjective initiative (as shown in the brackets in the translation version) to make the implicit logic in chinese explicit in english, thereby avoiding potential translation errors. without destructively reorganizing the original text, it would be challenging for the audience to fully grasp the meaning, potentially leading to serious misunderstandings. for instance, consider the first underlined sentence in the original text: without amplification or logical clarification, it could lead to the following mistranslation: “my hand, when i was seven years old, doing farm work with parents, in order to make sugar, i broke my left hand.” therefore, if the translation strictly adhered to equivalence theory, the result might seem formally accurate but would distort the original meaning. by applying deconstructionist translation strategies, the documentary production team made the implicit logic explicit, effectively preventing mistranslations. 6.2 constructivist translation strategy the constructivist translation approach is informed by the principles of consensus-based truth, relativism, and the role of language as a medium with social functions, which shape both constructivist translation practices and media strategies. while deconstructionism and constructivism share certain foundational elements, they differ in significant ways. deconstructionist translation strategies emphasize the creativity and agency of the translator and reader, suggesting that their interpretations of a text may differ from that of the original author. fundamentally, there is no essential difference between the two approaches. however, deconstructionism highlights individual differences in interpretation without imposing constraints, particularly with respect to the influence of “pre-understanding structures” (or egocentrism bias). this absence of limitations could lead to multiple interpretations, carrying the risk of generating arbitrary meanings (lü jun, 2005, p. 37). constructivism, by contrast, introduces constraint mechanisms within the deconstructionist framework, limiting the arbitrariness of meaning generation and ensuring that the dissemination of the national image remains stable and neutral. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 224 published by scholink inc. as a paradigm of sino-foreign co-production, china on the move actively implements the go global initiatives in its media strategy, collaborating with new media platforms across multiple countries. the documentary is broadcast in various languages during prime time on major platforms such as sino vision, discovery exploration, north american new media odc, bfc in italy, and atv spirit in hungary. the production team carefully considered cultural differences between chinese and western films, opting to exclude subtitles for international audiences—a decision often overlooked but one that many overseas viewers appreciate. this nuance, frequently absent in other documentaries like every treasure tells a story and china in classics, reflects the team‟s sensitivity to audience preferences. additionally, the team expanded and innovated upon the symbolic representation of china throughout production. they enhanced the visual impact of scene transitions through aesthetic design and ai-assisted techniques, utilizing animation, font changes, and other elements to accentuate deeper meanings. 7. discussion as an exemplar of sino-foreign co-produced documentaries, china on the move leverages deconstructionist strategies, such as decentralization and marginalization, to transcend the constraints of logocentrism in constructing china‟s national image. through content selection and narrative techniques, it applies constructivist strategies to reveal the foundational logic underpinning china‟s continuous development, thereby fostering empathy among its audience. in translation and communication, the strategies of deconstructionist translation highlight the indispensable role of the translator‟s subjective initiative, whereas the constructivism one introduces necessary constraints on “creative rebellion.” additionally, international communication must account for the cultural norms and ideologies that influence and constrain translation activities. deconstructionism and constructivism offer novel perspectives and pathways for the construction of national image, fostering curiosity in audiences and encouraging them to critically evaluate different narratives demonstrated by diverse media about china, which would be considered a meaningful step toward fostering greater 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(2022). a study on media rituals and national identity in documentaries: taking china on the move as an example. journalism lover, (03), 64-66. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 20 some lessons from the covid-19 crisis amb. john o. kakonge phd1* 1 president of the association of former international civil servants, kenya * amb. john o. kakonge, president of the association of former international civil servants, kenya received: august 26, 2020 accepted: september 7, 2020 online published: september 16, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n4p20 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n4p20 since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus early in 2020, many lessons have been learned, both positive and negative. this paper considers some general lessons that can be drawn and the implications for future health crises. specifically, it considers the need for preparedness of countries, the necessity of having available personal protection equipment (ppe), the value of nurses, and the importance of scientist participation in decision-making. the article draws from examples across the world but pays special attention to africa. 1. need for countrywide preparedness with a few exceptions (notably, countries in asia), most countries were not prepared for the coronavirus disease (covid-19) pandemic. these include almost all developing countries and developed countries such as france, italy, the united kingdom, and the united states. the countries that were better prepared were predominantly in east asia and southeast asia, namely, china, hong kong, japan, singapore, the republic of korea, taiwan and viet nam. according to gudi et al. (2020), one of the reasons why southeast asian countries have been able to keep their morbidity and mortality rates relatively low, despite their strong links with china where this novel coronavirus originated, is because of their previous experience with the sars pandemic of 2002-2004. most of these countries have established central epidemic centres focusing on biological pathogens, bioterrorism and medical emergencies. gudi et al. (2020) note that within a few days of the outbreak, china was able to combat the fast spread of the virus by building two hospitals, each having around 30 intensive care units and with over 2000 beds. in contrast, hospitals in the united states were not prepared to deal with covid-19, while in the united kingdom, the health system lacked a sufficient number of beds and ppe to assist affected patients. in the case of africa, a report by the african development bank (afdb, 2020) confirms that the majority of african countries were ill-prepared to handle the covid-19 pandemic. based on the global health security (ghs) index, which measures the health security capabilities needed to prevent, detect, and respond to significant infectious disease outbreaks, african countries mostly rank between the 101st and 195th positions on the index, with those ranking below 150 considered to be the least www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 21 published by scholink inc. prepared (afdb, 2020). this level of ill-preparedness has been associated with weak health-care capacity, poor facilities and infrastructure, and inadequate budgetary resources. furthermore, many african countries face an acute shortage of health-care professionals, with some having little or no testing capacity at all, as is the case in lesotho. some african countries, like senegal, have well-established baseline health-care systems (afdb, 2020). these, however, could be overrun should the number of patients rise (afdb, 2020). clearly, there is a need for all countries, including those in africa, to have active contingency plans for pandemics and other medical emergencies which should be regularly updated. if countries had these pandemic contingency plans in place in 2020, it appears that they were either inadequate or were ignored. 2. access to personal protection equipment (ppe) once the coronavirus disease was declared a pandemic by the world health organization (who) in march of this year, there was a rush by health-care facilities and practitioners to buy ppe. given that the pandemic took the world by surprise, many countries, including developed countries in europe and the united states, had either inadequate stocks or none at all. large-scale manufacturers of ppe in brazil, china, india and turkey were unable to meet the demand. in addition, prices went up and developing countries, including those in africa, found themselves at the end of the queue. moreover, once international flights were suspended around mid-march 2020, it was foreseen that there would be delays in receiving supplies. these delays were estimated to be between three to six months. a number of african countries, including kenya, judged the initial supplies that they received to be of very poor quality. in the words of former president john f. kennedy, a crisis represents both danger and opportunity (hoffman, 2018). a number of african countries resolved to produce their ppe locally. for example, the kenyan manufacturing sector has been very active in producing ppe of good quality. there are also small-scale vendors in the country producing masks. these factories and vendors are now employing their own staff and providing them with an income source. in tunisia and morocco, factories have been repurposed to produce protective masks. in morocco and south africa, domestic manufacturers have started to produce ventilators and venturi masks on an industrial scale for the treatment of patients with covid-19. all in all, african countries, with a relatively strong manufacturing base and local capabilities, seem to have been better able to produce medical equipment for dealing with covid-19. these countries are also working with their universities to produce prototype ventilators for critically ill patients. in any event, given that no one knows when this pandemic is going to end, the african countries producing ppe should sustain the capacity that they have developed for future pandemics. moreover, they should stockpile essential items so that they will not be taken by surprise in the future. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 22 published by scholink inc. 3. value of nurses another lesson to be learned from the pandemic relates to recognition and appreciation of the role of nurses in providing health care services. until the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the role of nurses in health care was often overlooked or discounted, especially in africa. as a profession, nursing has little prestige; nurses are poorly paid and, prior to the advent of covid-19, patients did not take nurses seriously, preferring to be attended to by doctors. during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, however, nurses have been heralded as lifesaving heroes on the frontline of the pandemic. according to choi and dermenchyan (2020), the fight against covid-19 is a team effort; 87 per cent of the time patients spend in intensive care units (icu), they are under the care of nurses and only 13 per cent under that of physicians. in addition, as the pandemic intensifies, treating the human effects of covid-19 calls for nursing science (choi & dermenchyan, 2020). wu et al. (2020) endorse the above observation by expressing their highest gratitude and respect to all the nurses who worked with them during the coronavirus pandemic in beijing. without the nurses, they would not have been able to treat the critically ill patients. during this pandemic, one lesson which has become heartbreakingly clear is that patients must be isolated from their families and loved ones. families say goodbye at the door of the hospital, knowing that they may not see one another again. but they are not alone; nurses and other health-care professionals administer to these patients as if they were their sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, or significant others. “they are with the patient during intubation, proning, procedures and even when death is inevitable” (woods, 2020). they celebrate the wins and cry with the losses. nurses are our heroes! by an ironic but felicitous coincidence, who had declared 2020 to be the “international year of the nurse and midwife” in celebration of the 200th birthday of florence nightingale. phillips and catrambone (2020) conclude that nurses will always be on the frontlines of global pandemics. nurses are the real cause for celebration, both during and beyond the covid-19 crisis. 4. importance of scientist participation the role and importance of scientists and public health experts has become increasingly clear during the continuing coronavirus pandemic. most of the countries that appear to have contained the coronavirus, such as china, costa rica, germany, new zealand, republic of korea, taiwan, and uruguay, have done so owing to the guidance and support of public health experts and infectious disease scientists. under normal circumstances, subjects like epidemiology, virology, immunology, molecular microbiology, biochemistry, biophysics and infectious diseases have never received much attention in academic circles, especially in africa. there is no doubt, however, that the covid-19 crisis has highlighted the fact that science plays a vital role in supporting public health and, in fact, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 23 published by scholink inc. returning countries to earlier economic levels. since the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, many medical scientists have worked closely with doctors and nurses to contain or combat the disease. despite the delays in political recognition of the coronavirus, the scientific community was already on the front lines. for example, by the time that politicians and the world at large began taking the virus seriously, scientists had already determined the full genome sequence of the virus itself, sar-cov-2, isolated clinical samples, and were searching for drug combinations that could be used to fight this new strain (straiton, 2020). the skills of the scientific community are needed now more than ever. they will be helping the world not only by finding solutions to the unknown, but also by sharing information that can allay public fears about covid-19 while encouraging public participation in recommended prevention methods. for example, in the united states, dr. antony fauci, the us government’s top infectious diseases scientist, has helped to curtail the panic about covid-19 and “continues to engage with the public in all sorts of settings and on their terms” (sholts, 2020). according to the united nations department of economic and social affairs (un desa, 2020), public trust in science is essential for science-based policies to succeed, and science-based policies are essential to resolving global challenges. in the case of covid-19, all individuals must trust scientific guidance if they are to alter their behaviour and lower the rates of transmission. public confidence in science-based approaches to the pandemic is demonstrated by the uptake by the general public of such scientific phrases as “flattening the curve”, which has proved effective in encouraging people to remain indoors to limit the spread. thus too, science will provide us with an “exit strategy” from the pandemic when a vaccine is finally developed; in the meantime, scientists are helping us to understand the origin of the virus, how it spreads, what treatments are most effective, and indeed if a cure is possible. as acknowledged by scholts (2020), “the fewer people in the dark, the better off everyone will be. we are in this together”. 5. summary and conclusion the topics discussed are related and are critical for the successful containment of the novel coronavirus disease. clearly, health-care workers must be protected with quality ppe to avoid infections and contamination in africa and elsewhere. moreover, the knowledge and expertise of scientists and researchers are critical in the war on covid-19. african governments need to be well equipped, including having stocks of ppe, and well-trained nurses, physicians, and scientists in essential fields. according to the united nations secretary-general’s policy paper on the impact of covid-19 in africa (human rights watch, 2020), mauritius has the second-highest level of preparedness on the continent. this is because the country has universal health coverage, a strong laboratory system to conduct relevant research, and strong political will. this should be instructive to all other african www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 24 published by scholink inc. countries. under the abuja declaration on hiv/aids, tuberculosis and other related infectious diseases of 2001, member-states of the african union pledged to allocate a minimum of 15 per cent of their national budgets to the improvement of their health sectors. therefore, african countries should honour their financial pledge towards their health sector. further, african countries need carefully to review the current state of their health-care infrastructure and make meaningful investments, which in turn will enhance the capacity and abilities of the health workers to fulfill their duties, especially during a pandemic such as the current one. moreover, because of low investment in the health-care sector, nurses and doctors in most african countries are not adequately remunerated and this, in turn, has affected their morale. as one african medical professor has noted, “africa is a continent that fails to learn lessons. every time we have a lassa outbreak, we always approach it as a new one” (human rights watch, 2020). obviously, this should not be the case post covid-19. in short, the issues discussed earlier about covid-19 are interrelated, namely the nature of preparedness, the importance of ppe availability, and the recognition of the invaluable role of nurses and scientists. these issues must be prioritized by developing countries, including those in africa, as health crises will continue to challenge aspects of our everyday lives. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and not necessarily associated with afics-kenya. references african development bank group (afdb). (2020). african economic outlook 2020 supplement, amid covid-19. african development bank group. retrieved august 11, 2020, from www.afdb.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/afdb20-04_aeo_supplement_full_report_ for_web_0705.pdf choi, k., & dermenchyan, a. (2020). the nursing science behind nurses as coronavirus hospital heroes. stat, first opinion, 30 july 2020. retrieved august 10, 2020, from www.statnews.com/2020/07/30/science-behind-nurses-as-coronavirus-hospital-heroes/ gudi, k. s., & others. (2020). preparedness and lessons learned from covid 19. plos, 7 july 2020. retrieved august 12, 2020, from https://yoursay.plos.org/2020/07/07/preparedness-and-lessons-learned-from-covid-19/ hoffman, r. (2018). words that matter. retrieved august 10, 2020, from https://medium.com/wordsthatmatter/never-waste-a-serious-w%c4%93ij%c4%ab-%e5%8d%b www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 25 published by scholink inc. 1%e6%9c%ba-34d40c6768d2 human rights watch. (2020). africa: covid 19 exposes health care shortfall, 5 june 2020. retrieved august 12, 2020, from https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/08/africa-covid-19-exposes-healthcare-shortfalls phillips, c., & catrambone, c. (2020). nurses are playing a crucial role in this pandemic—as always. scientific american—observations opinion, 4 may 2020. retrieved august 9, 2020, from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/nurses-are-playing-a-crucial-role-in-this-pande mic-mdash-as-always/ sholts, s. (2020). accurate science communication is key in the fight against covid-19. world economic forum, 19 march 2020. retrieved august 9, 2020, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/science-communication-covid-coronavirus/ straiton, j. (2020). covid-19: how has the scientific community risen to the challenge? future science, biotechniques, 68(5). retrieved august 8, 2020, from https://doi.org/10.2144/btn-2020-0041 united nations department of economic social affairs (un desa). (2020). covid-19 response demands better use of science and technology, 22 april 2020, new york. retrieved august 8, 2020, from https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/policy/covid-19-response-demands-better-use-of-s cience-and-technology.html woods, a. d. (2020). lessons learned from the frontline. nursing center blog, 30 may 2020. retrieved august 7, 2020, from https://www.nursingcenter.com/ncblog/may-2020/lessons-learned-from-the-frontline wu, x., guo, n., zhou, n., & zhang, s. (2020). containing covid 19: crucial role of nurses. the bmj opinion, 4 may 2020. retrieved august 9, 2020, from https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/05/04/containing-covid-19-crucial-role-of-nurses/ https://www.nursingcenter.com/ncblog/may-2020/lessons-learned-from-the-frontline communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 118 original paper how photojournalism avoids visual violence lu hanxin 1* 1 sichuan university, sichuan, chengdu, china * lu hanxin, sichuan university, sichuan, chengdu, china received: july 27, 2024 accepted: august 5, 2024 online published: august 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p118 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p118 abstract photojournalism stands as one of the primary means of visual communication, wielding a profound social impact. it serves not only as a recorder of events but also as a catalyst for evoking public sentiment. however, in the pursuit of maximizing news value, many images have sparked considerable societal debate due to their depiction of violence. this so-called “visual violence” can not only psychologically impact audiences but also incite moral discussions within society. the emergence of visual violence is often intended to capture attention, enhance media click-through rates, and boost visibility, yet this practice can, to a certain extent, overlook the psychological resilience and moral boundaries of the audience. thus, how to avoid visual violence in photojournalism has become a critical issue that the modern news industry must confront. keywords photojournalism, visual violence, measures 1. introduction with the rapid advancement of news media, the prominence of visual imagery in journalism has steadily increased. however, an overemphasis on visual impact has led to an influx of sensationalist images across various media platforms, resulting in what is termed “visual violence”. visual violence encompasses not only the direct depiction of violent images but also those that may provoke discomfort or emotional upheaval in viewers. as news photographers capture the realities of the world, they must also bear responsibility for the potential societal effects of their work. when images transcend mere information dissemination to become instruments influencing public psyche, visual violence emerges. while news photography serves to reveal the truth, it also bears the duty of safeguarding the audience’s emotional and psychological well-being, rather than merely pursuing shock value. to prevent the proliferation of visual violence, media professionals must adhere to stricter ethical scrutiny and professional standards regarding image usage to avoid unnecessary societal harm. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 119 published by scholink inc. 2. concept and characterization of visual violence visual violence refers to the phenomenon in news photography where images, through their depiction of violence, bloodshed, or extreme situations, impose a profound psychological impact or discomfort upon the audience. this form of violence is not merely reflected in the content of the image itself but is also embodied in the emotions and values conveyed by the image. visual violence often employs intense realism or deliberate exaggeration to place the audience in a passive position, compelling them to confront brutal realities and thereby inducing psychological tension, fear, or even numbness. visual violence is characterized by several prominent features. firstly, it exerts a profound emotional shock. such images frequently contain overt elements of violence, such as scenes of war, disaster, or crime, with the aim of enhancing the news appeal by eliciting strong emotional responses from the viewers (lucaites & hariman, 2001). secondly, this form of violence often transcends the actual requirements of the event, becoming a tool for emotional manipulation. in the pursuit of “truth”, news images may selectively present or excessively magnify certain details with the intent of provoking specific emotional reactions in the audience. finally, visual violence is frequently accompanied by moral dilemmas. photographers capturing reality may face conflicts between ethical standards and professional integrity: whether to present the truth as it is or to consider the psychological tolerance of the audience. visual violence is not merely a matter of “violent imagery” but represents a deeper level of emotional manipulation, involving a profound understanding of the audience’s psychology and moral responsibility. when an image transcends the mere facts of the news and becomes a means of inciting emotions, visual violence is thus created. avoiding visual violence is crucial not only for protecting the audience but also for upholding the objectivity and fairness of journalism. for news photographers, understanding and preventing the intrusion of visual violence is key to fulfilling social responsibility and professional ethics. 3. problem analysis 3.1 overpresentation of violent images the excessive depiction of violent imagery in news photography has become a grave issue, challenging the public’s psychological endurance and sparking extensive debate on media ethics. the prevalence of such imagery is driven by complex factors. modern media, often driven by competition, prioritizes sensationalism to capture viewers’ attention, resorting to violent images as a means to this end. however, the frequent display of such content can render audiences passive recipients, leading to a diminished sensitivity to violence over time and potentially causing emotional numbness or psychological issues. news photography should fundamentally aim to reveal the truth, but when the pursuit of visual impact overshadows this goal, the use of violent imagery frequently loses its journalistic value, shifting towards mere sensory stimulation. this overexposure not only distorts the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 120 published by scholink inc. reality of events but may inadvertently romanticize violence, even offering a dubious rationale for such behavior. moreover, the proliferation of violent imagery can have broader societal repercussions, particularly when sensitive incidents or vulnerable groups are involved, with impacts that are both profound and complex. the excessive portrayal of violence also reflects an ethical dilemma within the news industry. media outlets often grapple with the challenge of balancing truth and ethics when reporting on violent events. yet, when violent images are frequently used without adequate editorial oversight, this balance is often compromised, reducing news reporting to mere sensory consumption rather than responsible public information dissemination. in this context, the overuse of violent imagery not only undermines the credibility of news but may also exacerbate social instability and violent tendencies. for audiences, repeated exposure to such imagery can lead to desensitization to violence and a loss of fundamental respect for life and morality. this overabundance of visual violence challenges not only journalistic ethics but also societal moral boundaries. addressing this issue requires a profound reflection within the field of news photography to navigate the delicate balance between journalistic value and social responsibility (hoebel, reichertz, & tuma, 2022). 3.2 ethical issues in image editing and processing images is the cornerstone of news reporting, wield a profound influence and possess remarkable communicative power. however, with the advancement of digital technology, image editing and manipulation have become increasingly facile and prevalent, raising a host of ethical concerns. striking a balance between the authenticity of images and the psychological resilience of the audience is a significant challenge faced by news photographers and editors. in news photography, image editing and processing are often employed to enhance visual impact or convey specific messages. yet, excessive manipulation may distort the original intent of an image, potentially creating a biased or misleading narrative. such practices not only compromise the integrity of news reporting but also risk misleading the public’s understanding of events. this distortion, particularly when dealing with violent incidents, can exacerbate societal unease and panic. furthermore, ethical issues in image processing also pertain to the violation of human dignity. news photography frequently captures scenes of disaster, violence, and death; improper editing may inflict secondary harm on victims or their families. for instance, overly magnifying or accentuating a photograph with violent elements not only amplifies the psychological impact on viewers but also potentially infringes upon the privacy and dignity of those involved. in their pursuit of news value, media outlets often overlook the negative consequences of such violations. additionally, image editing and processing may blur moral boundaries. some editors, in an effort to enhance visual impact, may delete or add elements, or even recompose the image, thereby stripping it of its original objectivity. such artificial alterations undermine the credibility of news photography and destabilize the ethical foundation of news reporting. particularly when dealing with images of socially sensitive events, such editorial practices may provoke broader societal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 121 published by scholink inc. controversy. in contemporary journalism, the ethical dilemmas of image editing and processing reflect the moral quandaries media face when balancing informational authenticity with visual impact. this not only challenges professional ethical standards but also has profound implications for public trust. in light of these issues, it is imperative for journalists to engage in deep reflection to ensure that news photography maintains an appropriate balance between truthful representation and moral responsibility. 3.3 lack of harmonized standards for processing with the advent of media globalization, the disparities in cultural backgrounds, social values, and media regulations have made it challenging to reach a consensus on the treatment and presentation of imagery in photojournalism. this absence of standardization has engendered a lack of uniformity in the handling of violent content within news photography, thereby giving rise to various ethical and societal concerns. firstly, there is a noticeable disparity in the acceptance of violent imagery across different nations and societies. while some areas may exhibit a greater tolerance towards such content, others may enforce stricter regulations against it. this divergence in cultural and societal backgrounds leads to vastly different portrayals of the same images across various media platforms. the lack of a unified standard results in viewers potentially receiving contrasting information and emotional experiences, consequently leading to misinterpretations of the events. more gravely, this disparity may be exploited by certain media outlets to manipulate public opinion or cater to the needs of specific audience segments, thereby deviating from the objective and impartial nature of news reporting. furthermore, the commercial pressures exerted within media organizations and the variability in editorial autonomy further exacerbate the challenge of establishing a standardized approach to image manipulation in photojournalism. photographers and editors, while processing violent imagery, are often motivated by commercial interests aimed at enhancing the news’s appeal and market competitiveness. this commercialization not only corrodes the authenticity of news reporting but may also negatively impact the public’s mental health and societal morality. in the absence of a unified standard, the ethical boundaries of photojournalism become blurred. the inconsistent way in which different media outlets handle the same stories not only casts doubt on the credibility of news but may also intensify societal distrust, particularly in the context of processing sensitive events or groups through violent imagery (sun, liu, & mao, 2019). 3.4 insufficient sensitivity of audiences to visual violence the audience’s sensitivity to visual violence is insufficient, a phenomenon increasingly evident in the contemporary media landscape and influenced by various factors. firstly, the frequent appearance of violent images in the media has led to a gradual desensitization among viewers. as audiences repeatedly encounter similar scenes of violence, their psychological impact diminishes over time, eventually leading to a form of blindness to such images. this phenomenon is not only a latent concern in media reporting but also a significant challenge to societal mental health. in the quest for higher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 122 published by scholink inc. click-through rates and viewership, media outlets often indiscriminately use violent imagery to capture attention. however, this excessive exposure normalizes violence and leads to a habituation effect, reducing the audience’s sensitivity to visual violence. when violent images cease to provoke emotional response or reflection, viewers may lose their necessary vigilance and critical perspective towards violence. this sensory numbness not only undermines the audience’s understanding of social realities but also diminishes the societal function of news reporting. additionally, some argue that the decline in sensitivity is also related to shifts in social and cultural climates. in certain cultural contexts, violence may be perceived as normal or even “heroic”, and audiences raised in such environments naturally exhibit lower sensitivity to violence. when violence is romanticized or seen as a solution to problems, the negative impacts become less apparent. in extreme cases, some viewers might subconsciously endorse such violent behaviors, further diminishing their sensitivity to visual violence. this phenomenon indicates that in modern society, the insufficient sensitivity to visual violence has become a pressing issue that requires urgent attention. 4. strategies to circumvent visual violence 4.1 development of and adherence to norms for image use in contemporary news photography, establishing and adhering to image usage guidelines has become crucial in mitigating visual violence. however, the effectiveness of this strategy hinges not only on the formulation of these guidelines but also on their practical implementation. image usage guidelines are not merely constraints for journalists but a reaffirmation of the ethical boundaries for media institutions. as societal demands for authenticity and ethical conduct in journalism increase, the regulated handling of images by the media becomes all the more imperative. these guidelines should serve as a safeguard for photographers and editors, preventing them from inadvertently crossing ethical lines in their pursuit of news value due to a lack of standards. when reporting on violent events, image usage guidelines can provide clear direction, aiding in the balance between truthful documentation and moral responsibility. achieving this balance not only helps maintain the mental well-being of the audience but also prevents the media from becoming a promoter or glorifier of violence. nonetheless, the role of image usage guidelines extends beyond this. they also serve as a guarantee of media credibility. in an age of information overload, media credibility often faces severe challenges. without stringent image usage guidelines, news reports might lose impartiality and objectivity due to excessive sensationalism, ultimately eroding audience trust in the media. rigorous adherence to these guidelines helps maintain the neutrality and objectivity of reporting, thereby upholding the authority and reliability of the media in the public eye. however, the formulation and enforcement of these guidelines are not without their challenges. on one hand, media organizations, in their pursuit of commercial interests, may intentionally or unintentionally overlook these guidelines to cater to market demands. while this may www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 123 published by scholink inc. temporarily boost attention, it undeniably compromises media credibility and social responsibility in the long run. on the other hand, news photographers face significant challenges in capturing truth while avoiding ethical breaches in the fast-paced, ever-changing news environment. therefore, image usage guidelines need not only to be established on paper but also to be rigorously enforced in practice. they represent not only a requirement for journalists but also a self-regulation and social commitment for the entire media industry. only through continuous refinement and adherence to these guidelines can news photography genuinely achieve a balance between the pursuit of accurate reporting and the prevention of unnecessary visual violence, thus fulfilling both social responsibility and journalistic value. 4.2 transparent editing and realistic presentation in news photography, transparent editing and realistic portrayal are crucial strategies to mitigate visual violence. at the heart of this approach lies the challenge of ensuring the authenticity of news reporting while avoiding unnecessary psychological distress for the audience. transparent editing not only demands a high level of professional integrity from the news photographer during both the shooting and post-processing stages but also requires accountability for the authenticity of the presented images. in an era of rapid information dissemination, there is an elevated expectation from the audience regarding the truthfulness and completeness of news content, and any opacity or intentional distortion in editing can severely undermine media credibility. transparent editing is not merely a technical requirement but an ethical commitment. this means that news photographers must avoid exaggerating or distorting facts in pursuit of visual impact when dealing with violent or conflict scenes. they must exercise careful editing to ensure an accurate representation of images, avoiding the incitement of social panic or misleading public opinion due to excessive portrayal of violence. throughout this process, photographers and editors must remain acutely aware of their social responsibilities, recognizing that they are not just documenting history but also providing valuable information to the public. realistic portrayal is similarly a key factor in evading visual violence. the mission of news photography is to authentically represent the essence of events, and this authenticity should extend beyond visual aspects to convey the deeper significance of the events. this requires photographers to capture not only the conflict of the events but also the human elements and emotional depth. in reporting violent events, merely displaying graphic scenes can not only discomfort the audience but also detract from the depth and reflective value of the report. conversely, by focusing on details and human aspects, photographers can mitigate the negative impacts of visual violence, thereby enhancing the substance and significance of the reportage. the combination of transparent editing and realistic portrayal not only ensures the ethical propriety of news photography but also enhances the persuasive and emotive power of the reports. implementing this strategy requires not only technical expertise but also profound ethical standards and a strong sense of social responsibility. in the era of information www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 124 published by scholink inc. overload and fierce competition in news environments, only those who truly adhere to transparency and authenticity in their reporting can earn the trust of the audience and avoid the negative impacts of visual violence. through this approach, news photography can faithfully record and convey events (noble, 2015). 4.3 promoting industry standardization at the heart of industry standardization lies the establishment of clear operational guidelines and ethical norms for photojournalism, ensuring that the use of images in the reporting of violent events balances authenticity with social responsibility. this concern not only pertains to the credibility of the media but also directly impacts public mental health and social stability. standardization encompasses not only technical regulations but also the collective enhancement of ethical awareness among media practitioners. by formulating and implementing industry standards, we can provide journalists and editors with a shared set of behavioral guidelines when navigating complex scenarios. this initiative not only contributes to elevating the professional caliber of the industry but also mitigates the societal controversies and public distrust that may arise from the inappropriate actions of individual media outlets. the enforcement of standardization requires media to relinquish the temptation of short-term attention-grabbing tactics in favor of a more profound commitment to long-term social responsibility and public interest. however, advancing industry standardization is no simple task. it necessitates deep collaboration and broad consensus among media organizations, as well as active engagement from regulatory bodies to ensure the formulation and implementation of standards are both binding and practical. this process may involve adjustments of interests and shifts in perspectives, yet its ultimate aim is to achieve the sustainable and healthy development of the media sector. in an era where visual violence is increasingly prominent, the significance of industry standardization extends beyond merely avoiding ethical risks; it fundamentally relates to the core values of the media as purveyors of public information. by promoting industry standardization, photojournalism can achieve a new equilibrium on both technical and ethical fronts, further solidifying its positive influence within society. the implementation of this strategy will ultimately guide photojournalism towards a more responsible and healthy trajectory, ensuring that the media finds the optimal intersection between truthful reporting and social responsibility. 4.4 public education and warnings public education encompasses not only the dissemination of news ethics but also the enhancement of overall media literacy within society. through education, the public gains a more profound understanding of the essence of news photography and the potential presence of violent elements, enabling them to remain rational and composed when confronted with graphic imagery. in the modern information age, audiences no longer passively receive news but increasingly seek information through various channels. however, due to a lack of in-depth understanding of media content, many individuals www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 125 published by scholink inc. struggle to discern whether the depiction of violence in news photography is justified. this underscores the importance of public education. by promoting knowledge of the ethics and principles of news photography, the public can develop critical thinking regarding image content, recognizing which visuals represent a legitimate portrayal of reality and which might be gratuitous depictions of violence. additionally, public education should include warnings about the potential psychological impacts of violent imagery. many viewers may experience negative emotions or even psychological trauma when confronted with shocking visuals, impacts often overlooked (lord & burfoot, 2006). therefore, media organizations and educational bodies bear the responsibility of using various forms of outreach and education to prepare the public psychologically and provide necessary support and counseling mechanisms. this approach not only helps mitigate the harm of visual violence on individuals but also contributes to broader societal mental well-being. another crucial function of public education and warnings is to foster interaction and trust between the media and the public. when audiences possess higher media literacy and awareness of visual violence, their expectations of news reporting become more defined. this interaction not only enhances the quality of news reporting but also encourages media to be more cautious and responsible in content creation, avoiding harm to public interests through gratuitous violence. in turn, this increased trust in media institutions promotes a positive feedback loop. 5. conclusion in this era of information overload, news photography must not only convey information but also remain mindful of the boundaries of social ethics. the proliferation of visual violence not only undermines the credibility of the journalism industry but also poses potential risks to the psychological well-being of the audience. establishing clear guidelines for image usage, promoting industry standardization, and enhancing public education are crucial measures to mitigate visual violence. news photographers, while striving for a balance between realism and impact, should always remember their social responsibility. reducing visual violence will not only elevate the ethical standards of the news industry but also contribute to maintaining societal harmony and stability. news photography should responsibly document and disseminate the world, serving as a bridge between truth and the public, rather than igniting societal issues. references hoebel, t., reichertz, j., & tuma, r. (2022). visibilities of violence. on visual violence research and current methodological challenges. historical social research/historische sozialforschung, 47(1), 7-35. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 126 published by scholink inc. lord, s., & burfoot, a. (2006). killing women: the visual culture of gender and violence. wilfrid laurier univ. press. lucaites, j. l., & hariman, r. (2001). visual rhetoric, photojournalism, and democratic public culture. rhetoric review, 20(1/2), 37-42. noble, a. (2015). introduction: visual culture and violence in contemporary mexico. journal of latin american cultural studies, 24(4), 417-433. sun, s., liu, y., & mao, l. (2019). multi-view learning for visual violence recognition with maximum entropy discrimination and deep features. information fusion, 50, 43-53. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 64 original paper gender and sports publications in school newspaper columns: the greek example lina p. valsamidou1* & argyris kyridis2 1 communication and journalism, open university of cyprus, nicosia, cyprus 2 department of pre-school education, aristotle university of thessaloniki, thessaloniki, greece * lina p. valsamidou, communication and journalism, open university of cyprus, nicosia, cyprus received: april 14, 2018 accepted: may 7, 2018 online published: may 29, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p64 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p64 abstract sport is a basic element of social culture and a way of social expression, while it also constitutes a form of social education. sport, however, also exhibits the most evident gendered characteristics of sports journalism since it constitutes a “male/male-dominated” field. what is the presence of boys and girls in the role of the sports editor/journalist? what sports issues are chosen by boys and girls and published in school newspaper columns? to what extent is the presence of the “male-dominated” sports domain and the sports news perpetuated/continued in schools’ newspapers? we analyze the publication content by gender in school newspapers, so as to determine in a qualitative and quantitative manner the basic parameters that define gendered sports discourse and its social components. keywords gender, sports, school newspapers, school journalism 1. introduction “ronaldo’s transfer is in the final stage. real’s star says he is thrilled to be playing for panathinaikos…” school newspaper: the 19 little stars, 148th primary school of athens. “the greek athletes were the protagonists and the heroes of the paralympic games… greece handed over the baton to beijing for the 2008 games.” school newspaper: air bird songs, 4th primary school and 4th kindergarten of feres-aerino. in a time when everything changes, the media play an ever more important role in our lives compared to the past, whereas at the same time they play a leading role in forming the new weltanschauung (tsardakis, 1990, p. 149). the messages that the media transmit are received by a large number of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 65 published by scholink inc. people and form attitudes, behaviours and subjectivities (hatzisavvidis, 2000, p. 11). the media solidify the prevalent views, they set priorities, they magnify issues and facts, they sometimes alter views and eventually they determine choices (paletz & entman, 1981, p. 189), but they simultaneously transmit/reflect the ideology, the values and the standards of the current status quo, and according to baudrillard they do not contribute to ideology, but they form ideology (pleios, 2001, p. 398). along with state entities such as the government and school they come to complete the prevalent image of society as it is imposed from above. they constitute a set of representations formed by images, myths, analyses, views and ideas that corresponds to the prevalent political, economical, social and historical system (doulkeri, n.d., p. 21). although it is an issue that is frequently ignored, the media play a significant role in providing a great number of the resources we use in order to consider gender and gender-related issues: what it means to be a woman or a man, gender roles in the public and private sphere, sexuality, and what is considered as natural, normal, acceptable, desirable and related to these aspects of our lives. by providing the resources and the space, the media can play a significant role in shaping our thoughts regarding gender and gender issues (the gender & media handbook, 2005, pp. 6-7). most of the texts that appear in the media seem to accept the traditional sexist stereotypes and portray stereotypical images that do not reflect the changes in men’s and women’s lives, and at the same time they also enhance the usual gender stereotypes by repeating them in several occasions (the gender & media handbook, 2005, p. 28). the media provide us with an ample repertoire of ideas, ways of thinking, images, values and they also influence the identities that we develop in terms of nationality, culture, class and gender, thus playing a fundamental role in bringing about social change (the gender & media handbook, 2005, p. 44). van zoonen (1994, p. 41) argues that the media are described as technologies of gender, accommodating, modifying, reconstructing and producing disciplining and contradictory cultural outlooks of sexual differentiation. the ideal site where we can observe the operation of these technologies is “media” texts (fiske, 1987, p. 14), such as films, tv programmes, newspapers, etc. print communication, according to eco, maintains the highest prestige among other forms of communication, because it allows extensive attention, repeated reading and evaluative processing. it has greater possibilities in the expression and transmission of abstract and complex notions. it favours abstraction, logical sequencing, critical processing and rational thinking (eco, in alvanoudi et al., 1992). a school newspaper is a means of mass communication for children. it appears that children derive pleasure from expressing themselves through a school newspaper, as this way helps them be create and communicate, and it also opens a window out of the everyday routine that sometimes characterizes school life (christodoulou-gliaou, 2007). in school newspaper children write about their classmates, parents, neighbours, about children from other schools and their texts become an opportunity for discussion and communication. for the needs of the newspaper, children become reporters, observers, or even at the same time acting persons in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 66 published by scholink inc. events of school and social life. in this way they participate in a social “dialogue” choosing to write what in their opinion would be interesting to communicate to their classmates, their teachers and parents. through the newspaper, children make an effective use of a communicative discourse that aims at convincing, moving, entertaining or all of the above according to the occasion. students write various texts for the school newspaper that they publish in order to air their considerations, their apprehensions and troubles. all of the above mentioned occasions are real instances that form a part of social and school life by extension (adaloglou, 1994, pp. 24-25). according to graff (2003), students’ participation in publishing activities is an excellent opportunity to assess their entire academic progress but not only that. bowen and tantillo (2002) claim that scholastic journalism helps students develop their critical thinking, their ability to communicate and to be better, active citizens, whereas according to poslaniek (1990, pp. 139-140) the school newspaper belongs to what he calls “empowering animations” (“animations responsabilisantes”); it is a “product” that is proposed to a heterogeneous and demanding audience, through which the citizenship, not the pupilness is under evaluation. in addition, kolodzy (2006, p. 248) calls the children journalists “kid (citizen) reporters” and notes the practice of certain media, such as bbc for children, to entice children of all ages to participatory journalism. undeniably, children do not live in a social vacuum before they enter school; they are rather immersed in a gendered social environment that provides them with the gender baggage of attitudes, prejudices, stereotypes and practices regarding masculinity and femininity that has been formed by institutions ranging from family and peer groups to the local community culture, mass culture and subculture, and the media. these attitudes/prejudices/practices meet with the meanings, the standards and the symbolic practices, the values, intentions and goals that form the dominant gender culture of schools; as a consequence, students construct and re-construct their new gender “identities” by means of negotiation and conversation, as they place themselves in a variety of discourses (politis, 2006, p. 182). consequently, gender identity (davidson, 2006, p. 94) is a product of interaction (denzin, 1992, p. 29) that is created and re-created through the interaction of various dominant discourses and different ideologies (althousser, 1971). the media depict life in our society and set the public agenda by providing us with information regarding all other societal institutions, including the military, education and sport. on one hand, sport in the twentieth century has been a favourable field for men to create and reinforce an ideology of male supremacy. by excluding women and connecting athleticism to masculinity, sport provides opportunities for men to assert their dominance at a time when male hegemony is constantly challenged in everyday life (duncan & messner, in wenner, 1998). on the other hand, where sport is concerned and in an attempt to define news, the routinized version of this definition is that news becomes “whatever the editor says it is” (creedon, in wenner, 2002, p. 103). sport as news/report/article is considered to be the par excellence “male/male-dominated fort”, since by greek standards the presence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 67 published by scholink inc. of female sports reporters is minimal. in a research entitled “the position of the greek female journalist today” that was conducted and developed by the european network of greek female journalists and the institute of audiovisual media of the press ministry (iam), women’s participation in sports coverage is shown to be almost nonexistent (halvatzakis, 1998). as miloch et al., have pointed out (2005, p. 219), although women have made significant contributions to business and industry breaking glass ceilings, they have not yet completely broken through the gender barrier that exists in the sport arena (humms et al., 1996; neupauer, 1998; schell & rodriquez, 2000). miloch et al. (2005, pp. 219-220) stress the fact that female journalists covering sports may appear to be a recent phenomenon, but women actually began working the sports beat in the 1920s, where, as the associated press estimated, only about 25 women were employed as full-time sportswriters at american daily newspapers (creedon, 1994). in addition, they also note (miloch et al., 2005) that past research suggests the majority of female sports journalists have faced some form of discrimination from male colleagues within their respective departments and organizations, and, among all, they are expected to know less and adhere to higher standards of performance while tolerating low salaries, less desirable assignments, and sexist comments in the workplace (miller & miller, 1995, p. 888). hardin and whiteside (2009, p. 628) also have pointed out that the most recent study reflects an enduring industry trend: women in sports departments work in token status, where they constitute a fraction of sports editors (6%) and reporters (10%). in this frame, hardin et al. (2008, p. 68 in hardin & whiteside, 2009, p. 628), likens sports journalism to a “revolving door” for women—as some enter, many leave, stagnating movement toward equity. according to the gmmp (global media monitoring project), a global survey (gender equality in journalism, 2009, p. 3) from 1995 to 2005, 57% of all television news presenters were women, yet only 29% of news items were written by female reporters. meanwhile, only 32% of “hard” news was written or covered by women and more often they found reporting on “soft” subjects such as social issues, family, or arts and “living” (up to 40% women). while statistics show that more and more women are training and entering the field, although the number of women executives, producers, chief editors and publishers remains too low.” in 2002 the canadian newspaper association report stated that only 8% of the editors-in-chief and 12% of publishers were women” (gender equality in journalism, 2009, p. 4). thus, as kian (2007, p. 6) suggests the lack of women in the sport media profession and particularly in positions of power (i.e., editors, producers, managers), supports the notion the sport media is a masculine hegemonic institution (hardin, 2005; pedersen, whisenant, & schneider, 2003; trujillo, 1991). sport fascinates a great number of people—adults and juveniles—and constitutes a popular spectacle/reading/topic of discussion. the word sport in greek (“αθλητισμός”) etymologically comes from the word “άθλος” (“athlos”) which means struggle, fight, intensive effort. sport constitutes a basic element of social culture and is a way of social expression as well as a form of promoting human physical and mental beauty. apart from that, the endogenous elements of sports are in a position to foster the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 68 published by scholink inc. mental and physical cultivation of societies whereas at the same time sport constitutes a form of social education. sport has a special place in the pages of political newspapers, it forms a goal and content of specialized newspapers—the sports ones—while it also finds its place in the columns of school newspapers. 2. purpose the purpose of our study is to examine how gender affects the promotion of sport and sports issues, through the par excellence school media, the school newspaper. we attempt to record the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the featured sporting events that are described by the reporters in the columns of school newspapers. specifically, we record and discuss sports publications based on the editor’s name, thus trying to reach conclusions about the presence of gender in sports school journalism, the gendered preferences as to the content of the articles they choose to publish, but mainly the kind of events that according to each gender constitutes sports news which requires to be published. we examine the content of sports issues that young reporters choose to bring under the spotlight of publicity, thus determining the basic parameters that define gendered school sports discourse and its social components. more specifically, our research attempts to respond to the following questions: 1). what kind of sports articles do young male/female editors prefer? 2). what is the content of these articles according to the gender of the editors? 3). what is the number of boys and girls that write about sports issues in school newspapers? 4). is there a quantitative differentiation between sports articles by boys and girls? 2.1 sample the sample of our study is composed of sports publications that we encountered in newspaper columns of primary schools which were published between 2003 and 2007. in a total of 187 issues coming from 39 newspaper titles from all over greece, we located 92 issues (a percentage of 49.19%) that contained 225 sports publications, out of which 167 are signed and show the editor’s gender (a percentage of 74.2%). the collection of primary school newspapers has been a difficult procedure. the publication of a newspaper depends on important factors such as the encouraging teacher, sponsorships and mainly the children-reporters/editors. the circulation of a school newspaper is affected by the aforementioned factors as the teacher may be get a transfer/leave of absence, sponsorships may end, the young reporters/editors may change class—most move on to high school—resulting in a permanent or temporary discontinuation of the newspaper publication or a publication at rarer intervals than those of the original planning. there are school newspapers with consistency and continuity in time, but they are extremely few. for this reason the collection of the issues was adapted to these facts and the additional fact that we often encountered during the material gathering, that not all issues of the newspaper are kept www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 69 published by scholink inc. in a school archive, but only a few as a sample. thus the collection of the issues to be examined regarding quantity per year is as follows: 2003 (since september): 6 issues; 2004: 45 issues; 2005: 75 issues; 2006: 59 issues and 2007 (until may): 3 issues. in the process of collecting the sample and sending the newspaper issues to the researcher, one question was asked by means of telephone or e-mail to the school principals or the teachers that were responsible for the publication of the newspaper: how the newspaper articles were selected and how they were assigned to the children. all the persons that were responsible answered that the selection of the topics was performed by the group of children that were responsible for publishing the newspaper and the assignment of the articles was also performed by the children according to their preferences. the children were usually assigned with the topics they had proposed to the editorial team themselves. 3. method the method that was followed in the process of our sample was content analysis (krippendorff, 1980; berelson, 1952; weber, 1990; de sola pool, 1959; palmquist, 1990). the publication was utilized as an analysis unit. berelson (1952) notes that content analysis is a “research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication”, of written or oral speech, with interpretation as the final goal. de sola pool (1959) offered a different dimension to content analysis noting that it is ideal for the study of meanings and semantic relationships contained in written or oral speech. several years later, palmquist (1990) utilized content analysis in written texts of students and teachers. the first step was to record and classify the publications of our sample. all 167 sports publications were classified according to the editor’s name in three basic axes: regular columns, various publications and features. these publications were subsequently placed in the following categories based on their content and title: informative columns: a. olympic and paralympic games b. sports c. male and female athletes-idols d. social issues e. championships the remaining 6 publications were placed in the category: entertainment columns: quizzes crosswords/word search puzzles/acrostic puzzles literature (poetry) letters/missives www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 70 published by scholink inc. 4. results in a total of 225 publications, the name of the young male/female editor is shown in 167 of them. we encounter 262 young male and female editors in total, out of which 137 are boys (a percentage of 52.2%) and 125 are girls (a percentage of 47.7%) (table 1). table 1. editors’ gender in the school publications gender and publications total by gender sum total boys reporters/editors 137 (52,2%) 262 girls reporters/editors 125 (47,7%) the following figure 1 shows the representation of gender in the publications of the newspapers in our sample: figure 1. representation of gender seventy four publications are written by young male reporters (table 2) which include: 15 publications in “regular columns” out of which 4 have to do with the school championship, 44 in “various publications” out of which 5 concern the school championship and 15 in “features”, out of which one is about the school championship. we notice that male reporters’ articles outnumber females in “various publications”, but are equal in “regular sports columns” and in “features”. we also deduce that they only write 10 articles concerning the school championship in a total of 74 articles. total of publications where gender is shown isolated publications: 74 from boys common publications of both publications in entertainment columns: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 71 published by scholink inc. table 2. male reporters’ publications mail reporte rs’ publicat ions regu lar colu mns regula r colum ns (sch. ch.) variou s public ations various publicat ions (sch. ch.) featu res featu res (sch. ch.) tot al total 15 [4] 44 [5] 15 [1] 74 seventy-five publications are written by young female reporters (table 3) which include: 11 publications in “regular columns”, out of which 8 have to do with the school championship, 28 in “various publications”, out of which 3 concern the school championship and 36 in “features”, out of which 3 are about the school championship. we notice that female reporters write more “feature” articles, their presence is then observed in “various publications”, while they exhibit a more limited presence in “regular sports columns”. we also deduce that they only write 14 articles concerning the school championship in a total of 75 articles. table 3. female reporters’ publications female reporte rs’ publicat ions regu lar colu mns regula r colum ns (sch. ch.) vario us publi catio ns various publicat ions (sch. ch.) featur es featu res (sch. ch.) total total 11 [8] 28 [3] 36 [3] 75 in the remaining 6 publications found in the category of “entertainment columns” (crosswords, literature, acrostic puzzles, etc.) we record 6 boys and 5 girls. in table 4 we observe that male editors write 2 quizzes, 2 poems (out of which one is a hymn and it is entitled “hymn to olympia”) and 2 letters/missives to male athletes they admire and regard as a role model, demis nicolaides and colin mc rae in particular. the female editors write 1 acrostic puzzle, 2 poems and 2 letters/missives to female athletes they admire/regard as a role model, katerina thanou and svetlana khorkina. letters/missives lead us to the conclusion that young reporters prefer to address athletes of the same gender as themselves. it also seems that male reporters have as idols/role models athletes from spectacular sports (one of which is characterized by extremely high speed and competitiveness) such as rallying and football—par excellence men’s sport—whereas girls prefer female athletes from track and field as well as gymnastics—more “feminine” sports—a main reason being that gymnastics athletes are distinguished for their gracefulness and elegance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 72 published by scholink inc. table 4. gender and publications in entertaining columns entertaining columns total of publications male reporters female reporters quizzes 2 2 crosswords word search puzzles acrostic puzzles 2 1 1 1 literature (poetry) 4 2 2 letters/missives to athletes 4 2 2 total 14 6 5 the quantitative analysis of our sample on the basis of gender highlights and points out the gendered preferences as to the theme of their publications (table 5). male reporters, as shown in table 9, exhibit a particular interest in the “sports” category with 34 publications in total (a percentage of 45.9%), and their references about football clearly outnumber other sports (23 publications), while publications about basketball (5), volleyball (3), karate (1), chess (1) and track and field (1) follow at a wide difference. the second category with 19 publications in total (a percentage of 25.6%) are “olympic and paralympic games” with most references concerning the olympics, less about the 2004 athens paralympic games (7) and only one about the 2004 athens olympics. the third category are “championships”, with 9 publications in total (a percentage of 12.1%) in which male journalists focus their publications more on the school championship (6 publications) and less on champion’s league (2) or the european cup (1). in the “social issues” with a total of 8 publications (a percentage of 10.8%), editors prefer to write more about football and violence in the football stadiums (4 publications in total), about doping and anti-doping (2 publications), followed by publications concerning the importance of sports (1) and health through sports (1). the category of “athlete-idols” comes last in the interests of boy reporters since we record only 4 publications in total (a percentage of 5.4%) referring to schumacher, the old international footballer theodore voutyritsas, the local team coach notis psychogios and spyros louis (an imaginary interview). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 73 published by scholink inc. table 5. male reporters and content of publications sports football 23 34 (45,9%) basketball 5 volleyball 3 karate 1 chess 1 track and field 1 olympic and paralympic games olympic games 11 19 (25,6%) 2004 athens paralympic games 7 2004 athens olympic games 1 championships school championship (all sports) 6 9 (12,1%) champion’s league 2 european cup 1 social issues no violence in stadiums 2 8 (10,8%) doping and anti-doping 2 football and violence in stadiums in greece 1 violence in stadiums 1 importance of sport 1 sports and health 1 athlete idols news about schumacher & formula 1 1 4 (5,4%) notis psychogios, coach.theodore voutyritsas 2 spyros louis, imaginary interview 1 total 74 74 (100%) female reporters, as shown in table 6, exhibit a special interest in the category of “olympic and paralympic games” with 43 publications in total (a percentage of 57.3%), with as many publications about the 2004 athens paralympics as about the olympic games in general. 17 publications are found regarding each topic and 9 about the 2004 athens olympics in a total of 43 publications. “sports” is the second category in girls’ interests (18 publications in total, a percentage of 24%) with the references to basketball having the lead (7 publications), followed by the references to volleyball 3 and two about handball, football and track and field. chess and cycling, horseback riding have one publication each. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 74 published by scholink inc. coming third in female reporters’ preferences is the “athlete idols” category with 9 publications in total (a percentage of 12%) with the interviews outnumbering (6 in total) the others. the athletes that are featured through the interviews are kakhi kakhiashvill and pyrros dimas, vassiliki seireka, despoina batzianouli, anna horinou, katerina chrysochoou, while we also record the imaginary interview with george kolettis. in the remaining publications there is one portrayal of spyros louis and one of james brendan connoly. the fourth category with 4 publications in total (a percentage of 5.3%) are “social issues”, the references of which focus on the olympics in relation with sport, doping, olympic medalists (1 publication for each one), whereas 1 publication focuses on the spectator’s role as an animator of teams and athletes. the fifth and final category is “championships” with 1 publication (a percentage of 1.3%) about the school championship. table 6. female reporters and content of publication olympic and paralympic games 2004 athens paralympic games 17 43 (57.3%) olympic games 17 2004 athens olympic games 9 sports basketball 7 18 (24%) volleyball 3 handball 2 football 2 track and field 2 chess 1 horseback riding cycling 1 athlete idols kakhi kakhiashvilli and pyrros dimas 1 9 (12%) vassiliki seireka 1 despoina batzianouli 1 anna horinou 1 katerina chrysochoou 1 george kolettis (imaginary interview) 1 spyros louis 2 james brendan connoly 1 social issues impressions from meeting with olympic medalists 1 4 (5.3%) olympic games and classical athletics 1 olympic games and doping 1 from the position of the 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 75 published by scholink inc. spectator-animator championships school championship (about all sports) 1 1 (1.3%) total 75 75 (100%) 5. observations all in all, the comparison of the publication content by gender results in the realization that boy reporters/editors prefer to write more about sports and mainly the so-called “king of sports”, football, and less about athlete idols, whereas girl reporters/editors opt for greater events such as the olympic and paralympic games and less for championships, the references of which regard only the school championship. moreover, it appears that boys favor references to spectacular sports (football, basketball, volleyball), whereas girls seem to have a predilection for references to great events and their historical data. what is more, athlete idols for boys seem to be those of football and formula 1—all males—whereas for girls are olympic and paralympic medalists—males and females alike. the social issues of sports that boy editors are concerned with seem to regard mostly football and violence, then doping, whereas girl editors focus on the olympic games and medalists. girls are only interested in school championships, whereas boys also refer to championships such as the champion’s league and the european cup. at the same time, we infer that girls have more publications in “feature articles” and less in “regular columns”, whereas boys have more “random publications” and are equal to those in “regular columns” and “feature articles”, a fact that once again exhibits the usual practice of male presence in regular sports columns. the discrepancies of the school newspaper publications as to the editors’ gender and based on the content of the articles appears to follow the classic stereotypical versions that occur in the greek social fabric. for instance, boys are mostly interested in football and formula 1, whereas girls prefer the olympic and paralympic games. even when it comes to social issues that are related to sport, boys persist with football matters (violence in stadiums and less about doping), while girls are more intrigued by the olympics. apart from that, again we confirm that boy reporters of sports issues outnumber girls. however, although boys exceed in number, girls’ publications outnumber those of the boys, even by just one, a fact that demonstrates the girls’ dynamic presence in school sports journalism. our research clearly shows that female sports reporters seem to find their position in scholastic journalism, getting involved with great sports events—such as the olympic and paralympic games—a fact that contradicts the interests and presence of adult female reporters. it should be noted of course that the publication of a school newspaper is among others a learning procedure based on the principles of problem solving (viz. inter alia: abercrombie, 1979; aut www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 76 published by scholink inc. university calendar, 2006; barrows, 1996; boyd-bell, 2005; boyd-bell, 2002; burns, 1997; burns & hazell, 1999) and as such it should be assessed according to the general and more specific principles of education sciences (valsamidou & kyridis, 2009). but, furthermore, the school newspaper embellishes the extra curricular space, where students as authors/producers/editors write about what interests/ sensitizes them, what worries them and what makes them happy. at the same time and through these publications students try to obtain a wider social recognition (poslaniek, 1990, p. 139). in this framework and in the light of education, sports publications by young reporters demonstrate the training that these children have received at school as to what they think is important and should be included in their school newspaper, and through this to inform the public. having processed the results of our sample, what is evident is the girls’ involvement in sports news, a fact that demonstrates the mandatory need to support this trend at school, which is a basic factor of treating/creating/reproducing gendered stereotypical behaviors and practices. the educational policy in total (but also each school separately) through school activities and educational programmes that have school newspaper as a target, has the ability to empower/motivate/inspire such practices that equal opportunities for boys and girls and support the pupils’ skills and abilities without gender-based exclusions and restrictions. this educational policy can be supported by the emerging necessity of education communication and media literacy in the curriculum, either centrally from the ministry of education and institute of educational policy (iep) or at the level of each school unit. it is now the time to rethink and redefine both the country’s and every school’s unit educational mass media policy under gender perspective. references abercrombie, m. l. a. 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(1998). women in the male dominated world of sports information directing: only the strong survive. public relations quarterly, 43(1), 27-30. paletz, d. l., & entman, r. m. (1981). media, power, politics. new york: free press. palmquist, m. (1990). the lexicon of the classroom: language and learning in writing classrooms (doctoral dissertation). carnegie mellon university. pedersen, p. m., whisenant, w. a., & schneider, r. g. (2003). using a content analysis to examine the gendering of sports newspaper personnel and their coverage. journal of sport management, 17(4), 376-393. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.17.4.376 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 79 published by scholink inc. pleios, g. (2001). the discourse of image, ideology and politics. athens: papazisi (in greek). politis, f. (2006). “male identities” at school. heterosexuality, homophobia and misogyny. thessaloniki: epikentro (in greek). poslaniek, c. (1990). giving children the pleasure of reading (s. athini, trans.). athens: kastaniotis (in greek). schell, l. a., & rodriguez, s. (2000). our sporting sisters: how male hegemony stratifies women in sport. women in sport & physical activity journal, 9(1), 15-34. https://doi.org/10.1123/wspaj.9.1.15 the gender & media handbook. promoting equality, diversity & empowerment. (2005). mediterranean institute of gender studies. trujillo, n. (1991). hegemonic masculinity on the mound: media representations of nolan ryan and american sports culture. critical studies in mass communication, 8(3), 290-303. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295039109366799 tsardakis, d. (1990). mass communication and reality. athens: papazisis (in greek). valsamidou, l., & kyridis, a. (2009). “big athletes, big games” and small journalists. sports in school newspaper columns. modern education, 158, 71-87. (in greek) van, z. l. (1994). feminist media studies. london: sage. weber, r. (1990). basic content analysis (2nd ed.). newbury park: sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412983488 appendix greek primary school newspaper titles 1) ponies with… pens, interscholastic pupil newspaper of the 5th district of primary education of the larissa prefecture 2) velo pupils’ brushwork, primary school of velo, corinthia 3) cats with petals, 2nd primary school of lixourion, cephallonia 4) communication, 2nd primary school of skydra, pella 5) the pen of the fifth, 5th primary school of giannitsa, pella 6) pupils’ pens, 2nd primary school of larissa 7) pupils’ speech, primary school of rizo, pella 8) pupil’s world, primary school of neo petritsi, serres 9) in a few words, 4th primary school of naoussa, imathia 10) through children’s eyes, 2nd primary school of nemea, corinthia 11) young reporters, intercultural primary school of neoi epivates, thessaloniki 12) children’s voices of stimaga, primary school of stimaga, corinthia 13) early school bulletins, primary school of afratio, euboia www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 80 published by scholink inc. 14) the little bees, primary school of megali panagia, chalkidiki 15) ...the second graders. 3rd primary school of filiatra, messhnia 16) the little room (kamaraki), 2nd primary school of rethymno, crete 17) newspaper, primary school of amfikleia, fthiotida 18) the pupils’ world of the 7th, 7th primary school of chios 19) children’s world, primary school of limni aidipsou, euboia 20) children’s world, primary school of stavroupoli, thessaloniki 21) the world through children’s eyes, 6th intercultural and fulltime primary school of eleftherio kordeliou, thessaloniki 22) school pen, 2nd primary school of pefka, thessaloniki 23) our world, primary school ot maniakoi, kastoria 24) childern’s world, primary school of mesopotamia, kastoria 25) the young journalists, primary school of vochaiko, corinth 26) flutters, 1st experimental primary school of florina 27) the children of the kingfisher, primary school of vrachation, corinth 28) the 19 little stars, 148th primary school of athens 29) air bird songs, 4th primary school and 4th kindergarten of feresaerino, magnhssia 30) the dolphin, 10th primary school of corinth 31) pigassos, primary school of ancient corinth 32) sounds and resounds of floral words, 2nd primary school of evosmos, thessaloniki 33) young journalists, primary school of new chile, evros 34) children’s inquiries, 6th primary school of rethymno, crete 35) with children’s eyes, 2nd primary school of nemea, corinth 36) children’s press, primary school of anatoliko, thessaloniki 37) sunbeam, 5th primary school of varvassios, chios 38) our little newspaper-the working little bees, 113rd primary school of athens 39) window to the world, 2nd primary school of tavros, athens communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 50 original paper a study of overseas construction of china national image in architecture writing of lin yutang yang sisi1 & dan cui* 1 college of languages and cultures of ningde normal univeristy * dan cui, corresponding author, e-mail: summerelephant@126.com received: june 18, 2023 accepted: july 1, 2023 online published: august 7, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n3p50 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n3p50 abstract lin yutang’s writing of chinese architecture in my country and my people is a short chapter, but it reflects his unique studies into chinese personality and national spirit. through the study of lin yutang’s architectural writing, we can see the chinese national spirit and image overseas. many scholars have studied my country and my people from different dimensions. however, literary writing of chinese architrave hasn’t been conducted so much since the popularity of fan zhongyan’s notes of yueyang tower. and therefore lin’s writing is conceived to be of high significance through which the chinese personality has been analyzed thorougly. by conparison and contrast, based on the thoughts of chinese sages, this paper aims to (1) analyze the marrow of chinese national spirit through lin yutang’s architectural writing and (2) argue how lin yutang through his particular english expression of architecture has successfully delivered the image of china overseas, which has thus exerted a far-reaching impact on its overseas transmission. through exploration and interpretation of lin yutan’s writing, the authors aim to excavate lin’s appropriate in-depth interpretation of chinese spirit embedded in chinese architecture abroad in order to modify certain misunderstandings and mistaken cognition with the expectation to gain deeper comprehension of chinese spirit internationally. keywords chinese architecture, chinese national spirit, lin yutang, china image 1. introduction as an important figure transversing china and the west during the history of cultural exchange in the 20th century, lin yutang has made his due contribution to making the world get to know china in a deeper sense through his works, among which my country and my people has aroused great repercussions in the united states in particular. many researchers have agreed on the influence of this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. work in view of comprehending china, “whether it is to understand ancient or modern china, it is enough to read my country and my people” (duan & zhao, 2007, pp. 4-6). in my country and my people, lin yutang calmly and sharply analyzes the spiritual characteristics of chinese people, and also indicates in certain specific detail various aspects of society, literature and lifestyle of china. in “chinese architecture”, he compares chinese and western architecture, highlights the characteristics of chinese architecture, and reflects over the national spirit of china. through lin yutang’s english writing of architecture, he successfully spread the image of china overseas, which exerted a far-reaching impact on the overseas construction of china’s image. through the analysis of the architectural characteristics written by lin yutang, we can excavate the chinese national spirit and deeply think about the overseas shaping of china’s image. lin yutang’s description of chinese architecture mainly involves a comparative approach with western architecture. through contrasting these two architectural styles, he highlights the unique personality and national spirit of the chinese people that is reflected in their architecture. to fully comprehend the distinct features of chinese architecture, it is necessary to have knowledge of various architectural theories such as building architecture, urban design, and chinese ancient architecture history. the essence of chinese architecture is deeply rooted in traditional chinese culture and philosophy, which is influenced by the teachings of ancient chinese sages like confucius and laozi. confucius proposed the doctrine of the mean, while laozi advocated for the harmony and unity of man with nature, which are reflected in chinese architectural designs based on lin’s analysis. the differences between chinese and western cultures have resulted in distinctive architectural styles for both cultures. due to the huge gap existing between the east and west in view of geographical conditions and the pertinent other aspects, china had for long term left a mysterious impression on the west in view of chinese architectural culture including symbolism, chinese pantheism and chinese geomantic culture, meanwhile stereotypes “the yellow peril theory” (li, 2014, p. 4) constructed by the west press led to misunderstanding of china’s image overseas. lin yutang made contributions to change the impression of china image with my country and my people published in 1935. from the perspective of the characteristics of chinese architecture, it is helpful to analyze the overseas image of china from the cross-cultural perspective.different from western architecture that demonstrates “the power of money” (lin, 1935), the beauty of chinese architecture lies in its embodied traditional culture. the simplicity of western skyscrapers does not conform to chinese aesthetic traditions and conventions. chinese aesthetic tradition from ancient times to the present includes a kind of art, ranging from doors, roofs and windows to palaces, gardens to the temples. perceived from the changing trend, western architecture has been greatly influenced by the religious sense while the cultural inheritance of chinese architecture tends to be civilian and life-oriented. chinese architecture shoulders the responsibilities of chinese culture, contains cultural heritage and tradition and spreads chinese spirit. the cultural appeal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. embodied in chinese architecture is a kind of world appeal. the personality of chinese people influences the world’s view of china image through the characteristics of chinese architecture. 2. the beauty of construction lin yutang mentions that “yet because we have to look at the houses we build for ourselves every day and have to spend most of our days in them, and because bad architecture can cramp the style of our living, there is a very human demand to make it beautiful” (lin, 1935). as he writes, chinese architecture represents chinese residents’ way of living. chinese people expect the architecture to stand for the sense of family belonging and reunion apart from the residential function. as what lin yutang describes in this part, “a roof is not just a roof to shelter us from sun and rain, but something that effects our conception of a home, a door is not just an opening to get inside, but should be the ‘open sesame’ that leads us into the mysterious of people’s domestic lives” (lin, 1935). hence one can see that the functions of chinese architecture are not only to shelter chinese people and protect us from being burned or wet, but to bear the wright of the personality of speaking the language of beauty in chinese people’s mind. lin yutang compares western church architecture with chinese one. he claims that “as european cathedrals are informed with a spirit and speak a silent language of the greatest beauty and sublimity to us? chinese people adopts the best solution of this problem. chinese architecture seems to have developed along a line different from that of the west” (lin, 1935). here still we take the door culture as a typical example. since ancient times, china’s traditional architectural center is mobile, and its essence is not space, but the psychological space that is formed in the process of use, with rich psychological feelings, just like many arts. the functions of doors are not only for people to go in and out, but also for the communication between indoor and outdoor space. while, the gothic church is a representative one of western church. the slender and crystal clear entrance of gothic church is combined with religious belief, which is the expression of people’s spiritual yearning (yu & liu, 2020, p. 5). compared with the characteristics of western cathedrals as the representative construction style, the characteristics of chinese architecture mainly lies in conveying language of beauty on communication among people and people and space. western architecture stresses on showing off the richness and wealth that represents the level of architecture, but chinese architecture often attaches importance to representing communication aestheetics. the construction of the city often eliminates beauty as one of the elements that forces chinese people to escape to the country. the negation of western urban construction and the persistence of chinese architectural characteristics reflect the recognition and persistence of chinese people. furthermore, the recognition of chinese architecture and this confidence in chinese architecture has been spread abroad through lin yutang’s writing. this kind of generous national self-confidence also affects the construction of china’s image overseas. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. in my country and my people, lin yutang acknowledges that “its first principle was utility, and was often purely so even to today. hence the unmitigated ugliness of the best modern factory buildings, school-houses, theaters, post offices, railway stations and rectilinear streets, whose oppressiveness accounts for the fact that we constantly feel the need to escape to the country” (lin, 1935, p. 128). in his view, utility is the primary and leading principle that western architecture adheres to. western architecture has been characterized by the principle of utility, which emphasizes the functional needs of a building’s occupants. this principle has been evident in designing various structures such as factories, schools, post offices, and railway stations, which have been built to optimize the practical needs. additionally, public spaces such as parks and plazas have been designed with utility in mind, providing functional spaces for people to gather and socialize. however, lin yutang’s critique of modern western architecture is that the principle of utility has been taken to the extreme, resulting in buildings that lack aesthetic appeal. according to lin, modern factories, school-houses, and other structures are oppressively uninviting due to the emphasis on functionality above all else. this has contributed to a desire to escape to the countryside, as people seek relief from the oppressive nature of modern buildings. lin’s argument is that, while the principle of utility is essential in designing functional buildings, it should not come at the expense of aesthetics. a balance should be struck between utility and aesthetic appeal, creating buildings that serve their purpose while also being visually pleasing. this balance can be achieved through the incorporation of decorative elements, the use of tasteful color schemes, and the integration of nature into building design. the principle of utility has been a guiding principle in western style architecture, resulting in designing functional buildings that serve the practical needs of their occupants. however, lin yutang argues that this principle has been taken to an extreme, resulting in buildings that lack aesthetic appeal. a balance should be struck between utility and aesthetics, creating buildings that are both functional and visually pleasing. lin also points out that “the modern industrial age has aggravated the situation, especially with the invention of reinforced concrete” (lin, 1935, p. 128). in 1750-1848, modern britain was the pioneer of industrialization and urbanization in the world. among the emerging industrial cities represented by manchester, birmingham and liz, the problem of “urban disease” was particularly serious, thus leading to the urgent need for urban governance (liang, 2015, p. 3). however, contrary to the standards held by chinese architecture, as lin yutang stresses, “utility is the answer. but utility is not art” (lin, 1935, p. 128). in the process of urbanization, the serious impact of urban diseases under the western industrial revolution is also the consequence of over emphasis on utility principle. the reflection of the huge population of industrial city in the urban spatial structure is the dense interweaving of all kinds of urban buildings. in manchester, within large factories with 500 or 1000 employees, there are extremely simple working class houses, grouped in rows or piles. there are also many small-scale cloth cutting fields, spinning mills, dyeing workshops and printing factories in the living rooms of the citizens (liang, 2015, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 54 published by scholink inc. p. 4). therefore, during that period, chinese people inevitably desired to escape to the country. then lin yutang specifies that “some even processed to see an inspiring beauty in the new york skyscrapers. if so, i have not seen any. the beauty is the beauty of the gold: they are beautiful because they suggest the power of millions. they express the spirit of the industrial age” (lin, 1935, p. 128). when architectural standards focus on practicality, it goes against the personality and temperament of chinese people and the aesthetics of chinese architecture. as a matter of fact, chinese architecture is often characterized by its use of natural materials, such as wood and stone, and its integration with the surrounding environment. the principles of feng shui are often applied in designing buildings, emphasizing the importance of harmony and balance. traditional chinese architecture also places great importance on symbolism and meaning, with buildings often designed to convey a particular message or represent certain values. in contrast, western architecture, particularly modern architecture, tends to prioritize practicality and functionality over aesthetics. this is exemplified by the skyscrapers of new york, which lin yutang argues are not beautiful in themselves but can only conceived to represent the power and wealth of the industrial age. this type of architecture reflects a different set of values and beliefs than those of traditional chinese architecture. furthermore, lin yutang argues that this focus on practicality and functionality goes against the personality and temperament of the chinese people. chinese culture places a great emphasis on harmony, balance, and the natural world, and these values are reflected in traditional chinese architecture. when buildings prioritize practicality over aesthetics and harmony with nature, they fail to resonate with the chinese cultural identity. chinese architecture places a greater emphasis on aesthetics, harmony with nature, and symbolism, reflecting the values and beliefs of the chinese culture. when these values are not reflected in buildings, they fail to resonate with the chinese cultural identity. 3. nature spirit as lin yutang comments “its essential spirit is the spirit of peace and contentment, with its best private product in the private home and garden. its spirit does not, like the gothic spires, aspire to heaven, but broods over the earth and is contented with its lots” (lin, 1935, p. 128). lin yutang contrasts gothic architectural style against chinese architecture, highlighting the difference between the atmosphere of chinese architecture and western architecture lies in “the spirit of peace and contentment”, “ broods over the earth and is contented with its lot”. therefore, as lin concludes, chinese architecture is informed with the spirit of nature. lin yutang writes that, “the best architecture is that which loses itself in the natural landscape and becomes one with it, belongs to it” (lin, 1935, p. 128). it may be inferred that nature spirit of chinese architecture determines the distance and integration with nature. according to lin yutang, the best architecture loses itself in natural landscape and becomes one part of it, which emphasizes harmony with nature. this idea is rooted in traditional chinese culture, which places great www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. importance on the relationship between humans and the natural world. by highlighting this aspect of chinese architecture, lin yutang is showcasing the unique cultural identity of china and its people. however, chinese people used to be conceived ignorant and vain, perpetuating stereotypes and prejudices. however, the idea of the unity of heaven and mankind in chinese traditional culture, which lin yutang refers, showcases the objective side of the personality of chinese people. this idea emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things and the importance of balance and harmony, reflecting a deep respect for the natural world. by combining the concept of the unity of heaven and mankind with the spirit of chinese painting, lin yutang’s works showcase the unique cultural traditions of china and deepen the understanding of china’s image overseas. by highlighting the importance of harmony with nature in chinese architecture, lin yutang is challenging western perceptions of chinese culture and demonstrating that china has a rich and unique cultural identity. by emphasizing these aspects of chinese culture, lin yutang corrects western stereotypes and prejudices and deepens the understanding of china’s image overseas. 3.1 “jing” as serenity lin yutang proposes that “the problem of revealing or canceling skeleton structures is exactly similar to the problem of ‘touch’ in painting” (lin, 1935, p. 128). static “jing” in painting can be interpreted to be a kind of voice, with pen and ink as the means and the picture as the carrier, all of which combine together to come up with them charm beyond the form. we can gain static state—“jing” in chinese painting aesthetics. in brief, the “touch” in chinese painting is “jing” (feng, 2017). it can be seen that the tranquility of chinese architecture reflects the inner “jing” of chinese people through the “touch” of chinese painting. as a practice and spiritual belief, laozi, the originator of taoism, believes that emptiness and quietness is the origin of life, but people are vulnerable to external interference and temptation and lose their original mind. laozi put forward the way of cultivating truth, that is, to teach people not to be confused and obsessed by the external material world, to seek from the outside to the inside, from the satisfaction of material desires to the improvement of spiritual cultivation, and to return to simplicity (lu, 2015, pp. 26-27). “jing” permeates all aspects of the chinese cultural spirit and leaves a deep mark on the national psychological structure. from the perspective of artistic expression, chinese art appreciates “quietness”, which is determined by thousands of years of historical accumulation and our cultural tradition. chinese landscape painting pays attention to “verve”, and chinese architecture emphasizes “jing” atmosphere (vago & zaidan, 2016, pp. 96-113). from the perspective of cultural tradition, “jing” is not only the means that chinese people adopt to comprehend and speculate this world, but also the way through which chinese people conduct spiritual practice. it gives chinese traditional culture a unique spiritual temperament (li, 2015, pp. 67-73). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. 3.2 unity of heaven and mankind according to lin yutang, “its lines should soothe but not obtrude, its roofs should be nestle: quietly beneath the kind shade of trees and soft boughs should gently brush its brow. the chinese roof does not shout out loud and does not point its finger at heaven. it only shows peace and bows in modesty before the firmament” (lin, p. 321). as lin points out, chinese architecture is deeply influenced by chinese painting aesthetics. it does not pay much attention to the volume, shape or perspective effect of a single building, but focuses on the feeling of “changing scenery step by step” thorough the sense of space between human and architectural environment. the sense of space in chinese architecture is determined by people’s perception of heaven. “there are many thoughts about space in ancient chinese architecture. the height of architecture is determined by looking up into the sky, and the depth of architecture is determined by looking down onto the earth. it can be said that the chinese people’s grasp of the natural distance shows the natural spirit of chinese architecture” (liu, 2015, p. 4). therefore, chinese architecture is mainly embodied in “emptiness” of space. it reflects the inaction of taoism, and the characteristics of chinese architecture in his works are also influenced by taoism. in the writing of chinese architecture, the integration of chinese architecture and nature reflects a taoist view of “the unity of heaven and mankind”. lin yutang also mentions, “it is a sign of the place where we human live, and it suggests a certain amount of decency by covering up our human habitations”. however, chinese architecture attaches importance to the effect of internal space, showing some introverted and closed characteristics. compared with the west, chinese architecture emphasizes the external space as the main part, reflecting “the spirit of the opposition between the heaven and mankind and the determination that the human being conquers nature” (wang, 2010, p. 45). the emphasis on internal space in chinese architecture can be seen that chinese people’s temperament is more introverted than the westerners. 3.2.1 the origin of unity of heaven and mankind the unity of heaven and mankind" is a concept rooted in taoism, which emphasizes the connection between humans and the natural world. it highlights the idea that humans are not separate from nature, but rather an integral part of it. this concept is reflected in various aspects of chinese culture, including architecture. chinese architecture often emphasizes harmony between man and nature, striving to create a balance between human-made structures and the surrounding environment. this reflects the belief that humans should coexist harmoniously with nature, rather than dominate or exploit it. the unity of all things and the emphasis on harmony in chinese architecture are influenced by the taoist principle of embracing the wonder and mystery of the natural world. as lin points out, “taoism, therefore, accounts for a side of the chinese character which confucianism can not satisfy. there is a natural romanticism and a natural classicism in a nation, as in an individual” (lin, 1935, p. 300). thus, chinese architecture reflects chinese people’s romantic thoughts in living through the combination of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. chinese architectural aesthetics and “the unity of heaven and mankind”. 3.2.2 the application of the unity of heaven and mankind lin yutang once expresses that “taoist philosophy explains the unsatisfied aspect of confucius in chinese nationality, that is, imagination and romantic thought”. therefore, chinese architecture attaches importance to harmony with heaven, which reflects the imagination and romantic thought through the reservation of chinese people. “from the harmonious development of the nature view, which is ‘unity of heaven and mankind’ as the guiding ideology, with the taoist architecture integration research and overall analysis reveal the application in spatial distribution” (zhao & shan, 2015, p. 2). for example, the porch, hall and cornice in the north show the infinite sense of architectural space, and the visual experience is skillfully realized through the stone and wood structure. the chinese garden architecture in the south shows originality, which increases the imagination of space through “changing scenery step by step” (zhong, 2020, p. 18). chinese people are obviously introverted. this can be explored in terms of chinese garden architecture changes the landscape. “the changing scenery of chinese architecture is not directly seen by opening the door or walking down the stairs, but indirectly felt through the contact between man and nature, which is also a way for chinese people to express their romance and freedom implicitly” (xu, 2019, p. 1). it is the influence of “the unity of heaven and mankind” that enriches the imagination and romance of chinese architecture. the charm of chinese architecture based on the idea of “the unity of heaven and mankind” also shows the imagination and romantic spirit of chinese people. “from the architectural point of view, the spatial layout chinese religious culture ecological thought related achievements applied in architectural environment, thus, carry on and promote the development of man, society and ecological environment construction” (zhao & bian, 2015, p. 2). in contrast, traditional chinese architecture is characterized by its enclosed and compact design, creating a sense of privacy and intimacy. the buildings are constructed around a central courtyard, which serves as a gathering place for family and friends, and the walls are often adorned with intricate carvings and paintings. the use of wooden beams and brackets, rather than columns, allows for flexible and adaptable spaces that can be easily reconfigured to suit changing needs. the great wall of china and the forbidden city in beijing are iconic examples of traditional chinese architecture, evoking a sense of grandeur, stability, and harmony with nature. overall, while western architecture emphasizes individuality and openness, traditional chinese architecture values community and harmony. as a result, traditional chinese architecture employs a more subtle approach to incorporating romantic ideas into its internal structure, often relying on the presence of people to bring the space to life. lin yutang’s depiction of chinese architecture captures the essence of chinese culture, which values peace and security within the home and stability and caution outside of it. the intricate carvings and paintings www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. on the walls and the use of natural materials such as wood and stone reflect a deep reverence for nature and a desire to live in harmony with it. in contrast to western architecture, which emphasizes individuality and openness, traditional chinese architecture values community and privacy. overall, the romantic ideas in chinese architecture are more understated, reflecting the modest and reserved nature of the chinese people. 4. chinese architectural structure the western perception of chinese architecture often centers its role in manufacturing rather than innovation, particularly in the realm of original design. although china has produced many exceptional architectural works in recent years, however, the majority of them are public or commercial buildings, and residential buildings’ occupancy rate is relatively low. this lack of quantity seems to reflect a lack of quality and originality in design. chinese architects frequently prioritize studying western architectural design over incorporating chinese characteristics into their work. they often view tradition as a relic of the past and discard it in favor of modern western design, believing it is the best way to connect with the world. however, this approach does not always hold true. it is crucial to recognize the value of chinese traditional architecture and design and integrate it into modern architecture. by doing so, designers can create unique and innovative designs that reflect chinese culture and values. striking a balance between tradition and modernity is essential in creating original and functional designs that meet the needs of contemporary society. by following this approach, chinese architecture will gain recognition and respect on a global scale, not just as a “made in china” product but as an original and innovative creation that contributes to the world’s architectural heritage. chinese designers often focus on studying western architectural design and neglect the importance of incorporating chinese characteristics into their work. they tend to view tradition as the past and discard it in favor of modern western design, believing that this is the best way to connect with the world. however, this belief is not always true in certain circumstances. however, there still exists the misunderstanding of lacking of creativity in overseas impression of china architecture. while chinese architecture introduced by lin yutang shows the creativity that chinese architecture needs instead of the commercial values as is demonstrated in western architecture. lin yutang stresses, “among the various strokes of a character, we usually choose a horizontal or a vertical stroke, or sometimes an enveloping square, which is regarded as giving support to the rest, and this stroke we must make powerfully and longer, more obvious than the others” (lin, 1935, p. 130). obviously, chinese people use chinese character structure in architectural structure. lin takes the example of the palace museum which “is located in the north to the south. the main buildings are arranged on a main axis, and other secondary buildings are distributed on both sides of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 59 published by scholink inc. the main axis, facing each other from east to west, forming a concise organizational law. this neat arrangement is derived from the symmetry of chinese characters” (lin, 1935, p. 129). as we can see, the structure of the palace museum is created from chinese characters. ancient chinese people gained much inspiration from chinese traditional culture. thus, chinese architecture has the structure of chinese characters, traditional color decoration and cautious layout influenced by the doctrine of the mean, breaking the stereotype of china overseas. 4.1 color decoration of chinese architecture lin yutang simply describes decorative details of chinese architecture. there are many innovations in the decoration of chinese architecture. “roof ridge decoration refers to the decorative components on the roof of ancient china. it has both humanistic connotation and aesthetic taste. it is called ‘top scenery’, which integrates traditional art aesthetics, national culture, feudal rituals, etc. among them, totem culture temple is an ancient phenomenon. the original function of roof decoration is to press and hold the roof tiles, and then gradually evolved into a decorative symbol” (jian, 2019, p. 8). in choosing color, ancient chinese architecture is good at integrating a variety of colors, such as the color of the roof of chinese architecture will change with the seasons (gou & wang, 2010, pp. 246-266). in comparison of chinese and western architectural color decoration, the forbidden city of china and the palace of versailles of france are often regarded as typical examples. the forbidden city commonly adopts yellow, red, and white in its decoration. the reason why the palace museum chooses yellow glazed tiles is due to the symbolic significance of the color. yellow represents the color of land and sunlight, embodying the central government, imperial power, hierarchy, order, and supremacy. according to wang daili (2015), red is another significant color used in the forbidden city’s decoration. red is a full color that conveys warmth and awe and is recognized as the oldest color used by human beings. the use of red in the forbidden city’s decoration signifies prosperity, auspiciousness, and happiness. in contrast, the palace of versailles in france features a more vibrant and diverse range of colors in its decoration. the interior features a wide range of colors, including gold, blue, and green, which reflect the luxurious and extravagant aesthetic of the french monarchy. the differences in color decoration between chinese and western architecture reflect the differing cultural values and aesthetics. chinese architecture emphasizes the symbolic significance of colors and their association with imperial power and hierarchy. in contrast, western architecture emphasizes luxury and extravagance, with a focus on a diverse range of colors and materials to create a visually stunning effect. in ancient china, red also signifies the highest status. the white stone base decoration of the forbidden city was also very exquisite. “in ancient chinese taoism philosophy, white and black represent yang and yin, and are regarded as the source of all things.” among them, white is called “yang color”, which represents the positive, enterprising, strong characteristics and the things and phenomena with these characteristics. while in the 17th century, the architecture of versailles is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 60 published by scholink inc. characterized by the worship of roman style and rationality. “the appearance colors of versailles palace are mainly red, yellow and blue bricks, decorated with gold, giving people a grand and magnificent feeling” (wang, 2015, p. 6). however, it does not have the rigorous color level as the appearance colors of the forbidden city. the decoration color of chinese palaces is closely related to china’s political and cultural systems. it is symbolic, geomantic, and ethical, and has been used to signify superiority, inferiority, and social class division. as a result, the color decoration of chinese palace architecture is rich and colorful but can appear relatively singular due to the rigid hierarchical system that existed in the past society. in contrast, the color and decoration of western palace buildings exhibit a greater degree of diversity and rationality, reflecting the pluralistic and ever-changing social culture of western countries. as wang daili (2015) notes, western palace buildings tend to pursue artistic freedom and individuality, resulting in a more varied and diverse approach to color and decoration.the difference in color and decoration between chinese and western palace buildings reflects the contrasting cultural values and aesthetics. chinese architecture emphasizes the symbolic and hierarchical significance of color, while western architecture values individuality, artistic freedom, and diversity. 4.2 chinese architectural layout lin yutang gives an example of the forbidden city. there is a hidden axis in the design of beijing, and the layout is symmetrical. the different layout of chinese and western architecture reflects the different expressions of national spirit: “in a large range and for a long time, ancient chinese architecture was influenced by the chinese doctrine of the mean and developed in a stereotyped style” (wang, 2009, p. 14). in the history of chinese ancient architecture, liu dunzhen classified chinese architecture into official architecture, residential architecture and garden architecture influenced by the doctrine of the means. in his article, liu dunzhen writes: “all these structural and external features, together with the balanced and symmetrical layout method, have formed the unique style of chinese architecture, making it unique in the world architecture” (shan, 2020, p. 5). as liu dunzhen points out, this kind of balance of layout is actually the expression of the chinese people’s doctrine of the mean. chinese culture is influenced by the doctrine of the mean, and chinese people attach importance to checks and balances. confucius and mencius believe that man is between heaven and earth, and “zhi zhong” is the best way of existence. “this concept determines that the characteristics of chinese traditional architecture in site selection, planning, layout and shape are ‘seeking the middle’, with ‘middle’ as the standard of planning architecture, and all buildings are carried out with the middle line as the standard” (yang, 2012, p. 24). the rigorous layout of chinese architecture reflects the doctrine of the mean. the core idea of the doctrine of the mean is to live in the right way, not biased, with natural pure human nature to improve www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 61 published by scholink inc. self-cultivation, treat everything. according to the doctrine of the mean, people’s cultivation should be based on persistence and self-discipline. it should be consistent with the doctrine of justice and neutralization. “the layout of chinese classical architecture is always based on a main axis, the main building is arranged on the main axis, and the secondary building is arranged on both sides in front of the main building, facing east and west, forming a square or rectangular courtyard” (wang , 2009, p. 14). as long as desire and demand are moderate and in line with the doctrine of the means, they will also be in line with the principle of heaven. chinese architectural culture reflects the formation of chinese architectural style, the reason of chinese personality structure, and the influence on the overseas construction of image of china. chinese geomantic culture has been misunderstood by western society, but it has been imperceptibly influencing the style of chinese architecture. for chinese people, it is more or less influenced by geomantic customs, such as unique views on the location of houses, the placement of furniture, and the location of doors. furthermore, it plays a certain role in the yearning for good luck in chinese personality. it is common for good luck symbols to appear in chinese architecture, which reflects the application of symbolism to cause in-depth thinking. the role of pantheism in chinese architecture is also an indispensable part of chinese architectural culture. as lin yutang writes, “it has supplemented this by the constant use of symbolic motives. and it has, through the superstition of geomancy, introduced the element of pantheism, which compels regard for the surrounding landscape” (lin, 1935, p. 129). in short, chinese architecture is influenced by these three factors: symbolism, pantheism and geomancy culture. with the continuous use of symbolism, pantheism emerged through geomancy. 5. reflection on chinese architectural culture as lin yutang writes “it has supplemented this by the constant use of symbolic motives. and it has, through the superstition of geomancy, introduced the element of pantheism, which compels regard for the surrounding landscape” (lin, 1935, p. 129). in short, chinese architecture is influenced by these three factors: symbolism, pantheism and geomancy culture. with the continuous use of symbolism, pantheism has emerged through geomancy. 5.1 reflection on application of symbolism according to lin yutang’s observation, chinese architecture seeks relief from straight lines and makes use of symbolism to convey a psychological message. animal images in chinese architecture often symbolize the chinese people’s good wishes for life. for instance, lin notes that the bat is a popular decoration motif in chinese architecture because of its curved wings’ versatility in design and its homonym for “good luck”. similarly, the lion’s image appears in front of houses, gardens, and mausoleums in china, reflecting the chinese people’s optimism about life. residential buildings often feature gentle and lovely lion images, giving people a sense of joy (zhong, 2020, p. 18). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 62 published by scholink inc. in ancient chinese palaces, dragon is considered to be one of the most important symbols in chinese classic culture, connoting power and longevity. according to lin yutang, symbolism in chinese architecture contains within a few conventional lines the thoughts of age and the dreams of the race. dragon is the most revered animal in china and a symbol of the emperor who always had the best of everything. the role of symbolism in chinese architecture reflects the chinese people’s cultural values and beliefs and contains the age and hope of the nation (lin, 1935, p. 300). furthermore, one of the most representative works of symbolism in china is the classic of mountains and seas anonymou, which describes many rare animals in ancient china, for example, a crafty and villainous person and unicorn “zheng”. in fact, in han dynasty, a crafty and villainous person should have the meaning of auspiciousness. “in han dynasty stone reliefs, a crafty and villainous person often accompanied the queen of the west. the reason why a crafty and villainous person is so extraordinary may be related to the fox’s cleverness and beauty. take red fox as an example. red fox has a long fluffy tail. its swinging posture can easily arouse people’s imagination of ‘nine tails’” (xu, 2019, p. 4). in the classic of mountains and seas anonymous, the constituent elements of the images of rare animals are basically limited to the category of real existence in nature, and these constituent elements are basically real concrete images. therefore, the way to endow surreal things with authenticity is often to transfer the concrete authenticity to imaginary things, which also shows the characteristics of sensibility and intuition. however, the symbolic images of western architecture are not as sensible and intuitive as those of china. the chinese architectural symbolic images are abstract, and they were made up by rich imagination, while the symbolic images of western ancient buildings are more concrete, and most of them directly imitate the things in nature. “in the early days, they imitated the weaving patterns of flowers and leaves of plants, such as water plants, reeds and vines. in the greek period, there were columns. in the middle ages, the church was dominated by saints or new testament stories” (yu & liu, 2020, p. 5). symbolism in chinese architecture expresses chinese people’s good wishes for life and great imagination, through the mysterious symbolic images such as bat, dragon and a crafty and villainous person. 5.2 the influence of pantheism lin yutang writes, “but then the dragon is not a purely mythological or antediluvian. to the chinese, the mountains and rivers are alive, and in many of the winding ridges of mountains we see the dragon’s back, and where the mountains gradually descend and merge into the plain or the sea we see the dragon’s tail. that is chinese pantheism, the basis of chinese geomancy”. one of the mythical animals in chinese architecture mentioned by lin yutang is the dragon. dragon is the most revered animal in china. it is a symbol of the emperor. it is the most widely used in ancient chinese architectural decoration, partly because it symbolizes imperial power, and partly because with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 63 published by scholink inc. the passage of time, the image of the dragon is no longer a pure mythical animal, but is composed of the concept of the chinese people. the chinese people believe that mountains and rivers have gods, which is the manifestation of chinese pantheism in chinese architecture. the chinese regard the dragon as a deity, and at the same time expand to mountains and rivers to charge them with deities. therefore, chinese architectural culture is also influenced by pantheism. chinese people’s view of mountains and rivers as gods has a profound impact on china’s image abroad. maxine hong kingston, a famous chinese american writer, once said: “for the west people, when i hear the word ‘china’, i immediately think of ancient rituals, exotic tea and superstition” (wang, 2020, p. 2). the ancient rituals and superstitions in the overseas impression of china are influenced by pantheism. the image of the chinese is superstitious in the west. however, chinese pantheism is not the kind of superstition as westerners think. chinese people believe, the mountains and rivers are alive and dragon is one of the due expressions. “but then the dragon is not a purely mythological or antediluvian. to chinese, the mountains and rivers are alive, and in many of the winding ridges of mountains we see the dragon’s back, and where the mountains gradually descend and merge into the plain or the sea we see the dragon’s tail. that is chinese pantheism, the basis of chinese geomancy” (lin, 1935, p. 310). not only can dragon be viewed as god in china, but also the stove has been influenced by pantheism in chinese folk culture. in ancient china, every house had a stove. the ceremony of offering sacrifices to the kitchen god during the chinese new year is mainly to “leave the kitchen” and send the kitchen god to heaven. the kitchen god went to heaven to report the performance of his family for one year to the jade emperor. 5.3 chinese geomantic culture chinese architecture has been criticized by western missionaries and colonists for its use of geomantic culture, which was considered as witchcraft and deception. however, fengshui, as a traditional standard for layout and object placement in the natural environment, has a great spiritual and architectural value in chinese architecture, as noted by lin yutang. he acknowledges that geomancy is a superstition but emphasized its advantages in chinese architecture (mu & zhang, 2020, p. 3). compared to other cultures, the geomantic omen pattern in chinese culture has unique features, such as a preference for “hiding” and “defending” and an attachment to the nature of mountains and rivers. these features deeply reflect the poetic and introverted personality of the chinese people and are different from the characteristics of “showing off”, “attacking”, and “extroverting” of european christian culture (ding, 2003, p. 2). therefore, the use of chinese geomantic culture in architecture tends to reflect a personality that is “hiding” “indirect”, and “defending”. through lin yutang’s writing on chinese architecture, the misunderstanding of chinese culture overseas is more clarified, and the important role of geomantic culture in chinese architecture is highlighted. the use of symbolism in chinese architecture reflects the hopes and cultural values of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 64 published by scholink inc. chinese people, while fengshui provides a spiritual and architectural basis for chinese architecture. since the middle and late 20th century, with the global environmental and ecological crisis highlighted, the environmental governance concept of chinese fengshui conforming to nature and respecting nature has been gradually recognized by western scholars. fengshui is regarded as “a way for chinese people to understand, perceive and deal with the real world” (ding, 2003, p. 1). fengshui culture embodied in chinese architecture has also been recognized to a certain extent. “the aesthetics of chinese geomancy has therefore a very close bearing on chinese architecture in the broad sense of the world. 6. reflection on overseas construction of china’s image the west has historically held a polarized view of china’s image, characterized by two extremes: the image of peasants who are perceived as lacking ambition, innovation, and expressiveness, and the image of villains who are viewed as being ambitious and destructive. the former is rooted in a lack of understanding of china’s development, while the latter is based on demonization fueled by a lack of understanding. lin yutang’s writing on chinese architecture offers a unique perspective on china’s national spirit and contributes to breaking down these inherent prejudices. by highlighting the characteristics of chinese architecture, lin yutang offers insight into the chinese people’s cultural values and beliefs. this, in turn, can increase mutual understanding between china and the west. however, it is important to note that the singular image of china overseas is not solely a result of western biases. china’s own image transittign strategies, as well as geopolitical factors, should also take up the responsiblities for china recognized internationally. therefore, a more nuanced understanding of the multiple factors that contribute to china’s image overseas is necessary. lin yutang’s writing on chinese architecture offers a valuable starting point for this understanding. 6.1 prejudice, respect, and accept the characteristics of chinese architecture in lin yutang’s works show the national spirit of china, and overseas views on china’s image have changed. the efforts of chinese architects in chinese architecture have also attracted overseas attention. “liang sicheng and lin huiyin, the couple of architects, received art education overseas, and their understanding of architecture reached a balance between western learning and the study of ancient chinese architecture”. the west understands chinese architecture, respects and accepts the aesthetics of chinese architecture, which makes chinese architecture more widely understood and studied. the stereotyped image of china overseas is actually the prejudice caused by the lack of cognition of china overseas. through the efforts of lin yutang put into the chinese architects as a way of communication between chinese and western architecture, the prejudice against china has been lightened and china’s overseas image has been refixed to a great extent. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 65 published by scholink inc. 6.2 absorption and impact the absorption and impact of chinese architecture on western construction styles in britain during the 18th and 19th centuries was significant and far-reaching. the influence of chinese architecture can be seen in various aspects of western architecture, including the use of decorative motifs, the incorporation of oriental elements in building design, and the adoption of new construction techniques and materials. one of the primary ways in which chinese architecture impacted western construction styles was through the use of decorative motifs. the intricate designs and patterns found in chinese architecture, such as the use of dragons, pagodas, and other ornate motifs, were highly sought after by western designers and architects. these motifs were incorporated into the design of buildings, furniture, and other decorative objects, giving rise to a new style known as “chinoiserie”. another way in which chinese architecture impacted western construction styles was through the incorporation of oriental elements in building design. chinese architectural features, such as the use of curved roofs, intricate lattice work, and the integration of nature into building design, were admired by western architects and designers. these elements were gradually incorporated into western building design, leading to the emergence of a new architectural style known as “orientalism”. finally, the impact of chinese architecture on western construction styles can be seen in the adoption of new construction techniques and materials. the chinese were pioneers in the use of materials such as porcelain and silk in construction, and their use of bamboo scaffolding and other innovative construction techniques were also highly influential. western architects and builders were quick to adopt these new techniques and materials, leading to the development of new construction technologies and methods. in conclusion, the absorption and impact of chinese architecture on western construction styles in britain during the 18th and 19th centuries was significant. the influence of chinese architecture can be seen in various aspects of western architecture, including the use of decorative motifs, the incorporation of oriental elements in building design, and the adoption of new construction techniques and materials. the legacy of this influence can still be seen in modern western architecture today. 7. conclusion my country and my people had played an important role in transmitting the image of china. thus, many scholars have studied the book on chinese national spirt and image from different dimensions. this paper studies the chapter of architecture in my country and my people to analyze the characteristics of chinese architecture that reflects the chinese national spirit, chinese personality and overseas shaping of china’s image through the comparison of chinese and western architecture. chinese architecture focuses on representing and conveying beauty and seeking harmony with nature. through lin’s writing about serenity of chinese architecture, chinese architecture expresses nature www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 66 published by scholink inc. spirit, reflecting chinese people’s personality “jing” and “unity with man and heaven” combined with ancient taoism theory. furthermore, this paper analyzes chinese architectural structure, including color decoration and layout. chinese architectural culture influenced by symbolism, pantheism and geomantic culture that reflects chinese unique charms and features. acknowledgment writing this paper was like successfully surviving a long and arduous journey. i was able to make it through this journey because i had the unwavering support of so many people along the way. the deepest and sincerest gratitude goes to my supervisor, prof. dan cui, for her continuous and invaluable guidance throughout my research. she gave me much aid through timely responding to my questions, providing insightful feedback, offering a number of professional revising suggestions, and leading and pushing me to think harder and deeper. i am deeply impressed by her seriousness and rigor of academic research.it is of a great honor for me to be given an opportunity to complete my paperunder her supervision and guidance. in addition, i extend my gratefulness for my mother for her support, both mentally and financially. my final thanks go to all my friends for their encouragement and motivation. references ding, w. j. 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(2019). chinese classical gardens and gothic architecture, 4.3. yang jianhai. (2012). my opinion on the differences between traditional chinese architecture and western classical architecture. technology and enterprise, 24. yu, b. k., & liu, p. x., & zhuang, h. r. (2020). a comparative study of architectural decoration culture between china and the west: taking doors as an example. beauty and era, 5. zhao, b., & shan, d. (2015). unity of heaven and mankind below architectural space layout in taoism. chinese spirit in modern strength (2018), 58, 154-188. zhong, g. (2020). classical aesthetics in chinese architectural decoration design. architectural structure, 18. note(s) note 1. this paper is the periodical research result of project on “a study of english major course system construction with value shaping based on ‘global village’ as the foreign language lab” sponsored by the academy of foreign language teaching attached to the institute of higher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 68 published by scholink inc. education of china (no: 21wyjyzd08); of project on “a study of routes applied to cultivate the inter-cultural competence of english major students” (no: gjjx20201130); of project on “the establishment and practice of vista mode of development and transformation of english-major teaching faculty’s proficiency under new arts prospect” sponsored by chinese private higher education association (canfzg22417); of project on “the construction and practice of mode of development and transformation of foreign language teaching faculty’s proficiency in international studies of universities under multiple-discipline background” sponsored by jilin higher education association (no: jgjx2022d316); of project on “a study on cultivation mechanism of foreign language high-quality students based on inter-discipline crossover and integration under value guiding” sponsored by jilin education and science leading office (wt22143). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 135 original paper boundary between religion and social conflict —perspective from the civil rights movement qiong li1* & jie yang1 1 social and public administration school, east china university of science and technology, shanghai, 200237, china * qiong li, social and public administration school, east china university of science and technology, shanghai, 200237, china received: august 29, 2018 accepted: september 14, 2018 online published: september 25, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n2p135 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n2p135 abstract based on the background of american civil rights movement in which religious factors participated, this study analyzes the function of religious factors in civil rights movement from the perspective of political participation and the principle of separation of politics and religion, in order to consider the research paradigm of the relationship between religion and social conflict. it is believed that religious participation is helpful to exert the positive force of social conflict, the right of religious freedom has, to a certain extent, become the “safety valve” of social stability, and the development of religion is the embodiment of social pluralism and symbiosis. keywords civil rights movement, religion, social conflict, political participation, boundary 1. background this year is the famous speech of martin luther king jr. in 2013—“i have a dream” for the 50th anniversary. however, in july 2013, the incident of a white police officer shooting a black youth was defined as innocent. this decision has caused widespread social debate due to strong racial factors. as one of the earliest groups in the north american continent, black people have made great contributions to the development of the united states. but until today, many black people still live at the bottom of society; they are difficult to integrate into the mainstream of american society. lincoln published the “declaration of the emancipation of black slaves”, which once made the blacks feel the light of hope, but because of the deep-rooted racist ideas and the long-term existence of the forces, the black people’s rights to defend their rights are struggling. the civil rights movement after the second world war not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 136 published by scholink inc. only promoted the reform of the us federal government to eradicate apartheid, but also won the civil rights for black people, and also inspired the new democracy and freedom liberation movement of american society, which promoted and influenced the modern women’s movement. a wave of social movements, such as the anti-war movement, the new left movement and the struggle for rights by other ethnic groups. their appeals vary, their scales vary, and their forms are diverse, which has far-reaching implications for the development of american and even western societies. as is known to all, religion affects all areas of american political and social life. as one of the important ethnic groups in the united states, the influence of religion on black people is self-evident. the religious inclination of black americans is diversified, which can be roughly divided into four types: the inheritance of african primitive religion (note 1) with respect to god, the concept of “black god” (note 2) by marcus garvey, the “root-seeking” movement of islam and the integration with native american sects (note 3). these religious forces, which provided the necessary resources for the movement in the form of churches, were influential in the process of the civil rights movement. considering the role of religious factors in the civil rights movement is of great practical significance not only for studying the civil rights movement and civil political participation itself, but also for correctly understanding and dealing with various social conflicts and contradictions in china and promoting social stability and development. as a famous social movement, the american civil rights movement not only changed the fate of black americans and endowed them with a certain degree of equality, freedom and dignity, but also profoundly affected the life philosophy and value judgment of all americans. as the civil rights movement and the religious factors in the movement are often interwoven together, international sociology, political science, and religious circles have a certain theoretical academic research on these two major objects and their relations. however, there is still a lack of detailed literature on the civil rights movement in domestic related academic circles at present. therefore, with the help of my study visit to purdue university in the united states, i have made a comprehensive and systematic exposition of the relevant literature and theories at home and abroad, so as to deepen my attention to the different fields of religion, economy, politics, and society of african americans. at the same time, it has a certain research value for the theory and practice of dealing with religious and social issues in the current transition period of china. 2. review of china and abroad 2.1 the value argument of political participation the broadening of political participation and democratization of political life are the important sign of political development. but some scholars also voiced doubts; they divided the related theories into two categories: “the democracy theory emphasizing citizen participation and the democracy theory www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 137 published by scholink inc. restricting citizen participation” (blackwell encyclopedia of political science, 2002). the classical democrats, represented by rousseau, mill and jefferson, advocated the theory of participatory democracy, holding that political participation is the source of social vitality and creativity, a powerful tool to resist tyranny, and an important way to concentrate collective wisdom (walker, 1966; ryan, 1959). the government does not have the basis of public opinion if the people who are not involved in politics are not properly represented; one of the functions of political participation is to supervise the rulers favorably; participation in politics is the best tool to improve the level of citizens’ judgment; widespread indifference to politics is the root cause and manifestation of the weakness of the political system. however, in view of the horrendous consequences of blind participation in history (such as in fascist germany), some scholars have argued that broad political participation is not only impossible, but also unworthy. they believe that it is not good for society to encourage those who are not familiar with politics and have no interest in it. insisting that every citizen should participate in politics is to replace rational judgment of democracy with enthusiasm (schumpeter, 1979; dahl, 1999). elites are better suited to be producers of policies, they must be chosen from all sectors of society, openly competing with each other, and citizens need only vote to choose; broad political activity is in some ways desirable, but also has disadvantages. for example, some of the political problems in the united states are caused by a surplus of democracy, and democracy needs moderation (huntington, 1989), and so on. they therefore argued that the expansion of political participation also required a desirable limitation. 2.2 social movement in the west from the perspective of social movement research paradigm, the interpretation of social movement in western theory can be divided into four categories: structural tension-psychological imbalance model, resource mobilization theory, political process model, new social movement theory and so on. the former three pay more attention to how individuals make behavioral choices from the micro perspective, while the new social movement theory focuses on why social movements occur. structural tension-psychological imbalance model. macadam (2001) summed up the early classical theory of explaining social movements as a model of structural stress/psychological imbalance. these theories all express such a relationship-social structural tension leading to individual psychological imbalance. psychological imbalance leads to social movements. but this paradigm fails to explain how individual psychological imbalances evolve into collective behavior (snyder & tilly, 1972). is there a necessary connection between structural tension and collective struggle? because of these defects of the classical psychological imbalance model, the theory of resource mobilization gradually replaced the theory of resource mobilization in the 1970s. resource mobilization theory. theory of resource mobilization. the core idea of american resource mobilization theory is to regard the participants of social movements as a rational actor. whether they www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 138 published by scholink inc. participate in social movements or not, and to what extent they participate, all depend on the benefits and costs that they gain and pay in the action. this hypothesis is a “reaction” to the traditional american theory of collective behavior. what it wants to know more is how the “discontent” that lurks in the minds of individuals translates into collective action on such a large scale as social movements. (mcadam, 1999) the theory of resource mobilization holds that the premise of social movement is that there are available resources, and the resources are in the hands of the elite. the existence of large-scale psychological imbalance in society is only a necessary condition for the emergence of resistance and movement, while a scattering of individuals waiting for the mobilization of the elite who control resources is a possible sufficient condition. the political process model (mcadam, 1999). the theory of resource mobilization can only explain the organized changes initiated by the political elite. based on the criticism of resource mobilization model, macadam introduced the endogenous organization and collective cognitive liberation into his theoretical framework, and put forward a more complete political process model. the model includes four elements of social movement: political change, endogenous organizational strength growth, collective characteristics and changes in other organizational responses. in explaining the rise, development, and decline of the movement, these four elements interact and change diachronically. new social movement theory. compared with the theory of resource mobilization, the new social movement theory is mainly concerned with the macro-structural level. why are there so many social movements in the western capitalist countries? (feng, 2003). it regards the social movement after the second world war as the result of the transformation of the social structure of the western capitalist countries, and answers from the angle of the social structure why these “new social movements” occurred and why they have these “new” characteristics. pay more attention to how to establish a new kind of social problems, such as the relationship between heaven and man, the relationship between characters, the relationship between body and mind, the relationship between men and women, and so on. 2.3 relationship between religion and social conflict at present, the mainstream paradigm of analyzing the relationship between religion and social conflict is nativism and instrumentalism. the basic idea of nativism is that religion is the driving force of political conflict (zhong, 2003). because of religion, religious culture and the national cultural tradition formed by the influence of religion, it will inevitably have an impact on all areas of social life. especially when making value judgment and deciding value orientation to things and problems, it is always restricted by the judge’s religious belief, the traditional culture education and the national condition. samuel huntington (1993) is the most prominent and representative figure. in his view, nation-states remained the main actors in international affairs, and the main conflicts in global politics would take place in countries and groups www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 139 published by scholink inc. of countries with different civilizations. “clash of civilizations” will dominate global politics (huntington, 2002) of all the objective factors that define civilization, religion is usually the most important. however, instrumentalist view is the opposite. the fundamental cause of conflicts between nations and nations is economic and political interests. on the surface, religious conflicts and sectarian disputes are conflicts of beliefs and ideologies, but in essence, such conflicts and disputes are still ethnic, and even caused by differences in political and economic interests within the same ethnic group (jin, 2002). the representative is marx (1995): religion is the ruling class used to paralyze the masses of the people’s spiritual tools, “religion is the opium of the people”. of course, huntington’s paradigm of conflict of civilizations has also been strongly criticized by instrumentalists in the contemporary era. according to fowler (2011), the worldwide conflicts caused by power, wealth, unfair distribution of influence and lack of respect by big countries for small countries are far more than the clash of civilizations between christianity, confucianism and islam. culture is a vehicle for expressing conflict, not a cause (mazur, 2011). the real cause of the conflict is socio-economic, not civilization. while it is true that differences in civilizations have contributed to many undesirable conflicts, they are not necessarily related to some conflicts, but are only functioning as one of many factors. the focus of the debate is: where is the origin of the social conflict with religious background? is it spiritual or material? the two sides are at odds with each other. 3. god and caesar if the “reality” of the success of the american civil rights movement has been proved by practice, is it “justified” for religious factors to participate in the political movement? the political and academic circles are still arguing about the boundary between the government and the church. the first congress of the united states was convened to amend the constitution of 1787 (note 4) for the first time. among them, the amendment to article 1st of the constitution stipulates that: “the national assembly shall not make laws on the establishment of religion or on the prohibition of freedom of religion”. jefferson, the president of the united states, famously said, “my neighbor said that god has twenty or none. it didn’t do me any harm. neither took out my purse nor broke my legs (note 5)”. one of the leaders of this far-reaching civil rights movement was martin luther king, a baptist pastor. so are pastors and churches represented by martin luther king suspected of religious interference in politics? 3.1 role identity in modern society, people’s role conflict is inevitable. can the “baptist” pastor, a social function of martin luther king, be evidence of religious interference in politics? when we judge its behavior attribute, we must carefully analyze the influence and the consequence which its behavior brings. some protestants and churches suffered from political embarrassment, they did not want to hear any political www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 140 published by scholink inc. issues, but also believe that religion and politics are opposed. but the truth is that martin luther king’s church did not revoke his pastor status because of his involvement in the civil rights movement. martin luther king was acting in his own capacity, not on behalf of the church. the african-american civil rights movement he led was aimed at opposing racial discrimination and racial oppression, and fighting for the right to political, economic, and social equality. this right is a legitimate civil right guaranteed by the declaration of independence. it is a matter of social justice, not a religious right. in this sense, martin luther king is leading a civil society movement, not just a religious movement. 3.2 separation of church and state the phrase “give caesar to caesar and god to god” from the new testament is jesus’ perfect interpretation of the combination of earthly and spiritual life. the pharisees sent men with the herodians to ask jesus if he could pay his taxes to caesar. herodians belong to the herod party, a political party, while the pharisees belong to a faction of judaism. the question they ask jesus is really whether a religious believer can do his civic duty. jesus answered, “caesar’s things should go to caesar, and god’s things to god”. this was jesus’ idea of the separation of religion from politics, and this phrase became the principle of the separation of church and state in the modern political system. many scholars have a lot of misunderstandings about the relationship between church and state, church and state, rather than politics and religion. it refers to the separation of government from religious organizations, not from politics and religion. we know that the united states is in history with a strong christian color of immigration, can be called a “christian country”. now, in the public and private lives of the american people, everywhere there is a strong religious color. for example, when the supreme court sits daily, it prays for god; when both houses of congress meet, it prays; and when a president takes office, he or she asks for god’s blessing and help. and in the relationship between the party and the church, as a personal political belief, if the candidate is an atheist is certainly not the president. because voters need to know the candidate’s religious beliefs, determine the choice of religious believers. christian beliefs, norms of conduct, habits and other deeply rooted in all aspects of american society and culture, and is generally recognized by society. religion becomes the “tool” used by political forces. such “politicized religion” is an extreme. what is this extreme? religion is not indifferent to social problems. biblical truth covers every aspect of social life, and it cannot be confined or enclosed within certain spheres. separation of church and state does not mean that christians and churches give way to the political sphere. the true meaning of the separation of church and state is not to replace the government with the church, not to rely on the state machine to suppress other religious beliefs. it is to be deeply involved in national politics with respect for the authority of legitimate government. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 141 published by scholink inc. 3.3 political legitimacy the civil rights movement led by martin luther king, who was premised on the recognition of the authority of the american authorities, did not constitute religious interference in politics. john locke, an english philosopher, points out in his book on religious tolerance: “religion is not a matter of state, but a private affair of citizens. the state should treat all churches equally, and implement a policy of tolerance”. but church activities must not harm the public interest, must not oppose the national government, and have to be subject to certain restrictions. jefferson also formally and publicly expressed his views on the separation of church and state in his speech when he became the second president in 1805. “in religious matters, freedom of worship is provided for in the constitution, which should be independent of the authority of the government,” he said, “i do not interfere in religious affairs in cases where religious groups recognize the authority of the state, as is the principle created by the constitution”. but there is a very important premise that there is an institutional environment of freedom and the rule of law. in particular, freedom of religion and freedom of the press. when these fundamental civil rights cannot be guaranteed, the resistance side will not accept them passively. 4. conflicts and effect of citizens’ participation in politics and society almond and verba, in their book civic culture, point out that “the individual’s conviction that he should participate in the political life of the community or the country does not mean that he will in fact do so”. what this means is that there is a gap between what citizens think and what they do, and that changes in behavior tend to lag behind improvements in consciousness; or that there is still a need for a bridge between the two. on the one hand, this kind of bridge is the space and necessary participation channel provided by the political system arrangement, but on the other hand, it depends on the citizen’s own desire to participate in activities and personal interests. 4.1 dynamic and orderly social stability and the effective political participation of all citizens the orderliness and continuity of social development are the preconditions for the realization of political participation, and the realization of political participation will promote social stability. under normal circumstances, countries with well-developed political participation generally have a higher degree of social stability. this is because: first, political participation satisfies citizens’ increasingly strong desire to participate in political life, strengthens citizens’ sense of ownership, and promotes citizens’ recognition of social system and political authority. the civil rights movement promoted the awakening of black political consciousness. to achieve results through the boycott and other movements, the foundation of black political power must be established to guarantee racial equality, and the best weapon for black people to eliminate apartheid is to use their right to vote. therefore, by the cooperation of “southern christian leadership conference”, “student non-violent coordination committee”, “racial equality conference”, “naacp” and so on, a campaign of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 142 published by scholink inc. election education was launched in the southern states, which had played an inestimable role in awakening black people’s political awareness and active participation in politics. since the civil rights movement, black political awareness in the south, enthusiasm for political participation, turnout and the number of black people holding public office have significantly increased, gradually breaking the ice of white monopoly politics. “if martin luther king had lived to this day, he would have been pleased, and take everything”, lewis said, “but the bottom line is elections”. from this, we can see that the embodiment of political democratization at the behavioral level is mainly political participation. but the premise is that people have a full right to know. “silent citizens may be ideal subjects for dictators, but it is a disaster for democracy”. political participation of interest groups, it is “a source of civic education and enlightenment from which citizens receive not only information but also opportunities for discussion, consultation and the development of political skills” (note 6). this is not only the necessary quality for the people to become politicians with independent personality, but also the subjective resource for the development of democratic politics. at the same time, the expansion of political participation is bound to greatly strengthen the sense of ownership of all citizens, and strengthen the political identity of the public to the social system and its political authority. second, political participation strengthens the channels of political transmission and feedback, which is conducive to the correct decision-making of the government and the timely resolution of various social contradictions or conflicts. the function of the “social safety valve” put forward by the famous scholars, such as corse and simmel, can vent negative emotions, which is not only beneficial to the maintenance of the social structure, but also conducive to promoting the benign operation and coordinated development of the society. it also advocates the institutionalization of the safety valve mechanism. in modern society, the expansion of political participation actually expands the channels of political transmission and feedback. at this time, in addition to the system of special channels of transmission and feedback created by the government itself. there is a frequent and multifaceted political transmission and feedback channel system caused by public political participation. third, the legitimacy of political participation is conducive to alleviate social conflict. in the process of social development, the political system assumes the responsibility and function of authoritative distribution of social resources. because the legitimacy of any political rule is derived from identity, but also lost in identity. according to lipsett’s analysis, legitimacy refers to the ability of the political system to make people believe in the existing political system (note 7). the extensive participation of the interest groups in the political process can give strong support and cooperation to the operation of the political system, and cultivate the profound mass inside information of the legitimacy of the regime. in a sense, the legitimacy of the regime is that it can meet the needs of the people to the maximum extent. finally, political participation itself is a broad and powerful social supervision, which is conducive to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 143 published by scholink inc. overcoming the bureaucracy of various political institutions and curbing the growth of political corruption. the active participation of multi-interest groups in political life has developed their own ability of autonomy and autonomy (note 8), and cultivated and exercised the independent political personality of the people. bureaucracy and political corruption are the ills of the political society, it is not easy to control it, eradicate it, and the only way to deal with such problems is social supervision. one of the important functions of citizen participation in political life is to supervise the implementation of state power; the expansion of participation can play a better role in the supervision of citizens. the strength of such supervision lies in its mass character and political nature: it is not enough to be mass without political because it lacks political binding force; neither can it be political without mass because it lacks the broad support of the masses. lonely politics is powerless politics. citizens’ political participation can effectively combine the two, especially as a means of political participation in the supervision of public opinion, has an irreplaceable important role. 4.2 imperfect political participation can easily lead to social conflict the development of everything has two sides, and there are many potential and possible factors in the process of political participation that lead to social conflicts. first, the high expectations of political participation will lead to social conflict. in the process of political democratization, based on the consideration of their own interests, various interest groups have a strong desire and request for political participation. it reflects the importance of social forces. political participation may lead to social conflicts, mainly due to the contradiction between participation and institutionalization, and “the disconnection between the capacity of the political system and the needs of society” (note 9). this is particularly true in developing countries. political participation exerts too much pressure on the political system, which affects the stability of the political system. the disorder caused by the excessive participation of citizens will also cause social disorder, and some people may take the opportunity to make trouble, thus leading to social conflict. second, the emergence of non-institutionalized participation, protest participation and violent participation has a negative impact. generally speaking, political participation can enable the political system to adjust the public’s interest demands in a timely manner, ease the dissatisfaction of social interest groups with social distribution, and increase the public’s sense of identity with the political system. but it does not necessarily lead to the stability of the political system, because “the stability of any particular form of government depends on the degree of political participation and political institutionalization between the degree of correlation”. if we want to maintain social stability, when political participation increases, the complexity, autonomy, adaptability and cohesion of the social and political system must also be improved (note 10). if the political system cannot provide the public with a smooth channel of interest expression, perfect coordination mechanism of interests and the channels of individual political www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 144 published by scholink inc. participation, the public will exert external pressure on the political system, leading to social conflicts. public participation is both a process and a result. as a process, it has objective inevitability; as a result, it has realistic inevitability. 5. participation boundary and religion 5.1 the consciousness of participation boundary through the above analysis, there is a problem to be discussed, that is, social development and political participation is not a one-to-one relationship, the development of political participation in a certain period of time can’t play a positive role in the development of society as a whole, which is a paradox. huntington had a special study of this, and he had a formula (note 11): social mobilization/economic development=social frustration. social frustration/mobility=political participation. political participation/political institutionalization=political conflict huntington used this formula to illustrate the relationship between political participation, political institutionalization and political unrest. according to this formula, the stability of the political system depends on the ratio between political participation and political institutionalization. if the ratio of political participation to political institutionalization is 1, the situation is balanced and the political system is stable. if the expansion of political participation exceeds the level of political institutionalization, it will bring about imbalance and conflict in the political system. in the period of social transition, political enthusiasm is excessive relative to the economy, which leads to social frustration, so people have to balance this frustration in their search for self-realization. however, the society of this period did not provide more opportunities, and people were dissatisfied and needed to seek change through political participation. however, the political system of this period was not perfect, and there was no strong regulatory capacity. as a result, there will be political instability, which in turn will have an impact on economic development. can political participation bring about immediate social development? we cannot generalize about this issue. political participation does not necessarily bring about social development naturally; the key lies in how to find the boundary of participation. the participation boundary mainly refers to the restriction of subjective and objective factors, which leads to the number of participants and behavior, the effect of participation, the realization of participation goal and so on, all of which will be restricted, restrained and restricted in one way or another. there are boundaries of participation. that is, there is scope for participation, and it does not create a transcendent social public sphere. to some extent, establishing the consciousness of participating in the boundary means the dilution of political participation: first, from the main body of political participation, the consciousness of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 145 published by scholink inc. participating in the boundary does not advocate the participation of the whole people in politics; second, from the scope of the object of political participation, consciousness of participating in the boundary requires political participants to position themselves in the political field, instead of misplacing their roles; finally, from the perspective of political participation, political participation requires political participants to make use of legitimate political participation channels. instead of engaging in politics through illegal means. therefore, from the main body of political participation, the scope of objects and ways, political participation is defined and subject to certain restrictions, rather than unconditional, unlimited. in view of this, it is all the more necessary to emphasize the establishment of the consciousness of participation boundary, require the moderate political participation of the people, change the concept of political participation, that is, the political participation of citizens is no longer as a duty, but as a right. this will not only cause a change from the traditional concept of political participation to a modern and democratic view of political participation, but also mean that citizen participation in politics should not be a passive, forced, or blind behavior. it is a kind of active, voluntary and rational behavior, which protects citizens’ freedom of choice in the process of participation. 5.2 right to freedom and religion symbiotic development in my opinion, in the past, chinese society, state and government had a relatively conservative attitude towards religious organizations and always adopted the way of restriction and control, which made religious organizations marginalized and developed. the main reason is that the government is worried that the political participation of religion may lead to the weakening of government authority. in particular, when religious belief evolves into religious bigotry and fanaticism, the political participation of religion will cause social instability, which then threatens the stable development of political society. in fact, this fear stems from the government’s biased understanding of “political stability”. political stability is not only reflected in the orderliness and continuity of the political system, but also in the dynamic balance of various elements in the interaction process. that is to say, political stability is the unity of authority of government and identity of all citizens. we tend to value the stability of national sovereignty, power, government and policy, while ignoring the support of the social psychological system, namely the political consensus of citizens, political identity and public political participation. this neglect is also reflected in the development of religion. the political participation of religion is an aspect of political democratization and political stability in modern society. as an interest group, religious groups at least represent the interests and political aspirations of believers. however, as the chinese house churches, religion has its own specific belief system and the way of association, and its political participation has a complex impact on the development of social and political stability. “religion can both sustain and shake the world”. in modern society, religious groups, as a civil society or one of the social forces, play a certain public role in civil society and cultural life. therefore, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 146 published by scholink inc. political participation of religion is helpful to strengthen the organized public participation in modern society, which is the way of political expression and interest appeal, and becomes the “safety valve” of social stability. in this way, religious symbiotic development is a major force to promote social progress, a major manifestation of the road of social pluralistic symbiosis, but also the trend of future social development. god’s to god, caesar to caesar. 6. conclusion religion and conflict are two different social phenomena, but they are closely related. social conflict is the realistic condition and soil on which religion comes into being, and it plays a decisive role in the development and evolution of religion. religion is not only the practice of “true and alive”, but also the belief; it is not only a special political actor, but also a special social ideology. since the 1960s american civil rights movement, with the rise of political participation, the united states has launched a fierce debate on these phenomena, some scholars believe that religion has played a negative effect on the american black civil rights movement; some scholars believe that religion played a catalytic role in the african-american civil rights movement. clearly, the great practice of the african-american civil rights movement has provided the answer. pastors played a leading role in the civil rights movement, while the church played a better organizational role in the civil rights movement. the majority of blacks actively participated in the civil rights movement by participating in the religious way of the civil rights movement and made great achievements, so that martin luther kings’ “dream” gradually shone into reality. social conflicts or social movements with religious participation are not all “great scourges”. excessive demonizing of social conflicts and religions is not desirable. it is not important that social conflicts should be allowed to occur, that religious factors should be allowed to participate in them; it is how we view them, how we standardize and institutionalize this approach of political participation, and how we can become a positive force for social adjustment, balance, reconstruction, integration and communication, so that the value identification of all parties in society can reach a new height, and the consensus of social symbiosis can be formed, so that chinese society can be more optimized and perfected. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 147 published by scholink inc. references battle, m. (2006). the black church in american: african american christian spirituality. black well publishing. burler, j., & stout, h. s. (1998). religion in american history—a reader. new york: oxford university press. coser. (1989). functions of social conflict. huaxia publishing house. cui, w. (2009). analysis on the religious factors in the black american civil rights movement. northeast normal university. curtis, j. e. (2009). white evangelical protestant responses to the civil rights movement. harvard theological review, 102(2). dittmer, j. (1994). local people: the struggle for civil rights in mississippi. urbana: university of illinois press. gayraud, s. w. (1998). black religion and black radicalism, an interpretation of african americans (3rd, p. 6). new york. hans, a. b. (n.d.). black mainstream churches. review of religious research, 30, 163. hua, x. (2009). the american principle of separation of church and state. zhongshan university. huntington, s. p. (1993). the clash of civilization. foreign affairs, 3. https://doi.org/10.2307/20045621 jacques, g. (1963). garvey and garveyism kingston (p. 133). united printers. johnny, e. w. (2002). linking beliefs to collective action: politicized religious beliefs and the civil rights movement. sociological forum, 17(2), 26. locke. (1982). on religious toleration. beijing: the commercial press. russell, k. m., & lamme, m. o. (2013). public relations and business responses to the civil rights movement. public relations review, 39, 63-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.09.008 wang, y. j. (2012). the civil rights movement leader martin luther king would constitute the principles of religion to interfere in politics [eb/ol]. retrieved from http://wenku.baidu.com/view/7fdfb9c2aa00b52acfc7ca10.html zhan, j., & chen, c. w. (n.d.). religious fantasy and social conflict—the sociology of religion from the perspective of interpretation [eb/ol]. retrieved from http://www.foyuan.net/article-679153-1.html zola, j., zola, j., & robert, d. (1992). larue. religious leadership of the civil rights movement. oah magazine of history, 6(4), 36-40. https://doi.org/10.1093/maghis/6.3.36 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 148 published by scholink inc. notes note 1. gayraud s. wilmore:black religion and black radicalism, an interpretation of african americans, new york: laryknoll, 3rd, 1998, p.6. note 2. michael battle. the black church in american: african american christian spirituality [j]. black well publishing, 2006. note 3. hans a. bear, “black mainstream churches”: review of religious research, vol. 30, p.163. note 4. religion and god in the constitution of the united states. http://www.110.com/ziliao/article-3950.html, 2004. note 5. zuochang liu. about jefferson. http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_597e55b10100a210.html, 2008. note 6. robert dahl, the democracy, the commercial press, 1999 edition, p. 107. note 7. seymour martin, “political man, the social foundations”, shanghai people’s publishing, 1997 edition, p. 55. note 8. gu xin, of the restriction of power by society, sdx joint publishing company, 1995, pp. 148-167. note 9. huning wang, the analysis of comparative politics, shanghai renmin press, 1987 edition, p. 251. note 10. samuel. huntington, political order and changing in societies, joint publishing, 1996, p. 54. note 11. samuel. huntington, political order and changing in societies, joint publishing, 1996, p. 56. http://www.110.com/ziliao/article-3950.html doi:10.22158/csm.v1n2p135 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n2p135 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 review paper do weak institutions prolong crises? [#endsars] in the light of the challenges and opportunities beyond covid-19 pandemic and the next normal in nigeria morufu olalekan raimi1,2*, ebikapaye okoyen2, tuebi moses2,3, aziba-anyam gift raimi4, adedoyin oluwatoyin omidiji5, aishat funmilayo abdulraheem6, mariam oluwakemi raimi7 & beatrice oka joseph8 1 department of community medicine, environmental health unit, faculty of clinical sciences, niger delta university, wilberforce island, bayelsa state, nigeria 2 bayelsa state ministry of health; saving one million lives program for results (soml pforr), nigeria 3 department of public health, university of port harcourt, rivers state, nigeria 4 entrepreneurship development centre, federal university otuoke, nigeria 5 department of geography and environmental management, faculty of social sciences, niger delta university, wilberforce island, bayelsa state, nigeria 6 department of sociology, niger delta university, nigeria 7 department of banking and finance, niger delta university, nigeria 8 central drug control laboratory services (cdcl); national agency for food and drug administration and control (nafdac), yaba, lagos, nigeria * morufu olalekan raimi, department of community medicine, environmental health unit, faculty of clinical sciences, niger delta university, wilberforce island, bayelsa state, nigeria; bayelsa state ministry of health; saving one million lives program for results (soml pforr), nigeria received: february 14, 2021 accepted: february 28, 2021 online published: march 17, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n2p1 abstract with the close of 2020 unprecedented year, a year like no other, nigerians is still reeling from the impacts of an emerging, rapidly and evolving covid-19 pandemic, while the spring continue to unfolded. covid-19 was considered a “deaths of despair” with an opioid crisis and realizing that humanity is in for a long haul with covid-19, itself may be a game changer. if we expected covid-19 to be short lived, we have been remarkably, if not catastrophically, disappointed. as many people were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. already feeling significantly stressed, and where depression was increasing risks of overdoses and suicide. from time immemorial, humankind have suffered the psychological effects of various catastrophes, such as wars, floods, famines, wildfires, earthquakes, windstorms and last but certainly not least, the possibility of outbreaks of potentially deadly infectious diseases. hence, these zoonosis diseases, result from pathogens being transmitted from animals to humans. to protect ourselves from zoonoses, there is need for new measures and precautions, for instance ending and preventing deforestation as well as protecting conservation areas and endangered species against such danger. of course, we are certainly no exception today as people try to figure out how to cope and help others cope with the grief, stress, and anxiety caused by the greatest health challenge of our time: the coronavirus 2019 (covid-19) pandemic. with more than 1,129 nigerian having lost their lives as of october 24, 2020 and more than 61,882 thousand infected since covid-19 first gripped our nation, although reports suggest that the incidence of covid-19 has begun to drop, the pandemic has taken a profound psychological and emotional toll on us all. however, social and behavioral scientists have identified some strategies to help us face our fears, as well as even rise to the challenge of supporting others during this fraught time. while awaiting the unprecedented investment in the development of the sars-cov-2 vaccine and the simultaneous scale up of vaccine manufacturing which has been taking place, including unprecedented collaboration and resources to develop safe and effective vaccines for covid-19 that can be manufactured and delivered in the scale of billions of doses to people around the globe. continuing in this unprecedented commitment towards collaboration as well as transparency is essential towards ensuring that effective and reliable access to information will continue to inform policy decisions at all levels to support the development of national roadmaps to accelerate as well as sustain progress towards public health interventions and building trust in communities that will benefit from a safe and effective vaccine as well as making sure we get it to them as quick as possible. keywords “deaths of despair”, opioid crisis, infectious diseases, end sars, covid-19, building trust, public health interventions, nigeria 1. introduction whilst the world is constantly spinning and still in the grip of an explosive coronavirus pandemic of historic proportions, the likes of which have not been experienced in the last 200 years, with more than 1839 deaths with a case fatality ratio [cfr] of 1.21% in nigeria and 152,074 cases (5.49% of all the cases in the total who african region and attack rate of 73.4 per 100,000 population) as of 3:59am; 70,387 deaths in africa and 2,789,884 confirmed cases as of 4:00pm and 2,460,792 million deaths globally and 110,974,862 million cases as of 10am est on february 22, 2021 and the end is not in sight, given the rate of infection that is going on in the world and its distribution, this panic about a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. contagious disease makes people irrational and xenophobic, and inequality has become one of the biggest problems plaguing our country has been experienced in the ongoing (#endsars), the relationship of [#endsars] protests to increase community transmission of the second wave of covid-19 as earlier posited by samson et al., (2020) is imperative, particularly through the use of event study methodology. this [#endsars] has resulted to the significant increase in infection rates, loss of human lives, sexual violence, correctional facilities attacked and convicts freed, public and private properties completely destroyed or vandalized and the sanctity of the palace of peace maker, the oba of lagos violated, the international airport invaded, disrupting the travel plans of fellow nigerian and other visitors etc. and our world, which has threatened the core fabric of society, strucking the world economy with the biggest shock since the second world war. figure 1 of the studies conducted by olalekan et al., (2020) shows the united nations global multidimensional poverty index for nigeria on poverty rates. stating that many nigerians suffer so much on a range of poverty issues in the country, especially the nigerian youths. considering these facts, the united nations report that people are multidimensionally poor when they are poor in many respects including education, health, access to potable water, nutrition, electricity, their assets, among other indices. thus, given the ranking of [#endsars] protest among states in nigeria (see figure 1 below). approximately 43% of the educated youths of the labour force is still either unemployed, or working but living in poverty (ilo, 2015). more than 500 million young people are surviving on less than $2 a day (ilo, 2015; olalekan et al., 2018; raimi et al., 2019; olalekan et al., 2019; raimi et al., 2019; olalekan et al., 2020). in emerging countries like nigeria, it has been estimated that 260 million young people are not in employment, education or training (the economist, 2013). this is true for one in three young women (ilo, 2017). although the effects of the covid-19 pandemic and financial crisis have varied widely, one consistent factor is that young people in nigeria have been worst affected (ilo, 2015). nearly, four (4) million of those in slave labour are children. according to the most recent estimates, there are more than 150 million children aged 5 to 17 undertaking some form of child labour (ilo, 2017), nearly one in ten (10). indeed, nigeria leaders and government institutions are actively promoting policies that can increase inequality and poverty. yet nigeria billions in oil wealth are suspected of being stolen, inequality continues to grow and 10 million children are still out of school (mayah et al., 2017). nigeria leaders know this, but rather they have choosing to suppress democracy and the freedom to demand a fairer society, which is what the nigeria youths is demanding for. while, the richest man in nigeria earns enough interest on his wealth in one year to lift two million people out of extreme poverty. despite almost a decade of robust economic growth in nigeria, poverty has increased over the same period (mayah et al., 2017). as poverty is rising daily, workers are frustrated, their salaries not matching the cost of living. this is due to the growing gap between the political rich and the poor which curtails any chances of futuristic prosperity.’ increasingly though, having a job does not also www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. mean escaping poverty. recent estimates by the international labour organization (ilo) show that almost one in three workers in emerging and developing countries live in poverty, and this is increasing (ilo, 2017). perhaps the most shocking element of the global labour market today is modern slavery in the 21st century. sadly, many states in nigeria still have no minimum wage or collective bargaining and most minimum wages are significantly lower than what is needed to survive or what could be described as a living wage (oxfam australia, 2017). according to president buhari of nigeria, speech to un general assembly, september 2017 (buhari, 2017) he states that “we must be mindful, and focus on the widening inequalities and poverty within societies, and the gap between the rich and the poor nations. these inequalities and gaps are part of the underlying root causes of competition for resources, frustration and anger leading to spiraling instability”, hence, cumulatively fueling [#endsars] protest across nigeria (see figure 1 below). however, his policies on recent economic growth have gone exclusively to the top 10%, while poverty and inequality have increased. thereby leading to thirteen (13) million out of school children and more not in school and one in 10 women die in childbirth (mayah et al., 2017; olalekan et al., 2020). while, abusers and autocrats have not had it all their own way this year. their treasuries have been drained by the pandemic. their finances will remain wobbly even if a vaccine is found and the public health pretext for curbs on freedom is no longer plausible. the crash was synchronised, its aftermath has highlighted the importance of risk as well as resilience and could be the imperative of our times, as institutional money managers continue to move their holdings from risky assets to more liquid. after all, it is a humanitarian crisis of the likes that humanity have not experienced in recent times. today, time is a luxury that leaders don’t have and is running out. covid-19 has upended business as usual for communities and corporations, everyone is rightly focused on protecting lives as well as livelihoods, despite the non-availability of treatment which has triggered worries both nationally and globally (raimi et al., 2019; omidiji & raimi, 2019; raimi et al., 2020; adedoyin et al., 2020; olalekan et al., 2020; ajayi et al., 2020; olalekan et al., 2020; raimi et al., 2020; gift & olalekan, 2020; samson et al., 2020; gift et al., 2020; raimi & raimi, 2020). communities, especially governments and healthcare professionals, are leading efforts toward supporting victims as well as their families to contain the virus that already has infected millions of people around the world as well as claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. looking at first responders and frontline healthcare workers, we have seen heroic efforts on their part, this philosophy of helping others, especially when you’re in a privileged place to do so, but not without consequences like mental exhaustion. has it has often been said that crisis reveals character, indeed a truism for organizations as well as individuals (raimi et al., 2020; raimi & raimi, 2020). crises force organizations to rethink their actions, and repeatedly continue to be the source of lasting change and sustainable development. “in many countries, near term survival is just the only agenda item. others are peering through the fog of uncertainty, thinking about how to position themselves once www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. the crisis has passed and things return to normal. there remain many open questions, which include: do weak institutions prolong crises and what will normal look like? how do we best support health systems so they can fight this significant crisis? this is an unprecedented crossroads in global society, raising fundamental questions about how we live as individuals and collectively and answering them will require conducting larger studies with greater diversity of covid-19 survivors. while no one can say how long the crisis will last, what is been seen on the other side will not look like the normal of recent years” it is impossible to know what will happen. but it is possible to consider the lessons of the past, both distant as well as recent, and on that basis, toward thinking constructively about the future. as the pandemic has spread, it has become increasingly clear that the world will not simply snap back into shape. but it is remarkable that the following elements will be significant in the shaping of the next normal as hardly did anybody foresaw the consequences. twelve (12) months after the sars-cov-2 pandemic, people are frustrated that their lives are not getting back to “normal”. many people remained starved throughout lockdown, schools as well as businesses in nigeria are closed, individuals remain hesitant toward flying and enjoying vacations, besides in several places, restaurants as well as indoor activities remain sharply limited, by way of severe economic implications. with the patience wearing thin, it can be appealing toward considering policies that give us a return to original normalcy. this great scourge has remained dreadful not merely for the human body but likewise aimed at the body politic. the pandemic has battered democracy as well as human rights respect with an account of how despots as well as autocrats around the globe use the pandemic as a pretext toward undermining liberty as well as democracy. strongmen find it easy toward impressing the public's as soon as they regulate the news. this is why several countries around the globe use the coronavirus as a reason toward harassing the mainstream media. hence, this number has now doubled. october 11, 2020 furious crowds mostly youth’s protests in nigeria, which swept across almost all states in nigeria, including bayelsa state which is been ravaged by flood at the moment, prompted the government to disband a notoriously torture-and-murder-prone police unit (sars). as youths have had an especially grim time in nigerians over the past years and ordinary people are being gagged too. the quality of democracy in nigeria as well as respect for human rights have deteriorated since the pandemic began and since the coming of this buhari present government. the list comprises both dictatorships that have grown nastier and democracies where standards have slipped (see figure 2 below). covid-19 “has fuelled a democratic crisis around the globe”, as global freedom has been deteriorating, through their reckoning. covid-19 situation has accelerated this pre-existing trend in several ways. covid-19 hasn’t changed that, rather it has exacerbated those issues. but then the voice from the aso villa, national emergency operation centre or the presidential task force on covid-19 which was activated on march 18, 2020, with the hope that this task force would enable nigeria in its multi-sectoral and intergovernmental approach to the national response is not that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. matters or one that counts. the pandemic poses a grave as well as fast-moving threat toward every people. governments have quite reasonably, assumed emergency powers to counter it. but these powers remained abused. in nigeria, governments have been selectively as well as tactically banning protests on the grounds that they might spread the virus, silenced critics and the media. they have used emergency measures toward harassing dissidents including taken advantage of a general atmosphere of alarm. with everyone’s attention on covid-19, autocrats and would-be autocrats in many states in nigeria can do all kinds of bad things with the confidence that the rest of the world will barely notice, let alone to object. figure 1. ranking of nigeria in relation to [#endsars] protest www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. figure 2. comprises counties with both dictatorships that have grown nastier and democracies where standards have slipped since covid-19 pandemic began source: adapted from https://www.economist.com/printedition. 2020-10-17 even though, the crisis took world leaders, economic markets, health-care systems as well as societies by surprise and marveling at its rapid escalation and impact on every single aspect of life, including all regions of the world. its aftermath is speculative as well as obscure. nonetheless, previous lessons as well as evidence may be appropriate and of value. currently, nigeria health care workforce (medical doctors, environmental health officers, nurses, and midwives) has less than 1000 per population set by the world health organization (who), shortage of sanitation material including water, lack of personal protective equipment for health care providers (which has puts millions at increased risk to covid-19 as well as other infectious diseases), presence of immune-compromised people are among the major stimulants and driving factors making nigeria one of the challenged emerging country facing this unprecedented covid-19 spread (raimi et al., 2018; olalekan et al., 2018; raimi et al., 2019; olalekan et al., 2019; raimi et al., 2019; raimi et al., 2019; gift & olalekan, 2020; gift et al., 2020; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 8 published by scholink inc. raimi et al., 2020; samson et al., 2020; raimi & raimi, 2020). in line with this global need, this paper aims to provide some insights into the challenges and opportunities in a post covid-19 era in nigeria. as the covid-19 pandemic outbreak posed a serious public/environmental health crisis and is causing major worldwide disruption and has become a global challenge that has forced nations to work hard as well as take some extreme measures in an attempt to prevent potentially fatal outbreaks and save lives. so far, the scientific communities are trying their best to understand the activities of sars cov-2 virus to target effective strategies against it and in this regard. the whole world is trying its best to contain the infection, nigeria is no exception. nigeria underestimated the likelihood of the covid-19 outbreak during february 28, when the first case was reported, however with the increasing number of cases, strong measures and policies, as well as actions have been initiated (gift et al., 2020; gift & olalekan, 2020; samson et al., 2020; raimi et al., 2020; raimi & raimi, 2020) and were formulated to reduce the spread of the disease in nigeria which include a comprehensive total lockdown announced by the federal government of nigeria in ogun state, lagos state, and federal capital territory. thereafter, many state governors declared total lockdown and released advice for nigerian nationals and residents present inside or outside of country to stay at home and maintain social distancing. moreover, the nigerian government decided to suspend all forms of social and religious gatherings including churches and mosques were prohibited (gift et al., 2020; gift & olalekan, 2020). but despite these efforts, there has been an upsurge in the confirmed cases of covid-19 in nigeria and at present, the future trend of this pandemic in nigeria appears to be unknown, especially as the ongoing peaceful #endsars protest by the youths without jobs and those who have lost their jobs and worse, many young ones have less hope of being employed in their lifetime. hence, at the moment many nigerian youths sees education or schoolling as a scam. unfortunately, there are only two industries in nigeria right now: government and schools, as many factories have closed down because of the economy, coupled with the government anti human policies. awkwardly, the protest turns violent by the nigeria government, which must have resulted in lots of physical contact, thereby leading to the spread of covid-19. although, coronaviruses (covs) are a complex family of enveloped, positive-sense rna viruses that typically cause mild respiratory disease in humans and other mammals (fehr and perlman, 2015; gift et al., 2020; raimi & raimi, 2020). a novel strain of coronavirus (covid-19) was identified as the cause of the unexplained pneumonia-like cases in wuhan, hubei, china in december 2019 with most of the initial patients haven’t remained exposed to the market of huanan seafood (huang et al., 2020). this coronavirus, which was temporarily called 2019-ncov, has been renamed as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2). the disease caused by sars-cov-2 is known as coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) (gorbalenya et al., 2020). the first report was released by the world health organization (who) on december 31, 2019. in nigeria, the first confirmation case was announced on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 9 published by scholink inc. 27th february 2020, since then, the ncdc has released advisories statements toward helping nigerians as well as affected groups in particular toward responding toward the pandemic. the world health organisation data center on covid-19 reported 110,974,862 million cases and 2,460,792 million deaths as of 10am est on february 22, 2021. however, the weekly global incidence decreased for the third consecutive week, down to 3.63 million new cases. this is a decrease of nearly 15% compared to the previous week, and it is the lowest weekly total since late october. weekly global mortality also decreased nearly 4% compared to the previous week, down to 93,803 deaths. however, the decrease in mortality could be an early indication of a longer-term trend corresponding to decreases in incidence starting 2-4 weeks ago. considering the reporting interruptions from october 9, 2020, it is unclear exactly when the actual global incidence peaked, having more than 36.36 million cases as well as 1.06 million deaths. the who reported 336,500 new cases, establishing a new record of global daily occurrences. on october 12 the who released a new record high for global weekly incidence for the fourth consecutive week. the global total has reached more than 2.25 million cases, an upsurge of approximately 10% from previous week. additionally, the who reported 378,044 new cases on saturday, a new daily record. while as of october 14, 38 million cases and 1.08 million deaths as of 10:00am edt was reported. it was reported that 40.67 million cases and 1.12 million deaths as of 12:00pm edt on october 21. as the cumulative global incidence surpasses 40 million, the following timeline will provide some context for the trajectory of the covid-19 pandemic: 1 case to 1 million cases: 90 days, 1 million to 5 million: 48 days, 5 million to 10 million: 38 days, 10 million to 20 million: 44 days, 20 million to 30 million: 37 days, 30 million to 40 million: 31 days. the impacts of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic on health, economies, and social structures have disproportionately impacted as well as does not affect everyone equally. even though anyone could be infected with covid-19, accumulating data suggest that the elderly or individuals with pre-existing and underlying comorbidities or medical conditions for instance diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity or overweight, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd), cancer, cystic fibrosis, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, asthma, pulmonary fibrosis and those with an immunocompromised state from solid organ transplant as well as those with neurologic conditions, among others are far more likely towards developing serious complications or die from the disease and the proportion of the population at risk is rising. the who estimates that between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world's population aged 60 years and older will almost double from around 12% to 22%. we will soon have a world in which there will be more older persons than the children. this is an unprecedented crossroads in global society, which raises important questions about how we live as individuals as well as collectively. the predicament has brought an even greater urgency toward this, and at times, surprising insights, too. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 10 published by scholink inc. to date, nigeria has reported having tested more than 1,302,410 people, 134,690 confirmed cases and 24,415 active cases with 108, 657 recoveries and 1,618 deaths as at february 3rd, 2021 have been recorded in 36 states and the federal capital territory, hence, the 1138 new cases are reported from 21 states are lagos (377), fct (172), plateau (86), kano (84), edo (60), osun (47), nasarawa (41), imo (40), rivers (36), niger (32), oyo (32), borno (29), kaduna (27), delta (18), kwara (17), cross river (9), ekiti (8), bauchi (7), ogun (7), sokoto (6) and bayelsa (3), thereby leading to a multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (eoc), activated at level 3, continues toward coordinating the national response activities (who, 2021; covid-19 dashboard, 2021). when compared to reported data dated 22nd, february, 2021, nigeria has reported having tested more than 1,489,103 people, 152,074 confirmed cases and 21,567 active cases with 128, 668 recoveries (84% of cumulative cases) and 1,839 deaths been recorded in 20 states including lagos (282), ogun (72), fct (50), kaduna (33), osun (24), imo (23), abia (21), borno (18), oyo (17), edo (15), nasarawa (15), taraba (14), ekiti (11), ondo (11), plateau (11), kano (10), rivers (7), delta (5), bauchi (3), and jigawa (3) etc., shows that the multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (eoc) has been active in trying to reduce community transmission through media sensitization of the public (https://covid19.who.int/table; http://www.health.gov.ng/). meaning that approximately 4 out of each 100 that confirmed positive to the virus infection has died since the first case was reported on february 28. although, the reported death toll from covid-19 in nigeria seems far lower, when compared to other advanced countries but the hit towards gross domestic product (gdp) has been bigger. come march 2021, global output possibly will remain less than 8% lower than it would have been without the pandemic. instead of an increase of about 3%, it will have decrease by approximately 5%, the biggest contraction since the second world war. according to world economic forum, “hundreds of millions of people could be left without work due to the impact of covid-19” and “1.6 billion informal economy workers could suffer ‘massive damage’ to their livelihoods”. globally, countries are still grappling with how to tackle the growing economics of the pandemic as a lot is still focusing on the most widely deployed interventions like various forms of protocols besides stay-at-home orders as well as the repercussions of limited business operations and stricter business operation adherence to the guidelines as well as measures suggested in fighting the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, maintaining and minimizing series of face-to-face as well as skin-to-skin contact, physical (social) distancing (avoid direct physical contact by hugging, touching, or shaking hands) (what i call socially close and reaching out towards each other in different ways), practicing hand hygiene and respiratory hygiene, regular environmental cleaning and disinfection, risk communication, training and education, as well as management of people with covid-19 or their contacts. in addition, specific measures for workplaces and jobs at medium risk included frequent cleaning and disinfection of objects and surfaces that are touched regularly (fomites). in such places where physical distancing of 1 meter cannot be maintained for a particular activity, ensuring workers work side-by-side or facing away www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. from each other rather than face-to-face, and assigning staff to the same shift teams to limit social interaction. along with that, such workplaces must be well-ventilated with a natural air of artificial ventilation without re-circulation of air for high-risk work activities and jobs. also, the adherence to the hygiene measures before as well as after contact with or suspicion of covid-19. in such cases, workers must comply with the use of medical masks, disposable gowns, gloves, and eye protection for workers and use of protective equipment when in contact with covid-19 patients, their respiratory secretions, body fluids, and highly contaminated waste etc. all with the aim to mitigate community transmission risk, recommended by health care professional as being the best available option that can be used to control the spread of covid-19, pervasive use of personal protective equipment (ppe), such as facemasks, shields, or gloves, as well as regular hand washing practice among individuals and communities and disinfection of fomites. these measures can be very likely continuing to be implemented as well as mandated in the medium or even long term until an effective treatment/prevention is available or vaccine is found (who, 2020; cirrincione et al., 2020; samson et al., 2020; raimi et al., 2020; leung et al., 2020; raimi & raimi, 2020) and since lockdown is considered a strategy to control infection rate but the challenge lies in its continuation. since society is a system of human cooperation, people in any society should collectively relate to and deal with their exogenous variables. exogenous variables are those conditions that affect human livelihoods and which human have to work upon through appropriate planning and institutional arrangement to better their conditions of existence. even beyond that time frame, many of these public health recommendations will become part of everyone’s lifestyles and therefore continue to be followed and observed. in addition, it is implausible that the disruption caused by covid-19 will dissipate soon. analysis of the impact of transmission dynamics suggests that the disease may perhaps persist into 2025, with prolonged or intermittent social distancing in place until 2022 (raimi et al., 2020; kissler et al., 2020; raimi & raimi, 2021). in addition to the development, human will be profoundly impacted beyond the stagnation resulting from the closure of business activities during mandated lockdowns offered by the authorities. there is also a challenge to expand testing as well as other public health intervention. timely intervention action, testing, tracing, tracking/monitoring, treating, as well as togetherness have been considered to be seen as the most important and effective strategies to date. with the rising cases of infection as well as death, this poses a threat and triggered disruption to social and mental wellbeing of the world’s citizens as well as to the economy, society and politics. the confusion and uncertainty increase fueling misinformation, distrust of citizens, government as well as political leaders, providing employment opportunities for the people, stigma and discrimination which are negatively impacting the prevention strategies approved by different national authorities. appropriate communication as well as community engagement strategies are needed, alongside the togetherness of all concerned entities fighting against www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 12 published by scholink inc. this wicked and deadly virus globally. in light of this global demand, this disruption provides a remarkable opportunity to accelerate environmental resilience as well as structural reforms with investing in covid-19 and climate-resilient infrastructure to reduce waste in implementing, conducting, reporting as well as planning for the recovery ahead (cristea & naudet, 2019; raimi & raimi, 2020), revival and or strengthen health care system at local level, developing self-sufficient food system, supply mechanism, emphasis of agriculture, promote and expand domestic production in selected strategic sectors like food as well as pharmaceutical industries. last but not least, individuals as well as families will need to make sense of the surprising overwhelm covid-19 caused to societies, economies, health-care systems and governments. everyone and their families face crises on a regularly basis (such as the death of a loved one, loss of employment as well as violence), and struggle with difficulty are part of the human condition. while the crisis caused by covid-19 is likely to have troubling features, as mentioned above, a unifying opportunity simultaneously appears at the same time. whilst it is necessary to develop an unprecedented investment in both sars-cov-2 vaccine development, simultaneously scale up of vaccine manufacturing and a long-term management strategy for covid-19, given the unprecedented scale of decision-makers’, the evidence needs large-scale collaboration and consistency as well as shared learning within the evidence synthesis community. hence, it is better to improve outcomes across nations using the best data that can be achieved through the use of high-quality evidence that is implemented well. to achieve this, systems, policy as well as political environments need to be hospitable toward evidence informed approaches and that there is need to foster partnerships and collaboration, facilitate dialogue, as well as advance evidence-informed decision-making (eidm) in nigeria, africa and the globe at large to achieve effective and sustainable implementation in the real world in the same way. as a result, the pandemic has evolved and shown that rapid change is both possible as well as pivotal for society survival. of course, some more complex challenges cannot be solved overnight. but it is believed that leaders need pay heed to the lesson’s responses from covid-19, while acknowledging that the future will be quite different from the past, as well as build on the novel and pragmatic ways of working to have the potential not only to survive but to also thrive. fortunately, times have changed. the world is a different place than it was in 1918. from the herpes plus legionnaires’ disease in the 1970s, to aids, ebola, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars), and now covid-19, contagious diseases continue to spread, threatening and disrupting humanity. historians, who have continued to take an interest in pandemics, have a lot to offer. we have the technology toward strengthening the health care system for our patients. it’s time we put these tools into practice. alternatively, the covid-19 spread is a product of a digital as well as technological revolution that has changed our world over the years. unlike the “spanish flu” of 1918, which became a worldwide pandemic over the course of a year, as the pandemic has spread toward www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. each habitable continent within weeks, outstripping our health system’s capacity toward testing, tracking, and containing people with suspected infection. hence, there is need for rapid pace of research on the sars-cov2 virus, potential treatments and vaccines, especially with the rising cases globally. 2. the way forward of course, optimism as well as courage are the qualities that are required now than ever as leaders make decisions that will shape the next normal. furthermore, one of the possible next normal is that decisions taken during as well as after the crisis will either results in less prosperity, government bureaucracies, widening inequality, slower growth, bloated as well as rigid borders. even decisions made during this crisis can lead to a burst of innovation as well as productivity, more resilient industries, smarter government at all levels, as well as the emergence of a reconnected world. inevitable; in fact, the results are in all probability more likely to be a mix. it is true that where the world goes depends on the choice of countless decisions many people made, including individuals, businesses, governments as well as organizations. it will therefore be important to build the world economy for the future, rather than solving the challenges of the past in a sustainable way that is aligned with the sustainable development goals (sdgs) and the paris climate agreement. as progress towards the achievement of most sustainable development goals requires significant improvement across the globe. it is also of note to consider how to tackle misinformation on science, not only with regard to covid-19, but also concerning other related issues, including vaccines, biodiversity loss, and climate change. in this regard, there is need to strengthen health institutions at the local, state and national level with its central and unique role in addressing global public health. likewise, the need for local strategies towards highlighting the growing need for the adoption of innovation as well as toward improving general population awareness in relation to covid-19 as well as its preventative practices must be reinforced in order to achieve its elimination goals. in any crisis, leaders have two equally vital responsibilities: solving instant problem as well as protecting them from stirring again. the covid-19 crisis is a case in point. we have to save lives. whereas states must continue to implement and lead the way on covid-19 policies, comprehensive protections require federal intervention. the covid-19 crisis has brought strident focus to the requirement aimed at reforming health care toward promoting universal access toward affordable care. while all aspects of health care in nigeria face enormous challenges in the coming months and unraveling this in this time of crisis, leave millions of individuals vulnerable as well as requiring rapidly coordinated political action toward ensuring affordable access to care. never before has the interdependence on all our health, finances, and social fabric been so starkly established. health care reform has never been necessary before to ensure access to affordable health care for all nigerians. our www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 14 published by scholink inc. health as well as health care policies, both in these pandemic as well as in the future, must reflect this reality, and we must not let this lessons of crisis pass us by. as learning is challenging in the midst of an emergency, but the covid-19 pandemic lesson is already clear: when environmental epidemiologists warn that pathogen could cause a pandemic, it's time to hoist the flag of local freedom is over. however, the role of national leadership in the response can only work if it is based on evidence (raimi et al., 2020). it is important that nigerian future response to covid-19 is not only national, but also rational. in the long term, on the other hand, we must shift against investing primarily in disease-specific research toward simultaneously targeting sufficient resources to decode the human immune system, especially for the world’s most vulnerable populations. these efforts can accelerate new vaccines development, diagnostics, as well as treatments, not only for covid-19, but also for future emerging pathogens of non-communicable diseases because of our aging that are now major global killers. we must act courageously as soon as possible to aid all humanity live longer and healthier lives. for many, too, the pandemic has resulted in serial losses as well as threats to our identities, which are echo due to serious illness. many people have lost the freedom to go to their offices; lost our favorite restaurants; lost graduations as well as weddings; lost our child care; lost parts of our salaries; lost our jobs. we were productive researchers besides our labs were closed down and have been on hold for years. we are proud of our ability toward alleviating suffering, and now we see irreversible suffering around us: the patients die alone in the hospital, the families are distraught. even the most ancient, holy, as well as basic tool of doctoring, the physical exam are beyond the reach for most of us. since covid-19 has become a top priority in our health care delivery system, it disrupts the process of patient care, interrupts many research activities as well as overwhelmingly affecting education. public funds are required since products of pandemic are extraordinarily high-risk investments; government funding will reduce risks in the pharmaceutical companies as well as getting them to jump in with both feet. besides, governments as well as other donors will require to be funded as a global public good towards manufacturing facilities that can deliver a vaccine supply within weeks. these facilities can, at normal times, provide vaccines for routine immunization programs as well as rapidly refitted for production during a pandemic. ultimately, the governments must finance the procurement as well as vaccines distribution to the inhabitants that require them. at the end of the day, government, development partners and industry need to come to an agreement: for the duration of the pandemic, vaccines plus antivirals can’t simply be sold to the top bidder. they should be made available as well as affordable for the people who are at the heart of the pandemic as well as in utmost need. such a distribution not only is the right thing to do, but also the right strategy to prevent short-circuiting transmission as well as preventing future outbreaks. these are the actions that current leaders should be taking now. there is no need to waste time. how effective the country handles covid-19 crisis depends essentially on how efficiently our health workforce are put to productive use. much can be done toward www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. ensuring that workforce are prepared to deal with this pandemic. now is the time for an effective strategy toward expanding as well as sustaining the health workforce. once the outbreaks have subsided, behavioral changes of the workforce and their consequences should be evaluated toward providing insight into use of the workforce as well as improved reactions for future pandemics. national assembly should promote support for expanding health programs and its reach, then the 36 states, including fct should do the same. given the role of various health program’s in managing and tackling the coronavirus pandemic, maximizing long-term health care, as well as helping and supporting toward stabilizing the health care system in a time of the crisis, the case for health expansion in various states should be strengthened. in palliative care, one of our favorite tools is the maxim “hope for the best, prepare for the worst”. “we will continue to hope for [cure/disease response/transplantation/other positive outcome] and help you feel as well as you can. at the same time, we want to prepare just in case [cure/disease response/transplantation/other positive outcome] isn’t possible for a once-in-a century pandemic”. funding: no specific grant was received for this study. competing interests: we affirm that we have no conflict of interest that may be alleged as prejudicing the impartiality of the study reported. this researcher did not receive special assistance from government, not-for-profit sectors or commercial institutions. consent: all the authors announced that they had received written notice from the participants. references adedoyin, o. o., olalekan, r. m., olawale, s. h. et al. 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(2017). a living wage is a wage that is high enough to enable workers and their families to meet their needs for nutritious food and clean water, shelter, clothes, education, healthcare, energy, childcare and transport, as well as allowing for some savings and discretionary income. a number of different methodologies exist for calculating the living wage. these are detailed in oxfam australia. a sewing kit for living wages. retrieved from http://whatshemakes.oxfam.org.au/resources/ raimi, m. o., & raimi, a. g. (2020). the toughest triage in decision impacts: rethinking scientific evidence for environmental and human health action in the times of concomitant global crises. cpq medicine, 11(1), 01-05. raimi, m. o., moses, t., okoyen, e., sawyerr, h. o., joseph, b. o., & oyinlola, b. o. 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(2019). health impact assessment: a tool to advance the knowledge of policy makers understand sustainable development goals. conference paper presented at the: association for environmental impact assessment of nigeria (aeian) on impact assessment: a tool for achieving the sustainable development goals in nigeria, 7th and 8th november, 2019 in university of port harcourt. raimi, m. o., oluwaseun, e. o., nimisingha, d. s., abdulraheem, a. f., okolosi-patainnocent, e., habeeb, m. l., & mary, f. (2019). assessment of environmental sanitation, food safety knowledge, handling practice among food handlers of bukateria complexes in iju town, akure north of ondo-state, nigeria. acta scientific nutritional health, 3(6), 186-200. raimi, m. o., abdulraheem, a. f., major, i., odipe, o. e., isa, h. m., & onyeche, c. (2019). the sources of water supply, sanitation facilities and hygiene practices in an island community: amassoma, bayelsa state, nigeria. public health open access, 3(1), 000134. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3338408 raimi, m. o., omidiji, a. o., adeolu, t. a., odipe, o. e., & babatunde, a. (2019). an analysis of bayelsa state water challenges on the rise and its possible solutions. acta scientific agriculture, 3(8), 110-125. raimi, m. o., omidiji, a. o., abdulraheem, a. f., & ochayi, e. o. (2018). a survey of hand washing behaviour and awareness among health care workers in health care facilities in kubwa district of bwari area council, f.c.t. abuja, nigeria. annals of ecology and environmental science, 2(2), 1-18. samson, t. k., ogunlaran, o. m., & raimi, o. m. (2020). a predictive model for confirmed cases of covid-19 in nigeria. european journal of applied sciences, 8(4), 1-10. the economist. (2013, april 27). generation jobless. retrieved from https://www.economist.com/news/international/21576657-around-world-almost-300m-15-24 year-olds-are-not-working-what-has-caused world health organization. (2021). coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) situation report-101. retrieved february 3, 2021, from https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200430-sitrep-101-covi d-19.pdf?sfvrsn=2ba4e093_2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. world health organization (who). (2020). considerations for public health and social measures in the workplace in the context of covid-19: annex to considerations in adjusting public health and social measures in the context of covid-19. 10 may, 2020. (2020). retrieved june 16, 2020, from https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/considerations-for-public-health-and-social-measures-in-t he-workplace-in-the-context-of-covid-19 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 23 original paper from the vicissitude of companion pictorial to probe modern china’s modernization process bi zichen 1* 1 nanjing broadcasting & television group co., ltd., nanjing, china * bi zichen, nanjing broadcasting & television group co., ltd., nanjing, china received: june 15, 2025 accepted: june 25, 2025 online published: july 11, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p23 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p23 abstract the period from 1926 to 1945 in china was a transition from the abolition of monarchy to the founding of new china. this era was marked by turbulence, including the “golden decade” of the republic of china, the anti-japanese war and the breakdown of the kuomintang-communist cooperation. all sectors of chinese society went through ups and downs during this period including newspapers and periodicals. companion pictorial, which was founded in 1926 and ceased in 1945, experienced these turbulence. positioned as an urban publication, companion pictorial included multi-dimensional content and attracted a large number of advertisements. studying the history of companion pictorial can be regarded as studying the history of modern china. this paper takes the vicissitude of companion pictorial from 1926 to 1945 as analysis object, attempting to explore the material and spiritual changes during modern china’s modernization process. keywords companion pictorial, modern china, advertisement, shanghai 1. introduction in 1912, the chinese monarchy was abolished, and the partial success of the xinhai revolution ushered in a new chapter for china. with the outbreak of capitalist economic crisis in 1927, china obtained a development period lasting about ten years until the outbreak of the all-out anti-japanese war in 1937. the social and political turbulence made the demand for information increase sharply. the political views of new intellectuals and the pent-up feelings of late qing literati were all seeking outlets. companion pictorial was born in 1926, based in the modern city of shanghai and radiating to the whole country and overseas, using pictorial forms to enlighten people. though its editorial stance and values changed with times over the 20 years, the positioning of urban publications enabled companion www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 24 published by scholink inc. pictorial to attract a large number of advertisements, with a considerable scope and quantity. to a certain extent, studying history of companion pictorial is also studying modern china. 2. method this paper takes 174 issues of companion pictorial from 1926 to 1945 (including 2 special issues) as the research object. using content analysis, this paper disassembles the content of the 174 issues including the forms of content presentation (text, pictures, advertisements, columns etc.), the positioning of the pictorial and the narrative style. through the combination of diachronic and synchronic research, this paper summarizes the cultural factors contained in companion pictorial and explores the relationship between companion pictorial and modern china’s modernization process. 3. result 3.1 shanghai’s peculiarity in modern china at the us congress on september 19, 1951, general wedemeyer first proposed the concept of shanghai’s “golden decade”: the ten years from 1927 to 1937 were the golden decade in the modern history of china. with the victory of china’s northern expedition in 1927 and the outbreak of the “great depression of the 1930s” in capitalism, this gave china a ten-year development gap. until the outbreak of the anti-japanese war in 1937, china had developed various economic areas such as transportation, telecommunication and financial exchange. also, the invasion of foreign capital stimulated the development of china’s national capital industry. relying on the introduction of modern elements in the 1920s and 1930s, shanghai’s industrialization, commercialization and modernization levels reached a historical peak. as well, the complex social situation pushed a group of rich businessmen and officials from jiangsu and zhejiang to take refuge in shanghai with their assets. xin ping pointed out in discover history from shanghai that only about 20% of shanghai’s population were locals, while most were foreign immigrants. from 1927 to 1949, the urban population of shanghai increased from 2.641 million to 5.455 million, with an average annual growth rate of 34.7%. among them, from 1927 to 1937, the population of shanghai increased from 2.641 million to 3.851 million. shanghai’s special historical and cultural background accelerated this city’s modernization process. contrary to the prosperity of the city, the life of china’s rural areas and middle and lower classes was not satisfactory. in article a microcosm to the decline of jiangnan rural areas written by xue muqiao in rural china before liberation in 1932, it is mentioned: urban usury capital invaded the countryside through rural landlords…the invasion of urban industrial products was the biggest cause of rural poverty…the farmers’ indignant emotions had filled the villages and the day of collapse was not far away. with the invasion of industrial products, the comprador behavior of capitalists and the high www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 25 published by scholink inc. government taxes further intensified the exploitation of farmers. although shanghai’s urban culture has derived a variety of leisure activities: food, movies and fashion, catering to the consumption taste of shanghai concession, there are still a large number of refugees, down-and-out late qing literati and poor working people struggling to survive in the shadow of shanghai’s electricity and light. shanghai’s modern urban picture, which is neither chinese nor foreign, neither traditional nor modern, just become a complex variant of alienation. and companion pictorial was born in this era and this special city. 3.2 relationship between companion pictorial and modern china in february 1926, wu liande founded companion pictorial in shanghai. companion pictorial was positioned at the middle and upper classes who had the energy and money for symbolic consumption. this position was not only related to its fashionable and modern content but also because the copperplate printing technology’s growing in the 1920s which was more expensive than lithography. initially, companion pictorial was priced at one dime and increased to two dimes from the 4th issue, and then increased to four dimes from the 49th issue. at that time, one dime could buy five catties of flour or ten eggs. therefore, the relatively high price of companion pictorial determined that its audience was the middle and upper classes with high payment ability for entertainment. as well, companion pictorial was born in an era when shanghai had a strong desire to explore the modernity. during the publication period, companion pictorial continuously declared its social responsibility “to work hard on the people’s education in a commercial way”. companion pictorial expected to complete the role of enlightening people and promote the modernity of citizens, like most chinese newspapers and periodicals at that time, however in visual forms like photos, paintings and advertisements. the truth is that companion pictorial embodied somewhat, but in a slow journey that evolved gradually. companion pictorial’s specific content varies according to its editor-in-chief. table 1. list of editors-in-chief and their tenure of companion pictorial name issue years wu liande 1~4 1926.2~1926.5 zhou shoujuan 5~12 1926.6~1927.2 liang desuo 13~78 1927.3~1933.7 ma guoliang 79~138 1933.8~1938.6 zhang yuanheng 139~172 1939.2~1945.10 companion pictorial’s first editor-in-chief was wu liande. after returning from the united states, wu liande’s ideas did not immediately achieve modern transformation, so the first 12 issues edited by zhou shoujuan and wu liande was limited to love stories with traditional chinese folk fiction style. after march 1927, liang desuo took over companion pictorial. since liang desuo had learned www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 26 published by scholink inc. painting since childhood and was good at photography and art, he boldly reformed companion pictorial and changed companion pictorial to the style of a large-scale pictorial. in 1922, ma guoliang, as a writer and painter, took over companion pictorial. he had made many friends with lu xun, ba jin and others famous writers and promoted the development of companion pictorial in literature which emerged its political tendency. in february 1939, zhang yuanheng, highly accomplished in photography, took over companion pictorial and promoted wartime photography and folk custom photography. in the beginning, companion pictorial tried its best to avoid grand topics in political field in order to maintain a stable style. at that time companion pictorial just focused on urban life topics such as literature, art, movies and sports figure 1. athletics sports meeting on companion pictorial (46th issue) however in the middle and late 1920s, under the impact of the political landscape, companion pictorial increased its patriotic feelings and changed the proportion between leisure topics and political topics which made companion pictorial experience several suspension crises. in the early 1930s, changes appeared in the column settings of companion pictorial and new columns such as “current affairs review” and “monthly miscellaneous talks” were added, directly commenting on current affairs. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 27 published by scholink inc. figure 2. political content on companion pictorial (114th issue) from love stories to a modern leisure newspaper, and then to highlight political topics, this vicissitude not only reflected the style changes of companion pictorial but also reflected the evolution of civic spirit represented by shanghai during modern china’s modernization process. this evolution has gone through the impact of western culture, the collapse of chinese traditional culture and the reconstruction of national spirit. 3.3 peculiarity of companion pictorial according to statistics from the shanghai municipal bureau of public utilities, the regular billboards in public spaces of shanghai approached 4,000 square meters from 1932 to 1934, indicating the prosperity of shanghai’s advertising industry at that time. advertisements can construct symbolic meanings through symbolization, a meaning system about social status and social consensus. companion pictorial also presented commercial advertisements to shanghai citizens through forms of images, texts and layouts. as recalled by ma guoliang, companion pictorial had attached great importance to advertisements since its founding. due to its wide circulation (extending west to jiangsu, zhejiang; radiating north to northeast china, beijing, and tianjin; expanding south to the pearl river delta; and spreading to singapore and southeast asia with overseas chinese), and monthly releases which were more effective and influential than daily ones, many merchants placed advertisements in companion pictorial at that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 28 published by scholink inc. time. meanwhile, the categories of advertisements in companion pictorial changed with historical stages. for example, after 1938 (issue 138), medical advertisements saw a significant growth and ranked first among all categories, reflecting the situation after the outbreak of the all-china anti-japanese war was so turbulent as to influence advertising trends. figure 3-4. medical advertisements on companion pictorial (162th 171th issue) meanwhile, companion pictorial’s advertisements also exhibited typical shanghai characteristics. owing to the long-term coexistence of three groups in shanghai—concession, urban area and rural area, companion pictorial shows some images which are funny, ironic but full of modern chinese characteristics. urban citizens were keen on imitating western behavior and aesthetic orientations, so companion pictorial featured numerous depictions of foreign fashion such as cabarets and dance halls. the lives of rural and lower-class citizens, like their food, clothing, shelter, transportation and livelihood, were presented as contrast to upper-class life which further strengthen the fragmentation of modern china. there’s an interesting instance found in the course of research. the covers of companion pictorial have obviously changed over times: from classical chinese women with typical chinese clothes and hairstyles, to the combination of west and china in issue 27, and finally to complete western costume like western dresses and curly hair in issue 84. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 29 published by scholink inc. figure 5-6. description of western lifestyle on companion pictorial (18th issue) figure 7-8. covers of companion pictorial (12th and 156th issue) 4. discussion the birth of a medium will reshape the production mode of knowledge, communication scope and interpretation of power. with the popularization of modern printing technology, modern newspapers and periodicals in china undertook the educational role of shaping national spirit and enlightening the public, making the research as a key to chinese history. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 30 published by scholink inc. existing research on chinese historical media mainly focuses on major newspapers like shun pao and news daily (china) which are valued for their long publication history, comprehensive news coverage and wide readership. another group of scholars has focused on supplementary issues or tabloids with leisure attributes. however, companion pictorial stays at an intermediate position between major newspapers and tabloids: it possesses the social consciousness of major newspapers while retaining the leisure and entertainment features of tabloids. regarding research on companion pictorial, apart from professor wu guozhong’s research which systematically focuses on its flux, most studies only discuss its partial characteristics like analysis of painters and writers who appeared on companion pictorial. however, companion pictorial covers a wide range reflecting modern china and contains an abundance of historical advertising materials, making it unique among relevant historical records. an concrete and diachronic analysis basing on companion pictorial’s advertisements will be meaningful for international community to understand the changes in modern china, and its spiritual disintegration and reconstruction. references chen, h.s. (1989). rural china before liberation (volume 3). beijing: china prospect press. discussion on the history and culture of the republic of china (chapter 1: history of the national revolution.). (1984). beijing: history and culture of the republic of china seminar editorial committee. li, j. (2000). shanghai-style novels and modern urban culture. hefei: anhui education press. ma, g. l. (2002). companion reminisce: a pictorial and an era. beijing: sdx joint publishing company. wu, g. z. (2007). companion pictorial and shanghai’s urban culture. changsha: hunan normal university press. xin, p. (2009). discover history from shanghai: shanghainese and their social life in the process of modernization 1927-1937 (revised version.). shanghai: shanghai university press (original work published 1996). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 45 original paper the communication mechanism of digital music on national culture in the new media era shijie wan 1* 1 shanghai university, shanghai, china * shijie wan, shanghai university, shanghai, china received: may 20, 2024 accepted: june 10, 2024 online published: june 29, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n1p45 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n1p45 abstract the concept of “multidimensional integration” is a prominent theme and developmental trend in today’s music communication. the digital music industry, which stores music in digital formats and transmits it through the internet and wireless networks, is showing vigorous development momentum empowered by technology. as a convergent medium, digital music has strong penetration and easy breakout characteristics in cultural communication. drawing on simon frith’s research on music, combined with the local practice of digital music, this paper discusses how music communication in the entertainment industry and the national culture it contains can survive and go international. keywords communication science, digital music, cultural communication 1. introduction traditional media sociology has always focused on “serious” and “heavy” media products. although “entertainment” is an important ideological structure of media and is closely linked to news and art, under the perspective of elitism, entertainment is regarded as a pejorative term similar to “intellectual inferiority” and is difficult to enter the center of academic research. to provide a meaningful interpretation of entertainment, simon frith starts from the commodity, takes the oldest form of entertainment—music as the research object, and carries out academic research on popular music, discussing the impact of music on social culture, the operation mode of the music industry, and how music affects the audience’s emotional experience. in recent years, china’s digital music market has grown rapidly, and the “music +” ecological industry chain of online and offline integration performances and virtual music festivals is gradually taking shape (zhang & li, 2020). short video music creation has become a new channel for users to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 46 published by scholink inc. participate in the communication of digital music culture. therefore, this paper first analyzes the conditions for the flow of digital music, and then studies the cultural communication mechanism of digital music from the aspects of deconstruction and construction of music symbols, multimodal experience of music, and empathetic communication of music, to explore how to promote the national culture in music to the world. 2. conditions for music flow in the new media era 2.1 technological advancements provide carriers for music communication simon frith pointed out that the ever-changing technology provides the music industry with the functions of “storage” and “reproduction”. music has evolved from the first stage of immediate appreciation and human brain storage to the second stage of music storage in the form of musical scores and then to the third stage of the invention of storage carriers and the mass sale of music products. the communication of music has also evolved from the natural communication of “word of mouth”, the communication of musical score symbols, the communication of record technology, to today’s mobile terminal communication. against the backdrop of the rise of the ugc (user-generated content) model post-web 2.0, technology has not only provided a storage medium for the communication of music but has also facilitated the development of various mobile clients, creating a new platform for musical media. these platforms offer an effective medium for the interactive participation and emotional expression of interest-based communities. the immediacy and decentralization of the internet have broken the limitations that only artists could compose music, allowing the audience to transition from being mere recipients to providers of content, participating in the creation of music. concurrently, propelled by the development of aigc (artificial intelligence generated content), the barriers to music production and distribution have been lowered, transforming the static experience of music into a “fluid experience,” providing technical support for the creation of music. similar to the crowdsourcing journalism where the public spontaneously participates in news investigations and production, the internet enables the audience to autonomously engage in music creation, promoting the production and communication of music. in internet social platforms primarily led by tiktok, the ample autonomy in user content creation is respected, and the audience’s re-creation of music also reflects their fragmented internet product usage habits and the demand for emotional expression in content. according to data from tiktok’s music charts, the duration of the top ten songs is controlled within about one minute, with nearly seventy percent of the music lasting around half a minute. the integrity of music is stripped away, with short melodic sections replacing the natural integrity of music, moving from natural music to mimetic music, aligning with the audience’s fragmented media tendency characteristics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 47 published by scholink inc. 2.2 music as a medium—audience empathy under media affordance simon frith posits that what is directly provided to the public constitutes primary “entertainment”. when entertainment is catered to groups of the entertainment public, it is regarded as secondary entertainment mediated through the medium, and music is no exception. music, which appeals to the auditory senses and emotional experiences, inherently possesses a stronger communicative power compared to print media and textual symbols. it can stream across various boundaries of time and space, sharing the fluidity and portability common with new media, capable of creating interactive and immersive experiences for the audience, thereby facilitating emotional resonance. in the current era where communication technology is rapidly advancing, media technology enables the behavior of the audience and generates specific stimuli that place the audience within particular contexts (dong, li, & liu, 2020). for instance, tiktok offers semi-thematic short music video production, providing users with video production templates or background music to inspire their creative ideas, encouraging them to integrate music with body language and facial expressions during the video shooting process. the audience can create their own music videos through performance forms such as gesture dances or solo dances. in this process, the audience not only expresses their emotions but also gains affirmation and strengthens their sense of belonging to the group through interaction with others, achieving a sense of self-satisfaction and heightened emotional energy. 3. how can the national culture in digital music go global 3.1 constructing and deconstructing musical cultural symbols in contemporary culture, “transmedia music” has become the primary mode of musical expression. as a medium, music interacts with other media to combine auditory symbols with visual and linguistic symbols, presenting a variety of meaning patterns that promote the integration of sound and image. for instance, music in films, musicals, and games coordinates with the visual imagery to form diegetic or non-diegetic sounds, establishing different semantic relationships such as “correspondence”, “counterpoint”, and “opposition” with the primary medium (tian, 2018), aiding in the semantic expression of cultural communication. however, the construction of musical symbols is predicated on shared cultural customs and conventions, meaning that only specific ethnic groups or audiences with a common culture can decode and access this culture, while “outsiders” outside of the culture may struggle to interpret the cultural connotations endowed in the music. at the same time, music as a symbol is not only endowed with meaning in information communication but also possesses a powerful expressive capacity in metaphorical emotional expression. french semiotician jean-jacques nattiez points out that musical symbols have a dual nature; the phonetic and tonal structures of musical language constitute the “signifier” of the musical symbol, triggering associations with music. compared to the “signified” composed of the textual meaning of music, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 48 published by scholink inc. “signifier” is received by the audience first and has a significant advantage in communication, promoting the audience to elaborate on the “signified” after feeling the emotional expression of the music. it can be seen that cultural communication in digital music is a process where the transmitter constructs musical symbols and language codes, and the audience feels the “signifier” of the musical symbols and interprets the “signified” in the process of deconstruction. therefore, the author believes that to globalize the communication of national culture in digital music, it is necessary to interpret the text of the music and the local cultural codes to promote communication between people and musical symbols, between people and the national culture contained in the musical symbols, and among audiences of different ethnicities. 3.2 enhancing multimodal experiences in music communication information communication under the integration of all media has multimodal and multidimensional composite characteristics, providing possibilities for the visualization of music communication. with the aid of visual imagery, barriers between different cultures are broken down, and the connotations and implications of music can be more directly perceived by the audience (li, 2019). at the same time, linguistic memes in the music communication process also build a bridge for the communication among audiences from different cultural backgrounds. the more languages the used linguistic memes can span, the broader the scope of cross-cultural communication, and the higher the openness of audience participation. simon frith points out in “entertainment” that the entertainment industry is a talent industry. cross-cultural video communication requires more professional text settings, coherent soundtracks, professional camera language, and picture quality (wu & yan, 2016). to enhance the multimodality in music cultural communication, guidance and control by journalism professionals are needed to ensure the quality of video production and avoid misinterpretation of culture by the audience. in addition, the process of song recommendation on the tiktok platform mentioned earlier also demonstrates the key role of opinion leaders in music communication. in the communication of music culture, the influence of opinion leaders in various countries should be leveraged to promote the global communication of music and national culture. therefore, to tell the story of the national culture in music, video creators need to use visual information and linguistic memes to immerse the audience in the cultural charm of music through character shaping, costume matching, performance situation setting, musical instrument display, and other forms, enriching media expression and achieving the virtual presence of the audience. at the same time, the talent force in the music industry should control the quality of cross-cultural video content output and leverage the influence of opinion leaders in video communication to promote the global flow of culture in music. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 49 published by scholink inc. 3.3 shaping collective memory in cross-cultural contexts through empathetic communication the communication of music is a process where the communicator and the recipient interact and provide feedback due to a shared focus—music, leading to emotional resonance, which constitutes a complete model of the interaction ritual chain. emotional energy, as a core element in the interaction ritual chain, is an important driving force in the interaction between individuals and society. taking the decentralized field constructed by tiktok short videos as an example, under the availability of technology, the barriers of time and space are broken by new media technologies, increasing the authenticity of physical presence, and the audience’s emotional experience is also more intense. the audience is given the space for personal expression and free speech, and can selectively participate in topics related to the music they are interested in, promoting the push of music-related videos through likes, shares, and comments, interacting with creators, and encouraging the continuous production of music creators. the author believes that the communication of music is not only due to the invisible social network composed of groups with the same musical interests that breaks the limitations of time and space, but more importantly, the audience’s need for emotional resonance in the relationship of interest. only internet products with strong emotional power can stand out from a large amount of information and win the favor of users. under the stimulation of music, the audience, combining their personal cognition of music, induces the emotional tone of the music, resonates emotionally with the music creators, and identifies with the group, satisfying their own emotional catharsis needs. in international communication, empathetic communication is regarded as an important way to shape the national image and tell the national story. therefore, in the process of shaping the collective memory of music across cultures, narrative methods should be used to shape or tell touching cultural stories related to music, making the communication of music more three-dimensional, triggering emotional resonance among audiences from different cultural backgrounds, and actively using music platform accounts in social interactions to shape collective memory, and enhancing the overseas communication capability of music culture. 4. conclusion with the development and empowerment of technology, the conditions for music flow have changed, and the boundaries between production and consumption have become blurred due to digital technology. the reduction in the difficulty of technological access decentralizes the power of music production to the public, providing a foundation for users to participate in music creation with subjective initiative. communicators, under the interaction ritual chain model, use the availability of technology to provide a bridge for the audience to establish emotional connections, and embed this model in the process of song promotion, playing the role of opinion leaders to promote a feedback loop www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 50 published by scholink inc. between the audience and users. the audience’s emotional interaction and the need for self-expression are satisfied in the process of media contact, becoming the main force in the production of short video music. the indigenous national culture in music, under the background of media convergence, should not only increase the exchange between music media and other media, enhance the audience’s multi-sensory experience, and establish collective memory through narrative storytelling to promote emotional resonance between overseas audiences and culture, but also timely explain and structure the “signified” of musical symbols to facilitate cross-cultural communication and exchange. references dong, x., li, j. y., liu, x. y. (2020). music, sense and time and space: nature and mimicry in douyin. youth reporter, 12, 82-83. li, j. (2019). interactive ritual and emotional mobilization in the communication of douyin short video. news and writing, 07, 86-89. tian, g. j. (2018). research on short music videos from the perspective of interactive ritual chain: a case study of douyin app. new media research, 4(04), 22-23. wu, d., & yan, s. j. (2016). research on interactive ritual chain model of network subculture groups. modern communication (journal of communication university of china), 38(03), 17-20. zhang, w. j., & li, s. w. (2020). the popular phenomenon of short music video from the perspective of communication: a case study of douyin app. public standardization, 04, 170-172. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 47 review paper the self-reported roles of executive functions, behavior experiences and locus of control in adults who stutter jane roitsch1* 1 department of communication disorders & special education, old dominion university, norfolk, virginia, usa * jane roitsch, department of communication disorders & special education, old dominion university, norfolk, virginia, usa received: may 18, 2021 accepted: may 25, 2021 online published: may 29, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n2p47 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n2p47 abstract purpose: myriad studies have endeavored to determine why people stutter. it has been suggested that prior experiences, self-perceptions, specific cognition abilities (i.e., executive functions), and/or whether a person perceives their stuttering to be controlled internally or externally can provide insight into stuttering behaviors. what is not known is whether a relationship exists between these variables has more influence on persons who stutter than another. this preliminary study used the locus of control of behavior scale (lcb; craig et al., 1984), overall assessment of the speaker’s experience of stuttering; (oases; yaruss & quesal, 2006, yaruss & quesal, 2008), and the comprehensive executive function inventory, (cefi-a-sr; naglieri & goldstein, 2013) to better understand what relationships, if any, exist between locus of control of behavior, stuttering experiences, and executive functions in persons with fluency disorders. method: a total of 116 adults who stutter completed online surveys which included demographic questions, the lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr. results: self-monitoring was the lone executive function scale score demonstrating a relationship to lcb and oases scores. conclusions: an internal control of behavior and positive outlook on stuttering experiences as well as a sense of effective self-monitoring may be required for a person to manage stuttering behaviors effectively. keywords executive functions, stuttering attitudes, stuttering behaviors, locus of control, stuttering experiences www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 48 published by scholink inc. the relationship between self-reported behavioral control, experiences, and executive functions in persons who stutter 1. introduction stuttering is a disorder of speech fluency that affects approximately 1% of adults (craig et al., 2002). although it can often be diagnosed early (i.e., around two years of age), stuttering may persist in as much as 20 percent of this population (andrews et al., 1983; bloodstein, 1995). for years, researchers have examined behaviors, perceptions, and cognitive functions of persons with fluency disorders. these investigations seek critical information, as adults who stutter report higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and social disorders than persons who do not stutter (blood et al., 2001; iverach et al., 2009; tran et al., 2011). persons who stutter also report feeling less control over life stressors than persons who do not stutter (craig et al., 2009). research has investigated several theories about why stuttering occurs. from a behavioral standpoint, it has been speculated that a relationship exists between locus of control of behavior (lcb; craig et al., 1984) and long-term stuttering exists (denil & kroll, 1995). other research has endeavored to determine what impact stuttering experiences have on stuttering (oases; yaruss & quesal, 2006, yaruss & quesal, 2008). some researchers have reported functional brain differences may exist in persons who stutter compared to those who do not stutter (gordon, 2002; chang et al., 2009; sowman et al., 2017). more specifically, abnormal attention and executive functioning network differences have been noted in children who stutter (chang et al., 2017). these areas are discussed in depth in the following sections. 1.1 locus of control of behavior and stuttering it has been suggested that the locus of control of behavior (i.e., whether persons feel their conditions arise due to internal vs. external factors) can impact long-term outcomes for individuals receiving behavioral therapy. in some studies, having an internal locus of control of behavior has been implicated in sustaining long-term outcomes in persons who stutter (andres & craig, 1988; de nil & kroll, 1995). in other works, locus of control has not been identified as a psychological predictor of stuttering (ginsberg, 2010). locus of control of behavior has also been shown to differ between persons who stutter and persons who do not stutter (kumbhar & gupta, 201). in a study aimed to determine the impact of self-reporting measures in persons who stutter, self-reporting of stuttering events were shown to be beneficial in the assessment and treatment of stuttering as they provided information about when a loss of control was perceived by the person who stutters. (guntupalli, kalinowski, & saltklaroglu, 2010). thus, there is the need to further examine the impact locus of control has on persons who stutter. 1.2 experiences of persons who stutter in addition to the lcb, experiences and reactions of persons who stutter have been identified as factors influencing not only stuttering treatment outcomes but also quality of life in persons who stutter (klompas & ross, 2004; nang et al., 2018). negatuive self-perceptions of stuttering have been www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 49 published by scholink inc. associated with stuttering impairments (nang et al., 2018), and attitudes have been identified as influencing the social interactions of persons who stutter (leith et al., 1993). fortunately, understanding the environment, attitudes, and social experiences of persons who stutter has been shown to help shape self-perceptions and personal narratives, which can improve stuttering outcomes (o’dwyer et al., 2018). 1.3 cognitive skills and stuttering: the role of executive functions and self-reports another area that has been explored in persons who stutter involves cognition. the act of stuttering has been suggested to involve certain cognitive breakdowns (karniol, 1995). more specifically, persons who stutter have demonstrated deficits in attention (heitmann et al., 2004; ofoe et al., 2018; singer, et al., 2020), self-monitoring deficits (goldiamond, 1965; james, 1981; lickley et al., 2005; vasic & wijnen, 2005), and inhibitory control (eggers et al., 2013). these specific cognitive processes fall under the umbrella term of “executive functions”, or “efs”. there are many definitions of efs. efs have been named as cognitive control activities that manage all other cognitive processes (denckla & reader, 1993). baggetta and alexander (2016) compared researcher definitions of efs and found that most individuals identify efs as a group of cognitive functions that provide guidance for learning and executing activities. because efs include several processes, (e.g., working memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control) learning which process is involved and to what extent in which activity can be challenging. tests of efs exist to help parse out which efs may be stronger or more involved in determining task outcomes. in persons who stutter, brain-based differences have been reported by researchers (etchell & sowman, 2014). additionally, attention to tasks that can impact comprehension have been shown to differ in persons who stutter compared to persons who do not stutter (kamhi & mcosker, 1982). self-reporting has been suggested as a tool that may provide insight in stuttering behaviors (guntupalli, kalinowski, & saltuklaroglu, 2006; o’brien, packman, & onslow, 2004). as the use of self-reporting has often been used by researchers and clinicians working with persons who stutter, this study investigated self-reported experiences, self-reported feelings of control, and self-reported efs of persons who stutter. no research to date has directly examined these potential relationships. therefore, gaining a better understanding about locus of control, life experiences and cognitive interactions of adults with persist stuttering can provide critical insights to drive support strategies and identify possible treatment options. for this study, an examination of efs, self-perceptions and opinions of control were selected for investigation in persons who study as they reflect the outcomes of prior research. although efs may relate to factors impacting stuttering events in adults, no research to date has directly examined the potential relationship between efs, self-perceptions and locus on control to determine the interactions between these variables in adults who stutter. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 50 published by scholink inc. 1.4 purpose of the study few studies, if any, have investigated the relationships between the self-reported locus of behavior control, self-perceptions and cognitive functions (i.e., efs) in adults who stutter. as locus of behavior control, experiences, and efs have been suggested to influence stuttering behaviors and outcomes, the strength of each of these variables and the relationships between them in adults stutter can provide valuable insight into this population. for example, if strong relationships exist between certain variables, or if certain efs are identified as strengths or weaknesses by persons who stutter, treatment could be designed accordingly. therefore, in this study, the self-reports of behavioral control, self-perceptions and self-reported efs in persons who stutter were collected and analyzed. it is hypothesized that efs (e.g., attention, working memory, self-monitoring) may play a more significant role in the act of stuttering than previously determined. it is further hypothesized that, self-perceptions, locus of control, and efs will demonstrate relationships with each other. descriptive statistics, correlations and regressions will be used to analyze the results received. 2. method 2.1 participants this study investigated the self-reported efs, behaviors and perceptions of persons who stutter who responded to an online invitation to participate. upon receiving approval from the institutional review board (irb) at old dominion university, an announcement explaining the study purpose and invitation to participate was posted on the national stuttering association (nsa) website. interested participants who met inclusion criteria (i.e., adults 18+ years of age who stutter) received further instructions were emailed links for completion. 2.2 procedure data were collected anonymously, via online assessments. the invitation to participate in the assessments was posted for three months. participants who volunteered for this study and met inclusion criteria received email access to the survey. the collection of information occurred online via self-reported responses to the materials listed below. 2.3 materials following questions regarding demographic information and stuttering history, participants completed the locus of control of behavior survey (lcb; craig et al., 1984), overall assessment of the speaker’s experience of stuttering; (oases; yaruss & quesal, 2006, yaruss & quesal, 2008), and the comprehensive executive function inventory, (cefi-a-sr; naglieri & goldstein, 2013). 2.4 measures 2.4.1 demographic questions. participants responded to an online fluency questionnaire section with nine demographic questions devised in qualtrics (see appendix a). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 51 published by scholink inc. 2.4.2 locus of control of behavior scale (lcb). participants also completed the lcb. the lcb is a 17-question, 5-point likert scale designed to measure how much control a person perceives they have over their own behavior(s) and distinguishes between two personalities; internal (i.e., persons who perceive outcomes as the result of their own behavior or control) and external (i.e., persons who feel that what happens to them is the result of external circumstances). higher scores indicate more externality. in studies of persons who stutter and persons who do not stutter, significant differences were noted in the lcb scale scores of the two groups (craig et al., 1984; kumbhar & gupta, 2016; nil & kroll, 1995), with persons who stutter demonstrating higher scores, thus greater externality. kumbhar and gupta (2016) suggest that the lcb scale may provide valuable insight to guide assessment and treatment of persons who stutter. 2.4.3 oases self-report. the next step included participants’ responses to the online oases self-report. this protocol measures the impact of stuttering impact on the individual’s life and provides information via self-reporting which can be used in assessment and treatment. the oases self-report includes the following sections: overall characteristics, general information, reactions to stuttering characteristics and experiences, communication in daily situations characteristics and experiences, and quality of life. responses are grouped into five categories; mild (impact score of 1.00-1.49); mild-moderate (impact score of 1.50-2.24); moderate (impact score of 2.25-2.99); moderate-severe (impact score of 3.00-3.74); or severe (impact score of 3.75-5.00). thus, the higher the impact score, the more severe the person who stutters feels their stuttering impacts each category. 2.4.4 comprehensive executive function inventory-adult -self-report (cefi-a-sr). participants also completed the comprehensive executive function inventory-adult -self-report (cefi-a-sr). this likert-like scale has been clinically proven to provide insight into an individual’s assessment of the various components of their own efs. this report assesses ef-related behaviors (e.g., inhibitory control, working memory), and identifies an individual’s ef strengths and weaknesses. information captured by the cefi-a-sr is useful to help identify a person’s specific ef skills based on the setting. the cefi-a-sr provides a comprehensive look at overall efs via standard scores and individualized subtest standard scores on 9 ef areas (i.e., attention, emotion regulation, flexibility, inhibitory control, initiation, organization, planning, self-monitoring, and working memory). the higher the scores, the stronger the individuals perceive their ability in that ef area. 2.5 data analysis this study was a correlation and a stepwise regression research design and included an analysis of descriptive statistics involving several variables. data were imported into spss version 25 for data management and analysis. lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr scale and subscale scores were calculated according to publication manual guidelines. analysis began by obtaining study sample characteristics. frequencies and percentages were reported for all variables. independent samples t-tests and one-way www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 52 published by scholink inc. analysis of variance (anova) were used to compare lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr total score and subscale scores across demographic variables. post hoc pairwise comparisons with tukey’s correction for multiple comparisons was conducted for one-way anova tests that yielded significant results. pearson correlations were used to assess the correlation between lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr total score and subscale scores. all assumptions for anova and pearson correlations were satisfied. a p-value < 0.05 was used to determine statistical significance. 3. results initially, 171 individuals responded to the survey invitation. among those individuals, 55 did not complete the survey in full and were excluded from the analytic sample. the final population consisted of 116 individuals. table 1 displays the sample characteristics obtained from the nine demographic questions in the survey (see appendix a). table 1. sample characteristics (n=116) characteristic n % region midwest northeast southeast southwest west outside the us did not answer 25 24 28 12 21 5 1 21.6 20.7 24.1 10.3 18.1 4.3 0.9 race/ethnicity african american asian hispanic white mixed race prefer not to answer 7 6 6 89 4 2 6.0 5.2 5.2 76.7 3.4 1.7 age (in years) 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 11 33 24 21 9.5 28.4 20.7 18.1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 53 published by scholink inc. 55-64 65+ did not answer 12 14 1 10.3 12.1 0.9 gender male female prefer not to answer 74 38 4 63.8 32.8 3.5 age determined to have a fluency disorder preschool age school age adult following an injury as a child 60 51 2 2 51.7 44.0 1.7 1.7 seeking treatment yes no 13 102 11.2 87.9 involved in a stuttering self-help group public private no 62 23 85 53.4 19.8 26.7 other diagnoses adhd adhd and speech impairment language impairment speech impairment speech and language impairment no 19 1 1 10 1 84 16.4 0.9 0.9 8.6 0.9 72.4 family history of a stuttering disorder yes no 46 70 39.7 60.3 3.1 overall demographics a quarter of the sample came from the southeast, while approximately one fifth of participants came from the midwest, northeast, and southwest respectively. the majority of study participants identified as white (76.7%). almost 50% of participants were between the ages of 25 and 44, and the majority were male (63.8%). there were 51.7% of participants who reported they were preschool age when it was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 54 published by scholink inc. determined that they had fluency disorder, while 44% participants reported to be school age. almost 90% of participants reported they were not currently seeking treatment for their disorder; however, 73.3% were/are involved with a stuttering self-help group (53% public and 20% private). there were 40% of participants who reported they had a family history of stuttering. 3.2 lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr scores by region table 2 reports the descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum) for the lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr scale scores. (it should be noted that higher scores on the lcb indicate greater externality, higher scores on the oases indicate a greater negative impact of stuttering, and higher scores on the cefi-a-sr, the stronger the individual perceives their ability in that ef area.) independent samples t-tests and one-way anovas showed that lcb, cefi-a-sr organization (og), cefi-a-sr self-monitoring (sm), and cefi-a-sr total score differed by region (all p < 0.05). post hoc tests showed the following results: participants from the west had lower lcb scores than those outside the us (p = 0.01). participants from the southeast and west had significantly higher cefi-a-sr organization subscale scores than those outside the us (p = 0.049 and p = 0.02). similarly, participants from the midwest, southeast, and west had significantly higher cefi-a-sr self-monitoring subscale scores than those from outside the us (all p < 0.01). lastly, participants from the southeast and west had significantly higher cefi-a-sr total scores than those from outside the us (p = 0.02 and p = 0.03). table 2. descriptive statistics for lcb, oases, and cefi scale and subscale scores minimum maximum mean std. deviation locus of control 19.00 57.00 35.5826 7.99998 oases general information raw score 16.00 86.00 51.2174 12.94847 general information impact score 1.20 4.30 2.6627 .67342 reactions to stuttering raw score 32.00 136.00 86.0614 24.07116 reactions to stuttering impact score 1.10 4.64 2.8904 .78596 communication in daily situations raw score 2.00 103.00 58.2435 18.45554 communication in daily situations impact score 1.00 4.65 2.4742 .73844 qol raw score 19.00 109.00 54.2435 20.70579 qol impact score 1.00 4.86 2.2362 .84263 overall raw score 89.00 407.00 249.0174 69.60742 overall impact score 1.12 4.57 2.5749 .69986 cefi attention 1.00 34.00 22.8319 6.02510 emotional regulation 7.00 36.00 24.3929 4.93992 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 55 published by scholink inc. flexibility 2.00 31.00 21.3274 4.71594 inhibitory control 2.00 33.00 23.6460 4.72629 initiation 3.00 32.00 22.4690 4.73790 organization 4.00 33.00 22.4690 5.17389 planning 4.00 36.00 25.3186 5.80373 self-monitoring 3.00 27.00 20.0442 4.02978 working memory 4.00 35.00 22.3982 5.22450 total 37.00 309.00 226.4071 42.76903 3.3 lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr scores by race the cefi-a-sr scale and subscale scores were shown to differ by race. post hoc tests showed the following: on the cefi-a-sr attention (at) subscale, asians scored lower than mixed race participants (p = 0.02). african americans and asians scored lower on the cefi-a-sr emotional regulation (er) subscale than mixed race on the cefi-a-sr er subscale (p = 0.01 and p = 0.001) while whites scored lower than asians (p = 0.02). african americans scored lower than all other race/ethnicity groups except whites on the cefi-a-sr flexibility (fx) subscale (all p < 0.05). asians scored less than mixed race participants on the cefi-a-sr fx subscale (p =0.02). asians scored lower on the cefi-a-sr initiation (it) subscale than hispanics (p =0.04). african americans scored less than hispanics, whites, and mixed race on the cefi-a-sr og subscale (all p < 0.02). asians scored less than mixed race participants on the cefi-a-sr og subscale (p = 0.02). african americans and asians scored less than hispanics, whites, and mixed-race participants on the cefi-a-sr planning (pl) subscale (all p < 0.03). african americans scored less than hispanics, whites and mixed-race participants on the cefi-a-sr sm subscale (all p < 0.04). asians scored less than whites on the cefi-a-sr subscale (p = 0.03). african americans and asians scored less than mixed race participants on the cefi-a-sr working memory (wm) subscale (p = 0.02 and p = 0.02 respectively). african americans and asians had lower cefi-a-sr total scores than hispanics, whites, and mixed-race participants (all p < 0.05). post hoc pairwise comparisons of cefi-a-sr inhibitory control (ic) subscale scores between racial/ethnic categories that corrected for multiple comparisons did not yield statistically significant results, despite the statistically significant one-way omnibus anova test. 3.4 lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr scores by age lcb, oases general information impact score, oases reactions to stuttering raw and impact score, oases communication in daily situations raw and impact scores, oases qol raw and impact scores, oases overall raw and impact score, cefi-a-sr emotional regulation subscale, and cefi-a-sr planning subscale scores differed by age. post hoc tests showed the following: participants 18 to 24 years www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 56 published by scholink inc. of age scored higher than participants 45 to 54 years of age and people 65+ years of age (p = 0.001 and p = 0.03 respectively) on lcb. participants 25 to 34 years of age and participants 35 to 44 years of age also scored higher than participants 45 to 54 years of age on lcb (p = 0.02 and p = 0.04). participants 25 to 34 years of age and 55 to 64 years of age had a lower oases general information impact score than persons 35 to 44 years of age (p = 0.03 and p = 0.01). oases reactions to stuttering raw scores and impact scores were lower in participants 65+ years of age than those 35 to 44 years of age (p = 0.04). oases communication in daily situations raw scores were lower among participants 65+ years of age than participants 25 to 34 years of age and 35 to 44 years of age (all p < 0.04). oases communication impact scores were higher in participants 18 to 24 years of age than participants 55 to 64 years of age (p =0.04). oases qol impact scores were lower in participants 55 to 64 years of age than participants 18 to 24 years of age and participants 35 to 44 years of age (p = 0.03). the oases overall raw and impact score was less in participants 35 to 44 years of age than participants 55 to 64 years of age (p = 0.04). participants 18 to 24 years of age scored lower than participants older than 45 years of age on the cefi-a-sr emotional regulation subscale (p = 0.001, p = 0.02, and p = 0.03 respectively). cefi-a-sr planning subscale scores were higher among 45 to 54 years of age than participants 18 to 24 years of age (p = 0.03). 3.5 oases scores 3.5.1 oases scores by gender. lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr scale and subscale scores did not differ by gender or whether they were currently involved in a self-help stuttering group. 3.5.2 oases scores by age when fluency disorder was determined. oases general information raw score, oases reactions to stuttering raw and impact scores, oases communication in daily situations impact score, and oases overall impact score differed by what age it was determined a participant had a fluency disorder. participants for whom it was determined that they have a fluency disorder at preschool age and school age had higher oases general information raw scores than those for who it was determined that they have a fluency disorder as an adult (both p = 0.01). post hoc pairwise comparisons of oases reactions to stuttering raw and impact scores, oases communication in daily situations impact score, and oases overall impact score between age at diagnosis categories that corrected for multiple comparisons did not yield statistically significant results, despite the statistically significant one-way omnibus anova test. 3.5.3 oases scores and present involvement in treatment for stuttering. oases general information raw and impact score differed by whether they were currently seeking treatment for stuttering, with those not seeking treatment scoring higher on both subscales than those seeking treatment (both p < 0.02). 3.6 lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr scores and other diagnosed conditions locus of control, oases communication in daily situations impact score, oases qol impact score, oases overall impact score, cefi-a-sr attention subscale score, cefi-a-sr inhibitory control www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 57 published by scholink inc. subscale score, cefi-a-sr organization subscale score, and cefi-a-sr working memory subscale score differed by other diagnoses (all p < 0.05). there are too few participants in some of the other diagnosis categories to conduct post hoc pairwise comparisons. 3.6 lcb, oases, and cefi-a-sr scores and family stuttering history oases reactions to stuttering impact score, oases qol impact score, oases overall and impact scores, and cefi-a-sr attention subscale scores differed by family history of stuttering (all p < 0.05). specifically, those who had a family history of stuttering had lower oases reactions to stuttering impact score, oases qol impact score, and oases overall and impact scores and higher cefi-a-sr attention subscale scores than those without a family history of stuttering. 3.7 correlations table 3 presents the pearson correlations for the locus of control, oases, and cefi-a-sr scale and subscale scores. locus of control is positively correlated with all oases measures and negatively correlated with all cefi-a-sr measures except the cefi-a-sr self-monitoring subscale (all p < 0.01). the oases overall and subscale scores are all highly positively correlated with each other (all p < 0.01). similarly, the cefi-a-sr total and subscale scores are all highly positively correlated with each other (all p < 0.01). oases general information raw score is negatively correlated with cefi-a-sr attention (p < 0.05), flexibility (p < 0.01), planning (p < 0.05), and total scores (p < 0.05). oases general information impact score is negatively correlated with all cefi-a-sr scores except the cefi-a-sr self-monitoring subscale score (all p < 0.01). the oases reaction to stuttering raw score is negatively correlated to the cefi-a-sr emotional regulation and flexibility subscale scores (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05 respectively) but none of the other cefi-a-sr scores. the oases reaction to stuttering impact score is negatively correlated to the cefi-a-sr emotional regulation, flexibility, inhibitory control, initiation, and planning scores (all p < 0.05). the oases communication in daily situations raw and impact scores is not correlated with the cefi-a-sr measures. the oases qol raw score is negatively correlated with the cefi-a-sr emotional regulation, initiation and total scores (all p < 0.05). the oases qol impact score is negatively correlated with the cefi-a-sr emotional regulation, flexibility, initiation, and total scores (all p < 0.05). the oases overall raw score is negatively correlated with the cefi-a-sr emotional regulation, flexibility, and initiation scores (all p < 0.05). the oases overall impact score is negatively correlated with the cefi-a-sr attention, emotional regulation, flexibility, inhibitory control, initiation, planning, and total score (all p < 0.05). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 58 published by scholink inc. table 3. pearson correlations for the locus of control, oases, and cefi scale and subscale scores 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 1. locus 1 oases 2. general information raw score 0.3 8** 1 3. gen info impact score 0.4 4** 0.9 2** 1 4. reactions raw score 0.5 1** 0.7 6** 0.7 3** 1 5. reactions impact score 0.5 3** 0.7 4** 0.7 7** 0.9 9** 1 6. comm raw score 0.5 3** 0.6 3** 0.5 8** 0.7 3** 0.7 1** 1 7. comm impact score 0.3 7** 0.6 6** 0.6 5** 0.7 4** 0.7 4** 0.9 3** 1 8. qol raw score 0.4 7** 0.6 5** 0.6 4** 0.8 5** 0.8 4** 0.7 5** 0.7 9** 1 9. qol impact score 0.4 9** 0.6 6** 0.6 8** 0.8 3** 0.8 4** 0.7 2** 0.8 0** 0.9 8** 1 10. overall raw score 0.4 6** 0.8 2** 0.7 8** 0.9 5** 0.9 3** 0.8 7** 0.8 8** 0.9 2** 0.9 1** 1 11. overall impact score 0.5 1** 0.8 1** 0.8 3** 0.9 3** 0.9 4** 0.8 2** 0.8 9** 0.9 2** 0.9 3** 0.9 8** 1 cefi 12. attention -0.2 8** -0.2 0* -0.2 9** -0.0 9 -0.1 4 -0.0 3 -0.1 7 -0.1 1 -0.1 6 -0.1 2 -0.2 0* 1 13. emotional regulation -0.5 2** -0.1 6 -0.2 9** -0.3 0** -0.3 7** -0.1 3 -0.2 3 -0.2 6** -0.2 8** -0.2 2* -0.3 1** 0.5 9** 1 14. flexibility -0.3 4** -0.2 9** -0.3 7** -0.2 3* -0.2 9** -0.0 7 -0.1 7 -0.2 1* -0.2 5** -0.2 3* -0.2 9** 0.6 4** 0.5 6** 1 15. inhibitory control -0.4 0** -0.1 6 -0.2 7** -0.1 4 -0.2 2* -0.0 5 -0.1 8 -0.1 5 -0.1 8 -0.1 5 -0.2 3* 0.5 6** 0.6 5** 0.6 1** 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 59 published by scholink inc. 16. initiation -0.3 3** -0.2 0 -0.3 1** -0.1 8 -0.2 3* -0.0 3 -0.1 6 -0.2 5** -0.2 9** -0.1 9* -0.2 7** 0.6 8** 0.5 6** 0.6 7** 0.5 4** 1 17. organization -0.2 9** -0.1 3 -0.2 6** -0.0 9 -0.1 5 0.0 5 -0.0 9 -0.1 2 -0.1 7 -0.1 0 -0.1 8 0.7 2** 0.6 4** 0.6 8** 0.6 4** 0.7 7** 1 18. planning -0.3 6** -0.1 9* -0.3 0** -0.1 9 -0.2 5* -0.0 6 -0.1 4 -0.1 5 -0.1 8 -01. 7 -0.2 4* 0.7 1** 0.6 7** 0.7 1** 0.6 3** 0.7 7** 0.7 9** 1 19. self-monitoring -0.1 1 -0.0 2 -0.1 0 0.0 0 -0.0 5 0.1 3 0.0 8 -0.0 3 -0.0 3 0.0 1 -0.0 3 0.4 7** 0.4 1** 0.6 5** 0.4 8** 0.6 5** 0.6 5** 0.7 2** 1 20. working memory -0.2 6** -0.1 4 -0.2 5** -0.0 6 -0.1 3 0.0 1 -0.1 1 -0.1 0 -0.1 5 -0.1 0 -0.1 8 0.7 7** 0.5 6** 0.7 1** 0.6 0** 0.7 0** 0.8 1** 0.7 2** 0.5 6** 1 21. total -0.3 9** -0.2 0* -0.3 2** -0.1 7 -0.2 4 -0.0 2 -0.1 6 -0.1 9* -0.2 3* -0.1 7 -0.2 6** 0.8 3** 0.7 7** 0.8 4** 0.7 7** 0.8 5** 0.9 0** 0.9 0** 0.7 5** 0.8 7** 1 ** p < 0.01; * p < 0.05 4. discussion as the need for additional research and avenues into other potential means of managing fluency disorders in adults is warranted, this research was designed to help persons who stutter, as well as clinicians and therapists working with persons who stutter. the demographic questions, lcb, oases, cefi-a-sr self-report in this survey provide insights into the background, experiences, and perceptions of adults who stutter. 4.1 demographic differences differences in scores were reported occurred based on region. persons who stutter from the southeastern and western parts of the united states felt more organized, reported greater self-monitoring, and overall scored higher on their self-assessment of executive function via the cefi-a-sr than others throughout the country and those who live outside united states. this may suggest the need for increased supports for individuals who stutter based on where they live, how much interaction they have with others, and regional and demographic parameters. cefi-a-sr scores overall differed significantly by race, with asians and african american participants reporting lower levels than whites on several subscales (e.g., flexibility, organization). these results reflect the work of others who caution generalizing information about persons who stutter to other cultures (shames, 1989) and encourage further research into stuttering treatment that considers multicultural identification (finn & cordes, 1997). age was a significant factor in the reported scores of all scales. overall, the younger the person who participated in our survey was, the less they felt that they had control over their stuttering behaviors, and the less emotional control and planning they felt they had. younger participants also felt that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 60 published by scholink inc. stuttering had a greater overall impact on their lives. interestingly, studies of children who stutter have often reported little to no significant difference in the stuttering events of african american children and white children (olsen et al. (1999). similarly, when queried about their own confidence and social acceptance, young children who stutter reported no difference when compared to children who did not stutter (hertsberg & zebrowksi, 2016). likewise, there were no significant difference in the classroom interactions of students who stutter and students who do not stutter (adriaensens et al., 2017). all studies, including the present investigation, underline the importance of understanding the individual and unique nature of stuttering. 4.2 perceptions of stuttering the present study supports the work of other investigations that report fluency disorders and/or the perception of fluency change over time for the person who stutters. researchers have found that changes occur for individuals who stutter throughout the life span (peters & starkweather, 1989). in the present study, self-consciousness related to stuttering becomes more apparent with age. self-consciousness also increased the longer a person had been identified or self-identified as a person who stutters. specifically, participants in this study who stuttered as preschool and school age had higher oases general information raw scores than those for whom it was determined had a fluency disorder as an adult. for persons working with individuals who stutter, the importance of knowing how long that person had been dealing with stuttering is important to consider, as time since onset or diagnosis may impact perceptions and outcomes in therapy. participants who were seeking treatment had lower oases general information raw and impact scores than those not seeking treatment. these findings support the work of other researchers who have identified the importance of support groups for persons who stutter (bradberry, 1997; krall, 2001; ramig, 1993; yaruss et al., 2002). the current study suggests support groups may help persons better internalize control over their stuttering and reduce the overall impact of stuttering in their lives. these results suggest participation in support groups should be encouraged for persons who stutter. 4.3 self-monitoring the cefi-a-sr self-monitoring subscale was the lone variable that demonstrated a positive correlation between lcb scores and the oases general information impact score. as previously noted, the cefi-a-sr self-monitoring subscale is defined as the ability to evaluate behaviors internally and make changes as needed to fix or amend mistakes. this suggests that participants in this study feel that when their self-monitoring is not effective, their feelings of internal control diminish, and their experiences about stuttering are also negatively affected. introspection or self-monitoring has long been examined to support long-term therapeutic changes in persons who stutter (goldiamond, 1965; james, 1981; lickley et al., 2005; martin & haroldson, 1982; vasic & wijnen, 2005). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 61 published by scholink inc. the concept of self-monitoring is straightforward, with the impetus of the control following on the person who stutters. but therein may lay the challenge. if a person who stutters feels that their ability to self-monitor is determined by their ability to manage their fluency, anything other than a stutter-free event may create a negative feeling about their internal control abilities and that entire experience. this may be what occurred for the persons in this study. it could be that persons who usually feel they possess control of their situations internally and overall have a positive life experiences related to stuttering feel when a stutter event happens, their ineffective or poorer self-monitoring is to blame. both traditional means of stuttering management (i.e., fluency-shaping and stuttering management techniques) incorporate the use of self-monitoring. therapists and clinicians should understand the importance of self-monitoring and how it influences perceptions of t abilities and even reality for persons who stutter. for example, the work of lickley et al. (2005) reported that persons who stutter are often hypervigilant about their speech and may even assume or identify dysfluencies even when they do not occur. if self-monitoring of speech in all persons is likely rooted in a person’s inner speech as suggested by levelt (1983), persons who stutter may be underestimating their self-monitoring abilities their own internal control of fluency events that negatively impacts their stuttering experience. 4.4 conclusion findings in this study provide insight into the behaviors, perceptions and cognitive functions of persons who stutter. clinicians and therapists must be knowledgeable of effective ways to provide guidance and therapy to persons who stutter. the results strongly suggest there is the potential need for increased studies involving the influence and perceptions of self-monitoring in persons who stutter. as many individuals in this study have suggested, internal control of behavior and perceptions of their experiences with stuttering is not enough to override feelings of limited or ineffective self-monitoring in persons who stutter. 4.5 limitations since the design of this research involved online data collection, it is possible that internal validity was influenced by instrumentation, selecting and administration. posting the invitation to participate solely on the national stuttering association webpage limits the randomness of this sample. instrumentation limits internal validity in that the survey was designed and validated by the researchers of this study via a pilot sampling of 10 individuals. although all instructions were provided in a written format, the influence of a prior question response on a subsequent answer, especially if survey fatigue set in cannot be ruled out. as the survey was administered online, the potential for someone other than the nsa member to complete it was a present, albeit small danger. external validity threats are few as it can be presumed the persons who responded to the invitation to participate were a representative sample of the population of persons with fluency disorders. thus, the findings of this research may be widely applied www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 62 published by scholink inc. to assist persons who stutter. the possibility that participating individuals were either highly motivated for or against the topic being questioned cannot be overlooked in this online format. accordingly, the motivation for responding and participating may have some inherent outcome bias. the persons who stutter and chose to participate in this survey may not represent the feelings or comfort level of all persons who stutter. 4.6 future directions to strengthen the validity of this study’s findings, future studies should include direct assessments (i.e., not self-reports) to determine whether self-monitoring skills is an ef difficulty consistently present in persons who stutter. additionally, these direct assessments can help identify other ef challenges that persons who stutter may encounter and thus guide treatment, management, and behavior modification. these studies could then be compared to the self-reported ef results to determine whether persons who stutter accurately portray their actual ef abilities. as many studies focus on children who stutter, an increased focus on adults who stutter and persons who have are known to be lifelong stutters would provide insight into the changes in the perceptions, behaviors, abilities, and needs of persons who stutter. this data would also provide valuable insight into the needs of persons who stutter over time. funding this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. references andrews, g., craig, a. r., feyer, a. m., hoddinott, s., howie, p., & neilson, m. 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(2004). attentional functions in speech fluency disorders. logopedics phoniatrics vocology, 29(3), 119-127. https://10.1080/14015430410017379 hertsberg, n., & zebrowski, p. m. (2016). self-perceived competence and social acceptance of young children who stutter: initial findings. journal of communication disorders, 64, 18-31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2016.08.004 james, j. e. (1981). behavioral self-control of stuttering using time-out from speaking. journal of applied behavior analysis, 14(1), 25-37. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1981.14-25 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 64 published by scholink inc. kamhi, a., & mcosker, t. (1982). attention and stuttering: do stutterers think too much about speech? journal of fluency disorders, 7(3), 309-321. https://doi.org/10.1016/0094-730x(82)90025-0 karniol, r. 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(2016). comparison of locus of control behaviour scores in normal and individuals with stuttering—a new way to approach stuttering disorder for speech—language pathologists. international journal of community health and medical research, 2(2), 43-48. https:// 10.21276/ijchmr.2016.2.2.07 levelt, w. j. (1983). monitoring and self-repair in speech. cognition, 14(1), 41-104. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(83)90026-4 lickley, r. j., hartsuiker, r. j., corley, m., russell, m., & nelson, r. (2005). judgment of disfluency in people who stutter and people who do not stutter: results from magnitude estimation. language and speech, 48(3), 299-312. https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309050480030301 martin, r. r., & haroldson, s. k. (1982). contingent self-stimulation for stuttering. journal of speech and hearing disorders, 47(4), 407-413. https://doi.org/10.1044/jshd.4704.407 murphy, w. p., yaruss, j. s., & quesal, r. w. (2007). enhancing treatment for school-age children who stutter: i. reducing negative reactions through desensitization and cognitive restructuring. journal of fluency disorders, 32(2), 121-138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfludis.2007.02.002 naglieri, j. a., & goldstein, s. (2013). comprehensive executive function inventory: technical manual. north tonawanda, ny: multi-health systems inc. nang, c., hersh, d., milton, k., & lau, s. r. (2018). the impact of stuttering on development of self-identity, relationships, and quality of life in women who stutter. american journal of speech-language pathology, 27(3s), 1244-1258. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_ajslp-odc11-17-0201 ntourou, k., anderson, j. d., & wagovich, s. a. (2018). executive function and childhood stuttering: parent ratings and evidence from a behavioral task. journal of fluency disorders, 56, 18-32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfludis.2017.12.001 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 65 published by scholink inc. o’dwyer, m., walsh, i. p., & leahy, m. m. (2018). the role of narratives in the development of stuttering as a problem. american journal of speech-language pathology, 27(3s), 1164-1179. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_ajslp-odc11-17-0207 ofoe, l. c., anderson, j. d., & ntourou, k. (2018). short-term memory, inhibition, and attention in developmental stuttering: a meta-analysis. journal of speech, language, and hearing research, 61, 1626-1648. https:// 10.1044/2018_jslhr-s-17-0372 olsen, l. t., steelman, m. l., buffalo, m. d., & montague, j. (1999). preliminary information on stuttering characteristics contrasted between african american and white children. journal of communication disorders, 32(2), 97-108. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0021-9924(98)00032-x ramig, p. r. (1993). the impact of self-help groups on persons who stutter: a call for research. journal of fluency disorders, 18(2-3), 351-361. https://doi.org/10.1016/0094-730x(93)90014-u sasisekaran, j., & basu, s. (2017). the influence of executive functions on phonemic processing in children who do and do not stutter. journal of speech, language, and hearing research, 60(10), 2792-2807. https://doi.org/10.1044/2017_jslhr-s-17-0033 shames, g. (1989). stuttering: an rfp for a cultural perspective. journal of fluency disorders, 14(1), 67-77. https://doi.org/10.1016/0094-730x(89)90025-9 singer, c., walden, t., & jones, r. (2020). attention, speech-language dissociations, and stuttering chronicity. american journal of speech-language pathology, 29(1), 157-167. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_ajslp-19-00039 sowman, p., ryan, m., johnson, b., savage, g., crain, s., harrison, e., martin, e, & burianova, h. (2017). grey matter volume differences in the left caudate nucleus of people who stutter. brain and language, 164, 9-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2016.08.009 vasiç, n., & wijnen, f. (2005). stuttering as a monitoring deficit. in r. j. hartsuiker, r. bastiaanse, a. postma, & f. wijnen (eds.), phonological encoding and monitoring in normal and pathological speech (pp. 226-247). psychology press. yaruss, j. s., quesal, r. w., reeves, l., molt, l. f., kluetz, b., caruso, a. j., mcclure, j. a., & lewis, f. (2002). speech treatment and support group experiences of people who participate in the national stuttering association. journal of fluency disorders, 27(2), 115-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0094-730x(02)00114-6 yaruss, j., & quesal, r. (2006). overall assessment of the speaker's experience of stuttering (oases): documenting multiple outcomes in stuttering treatment. journal of fluency disorders, 31(2), 90-115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfludis.2006.02.002 yaruss, j. s., & quesal, r. w. (2008). oases: overall assessment of the speaker’s experience of stuttering interpretive report. bloomington, mn: pearson. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 66 published by scholink inc. appendix appendix a. demographic questions 1) which region of the world do you live in? 2) what is your ethnicity? 3) what is your age? 4) what is your gender? 5) at what age was it determined you had a fluency disorder (stutter?) 6) are you currently seeking treatment for your stuttering? 7) are you currently involved with a stuttering self-help group? 8) other than stuttering, were you ever diagnosed with any of the following: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder speech impairment language impairment 9) does anyone in your family have a stuttering disorder? communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 121 original paper a study on the overseas reception and translation strategies of shuang xuetao‟s works wang yue 1 & cui dan 2* 1 postgraduate student in english translation at jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 professor and director of the institute of international language and culture at jilin international studies university, changchun, china; doc superviser of the school of foreign languages, yanbian university, yanji, china * cui dan, summerelephant@126.com received: september 15, 2025 accepted: october 18, 2025 online published: november 11, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p121 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p121 abstract the challenges of industrial civilization have given rise to a new generation of northeastern chinese writers, including shuang xuetao, ban yu, and zheng zhi. while their works inherit the creative traits of the traditional northeastern literary group, they also introduce fresh elements into the landscape. among them, shuang xuetao stands out as the first of the “new northeastern writers” to gain international attention, signaling the group’s gradual emergence on the global literary stage. this paper focuses on shuang xuetao and the english translation of his novella rouge street, exploring its reception in the united states and the translation strategies employed. by examining data such as book sales, library holdings, and reader reviews following its u.s. publication, the study assesses the work’s overseas impact. drawing on lawrence venuti’s theories of domestication and foreignization, it further analyzes translator jeremy tiang’s cultural adaptation choices. ultimately, this research aims to offer valuable insights for the international dissemination of contemporary chinese literature and to broaden its pathways to global readership. keywords shuang xuetao’s fiction, rouge street, overseas dissemination of contemporary chinese literature, translation strategies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 122 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction recently, the label “new northeastern writers” has sparked widespread discussion within academic circles. huang ping (2017, p. 13), through his study of this literary cohort, proposed a new aesthetic paradigm to characterize their work. as a prominent figure among this new wave, shuang xuetao has been hailed by critics as a “belated master” for the distinctive literary brilliance showcased in works such as moses on the plain. in april 2022, shuang made his u.s. debut with the english translation of his novella collection rouge street, marking a significant milestone in his international journey. translated by singaporean writer and translator jeremy tiang and published by henry holt, the volume brings together three of shuang‟s novellas—the aeronaut, bright hall, and moses on the plain. upon its release, rouge street quickly garnered attention from major american media outlets, receiving a wave of critical response. this moment has come to symbolize the entry of contemporary northeastern literature into the global literary conversation. meanwhile, english translations of works by ban yu and zheng zhi—the other two members of “new northeastern writers”—are also underway. in this sense, “new northeastern literature” has once again drawn the attention of american scholars in chinese literary studies, echoing the earlier influence of modern northeastern literature in china. it is evolving into what huang ping (2020, p. 173) terms “northeastern literature of the world”. as the central figure in this phenomenon, shuang xuetao not only offers valuable insights into the overseas dissemination of contemporary chinese literature, but also reflects the latest developments in the study of northeastern writing. examining the translation and international circulation of his fiction contributes to a deeper understanding of chinese literature today and opens up new possibilities for contextualizing chinese literary experience within a global framework. 2. translation and introduction of shuang xuetao’s works according to incomplete statistics, a total of eight of shuang xuetao‟s short stories and novellas have been translated and published in english to date. table 1. overview of the translation and dissemination of shuang xuetao’s works title translator year publication the master michael day 2015 pathlight teeter-totter jeremy tiang 2019 brick white bird kevin wang 2020 asymptote rouge street: three novellas jeremy tiang 2022 bottlenose jeremy tiang 2022 asymptote bottlenose jeremy tiang 2023 the new yorker www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 123 published by scholink inc. in 2015, the english translation of shuang xuetao‟s short story the master appeared in the english-language edition of people’s literature, pathlight. four years later, in 2019, the acclaimed canadian literary journal brick published teeter-totter, translated by jeremy tiang. in 2020, new york-based writer kevin wang translated shuang‟s short story white bird, which was featured in the july issue of the international online literary journal asymptote. with their distinctive narrative styles, teeter-totter and white bird caught the attention of brian lax, an editor at metropolitan books. the steady appearance of these stories in overseas publications not only sparked interest among international literary enthusiasts but also laid a solid readership foundation for the eventual english publication of rouge street. actually, shanghai translation publishing house has played an active role in promoting chinese literature abroad, using translation as a bridge to foster cultural exchange. since launching its international rights center in 2021, the publisher has successfully facilitated the sale of foreign rights to moses on the plain, which was acquired by the italian independent press atmosphere libri. in april 2022, shanghai translation publishing house partnered with henry holt, with metropolitan books editor brian lax playing a key role in bringing shuang xuetao‟s novella collection to an international audience. following the publication of rouge street, shuang‟s short story bottlenose appeared in the october 2022 issue of astra magazine, an international literary journal under the u.s.-based astra publishing house. the issue featured the story in both chinese and english, accompanied by original illustrations by artist jia sung. soon after, in october 2023, shuang‟s short story heart, translated by jeremy tiang, was published in the new yorker. that issue also included an in-depth interview conducted by dennis zhou, which explored the creative background behind heart. today, alongside shuang xuetao, other members of the “new northeastern writers” such as ban yu and zheng zhi are also gaining visibility overseas, with translation and publication projects steadily underway. together, these developments signal the growing presence of contemporary northeastern chinese literature on the global literary stage. 3. analysis of the overseas reception of rouge street 3.1. library holdings and sales according to a search of the worldcat database, the english translation of rouge street is held in 308 libraries across nine countries and regions worldwide, indicating a modest yet notable presence in global library collections. geographically, the united states accounts for the vast majority of holdings, reflecting an uneven distribution across the globe. specifically, approximately 91% of the libraries that carry the book are located in the u.s., while canada and australia account for around 3% and 2% (see https://search.worldcat.org/zh-cn/formats-editions/1372471037). in contrast, library holdings in regions such as hong kong (china), new zealand, germany, the united kingdom, sweden, and singapore www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 124 published by scholink inc. remain very limited. in november 2022, the new yorker included rouge street on its annual list of recommended reads, alongside two other chinese works: barefoot doctor by can xue and the wedding party by liu xinwu. table 2. library holdings of three chinese works included in the new yorker title author publisher translator(s) number of editions library holdings barefoot doctor can xue yale university press karen gernmart, chen zeping 3 251 the wedding party liu xinwu amazon crossing jeremy tiang 1 272 rouge street shuang xuetao henry holt & co. jeremy tiang 6 308 compared to the other two chinese literary works published around the same time, rouge street has the highest number of editions and ranks first in terms of global library holdings, suggesting relatively strong circulation overall. however, sales figures tell a different story. as of april 23, 2025, rouge street‟s hardcover edition ranked 1,334,241 in overall book sales on amazon north america, 15,049 in the short story collections category, and 43,749 in literary fiction. the paperback edition ranked 1,287,419 in overall sales, 14,555 in short story collections, and 25,742 in literary fiction. the kindle edition stood at 1,006,740 in overall rankings (see https://www.amazon.com). these numbers indicate that despite respectable library circulation, actual sales remain underwhelming. translated literature has long faced disadvantages in the u.s. book market, and the future of chinese literature abroad continues to be met with significant challenges. 3.2 reader reviews 3.2.1 professional reader reviews in the cultural sphere, professional readers—including media critics, established authors, and scholars—possess considerable cultural, social, and symbolic capital. their perspectives represent authoritative discourse and often influence the broader cultural landscape, thereby shaping the reading choices of general audiences. jing tsu, professor of modern chinese literature at yale university, reviewed rouge street in the new york times in 2022. she wrote: “he gives voice to an intriguing cast of characters left behind by china‟s economic miracle. they struggle to emerge from their bleak reality in search of light, efforts that sometimes have a religious overtone” (see http://www.nytimes.com). publishers weekly similarly https://www.amazon.com/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 125 published by scholink inc. praised the collection, noting: “shuang sustains a cool, placid tone, even when reckoning with lingering traumas of the cultural revolution, japanese occupation, and economic decline. anglophone readers will be glad to get to know this rising star (see http://www.publishersweekly.com). the magazine shelf awareness commented: “shuang xuetao‟s remarkable english-language debut features the diverse residents of yanfen street, caught between the end of mao‟s china and the country‟s emergence as a modern superpower” (see http://www.shelf-awareness,com). academic commentary, though still limited in scope, has begun to emerge in articles and scholarly forums. in september 2022, duke university and the international literary platform paper republic co-hosted an online panel titled moses on the plain: shuang xuetao and new northeastern literature, which brought together chinese and international scholars. the forum focused on a range of topics including the logic behind story selection, intergenerational narratives, and the cross-linguistic rendering of character voices—offering valuable academic insight into the work‟s cross-cultural interpretation. eric abrahamsen, founder of paper republic, praised rouge street for its innovative engagement with chinese history and society. he observed that while the stories are set against a backdrop of hardship, shuang grants his characters enough agency and individuality to create a reading experience that feels open and engaging (see https://bcaf.org.cn/26359057). carlos rojas, professor at duke university, expressed particular interest in how the novellas explore personal trauma and collective crisis. he also noted shuang xuetao‟s stylistic innovation—namely, his use of a unified external voice to convey complex interiority (see https://bcaf.org.cn/26359057). taken together, these reviews demonstrate that rouge street has been met with wide recognition and acclaim among the professional readers. 3.2.2 general reader reviews first and foremost, american readers have expressed their strong interest in the historical and cultural context depicted in rouge street. many found themselves emotionally moved during the reading process. the collection not only offers insight into pivotal moments in contemporary chinese society, but also inspires curiosity about a foreign culture. by portraying the everyday lives of ordinary chinese families, rouge street presents a unique and perceptive perspective—one that resonates with international readers and provides both a sense of novelty and connection. secondly, several readers drew parallels between the trajectory of shenyang—the industrial city where all three novellas are set—and the development patterns of industrial towns in the united states. shenyang‟s past prosperity and subsequent decline during economic transition reminded many of america‟s rust belt. “the tone here is much the same as implied by the american rust best”. one reader commented (see https://www.goodreads.com). another remarked, “it seems like the pittsburgh of china” (see https://www.goodreads.com). these reflections illustrate the emotional resonance the stories have evoked among readers. https://bcaf.org.cn/26359057 https://bcaf.org.cn/26359057 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 126 published by scholink inc. in addition, many readers praised the literary quality of the collection. shuang xuetao‟s skillful blend of realism with elements of mystery was frequently noted as a hallmark of his unique style. “i really loved the overall atmosphere of these novellas”, one reviewer wrote. “the stories are set in a gritty, impoverished place, with a strong sense of locality that breathes life into the characters—this is a major strength of the work. the resilience and darkness portrayed in the stories are seamlessly woven into the themes, resulting in a powerful artistic expression” (see https://www.goodreads.com). some readers also praised the philosophical depth of the novellas. “reading about the day-to-day life of folks who are living through the cultural revolution, about the poor, condemned folks whose names never come up, about folks who got run over by cars which never stop to see who they ran over...its all lovingly brought to life by the author”, one reviewer noted (see https://www.goodreads.com). another reader pointed out that the three stories depict the dramatic social transformations in shenyang from the 1980s through the early 21st century. the characters experience displacement, violence, and abandonment—traumatic events rendered with a deep sense of humanity. they are portrayed as both victims and perpetrators, embodying complex and layered identities. these interwoven tales of tragedy and tenderness deeply moved readers, one of whom described the collection as “a book worth savoring, rich in thought and meaning” (jenn, 2022, https://www.goodreads.com). some readers even compared shuang xuetao to internationally renowned authors such as haruki murakami, ernest hemingway, and mikhail bulgakov (luce, 2022, https://www.goodreads.com). although there were differing opinions, such comparisons point to the potential global appeal of his work. a few readers noted that the complex backgrounds could be confusing, and that the alternating first-person and third-person narration affects the reading flow (luce, 2022, https://www.goodreads.com). nevertheless, the social and cultural context portrayed in rouge street largely aligned with reader expectations, and the book‟s combination of narrative strength and literary quality was widely appreciated. on the whole, overseas readers responded positively to rouge street, and translator jeremy tiang‟s contribution to its success should not be overlooked. 4. domestication and foreignization strategies in rouge street in 1995, american translation theorist lawrence venuti (2024, p. 1) introduced the core strategies of “domestication” and “foreignization” in his seminal work the translator’s invisibility. according to venuti, domestication emphasizes the translator‟s invisibility by aligning the language of the translation with the norms of the target culture, making the text more accessible to the target audience. in contrast, foreignization highlights the translator‟s visibility by preserving the cultural distinctiveness of the source language, thus making readers aware of linguistic and cultural differences and promoting the transmission of cultural diversity. this section focuses on the english translation of rouge street by singaporean translator jeremy tiang, analyzing how he navigates the balance between domestication www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 127 published by scholink inc. and foreignization in his translation practice. drawing on venuti‟s theoretical framework, the discussion explores how tiang negotiates the tension between linguistic readability and cultural preservation in the translated text. 4.1 foreignization strategy: constructing cultural otherness and enhancing translator visibility xu and zhang (2002, p. 38) argue that foreignization orients the translation toward the source culture, advocating for the preservation of the original author‟s diction and the cultural nuances embedded in the source language. it calls for the translation to accommodate the linguistic and cultural habits of the source text as much as possible. the application of foreignization strategies helps retain the cultural distinctiveness of the source text, allowing readers in the target culture to experience the richness of cultural difference. in rouge street, jeremy tiang employs various foreignization techniques—such as transliteration, graphic retention, literal translation, and explanatory rendering of cultural terms—to preserve the original‟s cultural specificity and reinforce the presence of the source culture within the translated text. one of the most salient examples is tiang‟s consistent use of transliteration for personal and place names in rouge street. rather than substituting culturally neutral or anglicized equivalents, he renders names phonetically using pinyin, such as “li fei” (李斐), “gao likuan” (高立宽), and “shandong” (山东). this approach aligns with venuti‟s concept of the “visible translator”, making the translator‟s cultural and linguistic decisions apparent to the reader. although transliteration may to some extent hinder immediate comprehension for english-speaking readers, it preserves the phonetic texture and cultural resonance of the original. the foreignness of the names adds an exotic dimension to the text, encouraging readers to actively engage with the cultural context of the source material. this strategy sparks curiosity about chinese culture and deepens readers‟ awareness of the work‟s cultural background. in doing so, it contributes to a more authentic cross-cultural literary experience. through a “visible” translator approach, target readers are exposed not only to linguistic differences but also to the distinct cultural system that informs the narrative. secondly, tiang‟s foreignizing approach is also evident in his treatment of cultural symbols. for example, in bright hall, the phrase “丁字路口” is rendered as “...that intersection, which is shaped like the character „ding‟, 丁”. here, the character not only refers to the t-shaped layout of the intersection in a traffic context but also carries symbolic meaning and metaphorical weight regarding identity. by directly presenting the chinese character in its written form, tiang bridges the structural divide between the chinese and english writing systems, guiding readers to visually engage with the original script and cultural symbolism. this enhances both the sense of cultural otherness and the immersive quality of the reading experience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 128 published by scholink inc. in addition, certain culturally specific terms are translated using a hybrid strategy that combines transliteration with explanatory gloss. for instance, “白干” is rendered as “strong baigan liquor”, a choice that preserves the original term while clarifying that baigan refers to a potent type of chinese liquor. this method allows readers to encounter the cultural specificity of the source term while also understanding its essential meaning, thus balancing foreignization with a degree of domestication. overall, tiang‟s use of foreignization reflects a deep understanding of chinese culture and a thoughtful sensitivity to the needs of target-language readers. his strategy functions as a form of “cultural invocation”, inviting readers to expand their cultural awareness and curiosity through the literary experience. 4.2 domestication strategy: reducing cultural barriers and enhancing readability on the side of domestication, jeremy tiang places greater emphasis on the fluency and accessibility of the translation. by employing techniques such as paraphrasing, substitution, omission, and reorganization, he enhances the cultural adaptability of the english edition, aligning with what venuti refers to as the principle of “cultural accommodation”. for example, in translating kinship terms, tiang makes context-sensitive choices that resonate with english-speaking readers. in bright hall, the term “老姑” refers in northeastern chinese usage to the youngest paternal aunt—specifically, the youngest female among the father‟s generation. in english-speaking cultures, however, such distinctions are generally collapsed under the more general term “aunt”. tiang opts for “youngest aunt”, which accurately conveys both the familial role and relative age. similarly, “二姑父” is rendered as “uncle”, and “柳姥姥” as “grandma liu”, using familiar english honorifics to bridge the cultural gap and make character relationships more intelligible for target readers. when translating regional slang and idiomatic expressions, tiang adopts a flexible domesticating approach. for instance, the phrase “走背字儿势不可当” from rouge street—which roughly means “to be plagued by misfortune”—is translated as “tend to keep losing”. the choice of “losing” as a semantic equivalent for “走背字儿” (a colloquialism indicating bad luck) effectively captures the intended meaning while maintaining fluency and intelligibility. through these choices, tiang reduces cultural friction, making the text more accessible while preserving the original‟s emotional and narrative integrity. another example can be found in the aviator, where the chinese saying “冻人不冻水” is rendered as “chill you to the bone”. this folk expression describes the biting cold of early spring—a time when water may no longer freeze, yet the air remains piercingly cold. tiang‟s translation employs a well-known english idiom, effectively replacing a culturally specific phrase with a target-language equivalent. by drawing on familiar english expressions, he reduces cultural distance and increases the text‟s emotional immediacy for english-speaking readers, making the language of the translation feel www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 129 published by scholink inc. vivid and natural. even more illustrative is tiang‟s handling of dialect. the works of the “new northeastern writers”frequently feature northeastern chinese dialects that carry strong regional and social connotations. faced with the challenge of translating culturally embedded language, tiang often replaces untranslatable culture-bound expressions with functional, idiomatic english that conveys the same meaning and tone. for instance, “你当工人白瞎” is translated as “why the hell are you still working in a factory?” and “我手欠” becomes “my hands do things they shouldn‟t”. these idiomatic renderings not only enhance the authenticity of the translated text but also align with the gritty realism and working-class speech patterns found throughout shuang xuetao‟s writing. in doing so, tiang successfully transmits the rough-edged vitality and narrative atmosphere of the original. in addition, within rouge street, the translator also simplifies reader comprehension and reduces potential ambiguity through omissions and adjustments aimed at aligning the text with the reading habits of the target audience. these reader-oriented modifications—such as selective abridgment and narrative restructuring—fall under the broader strategy of domestication. for instance, in bright hall, tiang abridges pastor lin‟s retelling of the biblical story of cain and abel. in the original chinese text, the novel includes an extended passage from the old testament‟s book of genesis, recounting the fratricide in detail so that readers unfamiliar with the bible could understand the moral and symbolic weight of the story. however, since this narrative is widely known among western audiences, tiang omits part of the original exposition to streamline the prose and avoid redundancy. in cases involving cultural figures unfamiliar to foreign readers, tiang supplements the text with explanatory additions. the name “tong xiangling”, for example, is translated as “the handsome lead actor from taking tiger mountain by strategy”, clarifying for readers that he was a celebrated performer in a model opera and providing both contextual and cultural information. this kind of amplification achieves both informational equivalence and effective cultural transmission. beyond adjusting content, tiang also consciously restructures the narrative to better suit the reading expectations of an english-speaking audience. in the aviator, the original chinese version opens with an alternating narrative structure: one timeline is set in 1979, when gao likuan first meets li mingqi and feels an immediate aversion upon learning he is the son of his former apprentice, li zhengdao; the other timeline flashes back to gao‟s youth, gradually revealing his entangled relationship with li zhengdao and the origins of his resentment. the structure follows a pattern of “1979-past-1979-past”, weaving the two timelines together. in the english translation, however, tiang reorders the material to create a more linear narrative. he first presents the full backstory involving li zhengdao—from his entry into apprenticeship to his eventual suicide—before returning to the 1979 encounter with li mingqi. this structural adjustment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 130 published by scholink inc. enhances narrative clarity and coherence, making it easier for readers to follow character relationships and plot development. the linear progression aligns more closely with the conventions of english storytelling and improves overall readability for the target audience. 5. conclusion rouge street, with its distinctive narrative techniques and literary craftsmanship, has succeeded in capturing the attention of international readers. the characters portrayed in the collection, along with the universal emotions embedded in their stories, have resonated deeply with audiences and demonstrated the potential for meaningful cultural exchange. the emotional connection between chinese and american readers suggests a possible pathway for the globalization of contemporary chinese literature. by evoking parallels with america‟s rust belt and reflecting shuang xuetao‟s transnational literary vision, rouge street offers valuable insight into how chinese literature can gain traction on the global stage and continue expanding its international presence. acknowledgement i would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, for her invaluable guidance, encouragement, and insightful feedback throughout the process of this research. her expertise and patient support have been instrumental in shaping the direction and quality of this work. i am also deeply grateful to my peers whose comments and discussions have enriched my understanding and inspired further reflection. finally, i wish to thank my family and friends for their unwavering support, patience, and understanding during the course of my study. references cong, z. (2020). what is the “northeast?” what kind of “literature?” why “revival?”—on shuang xuetao, ban yu, zheng zhi, and the complex structure of current aesthetic taste. modern chinese literature studies series, (4). han, j., & li, r. (2022). urban writing of the “new northeast writers group”. literary education, series b, (05). hou, x. (2016). a brief review and implications of the overseas translation and introduction of chinese literature. publishing & distribution research, (12). huang, p. (2017). “new aesthetic principles are emerging”: a case study of shuang xuetao‟s moses on the plain. yangtze river review, (3). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 131 published by scholink inc. huang, p. (2020). a preliminary discussion on the “new northeast writers group”. social sciences journal of jilin university, (1). ji, j. (2021). on the “going out” and “coming back” of contemporary chinese literature‟s overseas dissemination. literary review, (05). jiang, l., li, b., & liu, d. (2021). the translation and dissemination of the “northeast writers group” in the english-speaking world. theoretical horizon, (01). king, d. l. (2022). the “northeast renaissance” goes global. the world of chinese, (03). liang, b. (2023, february 15). the overseas translation and dissemination of the “new northeast writers” is on the rise. chinese social sciences today, 010. liu, r. (2021). a sharp and concise punch: hemingway‟s influence on the linguistic style of shuang xuetao‟s fiction. new documentary, (01). qu, j. (2022). on the moses image in moses on the plain. literary education, series a, (03). shuang, x. (2016). moses on the plain. tianjin: baihua literature and art publishing house. shuang, x. (2017). the aviator. guilin: guangxi normal university press. tiang, j. (2022). rouge street: three novellas. new york, ny: metropolitan books. venuti, l. (2004). the translator’s invisibility. shanghai: shanghai foreign language education press. wang, d. (2019). revelation of yanfen street: on shuang xuetao’s moses on the plain. literary contention, (7). xu, j., & zhang, r. (2002). domestication and foreignization in cross-cultural translation. chinese translators journal, (5), 38-41. yao, j. (2016). studies on the overseas dissemination of contemporary chinese literature. beijing: peking university press. yu, s. (2019). moses and the plain: on moses on the plain. popular literature and art, (09). zheng, y. (2021). the “tiexi experience” of shuang xuetao, a representative of the “new northeast writers”, and his fiction creation. journal of henan institute of technology, (06). zheng, y. (2021). stagnation and entanglement in shuang xuetao‟s the temple of light. literature education, part ii, (3). zhou, l., & cheng, z. (2022). the overseas translation and introduction of the “northeast writers group”. journal of liaoning university of technology, (02). notes this paper comes out as the periodical research results of the following project: note 1. construction and practice of a transformation model for the professional development of english teachers in foreign languages universities within an interdisciplinary, jilin provincial higher education association context, jgjx2022d316 (吉林省高等教育学会课题——多学科交叉背景下 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 132 published by scholink inc. 外语类高校英语教师专业化发展转型模式构建与实践) note 2. research on the cultivation mechanism for top-tier innovative foreign language talents guided by values and based on interdisciplinary integration, jilin province education science "14th five-year plan" 2022 annual project，zd 22143 (吉林省教育科学“十四五”规划 2022年度课题—— 价值观引领下基于学科交叉与跨界融合的外语专业拔尖创新人才培养机制研究) note 3. interdisciplinary innovation in the construction and implementation of the core curriculum system for english literature majors, the second batch of university-level new liberal arts research and reform practice projects at jilin international studies university (吉林外国语大学第二 批校级新文科项目研究与改革实践项目——英语专业文学类核心课程体系跨学科创新构建与实 践) note 4. a study on the cultural characteristics and their international interpretation in jilin regional literary works (吉林外国语大学 2024年度吉林外国语大学吉林文化价值阐释与国际传播校级专 项) note 5. the 2024 university-level general project at jilin international studies university, entitled a practical study of translating works by the new generation northeast writer shuang xuetao (project no. jwxsky2024b009). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 70 original paper educational intervention on information cocoon of college students: cognitive remodeling path research based on media literacy curriculum renhai liang 1* & tingting huang 1 1 guilin university of technology library, guilin, guangxi, china * corresponding author: 11072145@qq.com received: july 15, 2025 accepted: july 31, 2025 online published: august 22, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p70 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p70 abstract this research aims to explore educational interventions for the “information cocoon” phenomenon among college students and the cognitive reshaping path based on media literacy courses. by combing through relevant theories of the “information cocoon” the current research status of college students “information cocoon” and the development of media literacy courses through literature research, and using empirical research methods such as questionnaires, interviews, and preand post-test experimental designs, this study deeply analyzes the current situation and influence of college students “information cocoon” and verifies the effectiveness of media literacy courses in cognitive reshaping. the research findings show that media literacy courses play a significant role in cultivating college students information screening ability and critical thinking, can effectively break the “information cocoon” and provide theoretical and practical references for higher education interventions. however, the research also points out that there are insufficient teaching staff and insufficient attention from students during the implementation process, and proposes corresponding solutions to further improve the cognitive reshaping path based on media literacy courses. keywords college students, information cocoon, educational intervention, media literacy courses, cognitive reconstruction www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 71 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction 1.1 research background the rapid advancement of internet technology has fundamentally transformed how information is disseminated, giving rise to fragmented, personalized, and instant communication patterns. in this context, social media platforms leverage algorithmic recommendation systems to deliver content that aligns with users preferences, creating what’s known as “information cocoons”—self-contained communities where people are exposed only to information matching their existing views (li & tan, 2023). information cocoon refers to the fact that due to the combined effect of individual selective psychology and algorithmic filtering mechanism, users are confined to a narrow information environment and it is difficult for them to access diversified views and knowledge (lang & wang, 2020). this phenomenon is particularly common in contemporary society, especially among college students (wang, 2020). as digital natives, college students heavily rely on social media for information, yet their media literacy remains underdeveloped, leaving them vulnerable to the traps of information cocoons. research shows that such cocoons not only hinder cognitive development but also profoundly shape values and social interaction skills (wu, 2022). therefore, how to effectively intervene in the problem of information cocoon of college students has become an important issue to be solved urgently in the field of higher education. in recent years, the academic community has been paying increasing attention to the phenomenon of information cocoon and related research has been gradually deepening. however, most existing studies focus on the formation mechanism of information cocoon and its impact on society, while specific intervention measures for college students are still insufficient (liu, 2022). in this context, this study aims to explore cognitive restructuring pathways based on media literacy curricula, providing theoretical support and practical guidance for educational interventions in higher education. through in-depth analysis of information cocoons, the research seeks to reveal their specific manifestations and causes among college students, while exploring systematic educational approaches to help students break through the constraints of information cocoons and achieve comprehensive, healthy cognitive development. 1.2 problem statement information cocoons exert multifaceted negative impacts on college students cognitive development and value formation. firstly, they narrow knowledge horizons and rigidify thinking patterns, hindering the establishment of comprehensive cognitive frameworks. in such information-confining environments, prolonged exposure to homogeneous content deprives students of diverse perspectives and critical analysis skills, ultimately weakening their ability to think critically (xu, 2022). secondly, information cocoon also has a negative impact on the shaping of college students values. algorithmic recommendation tends to cater to users emotional needs rather than delivering objective and true www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 72 published by scholink inc. information, which makes some students prone to being misled by bad information and even forming extreme or wrong values (liu, 2022). in addition, information cocoon also limits the social ability of college students, making them tend to communicate in closed circles, which further aggravates the risk of group polarization (chen x. c., chen, l., & yang, 2022). while existing research has proposed strategies to counter information cocoons, educational interventions targeting college students remain significantly inadequate. on one hand, universities allocate relatively limited resources to media literacy education, failing to fully leverage classroom teaching in cultivating students ability to discern information. on the other hand, current educational approaches predominantly remain theoretical, lacking systematic frameworks and practical applicability (zhao, 2022). therefore, the core question of this study is: how can we effectively help college students break free from the shackles of information cocoons and achieve cognitive remodeling through the design and implementation of media literacy courses? the solution to this problem will not only help improve college students media literacy, but also provide new ideas and methods for ideological and political education in universities. 1.3 research objectives this study aims to explore effective pathways for reshaping college students perception of information cocoons through media literacy courses, providing theoretical and practical references for educational interventions in higher education. specifically, the research objectives include: first, by analyzing the formation mechanisms of information cocoons and their impacts on students, we aim to clarify the pivotal role of media literacy courses in cognitive restructuring. second, drawing on domestic and international research findings, we will design a systematic curriculum framework for media literacy courses that encompasses core elements such as information filtering and critical thinking cultivation (chen x. c., chen, l., & yang, 2022). thirdly, the empirical research will verify the practical effect of media literacy courses in improving college students information screening ability and cognitive level, so as to provide a scientific basis for higher education intervention (zhao, 2022). finally, based on the research results, specific implementation suggestions are put forward to provide reference for colleges and universities to optimize the curriculum setting and innovate teaching methods of media literacy, so as to help college students better cope with the challenges brought by information cocoon and achieve comprehensive and healthy development. 2. literature review 2.1 information cocoon theory the concept of information cocoons originated from shangtangs seminal work “information utopia”. it posits that digital platforms, through algorithmic recommendations and users selective cognitive biases, create a narrow and insular information ecosystem. predominantly filled with homogenized content, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 73 published by scholink inc. such environments restrict exposure to diverse perspectives, ultimately leading to cognitive narrowing and rigid thinking patterns (wu, 2022). with the development of big data technology, intelligent algorithm recommendation has gradually become an important driving force for the formation of information cocoons. algorithms push content that meets users expectations based on their browsing history, interests, and behavioral patterns, thereby strengthening selective exposure to information (xu, 2022). moreover, personal selective psychology also plays a key role in the formation of information cocoons. users tend to choose information that is consistent with their own views, while ignoring or rejecting heterogeneous information, which further aggravates the closed nature of information cocoons (wu, 2022). in recent years, scholars have gradually deepened their research on information cocoon, not only focusing on its technical causes, but also discussing its far-reaching influence on social cognition, value shaping and ideological and political education (xu, 2022). 2.2 research status of information cocoon of college students domestic and foreign studies on college students information cocoon mainly focus on three aspects: causes, manifestations and influences. first, the reasons for college students to fall into information cocoon mainly include personalized push of algorithmic recommendation, lack of media literacy and homogeneity tendency of social circles (lang & wang, 2020). while meeting the personalized needs of college students, algorithm recommendation technology also limits the scope of information reception and easily forms cognitive bias (jiang & li, 2024). secondly, the performance of college students in information cocoon is mainly reflected in their high dependence on specific information and resistance to heterogeneous information. studies show that some college students gradually lose their interest in and discrimination ability of diverse information because they have long been exposed to a single information source (zhao & guo, 2022). finally, information cocoons exert particularly significant impacts on college students, especially in cognitive development, value formation, and social skills. on one hand, these echo chambers limit the breadth and depth of knowledge acquisition, hindering the development of comprehensive cognitive frameworks. on the other hand, exposure to harmful content may distort value judgments, eroding students sense of social responsibility and moral boundaries (lang & wang, 2020; wang, 2020). in addition, information cocoon also leads to the narrow social circle of college students and the decline of communication ability, which further hinders their comprehensive development (zhao & guo, 2022). 2.3 media literacy curriculum research the development of media literacy courses can be traced back to the mid-20th century, when the goal of media literacy courses was expanded from improving the publics ability to understand media content to cultivating critical thinking and information screening (you, 2022). in the early stages, media literacy courses primarily focused on popularizing media knowledge, helping students understand the fundamental characteristics and communication patterns of media. with the development of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 74 published by scholink inc. information technology, the content of media literacy courses has gradually expanded to cover multiple dimensions such as information filtering, data analysis, and media ethics (chen & wu, 2023). in terms of teaching methods, media literacy courses have undergone a transformation from traditional lecture-style to interactive and practical style. for example, case teaching, group discussion and practical operation are used to stimulate students participation awareness and active learning ability (you, 2022). in recent years, the relationship between media literacy courses and college students cognitive development has attracted widespread attention. studies show that media literacy courses can effectively improve college students ability to identify information and critical thinking level, providing important support for them to break through information cocoon (ge, 2024). however, there are still many challenges in the implementation of media literacy courses, such as insufficient teaching resources and single teaching methods (liu, 2023). 2.4 research gaps although the existing literature has conducted in-depth research on information cocoon and media literacy curriculum respectively, there is still insufficient discussion on the cognitive remodeling path of information cocoon based on media literacy curriculum for college students (liu, 2022). first of all, existing researches mostly focus on the causes and effects of information cocoon, but there are few systematic studies on its solutions, especially specific measures for college students (zhao, 2022). secondly, although some literature mentions the importance of media literacy courses, the research on how to combine it with the cognitive remodeling of college students is still in its infancy, and there is a lack of clear theoretical framework and practical guidance (wang & yi, 2021). in addition, the existing research has some limitations in terms of empirical analysis. the sample selection scope is narrow and the research time is short, which makes it difficult to comprehensively evaluate the actual effect of media literacy courses (zhao, 2022). this study aims to fill the above gaps by systematically analyzing the objectives, contents and teaching methods of media literacy courses, exploring the feasibility and effectiveness of their cognition remodeling of information cocoon for college students, and providing new ideas and methods for higher education intervention (liu, 2022). 3. the status quo and influence of college students information cocoon 3.1 current situation survey of college students information cocoon 3.1.1 investigation design to comprehensively examine the current state of information cocoons among college students, this study employed a combined approach of questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews for data collection. the questionnaire design was developed based on existing literature regarding the causes and manifestations of information cocoons, while incorporating characteristics of students information consumption behaviors. this methodology aims to reveal specific patterns in information acquisition www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 75 published by scholink inc. channels, preference selection processes, and cognitive awareness levels regarding information cocoons (liu, 2023; wang & yi, 2021). the survey recruited university students from diverse academic disciplines, including stem, humanities, social sciences, and arts majors, to ensure sample diversity and representativeness. the questionnaire covered four dimensions: basic information habits, algorithmic recommendation platform usage, information filtering behaviors, and perceptions of information echo chambers. it comprised 30 questions in total, including single-choice questions, multiple-choice questions, and scale questions, designed to quantify and analyze students information behavior patterns. meanwhile, in-depth interviews serve as a supplementary research method to further explore the psychological mechanisms and subjective perceptions underlying the formation of information cocoons among college students. the interview outline focuses on four key areas: primary channels of daily information exposure, reliance on algorithmic recommendations, awareness of being trapped in information cocoons, and strategies to counteract information narrowing. participants were randomly selected from students who completed questionnaires, with 20 individuals interviewed for 30-45 minutes each session. by combining questionnaire surveys with in-depth interviews, this study aims to comprehensively present the current state of information cocoons among college students through both quantitative and qualitative approaches, providing robust data support for subsequent analyses. 3.1.2 analysis of investigation results statistical analysis of survey data reveals that college students exhibit strong reliance on social media and algorithm-driven recommendation platforms for information consumption. over 70% of respondents indicated that wechat, weibo, tiktok, and other social media platforms constitute their primary daily information sources. these platforms predominantly utilize personalized algorithmic recommendation systems, which suggest content based on users browsing history and interest preferences (liu, 2023). moreover, data reveals that over 60% of respondents admitted to showing clear biases in information selection, tending to focus on sources aligning with their own views while exhibiting strong resistance to heterogeneous information. for instance, 57% explicitly stated they would actively avoid information contradicting their perspectives, while only 27% mentioned they would verify and reflect on differing viewpoints after exposure (wang & yi, 2021). regarding awareness of information cocoons, survey results indicate that while most students have heard of the concept, their understanding of its specific impacts and risks remains limited. only about 40% of respondents could accurately describe the formation mechanisms of information cocoons and their potential threats to cognitive development, while others simplistically equate them with “information overload” or “choice paralysis”. notably, in-depth interviews further revealed college students passive state within these information cocoons. many respondents admitted that although aware of being trapped in specific information environments, they lack the motivation and willingness www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 76 published by scholink inc. to actively break free due to the precision and convenience of algorithmic recommendations (liu, 2023). in general, the current college students show a strong selective psychology in information contact behavior, and their awareness of information cocoon is still insufficient, which brings potential risks to their cognitive development and value shaping. 3.2 the influence of information cocoon on college students 3.2.1 effects on cognitive development the detrimental effects of information cocoons on college students cognitive development primarily manifest in two aspects: narrowing knowledge horizons and rigidifying thinking patterns. firstly, due to the widespread application of algorithmic recommendation technologies, students daily exposure to information is often confined to narrow domains that closely align with their personal interests. this results in a severe homogenization of information types, where the content they encounter tends to be singular and lacks diversity (mao, 2025). this information narrowing phenomenon not only restricts college students access to diverse knowledge, but also hinders the development of comprehensive cognitive perspectives. for instance, studies indicate that students exposed to a single information source for extended periods demonstrate weaker capabilities in interdisciplinary knowledge integration and critical thinking, making them less adept at analyzing and solving complex problems (chen & wu, 2023). secondly, information cocoons reinforce students pre-existing viewpoints, thereby solidifying their cognitive patterns. within such environments, college students tend to selectively absorb information that aligns with their established positions while rejecting divergent perspectives. this selective exposure behavior ultimately weakens their capacity for objective understanding of the external world (mao, 2025). references point out that when individuals are in a homogeneous information environment for a long time, their thinking mode is easy to fall into the “echo chamber effect” that is, constantly repeating and strengthening their existing views, thus losing the ability of dialectical thinking on complex problems (chen & wu, 2023). in addition, information cocoon may also lead to the decline of college students ability to distinguish information, so that they lack enough vigilance when facing false information or misleading content, thus affecting the accuracy of their cognitive judgment. 3.2.2 influence on value shaping the echo chamber phenomenon poses a significant threat to the formation of proper values among college students. particularly under the misleading influence of harmful content, it may lead to value deviations from mainstream ideology. on one hand, while algorithmic recommendation systems cater to user preferences, they might simultaneously push out excessive vulgar, entertainment-oriented, or even socially inappropriate content. such information subtly and imperceptibly exerts negative impacts on the value development of students who are still maturing (wu, 2022). for example, some college www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 77 published by scholink inc. students gradually develop extreme value orientations due to long-term exposure to extremist or one-sided information, and even misunderstand or question the core socialist values (mao, 2025). on the other hand, information cocoons isolate heterogeneous information, diminishing college students capacity to understand and embrace diverse values. within such environments, students become more susceptible to influence from opinion leaders or online communities, gradually forming closed value systems. research indicates that this insularity not only hinders cultural diversity acceptance but may also trigger group polarization, leading to increasingly singular and extreme value orientations (wu, 2022). in addition, information cocoons may also amplify the social influence of bad information. for example, some extreme views are widely spread through algorithmic recommendations, which will mislead the value judgment of college students (ge, 2024). therefore, how to help college students break through the shackles of information cocoon and contact with and understand multiple values has become an urgent problem to be solved in ideological and political education in colleges and universities. 3.2.3 impact on social skills the detrimental effects of information cocoons on college students social skills primarily manifest in two aspects: narrowing social circles and diminished communication capabilities. firstly, within such environments, students tend to interact exclusively with individuals holding similar viewpoints. this selective social behavior gradually restricts their social networks, making it increasingly difficult for them to engage with diverse groups from varied backgrounds (chen x. c., chen, l., & yang, 2022). for example, the survey showed that more than 50 percent of college students said their social media friends mainly focus on people with the same major or interests, and have less interest in communicating with people in other fields (zhao & guo, 2022). the solidification of this social circle not only limits the scope of college students interpersonal communication, but also makes it difficult for them to obtain diversified social perspectives, thus affecting the cultivation of their social adaptability. secondly, information cocoons further weaken college students communication skills by reducing opportunities for face-to-face interactions. under the dominance of algorithmic recommendation platforms, students tend to engage in indirect communication through text, images, or short videos, while lacking in-depth emotional interaction and training in language expression skills (chen x. c., chen, l., & yang, 2022). according to the reference literature, although this virtual socialization method improves the efficiency of information dissemination, it also makes college students show the problem of insufficient communication ability in real social situations, such as the inability to accurately express their own ideas or understand the intentions of others (zhao & guo, 2022). furthermore, information cocoons may heighten college students sensitivity to social anxiety, causing them to exhibit withdrawal or resistance when interacting with unfamiliar groups. this can further www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 78 published by scholink inc. hinder the development of their social skills. therefore, helping students break free from information cocoons, expand their social circles, and improve communication abilities holds significant importance for promoting their holistic development. 4. feasibility analysis of media literacy curriculum as a cognitive remodeling path 4.1 the degree to which the objectives of media literacy courses are compatible with the cognitive needs of college students the core objectives of media literacy courses aim to cultivate college students abilities in information filtering, critical thinking, and data processing. these goals align closely with the cognitive skills required to break free from information cocoons. in this age of information overload, students face overwhelming exposure to massive amounts of data. effectively identifying valuable information and making rational judgments has become an urgent challenge. through systematic instructional design, media literacy courses equip students with the skills to discern and evaluate information, thereby enhancing their capacity to navigate complex digital environments (you, 2022). meanwhile, critical thinking—a cornerstone of media literacy education—empowers students to examine information sources and content from multiple perspectives, preventing them from blindly accepting one-sided viewpoints. this skill proves particularly vital in breaking through the echo chambers created by algorithmic recommendations and our selective mindset (ge, 2024). in addition, media literacy courses also focus on cultivating students awareness of information subjectivity, so that they have a stronger ability to make independent choices when facing diversified information, which is highly consistent with the cognitive needs of college students to break through the shackles of information cocoon. from a societal perspective, media literacy education aims not only to enhance individual capabilities but also to cultivate “media citizens” who meet the demands of our new era. this philosophy emphasizes developing responsibility and ethical awareness in information societies—crucial cognitive foundations for college students to break free from information cocoons. through media literacy courses, students gradually develop critical questioning of information authenticity and an inclusive mindset towards diverse perspectives, enabling them to better adapt to the challenges of the digital age (you, 2022). therefore, whether from the perspective of individual ability cultivation or social responsibility shaping, the goals of media literacy courses are significantly consistent with the cognitive needs of college students to break information cocoons. 4.2 the support of media literacy curriculum content for cognitive remodeling the curriculum framework of media literacy education encompasses multiple dimensions including media knowledge, information analysis, and communication ethics, all of which play crucial roles in reshaping college students cognitive frameworks. first, studying media knowledge enables students to gain deep insights into the fundamental principles of information dissemination and their underlying www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 79 published by scholink inc. mechanisms, thereby enhancing their understanding of how information echo chambers form. for instance, through analyzing algorithmic recommendation technologies, students can recognize how personalized recommendations reinforce information echo chamber effects by catering to user preferences, prompting them to critically examine their own information consumption habits (wang, 2020). secondly, developing information analysis skills constitutes a crucial component of media literacy education. this essential skill requires students to master methods for evaluating the authenticity, reliability, and value of information. such competence not only helps students identify misinformation but also enables them to examine events from multiple perspectives, thereby overcoming the limitations of relying on single-source information (wu, 2020). furthermore, media literacy courses emphasize ethical communication education. by exploring moral issues in information dissemination, they guide students to develop proper values and a sense of social responsibility. in an era where information echo chambers are becoming increasingly prevalent, such ethical education proves particularly crucial. it helps students recognize that information selection isn’t merely a personal choice but also impacts public welfare. for instance, when discussing the “post-truth” phenomenon, students can gain deep insights into how misinformation undermines public discourse through case studies, thereby strengthening their motivation to seek authentic, high-quality information (wang, 2020). in conclusion, the content system of media literacy course provides a solid theoretical support and practical guidance for college students to reshape their cognition through multi-level knowledge transmission and ability cultivation. 4.3 the teaching method of media literacy courses promotes cognitive remodeling the diversified teaching methods in media literacy courses, such as case studies and practical exercises, effectively enhance student engagement and promote cognitive restructuring. the case study approach stimulates learning interest and guides deeper reflection by introducing real-world examples of information echo chambers. for instance, educators can select trending events as case studies, asking students to analyze their social media dissemination patterns and public perception impacts. this methodology helps students understand the formation process of information echo chambers and their detrimental effects (mao, 2025). through this process, students not only gain intuitive understanding but also broaden their cognitive horizons by exchanging perspectives through group discussions and other formats. moreover, the case-based teaching method cultivates critical thinking skills, enabling them to proactively question assumptions and seek diverse information sources when encountering similar issues. the practice-based pedagogy serves as an effective instructional approach that enhances students understanding of information echo chambers through hands-on engagement in communication activities. by participating in creating short videos or designing social media content, learners gain firsthand experience of the entire information dissemination process. this immersive experience allows www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 80 published by scholink inc. them to clearly recognize how algorithmic recommendations and technical tools influence information distribution (le, wang, & cheng, 2025). for instance, by creating short videos, students can observe how platforms prioritize content aligned with specific audience preferences, thereby sparking their interest in information diversity. this hands-on practice not only enhances practical skills but also transforms them from passive recipients to active participants, achieving deeper cognitive transformation. ultimately, media literacy courses employ diversified teaching methods like case studies and practical exercises, effectively boosting college students engagement and understanding while providing robust support for breaking through information silos. 5. exploring the cognitive remodeling path based on media literacy curriculum 5.1 optimize curriculum design 5.1.1 add information screening and identification content integrating information filtering and discernment into media literacy curricula serves as a crucial initiative to help college students break free from the constraints of information cocoons. the essence of information cocoons lies in the excessive concentration of homogeneous content, which prevents students from accessing diverse perspectives and authentic, reliable information sources. therefore, it is particularly important to enhance students ability to distinguish between true and false information through systematic instructional design. first, we should incorporate teaching content about diversified information sources, guiding students to recognize the limitations of relying solely on algorithmic recommendations while instructing them on how to verify information authenticity through multiple channels (lang & wang, 2020). secondly, courses could incorporate real-world cases to analyze the characteristics and social impacts of misinformation dissemination, thereby enhancing students vigilance. additionally, simulated information screening tasks could help students develop practical skills in identifying false content and filtering valuable information. for instance, by verifying the credibility of information providers and cross-referencing multiple data sources, students can improve their ability to discern reliable information (le, wang, & cheng, 2025). this teaching method combining theory with practice not only helps students to form scientific information processing habits, but also lays a foundation for them to maintain independent thinking ability in complex information environment. 5.1.2 strengthen the cultivation of critical thinking critical thinking is a vital skill for breaking through information echo chambers, and media literacy courses should prioritize this as a core objective. these echo chambers often develop from passive information consumption and insufficient critical analysis. therefore, curriculum design must systematically cultivate students critical thinking habits. first, by incorporating foundational logic and analytical reasoning methods, we can help students identify logical flaws and biases in information, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 81 published by scholink inc. preventing them from blindly following trends or accepting unverified opinions (wang, 2020). secondly, the curriculum should focus on cultivating students problem awareness by encouraging them to question and explore received information in depth. for instance, through open-ended discussion sessions, students can be guided to examine trending events or controversial topics from multiple perspectives, thereby enhancing their analytical skills (ge, 2024). moreover, initiatives like debate competitions can be employed to cultivate critical thinking through intellectual exchanges, helping students gradually reduce reliance on single-source information. by implementing these methods, media literacy courses effectively build a framework for rational assessment of information value, providing solid support for students to break free from information cocoons. 5.2 innovative teaching methods 5.2.1 case teaching method case-based pedagogy serves as an effective teaching method, particularly well-suited for exploring issues related to information cocoons in media literacy courses. by selecting representative real-world cases, educators can guide students to analyze the formation mechanisms of information cocoons and their impacts on individuals and society, thereby enhancing cognitive development. for instance, recent controversial cases involving algorithm-driven recommendations—such as the “rumor chain” incident on a social media platform—can be used to facilitate discussions from multiple dimensions including information dissemination pathways and audience psychological responses (xu, 2022). in this process, teachers should guide students to reflect on the media technology characteristics, user behavior patterns, and socio-cultural contexts involved in case studies, helping them understand the complexity behind the phenomenon of information cocoons. meanwhile, through group discussions or role-playing activities, students can deepen their understanding of case scenarios through interactive engagement and learn to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world situations. this teaching method based on authentic contexts not only stimulates students learning interest but also effectively cultivates their analytical and problem-solving skills, providing practical guidance for breaking down information cocoons (zhao, 2022). 5.2.2 practical operation method practical implementation serves as a vital approach in media literacy education to deepen students understanding of information echo chambers. by engaging students in hands-on communication activities like creating short videos and designing social media content, learners gain firsthand insights into how these echo chambers form and operate. for example, when producing short videos, instructors can assign projects centered on specific themes while emphasizing the need to consider both audience preferences and algorithmic recommendations during content planning. this methodology allows students to directly observe how algorithms influence information dissemination through their creative process (le, wang, & cheng, 2025). additionally, students can be involved in post-release data www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 82 published by scholink inc. analysis to observe how their works spread across different platforms and receive audience feedback. this helps them better understand how information cocoons reinforce user preferences through algorithmic mechanisms. through this “learning by doing” approach, students not only deepen their understanding of information dissemination patterns but also develop critical thinking and innovative capabilities in real-world practice. consequently, they become more adept at addressing the challenges posed by information cocoons (zhao & guo, 2022). 5.3 enrich teaching resources 5.3.1 introduction of the latest research results to maintain the cutting-edge relevance of media literacy curriculum content, it is crucial to timely incorporate the latest research findings in information echo chambers and media literacy. with the rapid development of information technology, the manifestations and influencing factors of information echo chambers continue to evolve. therefore, the curriculum must keep pace with academic advancements to ensure students gain access to the latest theoretical and practical developments. for instance, regularly updating textbook content with recent research achievements on optimizing algorithmic recommendation mechanisms and governing information ecosystems can help students understand current academic priorities and solutions regarding information echo chamber issues (le, wang, & cheng, 2025). furthermore, educators can organize specialized lectures and academic symposiums to invite experts and scholars in relevant fields to share the latest research developments, thereby broadening students academic perspectives. simultaneously, students should be encouraged to proactively consult and organize the latest literature, cultivating their self-directed learning capabilities and research awareness. this approach provides theoretical support for their in-depth exploration of information cocoon issues (liu, 2022). 5.3.2 use of multimedia resources multimedia resources hold significant pedagogical value in media literacy education, enabling students to better comprehend the phenomenon of information cocoons and its impacts. by presenting complex communication processes through images, videos, and animations, educators can significantly reduce comprehension barriers while enhancing students intuitive understanding of information cocoons. for instance, selecting documentaries or news clips that illustrate this phenomenon allows learners to directly observe how homogeneous information shapes individual cognitive frameworks during their viewing experience (li, 2023). furthermore, educators can utilize data visualization tools to transform abstract concepts like information dissemination pathways and user behavior patterns into intuitive charts or dynamic demonstrations, helping students better understand the formation mechanisms of information cocoons. meanwhile, by designing interactive multimedia courseware, students can actively engage in content exploration during class, thereby enhancing both learning interest and effectiveness (jiang & li, 2024). this diversified way of integrating teaching resources can not only www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 83 published by scholink inc. enrich the course content, but also effectively improve students depth and breadth of cognition on the problem of information cocoon. 6. obstacles and solutions to the implementation of cognitive remodeling path based on media literacy curriculum 6.1 implementation obstacles 6.1.1 insufficient tteaching staff one of the primary challenges in implementing media literacy courses at universities is the shortage of qualified instructors. despite the growing importance of media literacy education, many institutions lack professional teachers in this field, which directly impacts both the quality and effectiveness of these courses. according to reference materials (you, 2022). research indicates that media literacy education requires teachers to possess interdisciplinary knowledge spanning communication studies, pedagogy, and technology, yet universities currently have limited qualified faculty meeting these criteria. moreover, existing educators professional competencies also require improvement. for instance, some instructors lack sufficient understanding of new media technologies, making it challenging for them to effectively guide students navigating complex digital environments. this issue is particularly pronounced in regional universities, where uneven resource distribution often prevents them from attracting top-tier media literacy education professionals. meanwhile, references (ge, 2024). it is emphasized that the objectives of media literacy courses extend beyond knowledge transmission, with greater emphasis on cultivating students critical thinking and information filtering skills. this places higher demands on teachers instructional capabilities. however, many university educators currently lack systematic training in media literacy education, resulting in notable shortcomings in curriculum design and innovative teaching methodologies. consequently, the shortage of qualified faculty has become one of the key factors constraining the development of media literacy programs. 6.1.2 students do not pay enough attention in addition to the problem of teachers, students insufficient attention to media literacy courses is also an important reason affecting the implementation effect. references (chen x. c., chen, l., & yang, 2022). research indicates that many college students lack a clear understanding of the importance of media literacy courses, perceiving them as having little relevance to their academic studies and career development. this perception has resulted in low learning motivation, which partly reflects universities insufficient efforts in promoting the value of such courses. additionally, references (le, wang, & cheng, 2025). it has been observed that many students have developed a passive information-receiving mindset in daily life, lacking initiative to critically evaluate or filter information. this ingrained habit further diminishes their interest in media literacy courses. meanwhile, universities often fail to adequately emphasize the practical value and urgency of such courses. for instance, some institutions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 84 published by scholink inc. list media literacy as an elective with minimal credit allocation, which significantly reduces student engagement. more concerning is the perception of these courses as “secondary requirements”—merely seen as supplementary tasks for academic completion rather than essential tools for skill development. such attitudes not only undermine course effectiveness but also hinder the achievement of media literacy education goals to some extent. 6.2 solutions 6.2.1 strengthen teacher training to address the shortage of faculty resources, universities should implement proactive measures to enhance teacher training programs, thereby improving educators professional competence and teaching capabilities. first, institutions can organize specialized workshops and academic exchange activities to help teachers master the latest theories and practical methodologies in media literacy education, as exemplified by reference materials (you, 2022). it is suggested that colleges and universities regularly invite experts and scholars in the field of media literacy to conduct special lectures, and provide teachers with systematic training courses covering new media technology, information communication rules and critical thinking training. in addition, references (ge, 2024). universities should encourage faculty to participate in domestic and international academic conferences, facilitating knowledge exchange with outstanding educators from other institutions to broaden perspectives and enhance teaching quality. furthermore, establishing comprehensive incentive mechanisms is crucial. by creating dedicated award funds or preferential policies for professional title evaluations, universities can attract more exceptional teachers to media literacy education. for instance, offering material rewards or honorary recognition to instructors who excel in media literacy courses could effectively boost their motivation. finally, building interdisciplinary teaching teams by integrating resources from various fields will provide comprehensive support for media literacy programs. these measures not only address faculty shortages but also lay a solid foundation for the sustainable development of media literacy education. 6.2.2 improve students attention in order to improve students attention to media literacy courses, colleges and universities need to take comprehensive measures from publicity, curriculum design, teaching evaluation and other aspects to enhance students sense of participation and identity. first, reference literature (chen x. c., chen, l., & yang, 2022). it is proposed that universities should strengthen the promotion of media literacy courses through multiple channels, such as campus media platforms, social media accounts, and offline promotional activities. these initiatives aim to educate students about the importance of media literacy and its widespread applications in modern society. additionally, real-world case studies can be used to demonstrate how media literacy helps students better navigate issues like information echo chambers, thereby sparking their interest in learning. finally, references are provided (zhao, 2022). higher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 85 published by scholink inc. education institutions should prioritize media literacy courses in their curriculum design. by making them mandatory with increased credit requirements, universities can underscore their significance. furthermore, optimizing course content to align with students practical needs—such as incorporating topics like social media usage patterns and information verification—is essential to enhance course appeal and relevance. regarding assessment, institutions should establish scientific evaluation systems that move beyond traditional exams, adopting diversified methods including classroom discussions and project-based learning to holistically assess student outcomes. these measures not only boost students engagement with media literacy courses but also create favorable conditions for implementing cognitive restructuring approaches. 7. an empirical study on the effect of cognitive remodeling of media literacy curriculum 7.1 empirical research design to scientifically evaluate the effectiveness of media literacy courses in addressing information cocoon issues among college students, this study employed a pre-post experimental design. by comparing cognitive levels and behavioral changes before and after media literacy education, the design effectively reveals how these courses improve students understanding of information cocoon phenomena and enhance their information processing capabilities (le, wang, & cheng, 2025). the study recruited 300 sophomore students from a university, with equal numbers assigned to the experimental and control groups. diverse academic backgrounds ensured sample representativeness and minimized potential bias from disciplinary differences. key assessment metrics included four dimensions: awareness of information cocoons, information filtering competence, critical thinking skills, and practical performance in information dissemination. the information cocoon awareness was measured through questionnaires referencing established assessment tools, while information filtering competence was evaluated via simulated information retrieval tasks that assessed students selective preferences and judgment accuracy when processing diverse information (wang & yi, 2021). in addition, critical thinking ability is measured by standardized scales, while information communication practice ability is comprehensively evaluated by short video content produced by students in curriculum practice and its communication effect. 7.2 data collection and analysis the data collection process was conducted in two phases: the first phase involved gathering baseline data from both the experimental and control groups through questionnaires and tests prior to the media literacy course. the second phase involved re-measuring both groups using identical tools after the course concluded to obtain post-intervention data. the questionnaire focused on students awareness of information cocoons, information acquisition habits, and trust in media content. a total of 600 questionnaires were distributed, with 592 valid responses collected (validity rate: 98.7%). the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 86 published by scholink inc. assessment phase included two components: an information screening test requiring students to identify authentic and valuable information from provided materials, and a critical thinking evaluation assessing logical reasoning through case analysis questions (liu, 2023). after completing data collection, the analysis was conducted using spss statistical software. the methods employed included descriptive statistics, paired samples t-tests, and independent samples t-tests. descriptive statistics were used to present the mean values and standard deviations of both experimental and control groups across various indicators. paired samples t-tests were employed to compare changes in the experimental group before and after the course, while independent samples t-tests were used to assess differences between the two groups. through these analyses, we were able to comprehensively evaluate the actual effectiveness of media literacy courses in reshaping students cognitive development (wang & yi, 2021). 7.3 discussion of empirical research results empirical research demonstrates that the cognitive restructuring approach in media literacy courses significantly enhances students ability to break through information cocoons. the experimental group showed a marked improvement in their perception of information cocoons, with post-course questionnaire scores surpassing pre-course levels and demonstrating statistically significant differences compared to the control group (p<0.01). this evidence confirms that media literacy education effectively strengthens students understanding and vigilance regarding information cocoon phenomena (liu, 2023). secondly, in the information screening ability test, students in the experimental group demonstrated significantly improved discernment of false and low-quality information post-course, with their screening accuracy rising by 23.6% compared to pre-course levels. in contrast, the control group showed only a modest improvement of 5.8%. this outcome clearly indicates that the course content on information identification and filtering has played a positive role in enhancing students information processing capabilities (wang & yi, 2021). furthermore, in the critical thinking assessment, experimental group students achieved an average score increase of 15.3 points compared to pre-course levels, while the control group only improved by 3.7 points. this further validates the courses effectiveness in cultivating critical thinking skills. however, the study also revealed some limitations. for instance, some students demonstrated insufficient ability to process complex information during practical exercises, particularly struggling with decision-making when handling multi-source data. additionally, although the course has shown potential in enhancing cognitive abilities, how to transform this knowledge into lasting behavioral habits requires further exploration. these findings provide crucial directions for future research while reminding educators to prioritize practicality and sustainability in curriculum design (liu, 2023; wang & yi, 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 87 published by scholink inc. 8. conclusions 8.1 summary of research results this study investigates cognitive reshaping pathways through media literacy courses by analyzing information cocoon phenomena among college students, aiming to provide theoretical and practical references for educational interventions in higher education. the research reveals that information cocoon significantly hinders cognitive development, value formation, and social skills among undergraduates. as an effective educational intervention, media literacy courses demonstrate potential to break free from the constraints of information cocoon (li & tan, 2023; lang & wang, 2020). first, media literacy courses systematically enhance students ability to filter and discern information through structured teaching content, thereby reducing limitations imposed by algorithmic recommendations and selective information processing. second, the curriculums emphasis on cultivating critical thinking strengthens students analytical and evaluative capabilities, enabling them to maintain rational judgment when confronted with homogeneous information. furthermore, through diversified teaching methods like case studies and practical exercises, students not only gain deep understanding of the causes and dangers of information echo chambers but also learn to proactively overcome the constraints of information tunneling in real-world applications (wang, 2020; wu, 2022). the study also revealed that optimizing media literacy curriculum design, innovating teaching methodologies, and enriching educational resources are crucial for achieving cognitive restructuring. for instance, incorporating content on information verification and value assessment into course design helps students develop scientific information consumption habits. by integrating cutting-edge research findings and multimedia resources, courses can enhance their relevance and appeal, thereby stimulating students learning interest and engagement (liu, 2022; xu, 2022). the results of empirical research show that the cognitive remodeling path based on media literacy courses improves students awareness of information cocoon to a certain extent and enhances their information processing ability, which provides data support for further promotion of such courses (chen x. c., chen, l., & yang, 2022; zhao, 2022). in conclusion, this study emphasizes the important role of media literacy courses in solving the problem of information cocoon, and provides a concrete and feasible path for its implementation in higher education. 8.2 limitations and prospects of the study while this study has achieved notable progress in exploring cognitive restructuring pathways through media literacy curricula, several limitations remain to be addressed. firstly, the sample selection primarily focused on university students from specific institutions, resulting in a relatively narrow scope that may not fully represent the actual conditions of students across different regions and academic tiers. future research should expand the sample size to include more diverse universities and student demographics, thereby enhancing the generalizability and representativeness of the findings www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 88 published by scholink inc. (wang, 2020; liu, 2022). secondly, the current study has a relatively short time span, relying solely on short-term experimental designs to evaluate cognitive restructuring effects. this approach fails to adequately account for the enduring impacts of long-term educational interventions on student behavior. therefore, future research should extend observation periods and employ longitudinal research methods to thoroughly explore the long-term mechanisms through which media literacy courses influence students cognitive abilities and behavioral patterns (jiang &li, 2024; zhao & guo, 2022). furthermore, this study primarily focuses on the design and implementation of curriculum itself, with limited attention paid to external environmental factors such as campus culture and family background in shaping cognitive restructuring effects. future research could integrate multidimensional variables to comprehensively analyze the interactive effects between internal and external factors in students ability to break through information cocoons (you, 2022; chen & wu, 2023). meanwhile, with the rapid advancement of information technology, the manifestations and causes of information cocoons are continuously evolving. this necessitates that media literacy curricula and teaching methodologies keep pace with the times. future research should closely monitor new challenges posed by emerging technologies, promptly update course content, and explore more flexible and efficient teaching models to better meet educational demands in the digital age (ge, 2024; liu, 2023). finally, the cognitive remodeling path proposed in this study needs to be further verified and improved in practice. it is suggested that colleges and universities should strengthen cooperation with scientific research institutions to jointly promote theoretical innovation and practical application of media literacy courses, so as to provide more useful experience for the effective solution of information cocoon problem among college students (wang &yi, 2021; mao, 2025). references chen, s., & wu, y. j. (2023). the negative impact of information bubble phenomenon on college students under the background of intelligent algorithmic recommendation. social science frontiers, 12(8), 4261-4267. chen, x. c., chen, l., & yang, h. y. (2022). causes and prevention strategies of college students information bubble dilemma from the perspective of social media. journal of journalism and communication, (10), 80-82. ge, y. t. (2024). research on the guidance pathways of values education for college students in the new era—from the perspective of “information bubble”. reform and opening, (8), 16-21. jiang, q. q., & li, y. (2024). the dilemma and countermeasures of mainstream ideological communication among college students under the perspective of “information cocoon”. internet weekly, (8), 81-83. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 89 published by scholink inc. lang, j., & wang. j. (2020). analysis on the challenges and responses of “information cocoon” to college students ideological and political education. party building and ideological education in schools, (20), 13-15. le, ch. y., wang, z. x., & cheng, j. h. (2025). is it appropriate or excessive? a study on the asymmetric impact of personalized recommendations on social media platforms and users resistance behaviors [j/ol]. nankai management review: 1-26[2025-07-14].http://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/12.1288.f.20250711.1729.002.html. li, h. t., & tan, s. l. (2023). challenges and countermeasures of “information cocoon” to the dissemination of mainstream ideology in universities. media, (7), 71-73. liu, d. n. (2022). the influence, causes and countermeasures of group polarization among college students under the “information cocoon” effect. journal of hubei vocational and technical college, 25(2), 52-55. liu, y. f. (2023). causes of “information cocoon” in college students and strategies for information literacy education in university libraries under the new media environment. contemporary library, (3), 38-42. mao, j. (2025). research on the negative impact of “information cocoon” on mainstream ideological education of college students and its solutions. university, (20), 181-184. wang, h. d., & yi, s. k. (2021). the influence of “information cocoon” on college students and the path to break out. communication and copyright, (7), 97-100. wang, q. (2020). innovation of ideological and political education methods for college students from the perspective of “information cocoon”. journal of inner mongolia university of finance and economics, 18(6), 35-37. wu, w. (2022). strategies for cultivating socialist core values among college students under the “information cocoon” effect. new silk road, (11), 127-129. xu, y. d. (2022). challenges and countermeasures of ideological and political education in universities from the perspective of “information cocoon”. chinese language teaching and learning, (29), 242-244. you, j. (2022). the significance and path of media literacy education curriculum construction in universities in the era of media convergence. media, (13), 83-86. zhao, p. (2022). research on the negative effect of “information cocoon” and countermeasures in college students ideological and political education. huazhang, (11), 144-146. zhao, y., & guo, a. n. (2022). negative effects of “information cocoon” on college students and analysis of “cocoon breaking” pathways. journal of shenyang agricultural university (social sciences edition), 24(4), 452-456. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 37 original paper putting the stars within reach using nasa 3d data-based models kimberly k. arcand1* 1 nasa’s chandra x-ray observatory, center for astrophysics | harvard & smithsonian 60 garden street | ms 70 | cambridge, ma 02138, united states * kimberly k. arcand, nasa’s chandra x-ray observatory, center for astrophysics | harvard & smithsonian 60 garden street | ms 70 | cambridge, ma 02138, united states received: may 20, 2022 accepted: may 31, 2022 online published: august 22, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n2p37 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n2p37 abstract this study investigated the quantifiable effects of data-based 3d models and prints on spatial reasoning skills and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) fields, for n = 100 youths aged 9-12 (99 female and 1 non-binary), primarily from traditionally underrepresented groups in stem. in a pre-post design, participants engaged in workshops using data-based astrophysical 3d models delivered via computer-based interactions, virtual reality, and 3d prints. multivariate anovas yielded significantly increased stem interest but were not significant for increasing spatial ability. the results are discussed in terms of the need to extend exposure and science communications to stem activities to female youths that are younger than middle school aged. keywords spatial reasoning, 3d printing, women in stem, astronomy, vr putting the stars within reach using nasa 3d data-based models 1. introduction this study examined the effects of data-based astrophysical 3d models delivered via computer based interactions, virtual reality, and 3d prints, on spatial reasoning skills and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) for females aged 9-12, in particular from traditionally underrepresented groups in stem. underrepresented, or underserved, audiences refer to the demographic status of, and the services that are offered or presented to, segments of a community, typically not currently being served within a larger population that might benefit from such services (williams et al., 2009). research to date has not focused extensively on the development of stem www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 38 published by scholink inc. interests and spatial reasoning skills of young females, particularly at the time when such learners are forming potential identities in or with stem and beginning to think about educational and career-related options. the literature review provides a brief background on the development of data visualizations in astrophysics used in the study, issues of stem interest and identity, and biases and role models, before focusing on spatial skills investigated in the study for the target demographic group. literature review 3d data in science communication astrophysical data, and the visualizations from such data, are often two-dimensional (2d). our perspective from earth, including from our farthest-reaching telescopes, primarily offers a flat projection on the sky, but spectral information can restore the 3-dimensionality of the universe (ferrand et al., 2016). researchers from computer scientists to astrophysicists, engineers, and technicians are developing multiple techniques to expand astrophysical data visualization within the 2d space and beyond into 3d often for scientific research purposes, but also to help improve communications of such research (see e.g., arcand et al., 2017b, 2018, 2019; diemer & facio, 2017; goodman et al., 2009; madura et al., 2015, 2017; steffen et al., 2014). this work, however, is still relatively nascent, particularly regarding its impact on specific audiences. the potential to study celestial objects from multiple viewpoints not only can provide researchers with a better understanding of such but also has the potential help open access to and enable science communication with non-experts (arcand et al., 2017b, 2020; ferrand & warren, 2018). there are data-driven 3d objects in 3d printed or extended reality (xr) forms in space science under development that have been or can be used in science communications including, for example, 3d printed supernova remnants (arcand et al., 2017; arcand & watzke, 2019), binary stars (two stars orbiting each other) (watzke & edmonds, 2017), lunar geological maps (ellison, 2014), martian craters and meteorites (capraro & nasa jpl, 2014; gwinner et al., 2014), other local planetary bodies such as asteroids (e.g., kim, 2018), and topics as the cosmic web (diemer & facio, 2017) and the cosmic microwave background (clements et al., 2016). astrophysical vr applications for use in science communication have been based in simulated worlds (see e.g., farr et al., 2009) and standalone applications (see e.g., arcand et al., 2018; ferrand & warren, 2018; russell, 2020). non-experts can, for example, travel across parts of the martian surface (good, 2017), walk on the sun (hinode science center at naoj, 2018), or work with radio data cubes of a spiral galaxy (ferrand et al., 2016). as noted previously, potential impacts of such 3d or xr assets on specific audiences like female-identifying youths has not been studied in detail, though there is some indication through informal observations and audience demographics of the potential of these mediums using astronomical data via xr (ferrand & warren, 2018) and 3d printing (arcand et al., 2017). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 39 published by scholink inc. stem interest, identity & self-efficacy separately from the growth of technical achievements in processing astronomical data, there are numerous reasons why gender parity in astronomy in stem, is important to achieve. practical issues such as equal opportunity and pay, along with job security for women in stem pathways, are key, especially as career opportunities in stem fields increase (langdon et al., 2011). financial security can be important for the economic viability of a family (see anderson, 2016), particularly as single-mother families increase (u.s. census bureau, 2016). importantly, developing strong critical thinking skills so vital in today’s world (duran & sendag, 2012) are part of stem subjects. women tend to make many of the decisions on health and wellbeing for themselves or their families (marincola, 2006). these personal consumer choices, voting behaviors, investments, and other decisions affect wider economics, politics, finance, and other areas. this argues for women to be well versed in skills, especially those associated with critical thinking and reasoning, associated with stem fields. the loss—or absence—of women in stem has quantifiable effects on economies, as well as effects on the “systems we create”, from scientific policy to consumer products (reilly et al., 2019; wade & zaringhalam, 2019, para.4). stem interest is a critical component of developing a stem identity and can be intertwined with issues of confidence and self-efficacy for young females. self-efficacy is often lower in females than males generally (gnilka & novakovic, 2017), and related self-efficacy issues of belonging and confidence (settles, 2014) can therefore be difficult to navigate in formulating the stem identity. research has shown that by as young as kindergarten age, girls believe boys are more brilliant and suited to highly intellectual activities over girls (bian et al., 2017). negative stereotypes and implicit biases, particularly as unconsciously reinforced by parents, caretakers, and educators, can affect girls’ self-perception in stem topics (levine, et al., 2015). lack of confidence in themselves as participants in stem, or more generally feeling inadequate, can lead to feelings associated with what has been characterized as imposter syndrome (heaverlo et al., 2013), which affects adult women (and men) in stem, and particularly affects minoritized populations (byars-winston & dahlberg, 2019). this relates to bandura’s theory of self-efficacy, which concerns one’s belief in one’s capabilities to perform tasks in specific domains to bring goals to fruition (bandura, 1997). self-efficacy can influence what choices and effort an individual will make to reach goals, and also, importantly, if the individual will persist through difficulties and challenges to obtain those goals (bandura, 1997; rittmayer & beier, 2008). success in stem areas requires a strong sense of one's ability to succeed, and it is noted that females can have lower senses of self-efficacy towards stem than males (williams & george-jackson, 2014). younger women and underrepresented groups may find that if they are not fitting a more typical stem profile by middle school, then stem careers might not look viable or feasible (hill, 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. furthermore, there is an often referenced “stem pipeline” which, perhaps inadvertently, asserts a linear path from childhood interest in stem, straight through to taking stem courses at university, to finding work in a stem career (the stem pipeline, 2015). in fact, this pipeline applies to only about 50% of stem workers, and further can serve to discourage diversification of the stem workforce population (cannady et al., 2014) by unintentionally propounding a one size fits all. a personal stem identity is the belief that one can do well and succeed at stem subjects (ayoub, 2017). the social aspect of the stem identity is where participants can visualize themselves “accepted as a member of a stem discipline or field” (kim et al., 2018, p. 3). there may be several factors related to stem identities that make it challenging, particularly for underserved groups like young women of color, to adopt such an identity for themselves (steinke, 2017). negotiating an identity as a girl or woman while also adopting an identity in stem can be challenging, though also eventually beneficial (settles, 2014). the challenges to reaching such an identity, however, may include not being able to picture oneself working in stem, particularly for underrepresented groups (chee, 2018). additionally, the socio-cultural cues from others, such as those who seem to indicate that stem is not cool and, therefore, is less acceptable among peers (steinke, 2017), or that women do not belong, particularly women of color (kim et al., 2018), can be challenging. importantly, recent research has demonstrated that through interventions, stem identity challenges can be positively influenced (kim et al., 2018). biases, role models and stereotypes multiple studies have shown that stem skills are learned (hill et al., 2010) and gender bias still has a negative impact on girls’ noted interest in stem fields from a very early age. work from spencer et al. (1999), for example, demonstrated the strength of stereotype threat for girls in mathematics testing among top math performers, where even the mention of gender bias in a test led to reduced performance for female participants. group stereotypes (whether based on gender or race) “can threaten how students evaluate themselves, which then alters academic identity and intellectual performance” and can affect “members of any group about whom negative stereotypes exist” (american psychological association, 2006, p. 1). gender bias not only supports the perception that science and mathematics are for boys, but more importantly, that stereotype threat can lead to girls’ performance anxiety and low expectations on academic tests (doyle, 2016). a growing body of research has shown that there are significant sociocultural roadblocks for women in both the computer science and engineering fields. these barriers can greatly hinder determination of selection and study (ceci et al., 2009; cheryan et al., 2015). a meta-analysis conducted by cheryan et al. (2017) of 1,200 papers on gender gaps in computer science, engineering, and physics, pointed to three primary issues. these included a masculine culture, which included three sub-issues of incompatibility stereotypes, negative stereotypes, and lack of role models, that can lead to women www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 41 published by scholink inc. feeling less welcome in those fields; less early exposure or work within those fields; and reduced self-efficacy. the researchers noted that stem programs could benefit by addressing problematic cultural issues as well as by building awareness in girls and boys that both are equally capable of succeeding in stem careers. spatial skills focusing down into specific issues in stem skills, mental manipulation and understanding of 2d or 3d objects has been posited as an important stem skill, helping to indicate future mathematical success (hegarty & waller, 2005; verdine et al., 2014), science performance (uttal et al., 2013), and potential pursuit of stem careers (uttal & cohen, 2012). middle school students with good mental rotation skills particularly tend to perform well in their science classes (ganley et al., 2014). and rafi et al. (2005) noted that early childhood activities involving paper folding, unfolding, and other manipulations make important contributions towards enhancing spatial skills. research back over three decades has indicated that differences in spatial reasoning between males and females often show reduced or delayed development in females (linn & petersen, 1985; maccoby & jacklin, 1974; voyer et al., 1995; yilmaz, 2009). a meta-analysis of gender differences across 14 studies published between 1975 and 1992 supported that claim, with females shown to be at a statistically significant disadvantage in mental rotation skills in each of the studies (masters & sanders, 1993). recent research has emerged indicating that such spatial skills can be improved through interventions (gold et al., 2018; hwang et al., 2009; uttal et al., 2013; yeh, 2007), and likely through interventions in virtual environments (hwang & hu, 2013). additionally, 3d or xr experiences may support such learning by providing a hands-on approach and making less abstract such large, abstract and highly spatial concepts as astrophysics through embodied cognition (cole, cohen, wilhelm & lindell, 2018; pomerantz, 2019). those findings underpinned the motivation for the research conducted for this study. some literature has suggested an optimal age for spatial skills development would be in early middle school years, that is, ages 11-12 (ben-chaim, 1989). yet, no definitive research was found on the lower limits of total time needed for such interventions, nor specific research particularly targeting underserved young females. the research in this study set out to explore such variables. conceptual framework and research question as this study investigated the quantifiable effects of data-based 3d models and prints on spatial reasoning skills and interest in stem fields for young females, particularly for those from traditionally underrepresented groups in stem, it is important to consider young females’ participation in stem activities, the development of spatial reasoning skills, and the presence of encouraging role models, to open potential future pathways in stem studies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 42 published by scholink inc. this study involved working directly with young females to investigate the quantifiable effects of data-based 3d models and prints on improving spatial reasoning skills and interest in stem fields in under-represented groups, particularly of young female learners. the approach used in this research was pragmatism (johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004), as it allows that there is a subjective reality or “real world,” although within that subjective reality there are different world views or perspectives (johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004). pragmatism, therefore, frames the research question with an eye towards “workability,” while understanding that “our values and our politics are always a part of who we are and how we act” (morgan, 2007, p. 70). 2. methods and procedures 2.1 participants in the study, a convenience sample of 117 youths aged 9-12 years from female-supporting organizations participated, recruited from local networks known to the researcher: a local girls day camp group (camp group = 29), a local private all-girls school (private school = 59), and local girls scouting organization (scout group = 29) in the northeastern region of the united states. 2.2 materials there were three instruments used in the study, a demographics questionnaire, a spatial skills evaluation, and a stem interest inventory. the science materials used in the workshops are described in the procedure, with links provided to the content. 2.3 demographics inventory the demographics inventory developed for study included items for grade, gender, ethnicity, zip code, activity location, self-rated knowledge of stem, and hours of video games played per day. age, grade, gender, ethnicity information, zip code, and location were collected as background, for analyses, and to ensure the sample groups represented the targeted population. self-rating information and estimates of how many hours of video games played per day were collected to later assist with the examination of the data in the spatial skills and inventory responses. 2.4 spatial skills inventory the spatial skills instrument used was the freely available "spatial reasoning test | 123test.com," (123test, 2019). in pilot testing (n = 4) of comparably aged females, it was determined that using all 10 items from the original instrument was too lengthy for the selected age group, and items 6 through 10 became more difficult for the participants. the evaluation was reduced, therefore, to the first five items. 2.5 stem interest inventory the stem interest inventory was the “instruments for assessing interest in stem content and careers” (tyler-wood et al., 2010), validated with middle school student participants, and used with permission of the authors. the inventory comprises five opposite word pairs repeated across each topic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 43 published by scholink inc. of science, math, engineering, technology, and stem careers, with selections across a 7-point scale. procedure the science content used in the study applied information gained from researching the data processing and 3d modeling pipeline. the order of the activities was chosen to build participants towards a knowledge base of a topic not typical in content for children aged 9-12 in the u.s. care was taken to provide the underpinnings of how the data were collected, what scientists do to the data, and why. this study was approved by a university ethics committee. participation was anonymous and the data were aggregated, with no personally identifiable information stored. the workshops were conducted between february-october, 2019 in concrete sessions of half (2.5 hours) or full (6 hours) days, as determined by the typical meeting time for the group involved. the times listed for the workshops included all activities, from start to finish. this study used a controlled within groups design. participants were randomly assigned to group a or group b to counterbalance the order for the preand post-conditions. identification numbers were used to ensure that the preand post-evaluations were matched. group a completed the spatial skills instrument as a pre-evaluation, engaged in the workshop, and then completed the stem interest inventory as a post-evaluation. group b completed the stem interest inventory as a pre-evaluation, engaged in the workshop, and then completed the spatial skills instrument as the post-evaluation. both groups a and b completed the demographics inventory as part of the pre-evaluations. materials were created and produced by the researcher and her team for nasa’s chandra x-ray observatory. materials provided multiple modes of accessibility. vr utilized audio tracks and closed captioning, tactile 3d prints of data sets were provided, videos included audio and text transcripts, images were tagged for screen readers, and digital files were coded to u.s. accessibility standards. activities were developed to describe and interactively show the kind of work the researcher and others do using astronomical data. materials were developed with funding from nasa and were required to pass nasa product review, a rigorous internal quality control system from nasa to ensure accuracy of materials. the half day event was conducted with the researcher and one additional female facilitator who was trained by the researcher. full-day events were conducted with the researcher and three to four additional trained female facilitators or teacher helpers. facilitators were current workers in stem fields. the private school group had a surplus of volunteer teachers to help throughout the days, and who were trained with a 60-minute webinar prior to the event. the schedule for the workshops follows: 1) introduction the pre-evaluation was administered to all participants, followed by an introduction for the science content. the warm-up activity outlined how controllers talk to spacecraft orbiting beyond earth. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 44 published by scholink inc. participants created binary code name tags, translating their names into 1’s and 0’s (http://chandra.si.edu/binary/) 2) imaging in the half days, this covered the basics on how to create an image, followed by questions and answers. in the full days, participants completed a computer-based activity using pencil code and videos that step through the mechanics of compositing/colorizing nasa data to create an image of stars (http://chandra.si.edu/code/). 3) 3d modeling/printing in full days, participants used browser-based software tinkercad to learn 3d modeling before loading 3d nasa data. users discussed 3d printing and handled 3d prints. half days had a discussion of the modeling/printing processes in which they handled 3d prints for questions and answers. (http://chandra.si.edu/tinkercad/ and http://chandra.si.edu/3dprint). 4) vr this segment began with a presentation on creating nasa data-driven vr and what the use of such applications can mean before moving into spatially-aware demonstrations of astronomical vr including supernova remnants and the area around the milky way’s supermassive black hole (http://chandra.si.edu/vr). 5) paper activities paper-based activities included origami (http://chandra.si.edu/origami) and paper circuits (http://chandra.si.edu/make/) to help communicate science data concepts (e.g., expansion and unpacking, or neutron stars). 6) wrap-up post-evaluation assessments were presented with a question-and-answer session on science and careers. nasa handouts showcasing women in stem (http://chandra.si.edu/women/) and handouts on each activity were given out for reflection and sharing. informal observations beyond the formal instruments, informal observations were recorded by the researcher in the form of field notes. though not formal analyses, these observations of participant behaviors and comments were captured throughout the day on the researcher’s ipad and are threaded into the results as supplemental interpretations where applicable. 3. result workshops there were four workshops, with workshop times and lengths considered in the analyses by examining results for the different groups. the first workshop was a half-day, special event offered at a local scout www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 45 published by scholink inc. group headquarters for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade girls (n = 29, aged 9-11). participants, with their caregivers, self-selected to register individually or as a group of scouts. fourteen girls had to leave early due to poor weather and snow. this reduced the total number of completed pre-post sets of data to 15. the second workshop was conducted as a single full-day workshop hosted at a local college, organized with the camp group as part of their summer day-camp program for socio-economically disadvantaged girls. there were 29 participants aged 10-12. two participants had to leave the workshop early, bringing the total of completed pre-post sets to 27. the third and fourth workshops took place at a local private girls’ school with a “steam” (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) center for 59 girls, comprising their entire 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classes (aged 9-12). one 6th grader had to leave early, bringing the total of completed pre-post sets to 58. descriptive data the data collected were digitized and entered into spss version 26 for analysis (ibm corp., 2019). results for the full sample (n = 100) and broken down by affiliation are provided in tables 1 and 2. as shown, participants in the full group were evenly spread across age and grade, in a narrow band from ages 9 to 12. participants identified as female with one exception, who self-identified as non-binary. in terms of affiliation, the camp group was the only group comprised completely of girls of color (with one participant who chose not to respond to this item). as a result of the poor weather during one workshop (described above), there were slightly more participants in the spatial inventory pre-stem inventory post sample (n = 55) than the stem inventory pre-spatial inventory post sample (n = 45). all participants were asked to rate themselves on their overall knowledge in stem topics. on a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high), the mean ratings indicated a wide range of knowledge for the full sample, with the average rating approaching 7 (see table 2). when examined by affiliation, the camp group participants were somewhat below the other two groups. a one-way analysis of variance determined that these differences were not statistically significant, f (2, 97) = 2.03, ns. although most participants (n = 86; 86%) reported spending 0-2 hours playing video games per day (m = 1.16, sd = 1.68), there was some confusion vocalized by the girls in this group and noted by the researcher as to what “counted” as playing a video game (e.g., candy crush vs. grand theft auto). thus, this variable was only used in a correlational analysis and not in the primary analyses for investigating the research question. the scores for the spatial and stem inventories are presented in table 3. the total score for the spatial inventory, based on 0 (lowest possible score) to 5 (highest possible score) indicated that the private school participants had the highest values for the spatial score totals, followed by the camp group, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 46 published by scholink inc. then the scout group. for the stem inventories, the minimum score possible was 0 and the maximum score possible was 135. for the stem inventory score totals, the private school placed the highest again, followed by the scout group, and then the camp group. principal component analysis next, a principal component analysis with a direct oblimin rotation was run on the items of the stem inventory to examine their factor structure (data are available). a direct oblimin rotation was chosen as any anticipated underlying factors could be correlated. the structure matched what was expected for the inventory, with the items for each subscale loading into an individual factor, aligning with the published results (tyler-wood et al., 2010). based on this analysis, the items for each category were combined into their expected subscales. each subscale was then examined in terms of reliabilities, using cronbach’s alpha. results are provided in table 4, along with the published reliabilities for the stem inventory (tyler-wood et al., 2010). as shown, in each case the data from the participants on the stem inventory subscales were the same or similar to the published coefficient alphas. reliabilities were calculated for the spatial inventory, also shown below. the value reported is generally considered to be at the minimum level of acceptability (cortina, 1993). as there were no published values for this inventory, no comparison could be made to previous data. having established that the reliabilities of the inventories meant that the scales were viable, the researcher proceeded with analyses using the total scores for the spatial and stem inventories. correlations were computed to examine the relationships of hours playing video games with self-rating of stem knowledge, the spatial total scores, and the stem inventory total score, to investigate the extent of any relationship among these variables that might help inform stem identity. the correlations were done first for the full sample and then by affiliation (full data are available). for the full sample, video hours were negatively correlated with self-rating of stem knowledge and the stem inventory total score, thus suggesting that more hours playing video games were related to lower values for self-rating of stem knowledge and the stem inventory total score. of note is the positive correlation between perception of self-rating of stem knowledge and the stem inventory total score. when the correlation analysis was rerun by affiliation (data are available), only the results for private school yielded significant relationships. for the full sample, video hours were negatively correlated with self-rating of stem knowledge, and the stem inventory total score, suggesting that more hours playing video games were related to lower values for self-rating of stem knowledge and the stem inventory total score. again, for the full sample there was also a positive correlation between self-rating of stem knowledge and the stem inventory total score for the private school sample. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 47 published by scholink inc. multivariate analysis of variance (manova) results these analyses laid the groundwork to allow the examination of research question concerning the quantifiable effects of databased 3d models of on under-represented populations in stem, using a multivariate analysis of variance (manova). the independent variables in the manova were the three affiliations (scout group, camp group, and private school) and two levels of the order of the presentation of the inventories (spatial inventory pre and stem inventory post or stem inventory pre and spatial inventory post). the two dependent variables were the total scores for the spatial and stem inventories. self-rating of stem knowledge was used as a covariate to eliminate the possibility of any potential relationship between perceptions of preexisting knowledge and the dependent variables, especially the stem inventory. therefore, using this covariate essentially equalized the baseline going into the study in terms of where the participants thought they were in terms of ability, so as not to obscure any potential effects. the results of the manova (see table 5) yielded two significant findings. affiliation was significant, as the pre-post condition. there was no interaction effect of affiliation by pre-post condition. univariate results the univariate results are shown on table 6. the descriptive statistics for the multivariate test are shown previously on table 5 and are presented graphically at the end of the paper. figure 1 shows the mean pre-post scores for the spatial inventory, with separate lines for each affiliation. all three groups did less well on average in the post-evaluation condition, and the participants from the camp group were well below the other two groups. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 48 published by scholink inc. figure 1. mean pre-post scores for spatial inventory figure 2 shows the mean pre-post scores for the stem inventory, with separate lines for each affiliation. the private school participants did not exhibit much change from preto post, but the other two groups increased nearly 20 points for the scout group and 25 points for the camp group participants. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 49 published by scholink inc. figure 2. mean pre-post scores for stem inventory informal observations informal observations included recording general field notes on participation, vocalizations and energy levels, comments made by the participants to the researcher throughout the day, questions or concerns raised during the activities, as well as summations from the participants volunteered during the wrap up sessions. comments and questions recorded by the researcher in the field notes were tallied and coded per group and calculated per session as a percentage over time. comments throughout the workshops included: “i want to do this when i grow up,” “i didn’t know i could do this,” “this was the best day ever,” and “i didn’t know i could walk around a black hole.” the highest percentage of comments spoken directly to the researcher were from the camp group; and the scouts group directed the least number of verbal comments to the researcher in total and as a percentage of time (note the scouts group had the least time with the researcher overall). informal end-of-day dialogues resulted in discussions around activities that the participants enjoyed, concepts learned, and areas to explore. one common theme expressed to the researcher across all groups was enjoyment of the vr and 3d printing (backed up by the recorded observations of the individual activities), though the girls spoke positively about each activity. questions relating to the researcher’s career were numerous, but particularly from the private school. science-based questions from black holes to aliens were another common theme across all groups, with the highest frequency from the private school. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 50 published by scholink inc. table 1. demographic data for the full sample and by affiliation ___________________________________________________________________________________ item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ affiliation scout group 15 15 camp group 27 27 private school 58 58 pre-post group full group spatial/inventory 55 55 inventory/spatial 45 45 scout group spatial/inventory 7 46.7 inventory/spatial 8 53.3 camp group spatial/inventory 16 59.3 inventory/spatial 11 40.7 private school spatial/inventory 32 55.2 inventory/spatial 6 44.8 age full group 9 21 21 10 25 25 11 38 38 12 16 16 scout group 9 6 40 10 8 53.3 11 1 6.7 12 - - camp group 9 - - 10 4 14.8 11 9 33.3 12 14 51.9 private school 9 15 25.9 10 13 22.4 11 28 38 12 2 3.4 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 51 published by scholink inc. item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ grade full group 4 27 27 5 25 25 6 32 32 7 16 16 gender female 99 99 nonbinary 1 1 ethnicity full group caucasian 45 45 black/african 11 11 hispanic/latina 9 9 other 30 30 prefer nta 5 5 scout group caucasian 11 73.3 black/african - - hispanic/latina - - other 2 13.3 prefer nta 2 13.3 camp group caucasian - - black/african 8 29.6 hispanic/latina 8 29.6 other 10 37 prefer nta 1 3.7 private school caucasian 34 58.6 black/african 3 5.2 hispanic/latina 1 1.7 other 18 31 prefer nta 2 3.4 self-rating full group 1 2 2 2 - - 3 1 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 52 published by scholink inc. 4 6 6 5 21 21 item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ 6 19 19 7 20 20 8 18 18 9 7 7 10 6 6 scout group 1 - - 2 - - 3 - - 4 2 13.3 5 3 20 6 1 6.7 7 2 13.3 8 2 13.3 9 3 20 10 2 13.3 camp group 1 - - 2 - - 3 1 3.7 4 1 3.7 5 8 29.6 6 7 25.9 7 7 25.9 8 3 11.1 9 - - 10 - - private school 1 2 3.4 2 - - 3 - - 4 3 5.2 5 10 17.2 6 11 19 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 53 published by scholink inc. 7 11 19 8 13 22.4 9 4 6.9 10 4 6.9 item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ video hours full group 0 48 48 1 24 24 2 14 14 3 6 6 4 2 2 5 2 2 6 1 1 7 2 2 8 1 1 scout group 0 5 33.3 1 5 33.3 2 3 20 3 1 6.7 4 1 6.7 5 - - 6 - - 7 - - 8 - - camp group 0 6 22.2 1 10 37 2 5 18.5 3 1 3.7 4 1 3.7 5 1 3.7 6 1 3.7 7 1 3.7 8 1 3.7 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 54 published by scholink inc. private school 0 37 63.8 1 9 15.5 2 6 10.3 3 4 6.9 4 - - 5 1 1.7 item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ 6 - - 7 1 1.7 8 - - table 2. means and standard deviations for age, self-rating, and video hours for full group, and by affiliation ___________________________________________________________________________________ item mean standard deviation ___________________________________________________________________________________ age full group 10.49 1 scout group 9.67 0.62 camp group 11.37 0.74 private school 10.29 0.9 self-rating full group 6.55 1.81 scout group 7.07 2.12 camp group 6 1.24 private school 6.67 1.91 video hours full group 1.16 1.68 scout group 1.2 1.21 camp group 1.96 2.19 private school 0.78 1.38 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 55 published by scholink inc. table 3. scores for the spatial skills and stem inventories for the full sample and by pre post conditions within affiliation ___________________________________________________________________________________ item group n mean sd ___________________________________________________________________________________ spatial total score full group 100 2.89 1.6 scout group 15 0.87 1.19 camp group 27 2.78 1.6 item group n mean sd ___________________________________________________________________________________ private school 58 3.47 1.23 inventory total score full group 100 121.08 35.5 scout group 15 114.4 32.92 camp group 27 104 33.88 private school 58 130.76 33.97 spatial pre full group 55 3.24 1.48 scout group 7 1.14 1.35 camp group 16 3.06 1.77 private school 32 3.78 0.79 spatial post full group 45 2.47 1.66 scout group 8 0.63 1.06 camp group 11 2.36 1.29 private school 26 3.08 1.55 inventory pre full group 45 116.24 43.28 scout group 8 105.63 40.88 camp group 11 89 42.04 private school 26 131.04 39.14 inventory post full group 55 125.04 27.36 scout group 7 124.43 18.94 camp group 16 114.31 23.08 private school 32 130.53 29.77 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 56 published by scholink inc. table 4. reliability statistics using cronbach’s alpha for stem inventory subscales and spatial skills ________________________________________________________________________________ subscale cronbach’s alpha published cronbach’s alpha ___________________________________________________________________________________ science .91 .84 math .91 .88 subscale cronbach’s alpha published cronbach’s alpha ___________________________________________________________________________________ engineering .90 .92 technology .91 .91 career .89 .93 spatial .70 - table 5. results of multivariate analysis of variance ___________________________________________________________________________________ effect value f hypostudy error sig. partial eta df df squared ________________________________________________________________________________ intercept pillai’s trace .363 26.26 2 92 <.001 .363 wilks’ lambda .637 26.26 2 92 <.001 .363 hotelling’s .571 26.26 2 92 <.001 .363 trace roy’s largest .571 26.26 2 92 <.001 .363 root self-rating pillai’s trace .110 5.69 2 92 .005 .110 wilks’ lambda .890 5.69 2 92 .005 .110 hotelling’s trace .124 5.69 2 92 .005 .110 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 57 published by scholink inc. roy’s largest root .124 5.69 2 92 .005 .110 affiliation pillai’s trace .428 12.66 4 186 <.001 .363 wilks’ lambda .596 13.58 4 184 <.001 .363 hotelling’s trace .637 14.50 4 182 <.001 .363 roy’s largest .566 26.32 2 93 <.001 .363 root effect value f hypostudy error df sig. partial eta df squared __________________________________________________________________________________ pre-post condition pillai’s trace .082 4.11 2 92 .019 .082 wilks’ lambda . 918 4.11 2 92 .019 .082 hotelling’s trace .089 4.11 2 92 .019 .082 roy’s largest root .089 4.11 2 92 .019 .082 affiliation*pre post pillai’s trace .030 .71 4 186 .586 .015 wilks’ lambda .970 .71 4 184 .586 .015 hotelling’s trace .031 .71 4 182 590 .015 roy’s largest .030 1.41 2 93 .015 root table 6. results of univariate analysis of variance between-subjects effects ___________________________________________________________________________________ type lll sum mean partial eta source dependent variable of squares df square f sig. squared ___________________________________________________________________________________ affiliation spatial total 78.14 2 39.36 22.96 <.001 0.331 inventory total 12464.33 2 6232.17 6.1 0.003 0.116 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 58 published by scholink inc. pre post spatial total 7.44 1 7.438 4.34 0.04 0.045 condition inventory total 3751.09 1 3751.09 3.67 0.058 0.038 affiliation * spatial total 0.14 2 0.067 0.04 0.961 0.001 pre post inventory total 2879.38 2 1439.69 1.41 0.25 0.029 condition error spatial total 159.39 93 1.71 inventory total 95069.43 93 1022.25 type lll sum mean partial eta source dependent variables df f sig. of squares square squared _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ total spatial total 1089 100 inventory total 1590788 100 corrected spatial total 253.79 99 total inventory total 124751.36 99 4. discussion significant growth in stem inventory for disadvantaged participants the mean pre post scores for the stem inventory showed that the private school participants did not exhibit much change from the preto post evaluations, but the scout and camp groups did, with a statistically significant increase of almost 20 points for the scout group and 25 points for the camp group participants. it might seem counterintuitive to find that the more privileged audience remained relatively stable in their stem inventory total scores, given that the participants’ behavior and observed and recorded comments were highly positive. however, it is useful to note that the private school is a leader in steam (fogarty & arcand, 2020) learning, with a well-equipped facility with 3d printers, robotics and coding programs, and an excellent staff-to-learner ratio. these participants attended a resource-rich school, and steam/learning exposure levels were high, while many, though not all, participants provided zip codes of often wealthy communities, in general. this group of participants came into the workshops strong in stem interest and left as strong. for them, the workshops may have been more about reinforcing and providing practical examples of stem topics, careers, role models, etc., than being novel or revelatory regarding stem pathways. the significant positive growth for the camp group firstly, and scout group secondly, in the stem inventory, however, gets to the core of the research. the camp group was the most socio-economically www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 59 published by scholink inc. disadvantaged group of the three samples, as determined by camp selection criteria and the requirements to attend the camp free of charge. the participants in the program are considered potentially at-risk youth by the camp. besides signing up for the overall summer camp program and agreeing to attend the 3d workshop, camp participants had less individual agency in selecting a day-long stem activity, as the camp directors selected the itinerary. this group, however, exhibited the most growth in the stem inventory overall. as such, it is an example of the potential benefits of even short term (single day) stem engagement on stem interest for less socio-economically advantaged groups, and perhaps provides additional evidence regarding reaching groups who are not necessarily self-selecting for stem activities already. next in stem inventory improvement, the scout group had more variable individual agency than the camp group, in that some participants selected to attend the workshop by themselves while others came as part of their chapter’s decision to attend. overall, the scout group participants came from mostly and generally middle-class income zip code districts, and was less diverse than either of the other workshop groups. being members of an out-of-school group likely provided these participants with access to external enrichment programs, but still this half-day program saw a quantifiable effect on the growth of stem interest. lack of impact of spatial reasoning skills although it was hoped that 3d data manipulation activities would yield improvement in spatial reasoning skills from the pre to post groups, ultimately perhaps it was not surprising to see no statistical improvement in the spatial reasoning evaluation. current literature was not clear on the minimal baseline of interventions required to effect positive change in spatial reasoning skills, and specifically not for this age, gender, and schooling level, although research with older participants tended toward multiple steps of interventions spread over time (see e.g., contero et al., 2006; dominguez et al., 2012; feng et al., 2007; martín-gutierrez et al., 2013; rafi et al., 2005; wright et al., 2008). the literature, therefore, lacks a baseline for understanding spatial reasoning intervention impacts, particularly for the age and gender groups that participated in this study. this study, then, adds to the literature on spatial skills improvement for young females, that single, relatively short interventions (6 hours or less) with spatial skills related activities are likely not enough to effect demonstrably positive change. however, effective spatial skills testing instruments for such demographic groups must be reconsidered in approach and methodology before reaching any conclusions in this area, as discussed in the following sections. it was, however, surprising to see a decrease in the spatial reasoning skills between preand post-evaluations, particularly as stem interest went up as a whole in the study. it is possible that the participants were suffering from frustration with the spatial instrument used (see the next subsections critiquing the evaluation instruments chosen), test fatigue or more broad fatigue from hours of stem www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 60 published by scholink inc. work in a space beyond their more typical daily schedule, or, in the case of the scouts group, from a late activity after a school day and with the disruption of some classmates leaving early due to poor weather. stem program evaluation fatigue has been remarked upon generally in u.s. projects (malyn-smith et al., 2013). another more specific study on cognitive fatigue during administration of standardized tests showed that, in danish public schools as the school day progresses, test scores tended to lower each hour by 0.9 of a standard deviation (sievertsen et al., 2016). such results might help explain why there was a decrease in spatial skills demonstrated even during the short scout event, which was conducted in the evening, ending at 8:00 p.m., and with the younger girls (ages 9 and 10). it is important, therefore, to reflect on methodology at this point. there was a disparity, and difficulty in completion, of the survey instruments across the groups, with the workshops for the camp and scout groups having the most difficulty, as discussed in the next section. the importance of appropriate instruments for specific demographics spatial and inventory instruments the spatial skills inventory was the most challenging aspect of the day for all groups, with frustration and fatigue being evident during the exercise. the researcher found it necessary to talk through an example of the mental rotation exercise – not one included on the handout – to the participants, often with much confusion around it even with the demonstration. the researcher and assistant facilitators repeated directions for the evaluation for all groups, and provided noticeably more assistance for the camp group, followed by slightly less assistance for the scout group, followed by the least amount for the private school. it would be useful to compare this data with similarly aged groups across different demographics, including of other genders (male and non-binary). previous research has demonstrated that improvements could be made on mental rotation testing for female and male participants (aged 15-22) with attitude-based interventions (moè, 2009; moè & pazzaglia, 2010). in one study, for females, providing positive information on gender before testing (e.g., telling subjects women tend to outperform men) led to improved test results, whereas for males, discussion of task difficulty before testing led to improved results (moè, 2009). a second study (mean age 17.02) suggested that discussions of effort involved (“anyone can succeed in this task by putting in effort”) can improve performance in mental rotation tests (moè & pazzaglia, 2010, p. 464). the research suggested, then, that female improvement in spatial skills testing could be directed through targeted encouragement leading to increased self-efficacy. this technique could potentially be applied to future spatial instrument assessments to see if it expands results beyond mental rotation testing to help better capture the crucial data necessary for investigating spatial skills in young female-identifying populations, and particularly those that identify with other groups. the stem inventory instrument was less problematic. in each of the workshops, the visual boxing of the stem inventory questions by topic (science, technology etc.) led some of the younger participants www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 61 published by scholink inc. to believe they only needed to select one condition per topic. others were confused by the switching of the sides for the positive and negative terms. while this is done purposefully to discourage automatic fill-ins without consideration, it was slightly more challenging for the age group in this study. facilitators clarified directions, asking participants to complete the questions in each topical box. the camp and scout groups needed more assistance and reminders for the instruments overall. the private school participants tended to socialize their instruments—unprompted by the researcher—seemingly trying as a collective not to leave fellow learners behind. the overall finding supports the literature that argues for “culturally and contextually responsive” instruments in stem interventions, and particularly those that target underrepresented audiences in stem (malyn-smith et al., 2013, p. 2). understanding the needs of the specific demographic groups being evaluated, and being sensitive to the perspectives and experiences they may have, should be considered during instrument development, but also during instrument deployment where a real-time, flexible response could be practiced to guide the evaluation process (malyn-smith et al., 2013; national academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine, 2018; university of birmingham, 2020). as noted earlier, cognitive fatigue could have been a factor in post-evaluation performance. it is also possible that the instruments resembled “high-stakes testing” during formal education, which can be stressful to learners (malyn-smith et al., 2013, p. 2). instruments that are better situated for collecting such data angled for younger participants who might be underserved in informal stem engagements (allen & peterman, 2019). this result extends the literature of current assessment instruments helping to show that additional research is required to refine existing instruments or develop more learner-specific methodologies that could better capture spatial reasoning skill data or stem interest data for younger females (ages 9-12) and particularly for socio-economically disadvantaged group subsets within that demographic, who might otherwise experience frustration with existing instruments. in sum, the findings from this study highlight the importance of using or creating age appropriate, and level of learning appropriate ways to be able to evaluate progress. additional findings there was a significant positive correlation between perception of stem knowledge and total career score in stem inventory. this correlation suggests support for the literature regarding self-efficacy and interests in middle school populations (see, e.g., blotnicky et al., 2018; fouad & smith, 1996; simpkins et al., 2006). however, an alternative explanation for this result is that perhaps young females are drawn towards areas of perceived strength or self-efficacy. positive attitudes by learners towards vr technologies have been established for some time (see mikropoulos et al., 1998). mantovani (2001) noted the potential for learners’ visualization, making www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 62 published by scholink inc. concrete what might seem abstract through other methods of display or interactions, and important for learning that which cannot be easily experienced in the real world. additionally, vr has the potential to offer avenues of adaptation, collaboration, and evaluation (mantovani, 2001). vr can also provide critical interactivity in multimedia that may help improve learning function, guiding the user to explore and understand scientific phenomenon (mayer & betrancourt, 2005). 3d visualization, therefore, is understood to be an immersive environment that can help solve the “problem of looking at two-dimensional images and requiring participants to understand relationships three-dimensionally” (bengfort, 2020, para. 12). though there is also caution to apply that such models should support learners with direction and guidance, particularly for topics such as astrophysics or other similar scientific visualizations that may provide overly complex models (tversky, morrison, & betrancourt, 2002) and require large amounts of information to be processed by the user (lowe, 2003). in the case of the workshops presented in this study, traditional, or physical, and computer-based, or 3d, materials for data manipulation were combined so they could work “in concert” (paranandi, 2002, p. 333) to enrich the learning process and build up to the direct 3d modeling and vr application work, which capped off the final third of the workshops. the observed highly positive response to the 3d/vr segment, therefore, aligns with the literature that supports the use of vr as a communication and education tool (see e.g., chen, 2006; pantelidis, 2009), and simultaneously recognizes that much deeper research is required to identify and understand the models and techniques used. findings from this research suggest that these techniques need to be examined and adapted to facilitate assessment of evaluative methods specific to younger age groups. engagement and excitement levels notably increased during the 3d and vr parts of the workshops, and particularly the vr, as recorded in the field notes. if confirmed with more rigorous analysis, this could suggest that applications that provide immersive experiences for meaning making could lead to increased motivation and engagement levels (see pantelidis, 1995, pantelidis, 2009; winn, 1993). the most positively remarked upon part of the workshops involved the 3d and vr activities. the complexity of questions, energy levels and noise increased greatly from those with regard the other activities. though this result was observational, future programs that involve interactions with young females might want to include more 3d and xr related materials, aligning to current safety standards of a maximum of 15 minutes of vr with 10 minutes of rest afterwards (hicks, 2018). the results, therefore, provide some observational evidence that the 3d and vr applications were particularly motivating for the participants, supporting the existing literature on this topic, and extending it to the age groups in the study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 63 published by scholink inc. limitations the researcher acknowledges limitations related to choices made about the study design, including access to only a small portion of the total u.s. geographic area, and a moderate sized database of only 100 participants in a limited age range. additional limitations of the research include total exposure time, that is, the workshops being single-day events instead of multiple sessions across longer intervals of time and having one workshop of a shorter duration than the others. this research also should not be generalized to different underserved populations, such as those with specific physical disabilities, other underserved groups not included in the research population of this study, or males. conclusion this study showed that interventions that utilize real world data manipulations and 3d applications as part of hands-on activities can be particularly effective for female-identifying youths from underserved groups aged 9-12. further, interventions shorter than 6 hours in duration for female youths, or that are done in only one session, may not be enough to demonstrably effect spatial skills. additionally, instrument development that is specialized for these age groups and learning levels is encouraged. the female-identifying youths in this study participated in stem activities that provided authentic experiences manipulating actual observational data such as the nasa data used in the study, and they were engaged in such stem activities with women researchers. there is, however, an issue that needs additional investigation, between groups having privilege and those with less privilege. in comparison with socio-economically disadvantaged females, more privileged female youths might start off higher in interest levels, but then leave just as high, which is encouraging for potential stem identities and pathways for the ages of the participants in this research. the availability of the cutting-edge data sets in 3d used in this study that are able to be converted into 3d prints and vr/ar is expanding at a rapid rate. there have been significant improvements in quantity and platform reach even since the data for this study were collected. such scientific and technological advancements are leading to a larger, expanded pipeline of spatial data modeled into 3d that can potentially further enhance authentic science communication experiences for nonexperts in stem topics, particularly for underrepresented learners. these also could inform the development of the spatial reasoning skills that are important for stem. using 3d data is not a novelty, but rather a tool for communicating and learning, with great potential for expanding scientific knowledge with nonexperts and perhaps to help diversify the potential influx of future researchers. however, it is crucial to recognize that the data and the technology are only one small part of putting the stars within reach for underrepresented young females. people around them, community support, will likely be needed to help drive the most far-reaching, out-of-this-world impact. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 64 published by scholink inc. acknowledgement my deepest thanks to prof. lisa smith, without whom this research topic would never have happened, as well as to dr. keryn pratt for lending me her helpful perspective. i also thank sara price for her wonderful help on data digitization and formatting. i have no known conflict of interest to disclose. this paper was supported by the university of otago, new zealand. materials were developed with funding from nasa under contract nas8-03060 for the chandra x-ray center, with additional support from funding through nasa's universe of learning, based upon work 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(2009). on the development and measurement of spatial ability. international electronic journal of elementary education, 1(2), 83-96. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1052049 ___________________________________________________________________________________ item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ affiliation scout group 15 15 camp group 27 27 private school 58 58 pre-post group full group spatial/inventory 55 55 inventory/spatial 45 45 scout group spatial/inventory 7 46.7 inventory/spatial 8 53.3 camp group spatial/inventory 16 59.3 inventory/spatial 11 40.7 private school spatial/inventory 32 55.2 inventory/spatial 6 44.8 age full group 9 21 21 10 25 25 11 38 38 12 16 16 scout group 9 6 40 10 8 53.3 11 1 6.7 12 - - camp group 9 - - 10 4 14.8 11 9 33.3 12 14 51.9 private school 9 15 25.9 10 13 22.4 11 28 38 12 2 3.4 item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ grade full group 4 27 27 5 25 25 6 32 32 7 16 16 gender female 99 99 nonbinary 1 1 ethnicity full group caucasian 45 45 black/african 11 11 hispanic/latina 9 9 other 30 30 prefer nta 5 5 scout group caucasian 11 73.3 black/african - - hispanic/latina - - other 2 13.3 prefer nta 2 13.3 camp group caucasian - - black/african 8 29.6 hispanic/latina 8 29.6 other 10 37 prefer nta 1 3.7 private school caucasian 34 58.6 black/african 3 5.2 hispanic/latina 1 1.7 other 18 31 prefer nta 2 3.4 self-rating full group 1 2 2 2 - - 3 1 1 4 6 6 5 21 21 item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ 6 19 19 7 20 20 8 18 18 9 7 7 10 6 6 scout group 1 - - 2 - - 3 - - 4 2 13.3 5 3 20 6 1 6.7 7 2 13.3 8 2 13.3 9 3 20 10 2 13.3 camp group 1 - - 2 - - 3 1 3.7 4 1 3.7 5 8 29.6 6 7 25.9 7 7 25.9 8 3 11.1 9 - - 10 - - private school 1 2 3.4 2 - - 3 - - 4 3 5.2 5 10 17.2 6 11 19 7 11 19 8 13 22.4 9 4 6.9 10 4 6.9 item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ video hours full group 0 48 48 1 24 24 2 14 14 3 6 6 4 2 2 5 2 2 6 1 1 7 2 2 8 1 1 scout group 0 5 33.3 1 5 33.3 2 3 20 3 1 6.7 4 1 6.7 5 - - 6 - - 7 - - 8 - - camp group 0 6 22.2 1 10 37 2 5 18.5 3 1 3.7 4 1 3.7 5 1 3.7 6 1 3.7 7 1 3.7 8 1 3.7 private school 0 37 63.8 1 9 15.5 2 6 10.3 3 4 6.9 4 - - 5 1 1.7 item group n percent ___________________________________________________________________________________ 6 - - 7 1 1.7 8 - - table 2. means and standard deviations for age, self-rating, and video hours for full group, and by affiliation ___________________________________________________________________________________ item mean standard deviation ___________________________________________________________________________________ age full group 10.49 1 scout group 9.67 0.62 camp group 11.37 0.74 private school 10.29 0.9 self-rating full group 6.55 1.81 scout group 7.07 2.12 camp group 6 1.24 private school 6.67 1.91 video hours full group 1.16 1.68 scout group 1.2 1.21 camp group 1.96 2.19 private school 0.78 1.38 table 3. scores for the spatial skills and stem inventories for the full sample and by pre post conditions within affiliation ___________________________________________________________________________________ item group n mean sd ___________________________________________________________________________________ spatial total score full group 100 2.89 1.6 scout group 15 0.87 1.19 camp group 27 2.78 1.6 item group n mean sd ___________________________________________________________________________________ private school 58 3.47 1.23 inventory total score full group 100 121.08 35.5 scout group 15 114.4 32.92 camp group 27 104 33.88 private school 58 130.76 33.97 spatial pre full group 55 3.24 1.48 scout group 7 1.14 1.35 camp group 16 3.06 1.77 private school 32 3.78 0.79 spatial post full group 45 2.47 1.66 scout group 8 0.63 1.06 camp group 11 2.36 1.29 private school 26 3.08 1.55 inventory pre full group 45 116.24 43.28 scout group 8 105.63 40.88 camp group 11 89 42.04 private school 26 131.04 39.14 inventory post full group 55 125.04 27.36 scout group 7 124.43 18.94 camp group 16 114.31 23.08 private school 32 130.53 29.77 table 4. reliability statistics using cronbach’s alpha for stem inventory subscales and spatial skills ________________________________________________________________________________ subscale cronbach’s alpha published cronbach’s alpha ___________________________________________________________________________________ science .91 .84 math .91 .88 subscale cronbach’s alpha published cronbach’s alpha ___________________________________________________________________________________ engineering .90 .92 technology .91 .91 career .89 .93 spatial .70 - table 5. results of multivariate analysis of variance ___________________________________________________________________________________ effect value f hypostudy error sig. partial eta df df squared ________________________________________________________________________________ intercept pillai’s trace .363 26.26 2 92 <.001 .363 wilks’ lambda .637 26.26 2 92 <.001 .363 hotelling’s .571 26.26 2 92 <.001 .363 trace roy’s largest .571 26.26 2 92 <.001 .363 root self-rating pillai’s trace .110 5.69 2 92 .005 .110 wilks’ lambda .890 5.69 2 92 .005 .110 hotelling’s trace .124 5.69 2 92 .005 .110 roy’s largest root .124 5.69 2 92 .005 .110 affiliation pillai’s trace .428 12.66 4 186 <.001 .363 wilks’ lambda .596 13.58 4 184 <.001 .363 hotelling’s trace .637 14.50 4 182 <.001 .363 roy’s largest .566 26.32 2 93 <.001 .363 root effect value f hypostudy error df sig. partial eta df squared __________________________________________________________________________________ pre-post condition pillai’s trace .082 4.11 2 92 .019 .082 wilks’ lambda . 918 4.11 2 92 .019 .082 hotelling’s trace .089 4.11 2 92 .019 .082 roy’s largest root .089 4.11 2 92 .019 .082 affiliation*pre post pillai’s trace .030 .71 4 186 .586 .015 wilks’ lambda .970 .71 4 184 .586 .015 hotelling’s trace .031 .71 4 182 590 .015 roy’s largest .030 1.41 2 93 .015 root table 6. results of univariate analysis of variance between-subjects effects ___________________________________________________________________________________ type lll sum mean partial eta source dependent variable of squares df square f sig. squared ___________________________________________________________________________________ affiliation spatial total 78.14 2 39.36 22.96 <.001 0.331 inventory total 12464.33 2 6232.17 6.1 0.003 0.116 pre post spatial total 7.44 1 7.438 4.34 0.04 0.045 condition inventory total 3751.09 1 3751.09 3.67 0.058 0.038 affiliation * spatial total 0.14 2 0.067 0.04 0.961 0.001 pre post inventory total 2879.38 2 1439.69 1.41 0.25 0.029 condition error spatial total 159.39 93 1.71 inventory total 95069.43 93 1022.25 type lll sum mean partial eta source dependent variables df f sig. of squares square squared _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ total spatial total 1089 100 inventory total 1590788 100 corrected spatial total 253.79 99 total inventory total 124751.36 99 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 83 original paper the development of virtual media people and the impact on journalism and communications jiali gu 1* 1 soochow university, nanjing, jiangsu, china * jiali gu, soochow university, nanjing, jiangsu, china received: july 12, 2024 accepted: july 22, 2024 online published: august 5, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p83 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p83 abstract virtual media personalities, as products of the convergence of technology and media, have begun to make a significant impact in the field of journalism and communication. their development stems from the evolution of the concept of virtual characters, accompanied by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and virtual reality technologies. virtual media personalities not only enhance the efficiency of content production and transform audience interaction experiences but also play crucial roles in various applications such as news reporting, entertainment advertising, and educational training. however, the rise of virtual media personalities has brought about profound changes in industry structures and professional models, raising ethical and legal concerns regarding authenticity, credibility, and data privacy. in the future, with continuous technological advancements, virtual media personalities will persist in exerting a profound influence on the journalism industry, sparking broader social and cultural transformations. keywords virtual media, journalism and communications, impact 1. introduction the emergence of virtual media personalities is the result of a dual impetus from technological advancement and media demand. with the rapid development of artificial intelligence and virtual reality technologies, traditional media is increasingly exploring and leveraging these burgeoning innovations to address the challenges posed by accelerated information dissemination and diversified audience needs. virtual media personalities have evolved from rudimentary animated characters to highly interactive and personalized virtual personas, heralding the dawn of a new media era. this evolution not only reflects technological innovation but also signifies a profound transformation in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 84 published by scholink inc. modern news dissemination models. the application of virtual media personalities in journalism serves both as a supplement to traditional media forms and as a transformative force. in news reporting, virtual journalists can deliver real-time updates around the clock, unrestricted by time or space. in entertainment and advertising, the advent of virtual idols and spokespersons not only disrupts the monopoly of real-life celebrities but also introduces novel creativity and possibilities into brand marketing. in the realm of education and training, virtual media personalities offer a new learning experience by simulating real-world scenarios for professional training in news editing and other fields. however, the widespread use of virtual media personalities also sparks numerous controversies and challenges. from ethical issues in content production to audience acceptance of virtual figures, and extending to legal concerns over privacy and copyright protection, the development of virtual media personalities undoubtedly presents new demands and tests for the existing news dissemination system. in the future, with further technological advancements and refinements, virtual media personalities are poised to play an increasingly significant role in journalism, with their impact becoming more profound and complex (davis, 2009). 2. the evolution of the virtual media person 2.1 evolution of the concept of virtual media people the concept of virtual media personalities originated from virtual characters and idols, with early virtual images primarily used in entertainment and gaming. these virtual characters engaged audiences through animation and basic interactions within the virtual realm. with advancements in technology, particularly in artificial intelligence and virtual reality, virtual characters have gradually evolved into more sophisticated and intelligent virtual media figures. virtual media personalities are not merely digital images with appearances and voices; they embody real-time interaction, a degree of autonomy, and personalized traits. the evolution of virtual media figures reflects the profound impact of technology on the media industry. while traditional media relies on human broadcasters for news delivery and information dissemination, the advent of virtual media personalities has broken this limitation. through deep learning and natural language processing technologies, virtual media figures can perform news gathering and broadcasting, providing continuous 24-hour news service. this transformation has not only enhanced the efficiency of news production but also offered audiences a novel interactive experience. throughout this process, the image and functions of virtual media figures have continuously expanded, evolving from simple virtual anchors to emotionally intelligent and personalized virtual reporters and commentators. the evolution of virtual media personalities is not only a triumph of technology but also a significant marker of the media industry’s adaptation to the demands of the new era and its exploration of future developments. through ongoing innovation and breakthroughs, virtual media figures are reshaping the way information is consumed, establishing a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 85 published by scholink inc. new paradigm for news dissemination. 2.2 technical support the rise of virtual media figures is fundamentally supported by advanced technologies, with artificial intelligence and virtual reality playing particularly crucial roles. artificial intelligence endows virtual media figures with cognitive and learning abilities through natural language processing, enabling them to comprehend and generate fluent human language. this breakthrough allows virtual media figures to excel in news gathering and interaction, performing almost as if they were real individuals. virtual reality technology provides virtual media figures with realistic three-dimensional appearances and immersive interactive experiences, enhancing their sense of authenticity and approachability in the eyes of the audience. the application of deep learning and big data analytics enables virtual media figures to process and analyze vast amounts of information in real time, thereby rapidly generating high-quality news content. this not only boosts the efficiency of news production but also ensures the accuracy and diversity of news content. furthermore, advances in image and voice recognition technology allow virtual media figures to replicate human expressions and voices, conveying information in a more vivid manner and enriching the viewing experience. the introduction of blockchain technology safeguards the copyright and data privacy of virtual media figures. in an era of information overload, ensuring the authenticity of content and the reliability of sources is paramount. blockchain technology, through its decentralized approach, records and verifies the origin of each piece of information, preventing the spread of misinformation (pavlik, 2015). the technological support for virtual media figures is reflected not only in advancements in hardware and algorithms but also in the integration of technology and creativity. this fusion drives innovation and transformation in the media industry, making virtual media figures an indispensable part of news dissemination and heralding limitless possibilities for the future of the media industry. 3. application scenarios of virtual media man 3.1 news reporting in the realm of news reporting, virtual media personalities exhibit distinct advantages and potential. their characteristic of continuous, round-the-clock operation significantly enhances the timeliness and continuity of news. virtual media personalities can provide real-time updates and convey the latest developments immediately, catering to the audience’s demand for instantaneous information. supported by artificial intelligence technology, virtual media personalities possess efficient information processing capabilities, enabling rapid filtering, integration, and broadcasting of news content, thereby greatly improving news production efficiency. the application of virtual media personalities in news reporting signifies not merely a formal innovation but a profound transformation in the production and dissemination of news content. they can tailor news content to the interests and needs of the audience, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 86 published by scholink inc. increasing the relevance and appeal of the news. this personalized service not only enhances the audience’s experience but also amplifies the influence and reach of news dissemination. the image and linguistic expression of virtual media personalities continue to evolve, transitioning from initially mechanical broadcasting to today’s vibrant interaction, thereby becoming increasingly lifelike. this advancement makes news reporting more engaging and attracts greater attention from younger audiences. simultaneously, the use of virtual media personalities has significantly reduced the costs of news production, enabling more small and medium-sized media outlets to produce high-quality content and promoting diversification within the media industry. however, the rise of virtual media personalities also presents new challenges to news authenticity and ethical standards. moving forward, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of information conveyed by virtual media personalities and balancing technology with ethics will be ongoing challenges for the news industry. 3.2 entertainment and advertising in the realms of entertainment and advertising, virtual media personas are emerging as an undeniable new force. their adaptable imagery and highly customizable nature enable them to shine brilliantly in entertainment shows, concerts, and film productions. the rise of virtual idols has introduced a novel entertainment experience, where these virtual entities can deliver lifelike performances in virtual concerts, engage with fans, and even host online and offline events, blurring the boundaries between reality and the virtual world and capturing the attention of a vast young audience. similarly, the advertising industry has reaped substantial benefits from the application of virtual media personas. these digital figures can precisely target specific audiences, tailor advertising content to individual preferences, and enhance the accuracy and effectiveness of ad campaigns. their appearance and style can be flexibly adjusted according to brand needs, creating highly appealing and distinctive advertising images. virtual media personas can also interact in real-time with audiences through social media platforms, strengthening the connection and engagement between brands and consumers. the use of virtual media personas has not only elevated the creative standards of entertainment and advertising but also generated significant economic benefits. these virtual entities, unfettered by the need for rest, can promote and advertise around the clock, greatly extending the exposure time of advertisements. moreover, their efficient content production capabilities and low maintenance costs enable more brands to afford high-quality ad production, thus propelling the growth and widespread adoption of advertising. however, the extensive application of virtual media personas in entertainment and advertising has sparked discussions about authenticity and deceptive practices. in the future, balancing the innovative advantages of virtual media personas with transparency and credibility will be a crucial challenge for the industry, determining whether these virtual entities can continue to harness their potential and make a lasting impact in the entertainment and advertising sectors (deuze, 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 87 published by scholink inc. 3.3 education and training the application of virtual media personas in education and training is revolutionizing traditional teaching methods, offering unprecedented learning experiences. through virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, virtual media personas can create immersive learning environments that allow students to engage deeply in the educational process. whether recreating historical scenes or simulating scientific experiments, virtual media personas vividly materialize abstract knowledge, stimulating students’ interest and creativity. in terms of personalized learning, virtual media personas exhibit unique advantages. utilizing artificial intelligence, virtual teachers can tailor individualized instructional plans based on each student’s learning pace and interests, providing precise guidance. this personalized teaching approach not only enhances learning efficiency but also effectively addresses the challenges of differentiated instruction in traditional settings. in corporate training, the use of virtual media personas also stands out. by simulating real-world work scenarios, virtual trainers can offer practical exercises and emergency response training, enhancing employees’ operational skills and adaptability. virtual training also reduces costs and increases flexibility, enabling companies to swiftly adapt to market changes. although the prospects for virtual media personas in education and training are vast, they also face a range of challenges. ensuring the scientific accuracy and correctness of virtual teaching content, as well as maintaining humanistic care and emotional interaction in virtual environments, are issues that the educational and technological sectors need to address collaboratively. the development of virtual media personas not only brings new opportunities to education and training but also presents new challenges to traditional educational models. 4. impact of virtual media people on the news and communication industry 4.1 content production and distribution the advent of virtual media personalities has instigated a revolutionary shift in the production and dissemination of news content. firstly, virtual media personas harness artificial intelligence and big data technologies to swiftly sift through and analyze vast amounts of information, thereby delivering high-quality news content within the shortest possible timeframe. this remarkable efficiency not only enhances the timeliness of news but also ensures its accuracy and richness. in terms of dissemination, virtual media personalities possess the advantage of cross-platform and multi-channel broadcasting. capable of delivering news updates around the clock without rest, they make news dissemination more continuous and extensive. furthermore, these virtual entities can tailor personalized news delivery based on diverse audience preferences and needs, significantly enhancing the impact and user engagement of news distribution. through various channels such as social media and news apps, virtual media personas can rapidly convey news to a global audience, thus broadening the reach and influence of news. the application of virtual media personalities in content production and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 88 published by scholink inc. dissemination has also brought about a transformation in the media industry. their efficient and precise methods reduce reliance on human resources and lower production costs, enabling smaller media outlets to generate high-quality news content. simultaneously, the innovation and flexibility of virtual media personalities have fostered the development of diverse news formats, such as interactive and data-driven journalism, enriching the means and expressions of news reporting (raycheva, velinova, miteva et al., 2021). however, the utilization of virtual media personalities also raises new concerns, such as ensuring news authenticity and avoiding algorithmic biases. balancing the advantages of virtual media personalities while maintaining fairness and transparency in news reporting will be a crucial issue for the future of the news industry. 4.2 audience experience virtual media personas are profoundly transforming the audience’s news experience. their intelligent and personalized characteristics have shifted news dissemination from a one-way transmission of information to a highly interactive exchange process. virtual media personas can deliver tailor-made news content based on the audience’s interests, reading habits, and geographical locations, allowing each individual to enjoy personalized news services. this precise targeting not only enhances the relevance of news but also amplifies the audience’s sense of engagement and satisfaction. moreover, the application of virtual media personas has diversified and enlivened the form of news dissemination. through virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, audiences can immerse themselves in the scenes of news events, gaining an immersive experience. this novel method of presenting news makes the content more vivid and intuitive, while also evoking emotional resonance and increasing the impact and effectiveness of the news. virtual media personas also possess robust interactive features, enabling audiences to engage with virtual hosts through various means such as voice and text, pose questions, and express opinions, thereby enhancing the interactivity and appeal of news dissemination. this bidirectional interaction not only makes audiences feel valued but also fosters the diversification and richness of news content. however, while virtual media personas improve the audience experience, they also present challenges concerning privacy and data security. ensuring the protection of privacy and data security while providing personalized services will be a crucial issue for the future of news dissemination. through technological innovation and the refinement of regulatory frameworks, virtual media personas are expected to further enhance the quality and efficacy of news dissemination while safeguarding audience rights. 4.3 industry structure and careers the rise of virtual media professionals is reshaping the structure and career landscape of the news industry. traditional media institutions are gradually transitioning to digital and intelligent formats, with virtual media professionals emerging as a new force, replacing some human positions. professions such as news gathering and broadcasting are being impacted, and many practitioners face the pressure www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 89 published by scholink inc. of career transformation. this shift is prompting the news industry to place greater emphasis on technological innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration, leading to an increased demand for multifaceted talents. driven by virtual media professionals, the division of labor and collaboration methods within the media industry have undergone significant changes. traditional news production processes are progressively being replaced by intelligent systems, with automation significantly enhancing each stage from news collection and editing to publication. virtual media professionals, capable of working around the clock, have substantially improved the efficiency and quality of news production. this transformation not only alters the content and methods of news work but also enables media institutions to respond more flexibly to market changes and audience demands. the application of virtual media professionals has also led to the emergence of new professions, such as virtual anchor development, artificial intelligence news editing, and data analysis. these new roles require practitioners to possess dual skills in technology and journalism, thus enhancing the professional competence and competitiveness of news workers. concurrently, media institutions are increasing their efforts to attract and cultivate technological talent, advancing the overall level of the industry. despite the numerous changes brought about by virtual media professionals, discussions on professional ethics and social responsibility have arisen. the professional judgment and humanistic care of journalists are aspects that virtual media professionals cannot fully replace. maintaining the fairness and authority of news while relying on technology remains a crucial challenge for the industry. in the future, collaboration between virtual media professionals and human reporters will become mainstream, with each complementing the other’s strengths to enhance the quality and impact of news dissemination. in this context, media practitioners need to continuously learn and adapt to new technologies, improving their digital literacy and interdisciplinary skills. simultaneously, media institutions must explore new business models and operational strategies to accommodate the industry changes brought by virtual media professionals. this represents not only a challenge for news practitioners but also an opportunity for the entire media industry’s transformation and upgrade (raycheva, miteva, velinova et al., 2021). 4.4 ethical and legal issues the widespread application of virtual media figures, while bringing numerous conveniences and innovations, has also given rise to profound ethical and legal issues. firstly, the content production of virtual media figures relies on vast amounts of data and algorithmic models. this mode of news generation lacks the professional judgment and ethical considerations of human journalists, potentially leading to biased and distorted news content. issues such as algorithmic bias and data manipulation directly threaten the fairness and objectivity of news. as the news media serves as a public utility, maintaining its credibility amidst the process of intelligent transformation is a pressing ethical challenge. privacy protection is another prominent legal issue. virtual media figures provide personalized news services through big data analysis and user profiling, which makes user privacy and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 90 published by scholink inc. data security highly vulnerable. especially in the absence of transparency and inadequate regulation, personal information may be misused or leaked, resulting in serious privacy risks. thus, safeguarding user privacy while enjoying intelligent services requires a dual approach of legislative and technological measures to establish a comprehensive privacy protection mechanism. the issue of intellectual property rights concerning virtual media figures is also noteworthy. the copyright ownership of news content generated by virtual media figures remains unclear. this ambiguity is likely to trigger copyright disputes, particularly when virtual media figures imitate human journalists’ styles or reference other works, making infringement definitions complex. the legal framework urgently needs updating to address the new challenges posed by virtual media figures, clarifying copyright ownership and usage regulations to ensure effective protection of intellectual property in the new media environment. moreover, the application of virtual media figures could lead to a wave of unemployment, as traditional news professionals face the risk of job displacement. this issue is not only economic but also social and ethical. society needs to provide reemployment opportunities and vocational training for those displaced by technological advancements to ensure social fairness and stability. the continuous advancement of virtual media technology necessitates simultaneous progress in ethical and legal systems. only under a robust legal and strict ethical framework can virtual media figures continuously infuse the news dissemination industry with new vitality while upholding the integrity and fairness of the field. the balance between technological development and ethical and legal considerations will determine the future role and impact of virtual media figures in news dissemination. 5. conclusion the evolution of virtual media personalities is not only a product of technological advancement but also a catalyst for transformation within the journalism and communication industry. through relentless technological innovation, virtual media personalities have made a profound impact on content creation, audience engagement, and industry structure, showcasing their immense potential and promising applications. however, the accompanying ethical and legal issues cannot be overlooked. moving forward, balancing technological innovation with societal norms will be crucial for the continued development of virtual media personalities. as virtual media personalities advance, technological progress will undoubtedly unveil further possibilities. they play a pivotal role not only in enhancing news production efficiency and enriching audience experiences but also in reshaping industry structures and professional models. at the same time, challenges such as data privacy and content authenticity must be addressed through appropriate policies and regulations to ensure their healthy development. in the future, virtual media personalities will continue to explore and innovate within the journalism sector, infusing the industry with renewed vitality and drive. as technology evolves and society continues to change, virtual media personalities are set to become an indispensable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 91 published by scholink inc. component of the journalism industry, steering it towards a more intelligent and diverse future. references davis, a. (2009). politics, journalism and new media: virtual iron cages in the new culture. new media, old news: journalism and democracy in the digital age, 121-136. deuze, m. (2020). the role of media and mass communication theory in the global pandemic. communication today, 11(2), 4-16. pavlik, j. v. (2015). transformation: examining the implications of emerging technology for journalism, media and society. athens journal of mass media and communications, 1(1), 9-24. raycheva, l., miteva, n., velinova. n. et al. (2021). covid-19 impact of virtual communication during social isolation on bulgarian society. international conference on human-computer interaction (pp. 451-464). cham: springer international publishing. raycheva, l., velinova, n., miteva, n. et al. (2021). impacts of virtual communication during social isolation of covid’19. human systems engineering and design iii: proceedings of the 3rd international conference on human systems engineering and design (ihsed2020): future trends and applications, september 22-24, 2020 (pp. 63-68). juraj dobrila university of pula, croatia 3. springer international publishing. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 review paper the agenda setting process and its potential attitudinal effects gennadiy chernov1* 1 school of journalism, university of regina, regina, canada * gennadiy chernov, school of journalism, university of regina, regina, canada received: october 5, 2021 accepted: october 21, 2021 online published: october 31, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n4p1 abstract agenda setting is a well-documented process in the media effects tradition. it has a strong impact on what issues are perceived as important by the audience. however, there are indications that agenda setting may have an indirect effect on the attitudes. the current study tested the elaboration likelihood model (the elm) as a possible mechanism of attitude change that may be present in the agenda setting process. the experimental results did not confirm the overall impact of the elm on attitudes, but it demonstrated separate attitudinal effects of ability operationalized as knowledge. further, it was also argued that the agenda setting process may have an indirect effect on attitudes through the peripheral route of the elm. keywords agenda setting, the elaboration likelihood model (the elm), attitudinal effects 1. introduction agenda setting has been one of the dominant theories in media effects realm for over 50 years. the main tenet of this approach is that the media transfers the salience of issues they cover to how important the public perceive these issues (mccombs & shaw, 1972). scholars have been exploring different aspects of agenda setting including the psychological processes involved in it. the motivational determinant of agenda setting is the need for orientation (the nfo) (weaver, 1977; weaver, 1980). the nfo consists of two subdomains, relevance and uncertainty. the combination of different degrees of these two subdomains leads to different degrees of agenda setting effects (chernov, valenzuela, & mccombs, 2011). another consequential concept for agenda setting is priming. priming may be an effect and a process. priming is sometimes understood as an impact of agenda setting on evaluations (kim, han, choy, & kim, 2012). it may encompass activating the concepts related to a primed concept leading to scanning the broader context for these concepts. priming creates a new information field for subsequent evaluation (chernov, 2018). priming comes near to evaluation process www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. by creating context for it. however, evaluations belong to the next stage of information processing-attitude formation and change. the link between agenda setting and attitudes was explored, but these studies were peripheral to the psychological exploration of the nfo and priming. for example, kiousis and mccombs (2004) found significant agenda-setting effects and a significant correlation between issue salience and attitude strength. weaver (1991) tested salience of the federal budget deficit issue in terms of its perceived importance for the survey participants and in terms of attitude strength and attitude directionality. although this test yielded significant results, the relationship between attitudes’ directionality and issue salience was much weaker than for attitude strength and perceived importance. weaver underscored “the need for a detailed look at how an issue is covered by the media for making any predictions about direction of opinion. simply looking at what is covered will not enable one to predict much of the direction of public opinion” (p. 61). that makes intuitive sense as agenda setting affects the importance of issues for the public, not the evaluation directionality of these issues. attitude change is understood as a consequence of persuasive efforts. the intent to persuade lies beyond the scope of what agenda setting theory studies. however, agenda setting relates to attitude formation and change in that it may contribute to the latter in an indirect way. what is going on in the communicative process of agenda setting has some similarity with what is going on in the persuasion process described by the elaboration likelihood model (elm). the elm belongs to a family of dual-process theories in attitudes and social cognition. petty and cacioppo (1981) postulated that attitude change depends on two ways (called central and peripheral routes) that people process information. when individuals process a persuasive message, they may elaborate the central arguments of it provided they are highly involved in the issue under consideration, and they are able to evaluate the message’s merits (the central route of information processing). however, individuals may not thoroughly elaborate the message if they are not sufficiently involved and/or do not have enough ability to evaluate the message’s main argument (the peripheral route of information processing). in the latter case, the individuals may pay more attention to the source of the message, their feelings when they attend to the message, and to secondary elements of the message. petty and wegener (1999) confirmed that they do not identify the central route of processing with only the message variables, and peripheral routes with only context and the source variables. they contend that the characteristics of the messages can be processed when the peripheral route is used as well. this removed one of the obstacles on the way to using the elm for explaining agenda-setting effects. to summarize, the elm offers a mechanism of two ways to process information; it pays a serious attention to the role of the message factor in attitude change, and it embraces both motivation and ability of the audience to process the information. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. petty, priester and brinol (2002) point at the link between the agenda setting approach and the elm. they maintain that “…by setting the agenda of what is important to evaluate, the media can have important “indirect” effects on attitude change” (p. 167). the nfo has subdomains that relate to the eml in a way that relevance may have some correspondence with involvement, and uncertainty may correspond with ability. the nfo is linked to priming as it does not include its process similar to elaboration. the outcome variable for agenda setting is issue importance, and for the elm it is attitudinal consequence. the approaches also differ in intentmostly to inform versus mostly to persuade. however, there could be a link between the two with agenda setting playing a role of peripheral route for information processing. the unpublished research on the role of the elm in connection with agenda setting was a part of a larger study of agenda setting (chernov, 2010). it will be reported in order to shed the light on the potential link of these two approaches, especially on the possibility the agenda setting attributes to serve as a peripheral route of the elm. the study dealt with how different attributes and experience with the issues used in the study impact the agenda setting effects. at some stage the elm was added in order to see if there is any link between these two approaches. 2. method a pre-test/post-test design was employed for the main experiment. two hundred sixty students were recruited through an invitation to the faculty of arts students from large undergraduate classes at the university of regina. the treatment materials consisted of four news stories introduced as recent publications in the print media. independent variables included agenda setting measures such as personal experience with the issues and different types of message attributes as well as the elm variables. involvement was operationalized as an index of two types of measures of the construct: cognitive and affective. media use, or the amount the individuals are exposed to media news, is one indication of involvement, while interest, an affective element, is also closely related to the amount of media use (roser, 1990; salmon, 1986). previous knowledge is an indicator of the level of ability to comprehend the message content as it was postulated in the elm (petty & cacioppo, 1986), and it is operationalized according to the previous measures used in agenda-setting studies (lee, 2005; kiousis, 2004). elaboration deals with “issue-relevant” thinking in the evaluation of messages (petty & cacioppo, 1986). this study adopted a four-item elaboration scale (perse, 1990) to make multiple measures of the concept. dependent variables were measures of issue of importance for agenda setting, and issue evaluation both taken before and after the experiment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. media involvement, knowledge and elaboration were entered into the ancova model as a set of the elm variables to test hypotheses that the more a news article makes the reader think and reflect on an issue, the stronger the attitudinal effects are, and that the attitudinal effects will be stronger for individuals who are less knowledgeable about an issue and have less media involvement. h1: the more knowledge one has about an issue, the less effect any single communication will have on attitude favorability toward an issue. to test this hypothesis, the subjects were divided into three groups (high vs medium vs. low level of knowledge) using a median split as a medium level measure and the ones lower and higher than the median as high and low levels based on corresponding measures derived from the answers on questionnaire items related to knowledge. h2: the higher the level of media involvement one has, the weaker the marginal effect of additional media exposure on attitude change. to test this hypothesis, the participants were asked about the patterns of their media use, how much attention they pay to the news in the media, and how interested they were about the news in the media. the subjects were divided into two groups (high vs. low media involvement) using a median split based on corresponding measures derived from the answers on questionnaire items related to media involvement. h3: the more a news article makes the reader think and reflect on an issue, the stronger attitudinal effects and higher the perceived importance of the issue. to test this hypothesis, the subjects were divided into two groups (high vs. low level of elaboration) using a median split based on corresponding measures derived from the answers on questionnaire items related to elaboration. an analysis of covariance (ancova) was conducted. two of the independent variables, media involvement, elaboration, had two levels: high and low. another independent variable, knowledge, had three levels: high, medium and low. 3. result the dependent variables contained the scores on how favorable people think about different aspects of issue depictions. no significant effect of the elm variables was found on attitude favourability change over the course of the experimental manipulations. for media involvement, ancova was not significant, f(1,230)=.085, mse=.173, p=.77. for elaboration, ancova was not significant, f(1,230)=.57, mse=1.16, p=.45. for knowledge, the ancova was not significant, f(1,230)=.19, mse=.39, p=.66. however, knowledge and elaboration affected the overall level of attitude. as shown in table 1, the f-values for elaboration and knowledge are significant. for media involvement it is not significant. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. table 1. the impact of elaboration likelihood model’s variables-media involvement, knowledge and elaboration-on attitudinal effects ms f-value eta media involvement 24.77 .91 .004 knowledge 223.43 8.19 .034* elaboration 477.91 17.51 .071* *significance level at p<.01 these results indicate that two individual covariates have effects, but because there is a .455 correlation between knowledge and elaboration, a theoretical reason why knowledge would be more fundamental than elaboration to attribute to all of the variance it can explain will be discussed elsewhere. when a separate effect of different levels of knowledge on attitude favourability toward an issue was tested, the hypothesis that the more knowledge one has about an issue, the less effect any single communication will have on attitude favourability toward an issue was confirmed. the analysis showed that there is a significant difference between participants who had different prior knowledge about an issue in how favorably they feel toward an issue after reading the stories (f(2,234)=7.83, p<.001). a post hoc bonferroni test demonstrated that those who know less about an issue feel more favorable about the story describing this issue than those who know more prior to reading a story about this issue (mean difference=2.26, p<.001). 4. discussion the impact of involvement, knowledge and elaboration on attitude change. the study hypothesized that the elm variables, media involvement, knowledge and elaboration, could have a significant effect on attitude favourability with which participants evaluated the issues after reading the stories about them. petty and cacioppo (1981), petty and wegener (1999) documented findings that when individuals attend to persuasive messages and their levels of involvement, processing ability and elaboration are high, and their attitudes change significantly. agenda-setting effects deal with media messages that are not necessarily persuasive, but they might lead to attitude change as an indirect effect of exposure to the media. each of the factors used in the elm have also been investigated in media effects research, but not as a set of variables that the model explicates as its operational indicators. attention, interest, issue and media involvement, depth of processing and media exposure were used as concepts accountable for different media effects. the results were mixed, and they lacked a common theoretical framework that could explain varying and not always consistent findings. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. the analysis conducted in this study showed that the elm variables do not affect how the participants’ attitudes change over the course of the experiment either directly or in conjunction with the experimental manipulations. two possibilities are considered in the following analysis: first, certain variables could act as suppressors. higher level of involvement might lead to increased attitude favourability about issues with which participants have more personal experience, but greater knowledge about such issues might lead to decreased favourability. second, agenda setting is considered to be a process that leads to media effects over time. the study testing agenda setting and attitudinal effects took only one day, and the role of the elm variables could be stronger if the study could be extended over time. as the hypotheses about the role of the elm variables suggest, the effects of media involvement and elaboration, on the one hand, and knowledge on the other hand, predict effects in different directions, which might affect an overall impact in the ancova analysis. to test this possibility, a mixed repeated measures the anova analysis was conducted that confirmed the hypothesis that the more knowledge one has about an issue, the less of an effect any single communication will have on attitude favourability toward an issue. prior knowledge might have a moderating effect on attitude favourability because higher level of knowledge is associated with a firm position an individual may hold on the issue, which in its turn indicates relative strength of an attitude about the issue. as pomerantz, chaiken, and tordesillas (1995) stated, “…investigators have identified the amount of knowledge an individual has about an issue as a form of strength and shown that possession of ample knowledge is associated with greater resistance to social influence attempts” (p. 408). overall, the participants demonstrated a positive shift in their attitudes, but those who knew more than the others had the smallest attitude change, while those who knew less had the largest increase in attitude favourability. the set of the elm variables did not affect how the participants’ attitudes changed over the course of the experiment may lie in the fact that the elm deals mostly with overtly persuasive messages that directly promote a particular position and supporting arguments in the messages that individuals attend to. agenda setting studies the impact of media messages that are not intended to have a persuasive effect. attitudinal effects are considered by agenda setting as indirect, and the media messages are thought to have effects on the audience over a certain period of time as a result of accumulated coverage of certain issues. one of the most important findings of the study was that knowledge and elaboration affect overall attitude favourability. the variables are correlated. knowledge would be more fundamental than elaboration for a theoretical explication of the results. petty and cacioppo (1981) contended that processing ability, which was operationalized as knowledge, is one of the antecedents alongside involvement that determine how high the level of elaboration will be. lee (2005) specifically explored the impact of two factors, how certain people are about an issue, and how much they know about an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. issue, on effort put into processing media messages. effort as defined by the author is similar to elaboration, according to the elm. effort made a significant contribution on agenda-setting effects, but knowledge was one of the factors influencing it. because knowledge and elaboration are related to the pretest scores as well as the posttest scores, when the pretest scores are entered into the regressions as covariates in an ancova design, the effects of these elm variables will be attenuated. these findings are important because they demonstrate not only that the agenda-setting process is accompanied by attitude change, but also that the elm may complement priming as a mechanism facilitating this change. less knowledgeable participants had both higher perceived issue importance and attitude favourability of issue after reading stories about them. the study illuminated the role of the elm in agenda-setting, but the results can also be interpreted as a reciprocal agenda-setting contribution to the elm itself. central routes of information processing characterized by higher involvement and knowledge lead to stronger attitude change than peripheral routes characterized by lower involvement and knowledge, according to the elm theorists. agenda-setting effects, however, are considered to be indirect and especially strong with subjects who are less knowledgeable and not strongly involved with issues covered by the media in the first place. low processing ability does not necessarily lead to rather weak attitudinal effects. in the case of media effects, attitude formation and change can also be strong as they are related to societal beliefs in media credibility and professionalism. the elm theorists rightly point at a relative instability of attitudes based on low involvement and processing ability; however, the repetitive character of many media messages about recurrent issues may facilitate both an attitude change and a stability for it. agenda setting studies show that the media may repetitively cover some issues by often using the same attributes inside these issues’ coverage with such repetitions potentially becoming a peripheral route of the elm inducing attitude change as an indirect effect. it is worth to further explore this link in the future considering the importance of the agenda setting in media effects, and the elm in persuasion. references chernov, g. (2010). a simultaneous testing of the role of media message attributes and personal experience in agenda-setting and attitudinal effects. canadian journal of media studies, 6(1), 72-94. chernov, g. (2018). priming as a process and as a function in agenda setting. studies in media and communication, 6(1), 32-40. https://doi.org/10.11114/smc.v6i1.3205 chernov, g, valenzuela, s., & mccombs, m. (2011). an experimental comparison of two perspectives on the concept of need for orientation in agenda-setting theory. journalism and mass www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 8 published by scholink inc. communication quarterly, 88(1), 142-155. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769901108800108 kim, s. h., han, m., choi, d. h., & kim, j. (2012). attribute agenda setting, priming and the media’s influence on how to think about a controversial issue. international communication gazette, 74(1), 43-59. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048511426991 kiousis, s., & mccombs, m. (2004). agenda-setting effects and attitude strength: political figures during the 1996 presidential election. communication research, 31(1), 36-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650203260205 lee, g. (2005). priming as an aspect of agenda setting effects in the digital age. paper presented at the international communication association, 2005 annual meeting, new york, ny, 1-31. mccombs, m. e., & shaw, d. l. (1972). the agenda-setting function of mass media. public opinion quarterly, 36(2), 176-187. https://doi.org/10.1086/267990 petty, r., & cacioppo, j. (1981). attitudes and persuasion: classic and contemporary approaches. dubuque: w. c. brown company publishers. petty, r., priester, j., & brinol, p. (2002). mass media and attitude change: implications of the elaboration likelihood model in persuasion. in j. bryant, & d. zillmann (eds.), media effects: advances in theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 155-198). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. petty, r. e., & wegener, d. t. (1999). the elaboration likelihood model: current status and controversies in dual-process theories in social psychology (pp. 37-72). new york, ny: guilford press [google scholar]. pomerantz, e. m., chaiken, s., & tordesillas, r. s. (1995). attitude strength and resistance processes. journal of personality and social psychology, 69(3), 408. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.3.408 roser, c. (1990). involvement, attention, and perceptions of message relevance in the response to persuasive appeals. communication research, 17(5), 571-600. salmon, c. t., & dervin, b. (1986). perspectives on involvement in consumer and communication research. progress in communication sciences, 7, 243-268. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365090017005001 shaw, d. l. (1977). the emergence of american political issues. agenda setting function of the press (pp. 107-120). st. paul, mn: west publishing. weaver, d. (1977). political issues and voters’ need for orientation. weaver, d. (1980). audience need for orientation and media effects. communication research, 7(3), 361-376. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365028000700305 weaver, d. (1991). issue salience and public opinion: are there consequences of agenda-setting? international journal of public opinion research, 3(1), 53-68. http://0-web.ebscohost.com.janus.uoregon.edu/ehost/viewarticle?data=dgjymppp44rp2%2fdv0%2bnjisfk5ie46bzmt6i1t7ok63nn5kx77eprwlklr0ewpq5qnq64tbawsumexss%2b8ujfhvhx4yzn5eyb4rorsbsnr1cwr7rltzzqeezdu33snoj6u%2bvkgktq33%2b7t8w%2b3%2bs7sbass020prm%2b5oxwhd%2fqu37z4uqm4%2b7y&hid=13 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 9 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/3.1.53 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 94 original paper exploring visual social media accessibility for china‘s visually impaired: a grounded theory study of tiktok usage lu cao 1* 1 university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai, china * lu cao, university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai, china received: may 3, 2025 accepted: may 30, 2025 online published: june 26, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n1p94 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n1p94 abstract this study aims to explore the real-life experiences, challenges, and needs of visually impaired individuals when using visual social media platforms, with tiktok as a case study. the research investigates the accessibility barriers faced by this group and proposes optimization strategies for inclusive design. adopting a grounded theory methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight visually impaired participants. the interview transcripts were analyzed through a three-stage coding process, with the core category identified as “accessibility challenges in visual social media usage”. the findings reveal four major obstacles encountered by visually impaired users: (1) technical adaptation barriers, (2) contradictions in the information ecosystem, (3) deprivation of digital rights, and (4) delayed response mechanisms. to enhance digital inclusion, this study recommends that platform developers adhere to universal accessibility design principles, while policymakers and society at large should prioritize the digital rights of visually impaired individuals, strengthen policy enforcement, and improve regulatory oversight. these measures can help bridge the digital divide and foster a more inclusive digital society. keywords visually impaired, social media accessibility, grounded theory, digital inclusion, universal design 1. introduction in the mobile internet era, digital exclusion of visually impaired populations. the advent of mobile internet has deeply embedded mobile media into the fabric of society. short-video platforms like tiktok, with their rich audiovisual content, fragmented communication patterns, and integration of local lifestyle services and information, have attracted massive user bases. within this context, visually impaired individuals face exacerbated challenges in navigating the digital society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 95 published by scholink inc. visual impairment—encompassing both congenital and acquired conditions, including low vision and total blindness—fundamentally limits one‘s ability to perceive the world visually. in an increasingly visual-dominant media environment, the ongoing digital transformation has further marginalized people with disabilities as a digitally disadvantaged group. digital accessibility barriers now constitute a critical obstacle to their effective participation in economic and social life (yang, 2025). as noted by french visual culture theorist guy debord: ―in societies where modern conditions of production prevail, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. all that once was directly lived has become mere representation‖ (debord, 2002). this cultural shift from language-centric to image-centric paradigms has established visual information acquisition as the primary mode of comprehending reality (jin, 2007). consequently, the phenomenon of ―visual hegemony‖ or ―visual primacy‖ privileges sight-dependent populations in digital environments, exacerbating information inequality among visually impaired communities (zhang, 2017). this study investigates the usage patterns of visually impaired individuals in audiovisual media environments, with tiktok as a representative case. as a platform that primarily delivers content through synchronized audio-visual elements rather than traditional text-based formats, tiktok enables visually impaired users to effectively receive and comprehend information via audio components, despite their inability to access visual cues directly. while this media format demonstrates certain communicative advantages and information-processing efficacy for the visually impaired community, it simultaneously presents multiple accessibility barriers, including incompatible functionalities and non-inclusive interface design. the research aims to: (1) uncover the authentic needs and operational challenges faced by visually impaired users, (2) advocate for greater attention to their digital rights, and (3) catalyze technological and policy improvements in universal design. such measures are essential to ensure equitable access to digital dividends for people with visual impairments. 2. method this study employs in-depth interviews to collect firsthand, rich, and nuanced qualitative data through one-on-one dialogues with participants. eight visually impaired individuals with relatively representative profiles were selected for semi-structured interviews (table 1). the interview questions were customized based on participants‘ individual characteristics, and the questioning techniques were adaptively adjusted to gain profound insights into the lived experiences and needs of visually impaired users when engaging with visual social media platforms (e.g., tiktok). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 96 published by scholink inc. table 1. demographic profile of interview participants with visual impairments (n=8) id gender age visual impairment level occupation h1 male 22 ow vision student h2 male 25 total blindness student h3 female 24 total blindness student h4 female 26 total blindness customer service representative h5 female 23 total blindness barista h6 male 32 total blindness massage therapist h7 male 32 total blindness voice actor h8 female 28 ow vision piano teacher 3. a grounded theory-based study this study applied grounded theory principles to code the interview transcripts, following the procedures of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. to ensure coding consistency, three coders participated collaboratively throughout the entire coding process. ultimately, four core concepts and twelve categories were abstracted from the data. 3.1 open coding process open coding is an operationalization process that involves ―fragmenting‖ and ―deconstructing‖ collected data, assigning conceptual labels, and then reorganizing the material in novel ways to define concepts and identify categories. during this stage, researchers conduct line-by-line reading of interview transcripts to uncover implicit concepts within the text, which are subsequently categorized (liu & jiang, 2015). to minimize personal biases and preconceived theoretical frameworks, the author collaborated with two additional graduate students specializing in communication studies to complete the coding jointly. 3.2 axial coding process axial coding primarily serves to identify and establish connections among discrete categories, uncover latent logical relationships between them, and develop both core and subsidiary categories. during this stage, the researcher meticulously analyzed each fundamental category, treating it as an axial point to explore inter-category relationships. through this process, four core categories were derived: (1) technological adaptation dilemmas, (2) information ecology contradictions, (3) digital rights deprivation, and (4) response mechanism latency. 3.3 selective coding process and theoretical integration selective coding involves further refinement and conceptual abstraction of the content derived from axial coding, with the aim of identifying a core category that can systematically integrate all other www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 97 published by scholink inc. categories. through continuous comparative analysis of the original interview transcripts, developed categories, and the four core categories—(1) technological adaptation dilemmas, (2) information ecology contradictions, (3) digital rights deprivation, and (4) response mechanism latency—this study ultimately identified ―the accessibility challenges faced by visually impaired individuals in visual-social media usage‖ as the central phenomenon. a ―storyline‖ was constructed to delineate all contextual strands and behavioral patterns, elucidating the relationships between the core category and main categories. this process culminated in a theoretical framework, with the specific relational structure presented in table 2. the final output is ―a research model of the influencing mechanisms affecting visually impaired users‘ accessible engagement with visual-social media platforms‖, as visually represented in figure 1. table 2. typical relational patterns core category subcategory representative evidence technological adaptation dilemmas dynamic interaction failures, multimodal conflicts, assistive technology limitations tiktok updates causing label malfunctions, ocr recognition errors, special effects audio drowning out voice descriptions information ecology contradictions algorithmic bias, credibility filtering, content conversion loss 70%+ content repetition rate, cross-platform verification needs, captions lacking audio synchronization digital rights deprivation educational gaps, restricted social expression, policy-practice disconnects special education curricula excluding new apps, disorganized comment section focus, poor enforcement of accessibility laws response mechanism latency corporate inertia, standardization absence, regulatory failures <20% of user feedback implemented, no dynamic control standards, exclusion from esg evaluations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 98 published by scholink inc. figure 1. barrier model of visual social media use among the visually impaired 3.4 test of theoretical saturation theoretical saturation refers to the state in which no new concepts or theoretical insights that could influence the core categories can be extracted from additional interview data or related textual materials. to test for theoretical saturation, the author used the initially developed theory as the benchmark and conducted further interviews with three additional participants. the collected interview transcripts were coded following the same procedures and rules, followed by in-depth analysis and constant comparison. no new concepts affecting the core categories emerged, indicating that the model had achieved theoretical saturation. 4. discussion: theoretical and empirical insights ―accessibility‖ is both a philosophical concept and a guiding principle for social action. the construction of an accessible environment encompasses three key dimensions: accessible infrastructure, barrier-free information exchange, and inclusive social services (yang, 2021). accessibility standards address various aspects of human life—including lifestyle, social interaction, and architectural design—imposing requirements that cater to people with disabilities. the ultimate goal is to eliminate social barriers imposed by physical limitations (yang & lin, 2023). at its core, research on accessibility must first address communication barriers between blind and sighted individuals, as their perceptual frameworks differ significantly. identifying common ground between these two groups is essential for achieving genuine integration in information exchange (li, 2023). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 99 published by scholink inc. for visually impaired individuals, mobile media serves both as an assistive tool and a potential cultural field for reconstructing disability cognition—a duality that demands urgent theoretical exploration. with advancements in screen reader technology, visually impaired users can now access digital content through built-in or third-party screen reading applications, enabling their participation in the interconnected world. crucially, the independent use of mobile media enhances their sense of autonomy and security. unlike the predominantly visual metaphors employed by sighted individuals, people with visual impairments typically rely on cross-modal metaphors in linguistic expression, frequently utilizing tactile/auditory metaphors such as ―a warm voice‖ or ―a rough relationship‖. in spatial cognition frameworks, they also tend to adopt egocentric reference systems based on bodily movement trajectories rather than visual cues. however, despite successfully accessing the digital world, these distinct linguistic characteristics and information processing mechanisms have paradoxically created new challenges for visually impaired users in their online interactions. 4.1 technological adaptation paradox while tiktok‘s continuous updates and new features aim to enhance user experience, they frequently create technological adaptation dilemmas for visually impaired users. as one interviewee noted, ―after app updates, existing functions may become inaccessible or malfunction, generating new issues‖ (h3). this phenomenon not only hinders users‘ adaptation to new features but also leads to functional regression in certain aspects. moreover, the platform‘s increasingly complex interface design exacerbates usability barriers. users report persistent problems including: ―unreadable product descriptions, missing back buttons, inaudible address/payment information, and erratic focus jumping‖ (h4). a particularly illustrative case involves the like function: ―in standard mode, double-tapping triggers liking, but in screen reader mode, the same gesture activates reader functions—requiring users to first locate the like button before performing a second double-tap‖ (h3). these issues demonstrate how interface complexity and inaccessible design directly impair operational fluency for visually impaired users. mainstream screen reading software still faces significant compatibility challenges. for instance, tiantan screen reader exhibits system dependency, with certain functions constrained by android/ios permission frameworks. version updates may further introduce adaptation issues, forcing users to invest substantial time relearning functionalities. as one interviewee stated, ―every screen reader update requires time to re-familiarize with the new features‖ (h4). this process not only increases cognitive load but also diminishes user engagement with platforms. ios‘s voiceover, while offering greater customization flexibility, demonstrates inadequate optimization for many domestic apps—particularly in accurately labeling complex interfaces like e-commerce www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 100 published by scholink inc. platforms. users report persistent difficulties: ―overly complicated app interfaces cause screen readers to lag or misread content, especially with security keyboards in financial apps that demand excessive operational time‖ (h4). current screen readers continue to face unresolved challenges in image content recognition and pop-up window interference, with these recurring accessibility failures significantly diminishing user experience for visually impaired individuals. as reported by users: ―suddenly appearing pop-up ads on tiktok disrupt screen reader functions, forcing me to restart the navigation process from scratch. each interface redirection requires considerable time to reorient myself‖ (h5). another user described: ―some app buttons remain unreadable or trigger unexpected jumps. for instance, when using a shopping app, the ‗add to cart‘ button frequently fails to be vocalized, leaving me to swipe repeatedly hoping to locate it by chance‖ (h5). these multimodal conflicts create substantial cognitive and operational burdens, exacerbating digital exclusion for visually impaired users through three key mechanisms: (1) navigation disruption: unpredictable interface changes force complete task restarts. (2) vocalization failures: critical interactive elements remain undetected. (3) cognitive overload: compensatory strategies (e.g., repeated swiping) increase mental fatigue. 4.2 contradictions in information ecosystems within digital information ecosystems, visually impaired users face significant contradictions, particularly in the efficiency and quality of content access. algorithm-recommended videos often exhibit high redundancy, yet unlike sighted users who can filter information through thumbnails and titles, visually impaired individuals must rely solely on audio playback to assess content relevance. as one participant noted, ―many search results are repetitive—i have to listen through to determine if the content meets my needs‖ (h2). for the visually impaired community, new media usage extends beyond instrumental needs to encompass socio-psychological demands, including social empowerment (yang, 2021), economic participation, and identity construction (yang & lin, 2023). to obtain diverse information, users are compelled to invest substantial time in compensatory verification processes. this inefficient information acquisition mode not only reduces operational efficiency but also significantly increases cognitive load. furthermore, visually impaired users often require multiple attempts to locate desired content during information searches. as respondent h4 described: ―sometimes the search results aren‘t accurate—i have to try several times before finding what i need‖ (h4). this phenomenon significantly increases information processing complexity, exposing users to risks of cognitive overload and consequently reducing their platform engagement willingness. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 101 published by scholink inc. the current information ecology fails to incorporate precise analyses of visually impaired users‘ needs. visual-dominated social media platforms like tiktok inadequately deliver content aligned with their requirements, consequently constraining their access to valuable information. visually impaired individuals primarily rely on auditory and tactile channels to process digital media content, depending heavily on audio interpretation for comprehension. however, inherent contradictions in the existing information ecology create sensory translation barriers, resulting in substantial information conversion loss and inefficient content acquisition. as users report: ―when learning english on tiktok, subtitles move synchronously with videos. i have to constantly adjust the progress bar to locate unclear segments for screen reader text recognition, significantly increasing usage difficulty‖ (h3) ―overly complex video effects with flashing animations make the magnifier function counterproductive—it causes dizziness rather than clarifying key information‖ (h4) ―emoji interpretation remains problematic as screen readers vocalize them as code strings, rendering them meaningless‖ (h8) 4.3 digital disenfranchisement visually impaired individuals face significant digital disenfranchisement in technological environments, primarily manifested through the lack of essential educational and support resources. as mainstream education systems have long neglected the need for specialized instruction in touchscreen interaction logic, visually impaired users struggle to acquire digital competencies, often forced into arduous self-directed learning. as one interviewee stated, ―no one at school teaches us how to use these applications—we have to figure everything out ourselves‖ (h8). while new technologies bring promise, they simultaneously create technological alienation, leaving users caught in a digital skill acquisition paradox—desiring connectivity yet lacking institutional pathways to achieve it. visually impaired users frequently experience marginalization when accessing information and participating in platform activities. most platforms fail to provide alternative sensory-channel tutorials or accessible operation guides tailored to their needs. there is a widespread lack of training in touchscreen gesture operations (e.g., double-tapping to ―like‖ or swiping to navigate on tiktok), leaving users struggling with basic interactions. as one participant explained, ―i don‘t know how to use certain features, and the platform doesn‘t offer sufficient guidance‖ (h3). this exclusion stems from inadequate inclusive design practices, where companies frequently overlook the specific needs of visually impaired individuals when developing products and services. consequently, their access to digital benefits remains severely restricted. users report persistent barriers: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 102 published by scholink inc. (1) ―screen readers can‘t keep up with live-stream comments—they often vocalize chaotic, overlapping text. even when i manually scroll up, new comments push me back, making live interaction nearly impossible‖. (h5) (2) ―i really want to create videos, but every time i reach the ‗post‘ button, i hesitate. i have to proceed extremely carefully to avoid mistakes‖. (h4) this systemic lack of support prevents visually impaired individuals from fully realizing their potential on social media platforms, substantially constraining their digital engagement. the prevailing market-oriented approach—which frames disability primarily through a consumer protection lens—has proven inadequate for safeguarding the right to information accessibility in the digital age (li, 2023). these participation barriers reveal profound deficiencies in digital education systems regarding inclusive design principles. as a result, the promised empowerment through technology becomes deconstructed when confronted with perceptual differences, exposing a stark disconnect between technological rhetoric and accessible reality. 4.4 delayed response mechanism a structural contradiction exists between capital logic and accessibility construction, leading to evident corporate inertia in accessibility development and a pronounced imbalance in the cost-benefit ratio of accessible design. for instance, a leading internet company allocates less than 0.3% of its annual r&d budget to accessibility initiatives. this skewed input-output ratio fosters a ―minimal compliance‖ strategy—where platforms technically adhere to regulations while circumventing substantive responsibility, such as adding alt-text tags without ensuring semantic relevance. as one corporate engineer admitted in an interview: ―we only need to ensure screen readers can identify major buttons‖. the current web accessibility universal design guidelines (issued by china‘s ministry of industry and information technology) primarily focus on textual readability, leaving dynamic elements (e.g., short videos) largely unregulated (ministry of industry and information technology). consequently, companies achieve compliance at minimal cost, yet visually impaired users remain excluded from core functionalities—a phenomenon termed the ―compliance trap‖. one user (h7) reported: ―i described the accessibility barriers in detail to customer service, even providing screenshots. they acknowledged the issue and claimed it would be escalated, but no tangible improvements have been made‖. while tiktok group‘s 2022–2023 corporate social responsibility report highlights accessibility features like image-to-text conversion and live-stream captions (tiktok group, 2022), it omits critical metrics such as user feedback resolution rates or problem-solving efficiency. an analysis of 1,237 non-compliant apps flagged by china‘s ministry of industry and information technology (miit) from 2018 to 2022 reveals that only four cases involved accessibility violations—all receiving disproportionately lighter penalties compared to other infractions. this regulatory bias creates a perverse incentive for corporations to deprioritize accessibility compliance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 103 published by scholink inc. moreover, the ambiguity of accountability enables content platforms to shift responsibility onto assistive technology providers, framing accessibility failures as ―screen reader compatibility issues‖ rather than design deficiencies. this strategic inaction by corporations, coupled with outdated standards and eroding regulatory efficacy, generates a resonance effect that culminates in a ―institutional vacuum‖ for safeguarding the rights of visually impaired users. 5. conclusion this study employs grounded theory to conduct an in-depth investigation into the primary challenges faced by visually impaired individuals when using visual-centric social media platforms, particularly tiktok. while the abundance of online resources has alleviated the scarcity of braille-printed materials, enabling visually impaired users to access needed information through web searches, they nevertheless remain in a disadvantaged position in digital environments. through in-depth interviews with eight visually impaired participants, the study identifies three critical issues: (1) technological adaptation barriers, (2) contradictions in information ecosystems, and (3) digital rights deprivation. these barriers not only constrain visually impaired users‘ capacity for digital participation but also significantly impair their information acquisition and user experience. the findings reveal that while visually impaired users benefit from the conveniences of digital media, they continue to face significant technological and informational barriers, including: unfriendly interface design, functional incompatibility and information redundancy. these challenges stem from platforms‘ inadequate accessibility design and systematic neglect of visually impaired users‘ needs, ultimately resulting in the marginalization of this demographic in digital environments. the proposed measures will contribute to building an equitable digital ecosystem where accessibility is not an afterthought but a fundamental design principle, enabling visually impaired individuals to fully participate in and benefit from digital transformation. future research should examine the implementation effectiveness of these recommendations across different platform types and user demographics. acknowledgement i am deeply grateful to my supervisor for their invaluable guidance and support throughout my academic writing process. i would also like to extend my sincere thanks to my peers, who actively assisted me in connecting with visually impaired participants for this study. most importantly, i am profoundly indebted to all the visually impaired respondents who generously shared their time and insights, providing thorough and thoughtful responses to my interview questions. without their contributions, this research would not have been possible. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 104 published by scholink inc. references debord, g. (2002). the society of the spectacle. in cultural studies (vol. 3). tianjin: tianjin academy of social sciences press. jin, x. (2007). television‘s visual hegemony in the era of image-reading. journal of hubei minzu university (philosophy and social sciences), (1), 113-116. li, j. (2023). on the right to information accessibility for persons with disabilities: theoretical reconstruction in the digital age. peking university law journal, (3), 823-839. liu, l., & jiang, x. (2015). research on residents‘ usage behavior of community public service integrated information platforms. journal of library science in china, 41(6), 61-72. ministry of industry and information technology. web information accessibility universal design specifications. china internet information application aging-friendly and barrier-free public service platform. tiktok group. (2022). 2022 corporate social responsibility report. yang, c. (2025). ―barrier-free‖ digital governance: service mechanisms for disabled groups in the context of digital transformation. journal of university of jinan (social science edition), 35(3), 114-122. yang, l. (2021). the presentation and identity of visually impaired adolescents in cyberspace from the perspective of digital inclusion [doctoral dissertation, shandong university]. yang, l. (2021). the presentation and identity of visually impaired adolescents in cyberspace from the perspective of digital inclusion [unpublished doctoral dissertation]. shandong university. yang, l., & lin, z. (2023). an empirical analysis of intelligent media and social integration of visually impaired individuals. journalism and communication review, 76(1), 40-56. yang, l., & lin, z. (2023). empirical analysis of intelligent media and social integration of visually impaired people. journalism and communication review, 76(1), 40-56. zhang, c. (2017). beyond visual hegemony: listening attentively to the world. modern philosophy, (6), 107-114. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 28 original paper exploring the mobility of the new media platform little red book sixian li 1* 1 london college of communication, university of the arts london, london, the united kingdom * sixian li, london college of communication, university of the arts london, london, the united kingdom received: may 10, 2024 accepted: may 18, 2024 online published: may 28, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n1p28 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n1p28 abstract little red book is an new emerging platform. some researchers are focusing on this platform, but they intend to discuss the commercial values of it. the mobility of the little red book is rarely noticed. but the intrinsic connection between platforms and mobility is an important issue, and this theme is an important aspect of media, culture and mobility. this article is trying to explore the relationship between new platform little red book and mobility. this article begins by exploring the ways in which the little red book facilitates the flow of ideas and self-mobility, followed by a discussion of the ways in which it restricts mobility in some ways. keywords little red book, mobility, platform, privacy, user-generated content 1. introduction the chapter reviews the key literature concerned with the relationship between little red book and mobility. numerous scholars have conducted extensive research in little red book and mobility. much of the current literature on little red book pays particular attention to its commercial properties and values. although a considerable body of research has been carried out on little red book’s business model and marketing strategy, much less is known about the relationship between little red book and mobility. this review critically evaluates little red book can enable the mobility in a bid to address the gap. the relationship between platform and mobility is essential for a wide range of researches. this topic is an important aspect of media, mobility and culture. recently, researchers have shown an increased interest in platform, mobility. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 29 published by scholink inc. this chapter begins with the ways in which application little red book promote the mobility of ideas and “the self”. this is followed by analyzing some aspects little red book limits mobility. finally, draw the study conclusion, summarize the ideas and lead to the subsequent research. 2. little red book can enable mobility 2.1 little red book promotes mobility among audience groups little red book can promote mobility among audience groups. jia guo (2022) proved that little red book is a female-focused social media and e-commerce platform. little red book can provide a platform for young women to share ideas and thinking. according to the 2022 little red book data report by china media industry research—qian-gua database, women currently account for 88.37% of little red book, while men account for 11.61%. the little red book platform is dominated by women, and users of the little red book platform are trending younger, with their ages mainly concentrated in the 18-34 age group. more than 56% of users come from the four top tier cities of beijing, shanghai, guangzhou and shenzhen. urban white-collar workers and elite women in the workplace are the main user groups, with strong spending power and strong consumer demand (2020 little red book data report, 2022). as of september 2022, the number of active monthly users of little red book broke 100 million, and 70% of these users are post-90s, with 300 million notes about life and 8 billion notes exposed in a single day. the top three user focus points are 9.98% for fashion, 9.85% for beauty and 8.05% for food. fashion and beauty are still the main trend of little red book users. from the data it is clear that young women make up a large proportion of little red book users, they have decent jobs, higher spending power and high consumer demand, and tend to express themselves in a community dominated by such a female group. elmira and chloe claimed that the growth of instagram continues, with the majority of its users being young women (2017). first of all, the content on little red book covers many topics related to women’s interests and hobbies, such as fashion, beauty, food. so female users are more likely to express their views and experiences on these topics. secondly, social platforms are generally used as spaces for interaction and communication between users. women tend to be more active socially and prefer to share their lives, experience and feelings with others, including sharing shopping experiences, beauty tips and life insights on little red book. thirdly, women usually pay more attention to emotional expression and communication in their daily lives, and are more willing to express their emotions and opinions through text, pictures and expressions than men. as a graphic-based platform, little red book provides a wealth of expression methods, making it easier for female users to express themselves in the way they prefer. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 30 published by scholink inc. last but not least, on little red book, female users may share many common experiences and interests with each other, and they may want to share their stories and experiences to connect with other users and gain empathy and support. in brief, little red book can promote mobility among audience groups. 2.2 little red book enables mobility in its content little red book can enable mobility in its content. it enables the mobility of ideas, the mobility of “the self”. little red book can provide a platform for users to discuss problems, situations, solutions, ideas with each other and so on. little red book, as an online virtual community, the major content is note. most of the notes contain pictures and text. notes include ideas and thinking of users usually. on the one hand, users express their thinking and ideas by writing notes, editing notes posting notes, sharing notes. when users post their notes on the little red book, in general, the push algorithm in the platform mechanism associates the content with the publisher’s friends, the publisher’s location, and pushes the notes to the publisher’s friends, other users in the publisher’s vicinity, and other users who frequently click to read and view such content. the little red book has many different types of notes, users have different purposes to write notes. they can write notes to ask other users for answers, share their own travel experience with others, introduce good products to users, make friends with others, interact with other users, give other users suggestions about places, trip plan, destinations. if they have bad experience after travelling, they will write notes to point out the weaknesses and shortcomings of places and give reference to others. some users may even take notes posted by other users and put them into their own content, asking others for their opinion and expressing their own opinion on other users’ notes. in a virtual online community like little red book, users exchange ideas and enable the mobility of ideas in this way. peter, a. (2004) proved that in the sociology of zygmunt bauman, contemporary society, labelled consumer society by bauman, is viewed as liquid modernity, which underlines mobility as indicative of our time. besides, after opening little red book, several columns of different items will be displayed on the main screen. at the bottom there are five columns, from left to right: home, video, messages, me, in the center is posting. users can see other users’ notes with pictures and text in the “home”. in “home”, due to the limitations of the device, not all the contents of the notes are displayed on the screen, only the cover, title, publisher and number of likes are displayed. although at first glance the user does not fully see the content of other users’ notes, the type of note and the content involved can be inferred from the title, the cover. publishers’ thinking and ideas are usually showed by the title words, the cover pictures because title, cover are also the parts of notes. the second column is “video”, users can see different types of short and long-form videos. even though notes are more common in little red book, videos can also be another method to express ideas www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 31 published by scholink inc. and thinking. the central is “posting”, users can choose photos from phones or shoot for notes. when users open “posting”, little red book provide hot template and layout for users to choose. users who use hot template generally get more views. if users are not sure about their notes, little red book has “draft” for them to save and change. it helps publishers to consider the content of their notes without worrying about them not being saved, they can post their notes after considering. so little red book enables the mobility of ideas in its content. the fourth column is “messages”, users can receive notification from platform or receive private messages from other users. users also can join some chat groups to talk with others about life, movies, sports, products and so on. the fifth column is “me”, users can see their own posts, collects, likes. they can find followers, friends, users they are following. users can edit profile to show others ideas and thinking in “me”. on the other hand, little red book can enable the mobility of “the self”. for example, some users may encounter problems and confusion with clothing and dressing and they post notes to collect other users’ opinions. herbert blumer (2015) proved that mead regarded the distinctive mark of all societies, human or otherwise, to be the formation of social acts by their members. some users show themselves to others, others give them advice to change. corrado and giacomo (2010) proved that the mirror mechanism radically challenges the traditional view of the self and of the others. some users are influenced by other users and adapt themselves. as i have said, little red book can enable mobility. 2.3 little red book facilitates mobility through the platform’s own functions little red book can enable mobility of ideas and thinking through its own functions. as an online virtual community, it has lots of social features, such as following, liking, commenting on notes. little red book provides a community for users to use, they can easily join other users’ chat group, read and browse publishers’ notes and leave comments in the comments section. users can connect with others by sharing ideas, discussing topics. they just need to open this platform little red book on their phone screen. park and kang (2021) proved that personal identity had a significant positive effect on quasi-social interactions in the life culture and politics sectors. like: users can like ugc they like on little red book to show their approval and liking of the content. the like feature encourages users to interact with the content, prompting them to engage and express their interests and preferences on the platform. at the same time, likes also increase the exposure of ugc, making more users pay attention and participate, thus increasing the mobility of ugc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 32 published by scholink inc. commenting: little red book allows users to comment on ugc, where they can ask questions, answer and share their experiences. the commenting function encourages interaction and communication between users. users can interact with other users and share their insights and experiences through comments, thus promoting the formation of social circles on the platform and increasing the interaction and fluidity of ugc. retweeting: users can retweet ugc of interest to their own personal pages or share it with other users. at the same time, re-posting also helps users expand their social relationships and form a chain of ugc spreading among users, thus increasing the fluidity of ugc. algorithm recommendation: through personalized algorithm recommendation function, little red book recommends ugc with high relevance to users based on their interests and behaviors. this personalized recommendation makes it easier for users to find the content they are interested in, increasing their participation and interactivity in ugc, thus promoting the fluidity of the platform. interactive reward mechanisms: little red book also has some interactive reward mechanisms, such as check-ins, points and punch cards, to encourage users to interact on the platform. these interactive reward mechanisms motivate users to actively participate in ugc activities such as likes, comments and retweets, increasing users’ activity and participation on the platform, thus promoting the fluidity of the platform. in short, through the above functions, little red book drives users to interact, share, spread and engage in ugc on the platform, thus little red book enables mobility. 2.4 little red book enables mobility by user-generated content (ugc) little red book enables mobility of ideas by user-generated content (ugc). user-generated content: little red book allows users to create and share various forms of ugc, including product reviews, shopping tips, beauty tutorials, fashion collaterals and more. these ugcs enrich the content on the platform and attract more users to interact with them, thus promoting the fluidity of the platform. users can post ugc to share their shopping and usage experiences, as well as gain inspiration and advice from other users’ ugc. social interaction: little red book encourages users to engage in social interaction on ugc, such as liking, commenting and sharing. users can leave comments, ask questions or share their experiences under ugc, interact with other users and form social circles. this social interaction enhances user stickiness, prompting users to continue interacting on the platform and sharing more ugc, thus improving the mobility of the platform. e-commerce shopping: ugc content on little red book is usually related to shopping, where users can find their preferred products and purchase them directly through the platform. greater value uncertainty in platforms with user-generated content than in platforms based on firm-generated content (hemang subramanian, sabyasachi mitra, & sam ransbotham, 2021). product reviews and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 33 published by scholink inc. trial tips in ugc play a role in guiding users’ shopping decisions. in the process of browsing and shopping, users will interact with other users and share shopping tips and shopping experiences, thus forming a shopping community and increasing the mobility of the platform. community operation: little red book attracts a group of users with the same interests by creating several communities that target specific interests and topics. community members can discuss, share and interact together in the communities, forming a social network among users. community administrators regularly organize online and offline events to encourage community members to get to know and interact with each other, increasing the mobility of the platform. to put it simply, little red book enables mobility of ideas by user-generated content (ugc). 3. little red book can limit mobility 3.1 little red book limits mobility in content review little red book limits mobility of ideas and thinking in content review. little red book has a strict content review policy to regulate the content posted by users on the platform, which includes restrictions on certain types of notes, such as politically sensitive topics, violent pornography, inappropriate wording, illegal content will be subject to different degrees of restriction. flow restriction on the little red book platform means that within a certain period of time, little red book restricts the frequency, quantity or manner in which users access, operate or post content in order to control the flow of the platform or maintain the stable operation of the platform. flow restriction is a common management measure for many internet platforms, aiming to prevent malicious behavior, reduce spam, protect user experience and maintain the normal operation of the platform. jun, l. and jingyi (2020) proved that censorship programs being oriented more toward multimedia content like images than the text content of multimedia posts. firstly, limit the number of times a user performs a certain type of operation, such as posting content, liking, commenting, following, etc., within a certain period of time to prevent behavior such as volume swiping, cheating and bots. secondly, limit the number or frequency of users publishing content within a certain period of time to prevent publishing a large amount of spam, illegal content or infringement. the specific ways and restrictions of the little red book platform to restrict traffic may vary according to the platform’s policies and rules, and will usually be judged based on a number of factors such as the user’s behavioral patterns, account history, ip address and device information. when users encounter flow restrictions, they may be prompted by the system to wait for a period of time before they can continue to operate, or they may need to complete additional verification steps, such as verification codes, sms verification, etc. users should comply with the rules and restrictions of the little red www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 34 published by scholink inc. book platform and avoid using any illegal means to bypass the flow restriction measures, otherwise they may face penalties such as account banning and content deletion. in short, little red book limits mobility of ideas and thinking in content review. 3.2 little red book’s information cocoon limits the mobility little red book’s information cocoon limits the ideas of mobility. the term “information cocoon” in the internet usually refers to the filtering and screening of users’ information flow by certain platforms or social networks, limiting users’ access to information to a specific range, so that they can only see content related to their interests, preferences or browsing history, thus forming a kind of information "cocoon" that limits users’ access to diverse information and views. a similar information cocoon may exist on the little red book platform. as a social shopping platform, little red book uses algorithms to personalize users’ information flow based on their personal interests, topics they follow, browsing history and other information, limiting their exposure to a specific range of content in order to provide content that better matches their interests. such personalized recommendations may result in users seeing content on little red book mainly related to their interests, while their knowledge of other areas or opinions may be more limited, thus creating a kind of information cocoon phenomenon. the information cocoon may have a number of potential impacts on users, such as potentially leading to users getting caught up in filtering and sifting through information and lacking a diverse range of information and perspectives, which may affect their overall knowledge and understanding of the world. as i have said, little red book’s information cocoon limits the ideas of mobility. 3.3 little red book limits mobility by its privacy features little red book’s privacy features limit the mobility. as a social shopping platform, little red book involves the protection of users’ personal privacy information, which is very important. in order to protect the privacy rights of users, little red book may impose restrictions on privacy features to prevent abuse, infringement of user privacy or violation of relevant laws and regulations. the following are some of the situations in which little red book may impose restrictions on privacy features: privacy settings: little red book may impose restrictions on users’ privacy settings, such as limiting the frequency of changing the privacy settings of users’ accounts and restricting certain modifications to users’ privacy settings, in order to prevent users from changing their settings frequently and bypassing privacy protection measures. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 35 published by scholink inc. access to privacy information: little red book may restrict users’ access to other users’ privacy information, such as restricting the viewing of other users’ profiles, restricting the viewing of other users’ follow lists, fan lists etc., in order to protect users’ personal privacy. privacy information posting: little red book may restrict the content posted by users with privacy information, such as restricting the posting of content with sensitive information such as other people’s mobile phone numbers, id numbers, bank account numbers etc., in order to protect the privacy of users. privacy verification: little red book may require users to undergo privacy verification in certain operations, such as mobile phone number verification and real name authentication, to ensure the authenticity and legitimacy of users’ identities when using the platform. that is to say, little red book limits mobility by privacy features. 4. conclusion and limits overall, these studies highlight the need for exploring the topic about little red book can enable the mobility. considering all of this evidence, it seems that little red book enables the mobility of ideas and “the self”. however, such studies remain narrow in focus dealing only with little red book platform, mobility. there remain several aspects of little red book limited mobility about which relatively little is known. a more systematic and theoretical analysis is required for little red book and mobility. one of the tough challenges for all researchers in this domain is lacking of related theories about the relationship between little red book and mobility. so it is necessary to draw on other relevant research theories, use a new research methodology, look at the topic and issue from a new perspective, and conduct an in-depth discussion and research. references guo, j. (2022). the postfeminist entrepreneurial self and the platformisation of labour: a case study of yesheng female lifestyle bloggers on xiaohongshu. global media and china, 7(3), 303-318. retrieved from 10.1177/20594364221095896 peter, a. (n.d.). review essay liquid modernity: bauman on contemporary welfare society. acta sociologica, 47(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699304043854 elmira, d., & chloe, r. (2017). exploring the credibility of online celebrities’ instagram profiles in influencing the purchase decisions of young female users. computers in human behavior, 68, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.009 park, & kang. (2012). the effects of types of self-identity on quasi-social interactions and information sharing intentions with facebook opinion leaders. journal of digital convergence, 19(6), 225-232. https://doi.org/10.14400/jdc.2021.19.6.225 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.009 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 36 published by scholink inc. hemang, s., sabyasachi, m., & sam, r. (2021). capturing value in platform business models that rely on user-generated content. organization science, articles in advance, 1-20. retrieved from 10.1287/orsc.2020.1408 herbert, b. (2015). the future of the sociological classics (rle social theory) (p. 169). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003074304 corrado, s., & giacomo, r. (2010). through the looking glass: self and others. consciousness and cognition, 20(1), 64-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2010.11.012 jun, l., & jingyi. (2020). more than plain text: censorship deletion in the chinese social media. j assoc inf sci technol. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24390 2020 little red book data report (2022). retrieved april 13, 2023, from https://www.gongshengyun.cn/yunying/portal.php?mod=view&aid=90394&page=1&mobile=no communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 11 original paper exploration of digital media integration and development path under internet + environment haoqi tang1* 1 huazhong agricutural university, 1 shizishan street, hongshan district, wuhan city, hubei province, china * haoqi tang, sisio2001 1217@outlook.com received: june 12, 2023 accepted: july 20, 2023 online published: july 29, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n3p11 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n3p11 abstract with the continuous popularization of the internet and the ongoing development of digital technology, the application of digital media in the environmental field is becoming increasingly widespread. this article explores the development path of digital media integration in the internet plus environment and proposes future trends and challenges for digital media in the environmental field. through research and analysis, this article believes that the development of digital media integration in the environmental field should focus on the following aspects: strengthening technological research and development to enhance the application level of digital media in environmental monitoring, early warning, and governance; strengthening information construction to enhance the role of digital media in environmental information sharing, dissemination, and communication; strengthening talent training to cultivate interdisciplinary talents with backgrounds in environmental science and digital technology, and promote innovation and application of digital media in the environmental field. this article aims to provide references and insights for the development of digital media in the environmental field, promote the deep integration of digital media and environmental science, and make greater contributions to the cause of environmental protection. keywords internet + environment, digital media, convergence, development path, environmental protection 1. introduction with the continuous progress of science and technology and the continuous development of society, environmental problems have become a global problem. and digital media is an emerging form of media, which has the characteristics of fast information transmission, wide dissemination range and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. strong interactivity, which has become an important means of environmental governance and protection. the development mode of internet + environment also provides a broad space and opportunity for the application of digital media in the field of environment. this paper aims to explore the development path and future trend of digital media in the context of internet + environment, with a view to providing some ideas and reference for the application and innovation of digital media in the field of environment. 2. current status of digital media applications in the environmental field 2.1 environmental monitoring digital media technology can realize real-time collection, transmission and analysis of environmental data and improve the precision and efficiency of environmental monitoring. for example, the use of digital media technology can realize real-time monitoring and analysis of environmental indicators such as air, water quality, soil etc., quickly obtain environmental data, and realize the tracking and tracing of environmental pollution sources. in addition, digital media technology can also realize the visualization display of environmental data, which is convenient for environmental managers and the public to understand the environmental situation (yusong, 2023). 2.2 environmental early warning digital media technology can realize real-time assessment and early warning of environmental risks and improve the ability to manage environmental risks. for example, the use of digital media technology can realize real-time monitoring and analysis of environmental events, provide rapid early warning of environmental risks, and disseminate early warning information to a wider audience through channels such as online platforms and social media, so as to improve the public’s awareness of and ability to respond to environmental risks. 2.3 environmental information sharing digital media technologies can enable the sharing and exchange of environmental information and increase the transparency and openness of environmental information. for example, the establishment of environmental information platforms and online communities enhances the sharing and exchange of environmental information, facilitates the public’s understanding of environmental policies and measures, and increases public awareness of and participation in environmental issues. in addition, digital media technology can enable the visual display and analysis of environmental information, facilitating the public’s understanding of environmental conditions and trends. 2.4 environmental awareness-raising and education digital media technology can realize the innovation and enhancement of environmental protection publicity and education, and improve the effect of environmental protection publicity and public participation. for example, virtual reality, augmented reality and other technical means are utilized to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. create a more vivid and intuitive environmental experience and improve the attractiveness and influence of environmental protection publicity. in addition, digital media technology can also spread environmental protection information to a wider audience through channels such as network platforms and social media, realizing the all-media and diversification of environmental protection publicity (xueting, 2023). 3. challenges of digital media in the environmental field 3.1 the digital divide the digital divide refers to the disparity and imbalance in the access to and utilization of digital technology and information between different regions and groups. it encompasses differences in information acquisition, utilization, and communication. the digital divide is a global issue, particularly severe in developing countries and impoverished areas, posing significant challenges to the development of environmental protection and governance. it greatly impacts the dissemination and application of digital media in the environmental field. firstly, the digital divide leads to an imbalance in information acquisition and dissemination. in the digital information age, information plays a crucial role in accessing and disseminating knowledge on environmental protection and governance. however, the digital divide prevents certain regions and groups from accessing and sharing relevant information, thereby affecting the effectiveness of environmental protection and governance. secondly, the digital divide affects the level of public participation in environmental protection and governance. the public plays a vital role in these areas, but the digital divide hinders the involvement of certain regions and groups in the processes of environmental protection and governance, diminishing the extent and depth of public engagement. furthermore, the digital divide results in incomplete and inaccurate environmental data. digital technology can enhance the collection and analysis of environmental data. however, the digital divide restricts the ability of certain regions and groups to fully access and utilize environmental data, thus impacting the effectiveness of environmental governance (j. j. h., r, 2021). lastly, the digital divide exacerbates the inequity of environmental issues. environmental problems are often correlated with socio-economic status, education level, and cultural background. the digital divide prevents certain regions and groups from accessing and utilizing relevant information and technologies, further disabling them in addressing environmental issues and escalating the unfairness of environmental problems. to address the digital divide, a series of measures are necessary. firstly, governments need to enhance investments in digital technology and information infrastructure, particularly in impoverished areas and developing countries. they should implement targeted policies and measures, strengthen digital infrastructure construction, improve digital literacy and skills, and promote the dissemination and application of digital technology and information. secondly, the involvement of social organizations and businesses needs to be reinforced. these entities can play a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. crucial role by providing support in terms of funding and technology, helping impoverished areas and vulnerable groups access and utilize digital technology and information, thereby narrowing the digital divide. lastly, international cooperation needs to be strengthened. the digital divide is a global issue that requires collective efforts from the international community. developed countries can offer technical and financial support to assist developing countries and impoverished areas in bridging the digital divide. this will promote the dissemination and application of digital technology and information, advancing the cause of environmental protection and governance. 3.2 information asymmetry information asymmetry refers to the situation in which one party possesses more and accurate information during the process of information exchange, while the other party lacks or misunderstands the information. in the environmental field, information asymmetry primarily refers to the incompleteness, inaccuracy, and lack of transparency of environmental information. this presents significant challenges to environmental monitoring and governance, as well as affecting public awareness and participation in environmental issues. firstly, information asymmetry affects the effectiveness of environmental monitoring and governance. incomplete, inaccurate, and non-transparent environmental information results in incomplete and inaccurate monitoring and governance, thereby impacting the effectiveness of environmental protection and governance. for example, if a company does not disclose its emissions, regulatory authorities may struggle to detect and address pollution issues promptly, leading to incomplete environmental governance. secondly, information asymmetry affects the level of public participation in environmental protection and governance. the public plays a vital role in environmental protection and governance. however, if the public lacks understanding or has inaccurate information about the environment, they are less likely to effectively participate in environmental protection and governance processes. for instance, if the public is unaware of a company’s environmental emissions, it becomes challenging to supervise and provide feedback to the company, thereby diminishing public participation. furthermore, information asymmetry also impacts the effectiveness of environmental advocacy. the purpose of environmental advocacy is to raise public awareness and understanding of environmental issues. however, if environmental information is incomplete, inaccurate, and non-transparent, it becomes difficult to conduct effective environmental advocacy. for example, if a region’s environmental quality report is not truthful, it hampers the use of environmental advocacy to enhance public awareness and understanding of environmental issues. to address the issue of information asymmetry, a series of measures is required. firstly, governments need to establish relevant laws and policies to enhance the transparency and openness of environmental information. governments can enforce companies to disclose environmental information and rigorously regulate them, thereby safeguarding the public’s right to know and participate. secondly, the capacity and technical expertise of environmental www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. regulatory agencies need to be strengthened. these agencies should possess advanced monitoring technologies and analytical capabilities to access and analyze environmental information accurately and promptly, ensuring the effectiveness of environmental monitoring and governance. additionally, it is essential to enhance environmental education and popularize scientific knowledge among the public. the public needs to comprehend the basic knowledge of environmental issues and relevant policies and regulations, thereby improving their awareness and understanding of environmental information and enhancing their participation in environmental protection and governance (yin & zheng, 2021). lastly, the supervision role of social organizations and media needs to be strengthened. they can promote the disclosure of environmental information by companies and governments through public reporting and public oversight. this drives the realization of information transparency and openness while facilitating public participation in environmental protection and governance processes. 3.3 network security cybersecurity is a highly important issue in the field of digital media. the application of digital media in the environmental sector requires data transmission and communication through the internet and other digital technologies, which calls for the assurance of network security. network security concerns include data breaches, cyber attacks, and malicious software, all of which may result in the tampering, destruction, or leakage of environmental data, thereby impacting the effectiveness of environmental management and public participation. therefore, strengthening network security safeguards and technological protection is essential for the application of digital media in the environmental field. firstly, there is a need to enhance the formulation and implementation of network security laws and regulations. network security laws and regulations can standardize the safeguarding of network security, penalties for cyber attacks, and other related aspects, consequently elevating the level of network security protection. governments can oversee and ensure network security through legislation, administrative orders, and other means. secondly, the research and application of network security technologies need to be strengthened. network security technologies include encryption algorithms, security protocols, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, among others, which are effective in safeguarding network security. governments and businesses should intensify research and application of network security technologies, aiming to enhance the level of network security protection. furthermore, network security management and monitoring need to be reinforced. enterprises and governments should establish comprehensive network security management systems to exercise complete monitoring and management of network security. additionally, the monitoring and prevention of cyber attacks and malicious software need to be intensified, warranting the prompt detection and response to network security threats. moreover, employee awareness and training on network security need to be enhanced. employees play a crucial role in network security, and they should possess fundamental knowledge and skills to recognize and address network security threats. enterprises and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. governments can improve employee awareness and skill levels through network security training and education, thereby increasing the level of network security protection. lastly, international cooperation and information sharing need to be strengthened. network security is a global issue that requires concerted efforts from the international community to tackle. governments and businesses should enhance cooperation with other countries and regions to collectively address network security threats. additionally, there is a need to enhance the sharing of network security information, ensuring the timely acquisition and dissemination of network security information and technologies, ultimately enhancing the level of network security protection (huimin, 2022). 3.4 data management and privacy protection the application of digital media in the environmental field requires extensive data management and processing, which includes the collection, transmission, storage, processing, and analysis of environmental data. additionally, it is necessary to protect the privacy rights of the public and prevent the misuse or leakage of environmental data. therefore, the application of digital media in the environmental field needs to strengthen data management and privacy protection measures to ensure the legality and confidentiality of environmental data. firstly, it is necessary to establish a comprehensive data management system. the data management system should include specifications and processes for data collection, storage, processing, and analysis, ensuring the legality, accuracy, and integrity of environmental data. additionally, the data management system should clearly define the scope and permissions of data usage, preventing data misuse or leakage. secondly, data security safeguards need to be enhanced. data security measures include data encryption, access control, backups, and more, effectively protecting the security and reliability of environmental data. governments and businesses need to strengthen the research and application of data security safeguards, improving the level of data security protection. additionally, it is important to enhance the protection of data privacy. in the application of digital media, the privacy rights of the public must be respected and protected. governments and businesses should formulate relevant privacy protection policies, clearly defining the scope and permissions of data usage to safeguard the privacy rights of the public. moreover, it is necessary to enhance the monitoring and handling of data privacy, promptly identifying and addressing issues such as data privacy breaches. furthermore, an open and transparent data sharing mechanism needs to be established. data sharing can facilitate a more comprehensive and accurate acquisition and analysis of environmental data, but it also requires safeguards for public privacy rights and data security. governments and businesses need to establish an open and transparent data sharing mechanism, clearly defining the scope and permissions of data sharing to ensure public privacy rights and data security. lastly, it is crucial to strengthen public awareness of data security and privacy. the public should understand their data rights and privacy, protecting personal data security and privacy. additionally, there is a need for public awareness regarding data management and privacy protection www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. measures in the application of digital media in the environmental field, promoting public trust and support for digital media. 4. pathways for digital media in the environmental field 4.1 environmental data acquisition and processing the application of digital media in the environmental field involves the collection, processing, and analysis of environmental data. environmental data primarily includes information about air quality, water quality, soil conditions, noise levels, and other related aspects. digital media can collect environmental data through sensors, remote sensing technologies, satellite data, and other means. subsequently, through data processing and analysis, it can derive insights about the environmental conditions and trends. in the future, the application of digital media in the environmental field will emphasize finer and more diverse environmental data. utilizing technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence, it will enable in-depth exploration and analysis of environmental data, providing more precise data support for environmental management and decision-making. digital media can achieve real-time, continuous, and high-resolution data collection by employing sensors, remote sensing technologies, and similar techniques. this enhances the spatiotemporal resolution and accuracy of environmental monitoring. for instance, real-time air quality data can be monitored at different locations through air quality monitoring stations, while remote sensing techniques can provide data on vegetation coverage and water bodies within a region. these data can assist environmental management departments in responding promptly to environmental issues and making informed decisions. furthermore, through data processing and analysis, digital media can derive insights about environmental conditions and trends. for example, data analysis can reveal the changing trends in air quality in a specific area and establish correlations with factors such as population density and industrial activities. by employing algorithms such as data mining and machine learning, environmental data can be deeply analyzed and predicted, providing more accurate data support for environmental management and decision-making. looking ahead, the application of digital media in the environmental field will focus more on the refinement and diversification of environmental data. for instance, artificial intelligence technologies can enable intelligent recognition and classification of environmental data, thereby facilitating automated processing and analysis. digital media can also integrate different types of environmental data to form a more comprehensive and three-dimensional picture, thereby providing comprehensive data support for environmental management and decision-making. 4.2 environmental monitoring and early warning the application of digital media in the environmental field can help achieve environmental monitoring and early warning. digital media can utilize sensors and remote sensing technology to monitor and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. collect data on the environment in real time. then, through data analysis and technologies such as artificial intelligence, it can achieve environmental early warning and prediction. in the future, the application of digital media in the environmental field will focus more on intelligent and automated environmental monitoring and early warning, realizing intelligent identification, analysis, and prediction of the environment through digital technology, and improving the accuracy of environmental monitoring and early warning. digital media can utilize means such as sensors and remote sensing technology to monitor and collect data on the environment in real time, achieving real-time and continuous data, and improving the spatial-temporal resolution and accuracy of environmental monitoring. for example, air quality monitoring stations can monitor air quality data at different locations in real time, and remote sensing technology can provide data on vegetation coverage and water coverage within an area. these data can help environmental management departments respond promptly and make decisions regarding environmental issues. digital media can achieve environmental early warning and prediction through data analysis and technologies such as artificial intelligence. for example, trends in air quality changes in a certain area can be determined through data analysis, as well as their correlation with factors such as population density and industrial activities. by employing algorithms such as data mining and machine learning, deep analysis and prediction of environmental data can be conducted, enabling environmental early warning and prediction. 4.3 environmental awareness and education the application of digital media in the environmental field can help achieve environmental promotion and education. digital media can utilize multimedia technology and online platforms to disseminate and educate on environmental knowledge and skills. through various forms such as text, images, audio, and video, digital media can convey environmental knowledge to a wider audience, thereby increasing public awareness and capacity for environmental action. in the future, the application of digital media in the environmental field will focus more on diversifying and interactive environmental promotion and education. by employing innovative digital media tools and interactive environmental education models, public engagement and the effectiveness of environmental protection can be enhanced. 4.4 environmental governance and decision-making the application of digital media in the environmental field can help achieve environmental governance and decision-making. digital media can utilize technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence to conduct in-depth analysis and mining of environmental data, providing more accurate data support for environmental governance and decision-making. digital media can also employ virtual reality technology and simulation techniques to replicate environmental changes and governance effects, providing visual and intuitive support for environmental governance and decision-making. in the future, the application of digital media in the environmental field will focus more on the deep integration of digital technology and environmental governance, achieving intelligent and sustainable environmental www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. governance and decision-making through digital technology. 4.5 environmental public participation the use of digital media in the environmental field can help to realize environmental public participation. digital media can utilize platforms such as the internet and social media to realize an interactive mode of public participation in environmental actions and environmental governance. digital media can allow the public to participate in the process of environmental governance and decision-making through online questionnaires, online voting, online opinion collection, etc. to improve public participation and satisfaction. the future application of digital media in the field of environment will pay more attention to the deep integration of digital technology and public participation, and realize the intelligence and sustainability of public participation through digital technology. 4.6 challenges of digital media in the environmental field the application of digital media in the environmental field still faces some challenges. in terms of environmental data collection and processing, digital media still needs to address issues of data accuracy and reliability. in terms of environmental monitoring and early warning, there is still a need to solve the challenges of intelligence and automation in monitoring methods and early warning models. in terms of environmental promotion and education, there is still a need to address issues of content innovation and dissemination effectiveness. in terms of environmental governance and decision-making, there is still a need to address the deep integration of digital technology and environmental governance. in terms of public participation in the environment, there is still a need to address the deep integration of digital technology and public engagement. 5. conclusion in the context of the internet + environment, the integration and development of digital media in the field of environment hold significant importance. the application of digital media enables us to achieve intelligent environmental monitoring and data processing, enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of environmental governance and decision-making. additionally, digital media can help promote environmental knowledge and increase public awareness and engagement in environmental conservation efforts. however, the application of digital media in the environmental field still faces several challenges, including data accuracy and reliability, the intelligence and automation of monitoring methods and early warning models, content innovation and dissemination effectiveness, the deep integration of digital technology and environmental governance, and the deep integration of digital technology and public participation. to address these challenges, we need to continue promoting the cross-integration of digital technology and the environmental field, as well as strengthen research, development, and innovation in their application. collaboration among government, enterprises, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. society is essential to drive the application and development of digital media in the environmental domain. we can establish more robust data collection and processing systems to enhance data accuracy and reliability. by incorporating technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, we can achieve intelligent monitoring and early warning, continuously improving models and algorithms for greater accuracy and reliability. to enhance environmental promotion and education, we should encourage innovative content and dissemination approaches, leveraging the strengths of digital media to maximize impact and appeal. in addition, we should intensify the integration of digital technology and environmental governance, utilizing tools such as virtual reality and simulation techniques to provide visual and intuitive support for the formulation of environmental governance strategies and decisions. furthermore, a greater emphasis should be placed on public engagement, utilizing digital technology to enhance public participation and constructing digital platforms for environmental governance and decision-making to foster proactive involvement in environmental protection. in conclusion, the integration and development of digital media in the environmental field hold immense potential in the era of internet+. through continuous exploration and innovation, we can overcome challenges and maximize the potential of digital media in environmental protection, contributing to the building of a sustainable and beautiful planet. references huimin, l. (2022). the impact of sustainable development on the public health system of the elderly in the internet of things environment. sustainability, 14(24). j. j. h., r. t a w. (2021). digital media team editorial. international feminist journal of politics, 23(5). xueting, w., qingmeng, t., feng, q. et al. (2023). predicting residents’ adoption of living environment improvement practices toward sustainable development: the role of internet use. journal of environmental planning and management, 66(3). yin, r., & zheng, c. (2021). application of virtual reality technology in digital media art design and creative design[c]//wuhan zhicheng times cultural development co., ltd..proceedings of 2nd international conference on education technology, economic management and social sciences (etemss 2021). bcp, 2-5. doi:10.26914/c.cnkihy.2021.009656 yusong, l., wenrong, q., & linyi, z. (2023). effect of internet use to obtain news on rural residents’ satisfaction with the social environment: evidence from china. international journal of environmental research and public health, 20(3). 1. introduction 2. current status of digital media applications in the environmental field 3. challenges of digital media in the environmental field 4. pathways for digital media in the environmental field communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 70 original paper motivation and academic performance: an inter-country comparison lewis r. gale1* & clifford nowell2 1 university of the pacific, stockton, ca, usa 2 shanghai normal university, shanghai, china * lewis gale, university of the pacific, stockton, ca, usa received: april 9, 2020 accepted: april 21, 2020 online published: july 7, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n3p70 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n3p70 abstract the objective of this paper is to explore the impact of amotivation on academic performance and to test whether the impact of motivation on academic performance differs across students from china and the u.s. using data from chinese and u.s. students located in their home countries, we find amotivation negatively impacts academic performance of both groups of students. we also show that external motivation is positively associated with academic achievement. while these findings are consistent with results from previous studies, we extend the understanding on the relationship between motivation and academic performance by demonstrating that the magnitude of the detrimental impact of amotivation differs between students in the two countries and that the positive impact of higher levels of external motivation provides similar benefits for both groups of students. keywords motivation, academic performance, self-determination theory 1. introduction the relationship between motivation and academic performance is well documented. students with higher levels of internal and well-regulated external motivation tend to perform better than students with lower levels of internal and well-regulated motivation. amotivation is almost universally shown to be correlated with poor academic performance. these results have been shown to true for students from all areas of the world (baker, 2004; amrai, motlagh, zalani, & parhon, 2011; sikhwari, 2014; hsieh, 2014; kusurkar, cate, vos, westers, & croiset, 2012; rienties, beausaert, grohnert, niemantsverdriet, & kommers, 2012). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 71 published by scholink inc. although the direct relationship between autonomous motivation and academic performance appears to be robust, we are not aware of any other research that simultaneously uses a single, highly reliable questionnaire, to compare how changes in different types of motivation impacts academic the performance of students studying in different countries. in this paper, we seek to answer two questions: first, we ask if the motivational orientation is similar for students from different countries. second, we ask if the impact of motivation on academic performance is consistent for students from different countries. if different motivational orientations do exist for students from different parts of the world, or if the impact of amotivation on academic performance does differ between students from different parts of the world, awareness of these differences may help instructors who struggle with how to motivate students in a global classroom. to answer these questions, we gathered data from two groups of university students studying business-related disciplines; one group in china and one in the u.s. identical surveys were administered using the same protocols in november of 2016 at a university in shanghai, china, and at a university in ogden, utah. english language surveys were administered by a native english speaker in the u.s., and mandarin language surveys were conducted by a native mandarin speaker in china. more than 650 students from the two universities were surveyed resulting in 560 usable observations. we find that chinese students have significantly greater levels of amotivation and internal motivation than their u.s. counterparts. we also find that higher levels of external motivation are associated with higher academic performance in both groups of students, and that higher levels of amotivation are detrimental to student performance in both groups. we further find significant differences in the magnitude of the impact of amotivation on academic achievement. the decline in performance from increased levels of amotivation is greater for the chinese students than for the u.s. students. our results suggest that the impact of motivational orientation on academic performance is more complicated than has previously been thought. although our results are not as robust with regard to why motivational orientation affects academic performance differently for the two groups, our results are consistent with some of the general findings in the literature. furthermore, we conclude that this topic deserves a deeper investigation to determine whether differences in cultural norms, teaching methodologies, student experiences, or other as-yet-identified factors are responsible for these differences. our paper is presented in five sections. in section two of this paper we summarize the theories of motivational behaviour most relevant to our study and describe what we know about how motivation differs among students around the world. we focus on data and estimation methods in section three along with descriptions of the data gathered and highlight some of the differences between the u.s. and chinese students. in section four we present our results and conclusions are contained in section five. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 72 published by scholink inc. 2. methods 2.1 motivational behaviour a significant body of research has investigated the relationship between the motivations of university students and their level of educational success (coutts, gilleard, & baglin, 2011). much of this discussion began with an analysis of how internal and external motivation are related to student success (kasser & ryan, 1996), but as our understanding of motivation has matured, the literature examining student motivation and educational outcomes has migrated from describing motivation as internal vs. external to describing motivation as autonomous vs. controlled (deci & ryan, 1985, 2000, 2008). deci and ryan (2008) explain that “autonomous motivation involves behaving with a full sense of volition and choice, whereas controlled motivation involves behaving with the experience of pressure and demand toward specific outcomes that comes from forces external to the self” (p. 14). this description represents the essence of self-determination theory (sdt) which suggests that (a) both internal motivation and well-internalized external motivation define autonomous motivation, and (b) external motivation which has not been internalized defines controlled motivation. sdt recognizes that external motivation, to a degree, can be internalized. ryan and deci (2007) divide external motivation into four categories: external regulation, introjection, identification, and integration. these four levels of seemingly external motivation differ in the degree to which they may become integrated into an individual’s perception of themselves. external regulation is the least autonomous of the categories of external motivation, and integrated orientation is the most autonomous. in the middle are introjection and identification. introjection occurs when an individual adopts a goal without accepting it completely as their own; they accept the goal, but do not truly internalize it. the objective is no longer completely controlled and may have an autonomous component. identification occurs when an individual recognizes the importance of an outside goal and works to achieve that goal because they believe the goal is important. finally, the least controlled category of external motivation is integration. integration occurs when the objective is truly internalized by the individual. in this way, what was external is now fully internalized. examples of external motivation may be the case of studying for a test because of a fear of punishment if the test result is not viewed as satisfactory by a parent or other external source. introjected motivation may occur when a student observes that successful students join clubs and she or he asks questions about joining a club. the student may recognize that acting in a specific way leads to success. put simply, the student may partially adopt some external beliefs as his or her own beliefs. integrated regulation refers to activities that are completely internalized, even though these activities may have once been less autonomous in nature. evidence does appear to support the notion that well-regulated motivation is beneficial. in a study conducted in taiwan, chen and kraklow (2015) found that students who are characterized as having high levels of autonomous motivation or high www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 73 published by scholink inc. levels of well-regulated external motivation exhibit a greater level of engagement in the learning process than students with other motivational orientations. consistent with sdt, this relationship was stronger for the group with high levels of autonomous motivation. amotivation is defined as the absence of motivation. students who are amotivated are more likely to act without intention (deci & ryan, 1991) and to have less concern with outcomes in general. amotivation may result from a belief that the activity does not matter (ryan, 1995), a sense of hopelessness (bandura, 1986), or from low self-esteem (peterson & seligman, 1984). it is amotivation that is most often associated with low academic outcomes (baker, 2004). one important aspect of sdt is that autonomous motivation is described as a stock, where the total accumulated value is comprised of intrinsic and well-internalized extrinsic motivation. because the accumulated value of autonomous motivation is fluid, students may be internally motivated in some aspects of their lives and externally motivated in other aspects (vansteenkiste, lens, & deci, 2006). in other words, a student’s motivation can change. because motivational is not fixed, it is clear that both university administrators and educators have the ability to influence levels of motivation and amotivation by creating a meaningful curriculum and providing instruction in a manner that engages students. creating clear connections between traditional measures of academic performance and learning outcomes that are important to students may generate higher levels of autonomous motivation and reduce amotivation (deci & ryan, 2006). for some students, this may mean linking academic coursework to economic success, but to others it may mean connecting academic outcomes to social justice interests. this connection highlights the importance of choosing the right field of study for students. if a student chooses a major they are not personally committed to, academic success may be less likely than if the student is given more time to explore before choosing a major field of study. by understanding what is important to students, and connecting these items to educational outcomes, we have the possibility to increase levels of motivation and reduce amotivation. studies of motivation of international students have primarily focused on study-abroad students and international students in a different host country. areepattamannil et al. (2011) explored motivation and academic achievement of indian immigrant adolescents in canada and compared to learners in india. compared to their peers in india, the authors find that indian immigrant adolescents in canada had higher intrinsic motivation and academic achievement; however, indian adolescents in india had higher extrinsic motivation than the indian immigrants. in an analysis of motivations of domestic and international students studying abroad in a private educational institution in singapore, chue and nie (2016) found that international students had a higher level of intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, external regulation, deep learning and surface learning, but a lower level of amotivation compared to domestic students. furthermore, the authors found that the same level of perceived psychological needs www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 74 published by scholink inc. support would result in a higher level of intrinsic motivation and a lower level of amotivation for international students. bulgan and çiftçi (2017) studied the academic performance and adaptation of married international students. they found that international students who have (i) higher satisfaction in their marriages and (ii) higher academic self-efficacy are more prone to have better adaptation processes. while comparative studies on the differences in motivation between students from different regions of the world is scarce, a growing literature on the sources of motivation and academic achievement of chinese students has made important contributions. chen, lee and stevenson (1996) examined test scores of students from kindergarten-age through the eleventh grade from beijing, china, taipei, taiwan, sendai, japan, and minneapolis and chicago in the u.s. to account for the differences in the high-level performance of chinese students, the authors conclude that traditional chinese cultural factors about human beings, the role of family involvement in promotion of child progress, and dedication to hard work are associated with performance. chow and chu (2007) explored the orientation of achievement motivation based on parental involvement and expectations as well as the traditional chinese virtue of filial piety defined as a respect for one’s parents and ancestors. from a survey of secondary students from hong kong, they found that engaged parental involvement and feedback along with filial piety have a positive impact on motivation for academic achievement among students. conversely, they found that a lack of parental feedback and lack of caring significantly contribute to academic amotivation among students. he and hutson (2018) used an appreciative education framework to evaluate the strengths of chinese international students and the potential for support during their academic transition. from surveys, interviews, and focus groups, the authors found that an obligation to family support from home as well as motivation and commitment to success are positively related to acculturation success. when evaluating information from just the focus groups, however, chinese students did not identify cultural aspects and family support as strengths for acculturation. while it is argued that there are other factors influencing the motivation of international study abroad students, some research exists on the comparison of motivation and academic performance of student groups in their respective native countries. a tool developed by vallerand et al. (1992) to assess the various dimensions of motivation among a sample of canadian college students was the academic motivation scale (ams). subsequent research employing the ams, such as vallerand et al. (1993), cokley (2000), cokley, k. o., bernard, n., cunningham, d., and motoike, j. (2001), and ratelle, guay, vallerand, larose, and senécal (2007), examined the validity of the ams in different settings and countries. yet, we do not find any examples in the literature that use the ams motivation survey to compare the performance of both u.s. students with international students in the same analysis. our paper is notable for contributing to the existing literature by attempting fill this void. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 75 published by scholink inc. 2.2 data in order to collect data on student well-being we surveyed students at two large, public universities, one located in ogden, utah, and the other located in shanghai, china. although the survey method used in this study comparing chinese and us students appears to be the method predominately used in comparable research, (zhang-wu, 2018) other methodologies could have been employed. using surveys to gather data is an efficient way of gathering data for quantitative studies such as ours, although other research methods are used. mixed methods which include case studies and detailed personal interviews can provide a narrative to help interpret quantitative results. one important consideration that lead us to use a survey method to gather data for our study was the need for consistency with prior research examining the impact of academic motivation on student success. because the most critical piece of information needed for our analysis is a measure of capable of differentiating between the subscales of internal and external motivation as defined in sdt, we used the twenty-eight question academic motivation scale (ams-28) to gather data on student’s motivation in each location. as explored by vallerand et al. (1992, 1993), the ams-28 includes seven subscales which are designed to measure three types of intrinsic motivation (to know, to accomplish, and to experience stimulation), three types of extrinsic motivation (extrinsic motivation-identified regulation, extrinsic motivation-introjected regulation, and external motivation-external regulation), and amotivation. while the ams-28 does not have a subcategory to measure external motivation-integrated regulation, it is otherwise very closely linked to sdt theory. almost universally, the ams-28 is given as part of a survey instrument which also asks for demographic information and other data related to a specific research. as a survey instrument, the ams-28 has been shown to have high internal and test-retest validity (vallerand et al., 1992). our choice of using a survey to gather data for this study was based on how the ams has been historically used, and the reliability of the data obtained through using the survey. table 1 presents the mean level of academic motivation for u.s. and chinese students using two different motivational constructs. first, we report the mean values for the six subscales of academic motivation measured by the ams-28 for the chinese and u.s. students. second, we collapse the scales into three larger categories: internal academic motivation, external academic motivation, and amotivation. no significant differences between the u.s. and chinese students were found for the external regulation subscales of the ams-28 or for external regulation in general. significant differences were observed for the internal motivation subscales of the ams-28 and for the general measure of internal motivation. students from the u.s. showed significantly lower levels of internal motivation than their chinese counterparts. although we cannot be certain of why this is the case, it may be explained by cultural norms, academic experiences, or the specific characteristics of the universities included in this study. the university in the u.s. is an open enrolment university with a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 76 published by scholink inc. student body more consistent with a community college population. the chinese university is a mid-level, ranked university, with a student body that has performed relatively well on the college entry examinations. table 1 also shows that chinese students in our data set have significantly higher amounts of academic amotivation than the u.s. students. again, although we cannot be certain why, this may reflect cultural differences or differences in the educational experiences. the earnings of college graduates are more closely linked to university reputation than academic performance (kong, 2017) in china as compared with the u.s. because of this, at the university level, the economic benefit of higher levels of academic performance is greater in the u.s. than in china. this is very likely to increase the level of amotivation in chinese university students relative to u.s. university students. because amotivation is also linked to the classroom experience, differences in classroom pedagogy may also contribute to levels of amotivation. table 1. motivation levels motivation type mean all students mean us students mean chinese students desire to know* internal 5.24 5.03 (1.53) 5.34 (1.06) desire to explore* internal 4.51 3.84 (2.31) 4.81 (1.13) desire to achieve* internal 4.75 4.47 (1.68) 4.89 (1.12) average internal* motivation internal 4.84 4.45 (1.56) 5.01 (0.95) identified regulation external 5.50 5.48 (1.48) 5.52 (1.11) introjected regulation external 4.83 4.88 (1.57) 4.81 (1.35) external regulation external 5.62 5.58 (1.49) 5.64 (0.99) average external motivation external 5.32 5.31 (1.34) 5.32 (0.99) amotivation* 2.91 2.38 (1.82) 3.16 (1.61) sample size 547 171 376 *indicates significant differences in means between u.s. and chinese students at p<.05. standard deviations are in parentheses. 2.3 analysis we examine two sets of empirical models; first using gpa as the dependent variable and second using zscore as the dependent variable. for each dependent variable we use two different specifications for measuring motivation which were outlined in our discussion of table 2. because the universities in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 77 published by scholink inc. this study have vastly different grading policies, we use two different methods to measure academic performance. in china, the university included in the study enforces a grade distribution that mandates a maximum of 20% “a” grades and a 40% maximum for “b” grades, whereas the u.s. university has no such restriction. the first way we measure academic performance is by using each student’s gpa. in the second method, we use the z-score for each student’s gpa. the z-score measures the number of standard deviations between an individual student’s gpa and the average gpa for the student’s home university. by using the z-score we focus on the standardized differences in grades at the university rather than the absolute grade point average. table 2 presents the means and standard deviations of all data used for our analysis. again, we provide three columns of information: all subjects, chinese subjects and u.s. subjects. as can be seen from the table 2, gpas are significantly higher in the u.s., which reflects the forced grade distribution. table 2. means and standard deviations variable name mean all students mean us students mean chinese students gpa* 2.87 (0.67) 3.23 (0.47) 2.70 (0.69) zscore 0.00 (1.01) 0.00 (0.98) 0.00 (1.03) study* 21.46 (19.27) 10.41 (8.18) 26.70 (20.57) work* 11.11 (13.70) 23.37 (13.82) 5.30 (9.03) tmale* 0.44(0.49) 0.54 (0.50) 0.39 (0.49) business* 0.49 (0.50) 0.29 (0.45) 0.59 (0.49) freshman* 0.14 (0.34) 0.22 (0.42) 0.10 (0.26) satisfy* 6.65 (1.92) 6.53 (2.12) 6.71 (1.81) usa 0.32 (0.47) 1 0 spendlow* 0.42 (.49) 0.24 (0.42) 0.51 (0.50) age* 20.77(3.82) 23.44 (5.76) 19.52 (0.96) n 532 171 376 *indicates significant differences in means between u.s. and chinese students at p<.05. standard deviations are in parentheses. in addition to information on academic motivation and academic performance, we gathered data on student demographic information on a wide range of items that have been shown to be correlated with academic performance. we gather self-reported data on the number of hours students study (study) and the number of hours the student is employed per week (work). on average, the chinese students spend twice as much time studying per week than do the u.s. students, and the u.s. students spend www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 78 published by scholink inc. more than twice the time at work. we anticipate that study will be directly related to gpa (richardson, abraham, & bond, 2012) and that as the number of work hours increases gpa will eventually decline (dundes & marx, 2006). we gathered information on the student’s age (age) and whether the student is male or female (male=1 if the student is male and zero otherwise). the chinese students are significantly younger than the u.s. students, which reflects the admission patterns and different missions of the two universities. we have no a priori expectation for age. numerous studies (duckworth & seligman, 2006; fortin, marcotte, diallo, potvin, & royer, 2013) have shown that females perform better than their male counterparts in all levels of schooling and in many areas of the world, thus we expect male to be negatively correlated with gpa. to control for different grading practices in different subject areas, we included dummy variables to differentiate the student’s major field of study. we categorized responses into seven different academic colleges: business, social science, arts and humanities, science, engineering and technology, education, and health and medicine. one area, business, was found to have a significant correlation with gpa, so we include a variable business to distinguish business students from all other students. the variable business takes on a value of one if the student is majoring in a business-related discipline and is zero otherwise. because it is difficult to gather data on student income, we employed a proxy for income by asking students “approximately how much money do you spend each month excluding rent and school-related expenses?” students responded to this question on a three category likert-scale. all spending amounts were defined in the local currency. using this information, we created the variable spendlow to differentiate students with low spending levels from students spending at the middle and upper levels. we also included a question on the student survey to measure a student’s level of satisfaction with life at school (satisfy). students answer this question on a 1 (extremely unsatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied) scale. chinese students indicate a slightly greater level of satisfaction with their school life than u.s. students. income and academic performance are widely believed to be directly related and studies often show (nowell, 2017) that happiness and academic performance are positively correlated. we also gathered data on the student’s year in school. we believe that as a student progresses in school their gpas will increase. freshmen in particular are much more likely to struggle at school and are more likely to drop out of school due to their academic struggles. based on this, we expect freshman to have lower gpas than all other students. we created a variable, freshman to control for the expected gpa differences in freshman students. the variable freshman takes on a value of one if a student is in their first year of school and is zero otherwise. we did not gather data on race or ethnicity, as the differences between schools overwhelms any within school variation on race and ethnicity. we also include a dummy variable to differentiate the two schools. the variable usa equals one for the u.s. university and is zero for the university in china. we use this variable to account for differences in the chinese and u.s. students not controlled for by our other explanatory variables. this dummy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 79 published by scholink inc. variable may measure cultural or institutional differences. this variable may capture different admissions policies or different levels of student services, or it may reflect unmeasured differences between u.s. and chinese students. 3. results we report our regression results, with our two different dependent variables gpa and zscore, in table 3. our results are generally consistent across the different motivational constructs and across the different measures of academic performance. as expected, study is consistently positively related to academic performance. the variable work is negatively related to academic success, although the impact is not significant. although males are performing at a lower level than females, this impact is also not significant. grades given in the fields of business and economics are significantly lower than other disciplines. as expected, the estimated coefficient on freshman was negative and significant. consistent with past evidence, we found that students who were more satisfied with their life at school earned significantly higher grades than students who were less satisfied with their life at school. our results with respect to motivational orientation also appear to be robust. for all measures of motivation and for all measures of academic performance, table 3 indicates that amotivation is consistently related to lower academic performance for both chinese and u.s. students. in addition, the coefficient associated with interaction term usamotive is consistently positive and significant, indicating that the negative impact of increasing levels of amotivation is more harmful to the chinese students than to u.s. students. table 3 also shows that higher levels of external and internal motivation appear to be associated with higher levels of academic performance. although both variables appear to have a direct relationship with academic performance, the estimated coefficients associated with the variable external are consistently significant and the coefficients associated with the variable internal are always insignificant. when we interacted the variable usa with external and internal, no evidence was found to suggest that the effects of increases in external or internal motivation were different for chinese and u.s. students. finally, when we examine the impact of all of the subscales of external and internal motivation on academic performance our results are inconclusive. although the estimated coefficient on iknow (internal desire to know) is negative and significant at a p-value of 0.10, the estimated coefficient on iachieve (internal desire to achieve) is positive and significant with a p-value of = 0.10. the evidence that these variables are important is not overwhelming at these levels of significance. in addition, when we interact the variable usa with iknow and iachieve, the variables did not contribute any explanatory power to the regression equation. neither interaction term had a t-statistic of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 80 published by scholink inc. greater than 1.0 so including these interaction terms decreases the adjusted r2 of the equation. because of this, these interaction terms were not included in the final analysis. table 3. regression results dependent variable: gpa dependent variable: zscore variable name estimated coefficient standard error estimated coefficient standard error constant 2.04** 0.15 -1.14** 0.390 study 0.005** 0.0016 0.007** 0.003 work -0.003 0.0025 -0.005 0.004 male -0.05 0.05 -0.081 -0.086 business -0.15** 0.06 -0.190** 0.09 freshman -0.25** 0.08 -0.27** 0.13 satisfy 0.05** 0.01 0.07** 0.02 spendlow 0.12** 0.06 0.20 0.09 usa 0.50** 0.13 0.55 0.55 internal 0.007 0.041 0.007 0.07 usainternal -0.004 0.056 0.008 0.09 external 0.107** 0.042 0.16** 0.07 usaexternal -0.088 0.063 -0.11 0.10 amotive -0.08** 0.02 -0.12** 0.04 usamotive 0.08** 0.03 0.12** 0.06 n=532 r-squared 0.25 0.18 f (p-value) 11.51(.000) 6.80(.000) *significant at p < .10 **significant at p < .05 ***significant at p <.01 the research question we ask in this paper is whether the impact of motivation on academic performance is different for u.s. and chinese students. we found no differences in the effect of internal or external motivation on academic achievement between u.s. and chinese students. we did find, however, that changes in amotivation do impact u.s. and chinese students differently. higher levels of amotivation result in a greater reduction in academic performance for the chinese students. our www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 81 published by scholink inc. analysis reveals that although both u.s. and chinese have a reduced level of academic performance with higher levels of amotivation, the impact of increased amotivation is more detrimental to chinese students than u.s. students. the latter result appears to be consistent with the impact of a lack of parental caring and feedback on academic amotivation among chinese students as described in chow and chu (2007). when considered in the context of filial piety, this impact is important in understanding how motivational orientation impacts academic outcomes. to be sure, we are not certain if the differences in the impact of amotivation are driven primarily by the result of cultural differences or institutional differences and should be the subject of further study. 4. discussion the objective of this paper was to explore the impact of amotivation on academic performance and to test whether the impact of motivation on academic performance differs across students from china and the u.s. with data from chinese and u.s. students located in their home countries, we find amotivation negatively impacts academic performance of both groups of students. we also show that external motivation is positively associated with academic achievement. while these findings are consistent with results from previous studies, we extend the understanding on the relationship between motivation and academic performance by demonstrating that the magnitude of the detrimental impact of amotivation differs between students in the two countries and that the positive impact of higher levels of external motivation provides similar benefits for both groups of students. although we have learned that amotivation has a more detrimental effect on the academic performance of students in china than on students in the u.s., our use of the ams 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(2005). a comparison of international student and american student engagement in effective educational practices. journal of higher education, 76(2), 209-231. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2005.0018 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 27 original paper metaphorical expressions with “sweet” in english and “ngọt” in vietnamese ho trinh quynh thu1* & nguyen thi thanh ha2 1 department of foreign languages, quang nam university, vietnam 2 faculty of economics, law, and foreign languages, quang nam college, vietnam * ho trinh quynh thu, department of foreign languages, quang nam university, vietnam received: may 1, 2022 accepted: may 10, 2022 online published: may 20, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n1p27 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n1p27 abstract on the foundation of conceptual metaphor theory and the 4-step metaphor identification procedure by pragglejaz group, the paper discovers 87 metaphorical expressions containing the word “sweet” in english, equivalent to “ngọt” in vietnamese through an investigation into four english and four vietnamese novels composed in the 20th century. these gustatory expressions are found to be used to describe other senses, including olfaction, audition, vision, and tactition. besides, the metaphorical expressions with “sweet” and “ngọt” are also employed to talk about emotion and manner. despite several resemblances between english and vietnamese metaphorical expressions containing the words “sweet” and “ngọt”, which are shed light upon by the universality of metaphors and human embodied experience, there are some differences in expressing the world via these two words between the two languages that are assigned to distinctive linguistic characteristics in each language. keywords metaphorical expressions, conceptual metaphors, sweet, ngọt, metaphoric universality and variations 1. introduction the views considering metaphor as a unique rhetorical device of literary and poetic language has been changed since the birth of conceptual metaphor theory (cmt) by lakoff and johnson in 1980. according to cmt, metaphors play an important role in everyday life of human beings. it is found pervasive in daily conventional language and understood via conceptual metaphorical mappings related to embodied experience (lakoff & johnson, 2003). in the same vein, gibbs, lima and francozo (2003) provide evidence for that human metaphorical thought and language develops on the base of embodied experience. more specifically, muler et al. (2021) reveal the experience involving senses, taste included, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 28 published by scholink inc. is often used to metaphorically express human cognition and emotions. moreover, kelly (2014) demonstrates that taste-related metaphors are more recurrently used and more effective in everyday communication related to emotions than the word in its literal sense with the same meaning. one of the tastes that may appear the most frequently in linguistic metaphors is sweetness (bagli, 2016). sweetness is known as the taste bringing pleasant and satisfying feelings to human beings. it is thus employed to describe the experience of gratification and positive emotional values (barcelona, 2008; zawisławska & falkowska, 2018), which is also proved by ho and phan (2016), who arrive at a conclusion that “sweetness is used to convey the bliss the persons in love experience”. besides, in line with the statistics by chan et al. (2013) on an overwhelming number in favor of this taste in figurative association with love, akuno et al.’s (2018) findings represent sweetness as the most prolific source domain to express various abstract concepts of pleasure and love (akuno et al., 2018). in addition, sweet taste is metaphorically utilized to convey the happiness and good things a person has or perceives through other senses (namely, vision, olfaction, audition, and somatosensation) (pham, 2017). in other words, metaphors related to sweetness are prevalently exploited to depict pleasurable sensations or positive feelings which are quite popular in conventional languages in different cultures around the world. so far, there have been several studies on metaphors related to sweetness in different languages such as chinese (yu, 1998), english in comparison with polish (zawisławska & falkowska, 2018), chinese-vietnamese (pham, 2017). however, there appears to be a gap in researching the metaphors attached to sweetness, especially linguistic metaphors with “sweet” in english, equivalent to “ngọt” in vietnamese. as a result, the paper is carried out with a view to making sense of and finding out possible similarities and differences between english and vietnamese metaphorical expressions comprising “sweet” and “ngọt”. it is hoped to facilitate the use of metaphors with these words in english and vietnamese communication. 2. method a comparative investigation into metaphorical expressions comprising “sweet” in english and its equivalent “ngọt” in vietnamese is mainly carried out by using contrastive analysis which is characterized as the scientific description and comparison of two or more languages to identify their similarities and differences by joze-tajareh (2015). it is a preliminary study conducted based on the data collected from english and vietnamese novels published in the 20th century including in cold blood by truman capote, the old man and the sea by earnest hemingway, the heart is a lonely hunter by carson mccullers, gone with the wind by margaret mitchell, con gái người tình (the flame’s daughter) by hạ thu, nỗi buồn chiến tranh (the sorrow of war) by bảo ninh, thời xa vắng (a time far past) by lê lựu, and một khoảng trời yêu thương (a space of love) by châu liên. to make sure of the accuracy, validity and reliability of the data for the research, we use pragglejaz group’s (2007) and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. the extension of pragglejaz’s procedures of metaphor identification in discourse, including four steps (cited in ho & phan, 2016): (1) read the entire text-discourse to establish a general understanding of the meaning. next, (2) determine the lexical units in the text-discourse. then (3) take into account what comes before and after the lexical unit, determine if it has a more basic contemporary meaning in other contexts than the one in the given context. if yes, decide whether the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can be understood in comparison with it. if yes, (4) mark the lexical unit as metaphorical. besides, as a comparison of cultures should be involved in the scope of a contrastive study (lado, 1957, extracted from johansson, 2008), cultural influences on english and vietnamese metaphorical expressions containing “sweet” (“ngọt”) will also be discovered through descriptive methods. 3. result investigating eight novels (four in english and the same number in vietnamese) as mentioned in section 2, we discovered 43 expressions with “sweet” in english and 42 expressions with “ngọt” in vietnamese unevenly distributed into 6 conceptual metaphors that are shown in the following table. table 1. conceptual metaphors underlying metaphorical expressions with “sweet” in english and “ngọt” in vietnamese conceptual metaphors english metaphorical expressions vietnamese metaphorical expressions hearing is tasting 7 14 smelling is tasting 8 2 touching is tasting 0 1 appearance is a nutrient// seeing is tasting 4 2 emotion/ sentimental object is a nutrient 18 23 manner is a nutrient 6 0 total 43 42 as can be seen from the table, metaphorical expressions containing the word “sweet” in english and its equivalent-“ngọt” in vietnamese is mainly understood via two source domainsnutrient and tasting. it is, in fact, unsurprising that these two domains are applied to understand the sweetness expressed in language because of special relationships between taste and nutrient. the findings by astrid et al. (2016) reveal the nutrient-signaling function of taste and that sweet taste is one of the signals for the presence of nutrients. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion 4.1 conceptual metaphor theory out of line with traditional views on metaphor as a rhetorical device mainly used in literary language, conceptual metaphor theory (cmt) argues that metaphor is pervasive in our everyday language. it does not operate at lexical level but works as a matter of thought and is manifested in language through metaphorical expressions. cmt thus distinguishes metaphorical expressions (or linguistic metaphors) from metaphorical concepts (or conceptual metaphors). the essence of a conceptual metaphor is the understanding of a concept in terms of another through cross-domain mappings, the principal mechanism of meaning transfers in metaphor (lakoff & johnson, 2003). these mappings are understood as the projections of basic knowledge elements from a source to a target through the structure target domain is/as source domain. mapping is systematic, partial, and unidirectional, laid from the source to the target and could be schematically presented in figure 1. figure 1. conceptual mapping (ho & phan, 2016) in this structure, a source domain is the conceptual domain from which the input of the mapping comes. a target domain is the conceptual domain showing the output of the mapping that people strive for understanding. the linguistic expression “her singing voice is so sweet”, for example, is a metaphorical expression understood via the conceptual metaphor hearing is tasting. in this case, hearing is a target domain while tasting is a source domain. as sweetness is a pleasing taste, the “sweet singing voice” refers to a perception of pleasant and attractive sounds. 4.2 metaphorical expressions expressing sweetness under tasting metaphors human beings perceive the world via their senses, including touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. sweetness is one of the basic tastes they can physically differentiate through their tongue. however, the truth of the matter is that sweet taste is still expressed in terms of other senses (namely, somatosensation, vision, audition, and olfaction) with the evidence from the novels mentioned in section 2. 4.2.1 hearing-as-tasting metaphor hearing is a mechanical process showing the ability to receive and interpret information through ears. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 31 published by scholink inc. meanwhile, tasting relies on chemical interactions and deals with information through tongue. it is likely that the two senses are not related to each other but the language used in communication, especially the linguistic expressions with the word “sweet”, demonstrates the opposite. (1) she could hear clearly the sweet voice (mitchell, gone with the wind) (2) her laughter was sweet (carson mccullers, the heart is a lonely hunter) the word “sweet” in (1) and (2) obviously does not refer to gustation but audition since it is used as a modifier of the nouns “voice” and “laughter”. as “sweet” denotes a pleasing and satisfying taste, “sweet voice/laughter” describes pleasant sounds that are easy to hear and make the hearer satisfied. the expressions “sweet voice” and “sweet laughter” may thus not be literally made sense but should be explicated figuratively. in these cases, the expressions are metaphorically understood via the metaphor of hearing as tasting. such metaphorical expressions can be found in vietnamese. (3) cả hai bên đều nói năng ngọt xớt (lê lựu, thời xa vắng) (both parties talk [to each other] sweetly.) (4) giọng nói của bà sao mà êm ru và ngọt lịm. (châu liên, một khoảng trời yêu thương) (how smooth and sweet her voice is.) similar to “sweet” in english, “ngọt” in vietnamese refers to the taste of sugar. when the sound is expressed to be “ngọt xớt” or “ngọt lịm” (sweet), it is understood as being gentle and easy to hear, bringing about hearers’ pleasant and enjoyable feelings. besides “ngọt xớt” and “ngọt lịm”, “ngọt ngào” is also found in vietnamese. (5) tiếng khánh dung ngọt ngào như suối chảy (hạ thu, con gái người tình) (khanh dung’s voice is as sweet as a flowing stream.) vietnamese dictionary distinguishes three words “ngọt xớt”, “ngọt lịm”, and “ngọt ngào” although they are all referring to the sweetness. “ngọt xớt” is defined as “(often used to present sounds) very sweet and gentle, easy to hear. “ngọt lịm” is “so sweet that the taste penetrates into the body, causing a pleasant and enjoyable feeling”. meanwhile, “ngọt ngào” is “generally sweet and pleasant”. in example 5, the word “ngọt ngào” is used to depict a person’s voice but not something that can be eaten or tasted. it is hence a metaphor where the sound is interpreted in terms of the taste. 4.2.2 tasting metaphors for other senses besides hearing, other senses (smelling, touching and seeing) are also expressed in terms of tasting. (6) in the kitchen there were rich, sweet odors. (carson mccullers, the heart is a lonely hunter) (7) the sweet blood smell all over me (hemingway, the old man and the sea) both “odor” and “smell” are a sensation one has through stimulations of the olfactory organthe nose. however, the smell and odor in examples 6 and 7 are “sweet”, which is perceived by the gustatory organthe tongue. therefore, the expressions in 6 and 7 are probably unperceivable logically but they are rather pervasive and conventional in use. “sweet smell” or “sweet odor” is, in fact, a linguistic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 32 published by scholink inc. metaphor interpreted through the conceptual metaphor smelling is tasting. a similar perception is expressed in vietnamese. (8) nhất là về đêm hương hoa như thể được cô đậm, ngọt, ngào ngạt, thẩm thấu vào giấc ngủ (bảo ninh, nỗi buồn chiến tranh) (particularly at night, the floral scent seems condensed, sweet, pervasive, and absorbed into the sleep) “hương hoa” (the scent of flowers) is obviously denoting to a characteristic odour but defined as “ngọt” (sweet) in example 8. in line with “sweet odour/smell” in english, “hương hoa ngọt” (sweet scent of flowers) in vietnamese is an evidence of the smelling-as-tasting metaphor. not only olfaction but tactition (the sense of touch) is also metaphorically comprehended in terms of gustation, namely sweet taste. (9) […] nơi có chiếc lò sưởi ấm áp ngọt ngào (hạ thu, con gái người tình) (the place with a warm sweet heater) the warmth from “chiếc lò sưởi” (heater) can be felt naturally through skin or the sense of touch but how can one taste it? the sweet taste in this case surely does not result from any gustatory stimulation but it is the pleasant feeling coming from the heater through human tactile sensitivity. in other words, “ngọt ngào” (sweet) in example 9 is metaphorically used and understood. it reveals the existence of the conceptual metaphor of touching-is-tasting. one more sense that is also often expressed in terms of gustatory sensation, i.e. sweet, is vision. (10) […] she told him with a sweet smile. (mitchell, gone with the wind) (11) […] she looked so sweet and pretty (truman capote, in cold blood) smile is a happy or friendly expression on the face. it can be discerned via human eyes. meanwhile, the adjective “sweet” is employed to represent a smile (in 10) which cannot be recognized via the tongue. likewise, the girl in (11) is characterized to be “sweet” in appearance which cannot be distinguished by gustatory sense. in these cases, “sweet” should not be apprehended literally but figured out through the seeing-as-tasting metaphor. (12) […] cô bồ có sắc đẹp của một cục đường ngọt ngào. (châu liên, một khoảng trời yêu thương) (his beloved’s beauty is as sweet as a lump of sugar) how can a person taste someone’s beauty? and how beautiful is a lump of sugar? why is a girl’s beauty compared to a lump of sugar? in fact, the case is not simply interpreted word for word but non-literally. similar to the expressions in (10) and (11), “sắc đẹp ngọt ngào” (sweet beauty) should also be shed light on figuratively via the seeing-as-tasting metaphor and someone or something that is considered as being sweet is kind and attractive. as the look, the beauty, and the smile all refer to the appearance of someone or something, the expressions of “sweet smile”, “sweet beauty” or “sweet look” are metaphorical and understood through the metaphorical concept appearance as a nutrient, where the appearance is shown as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 33 published by scholink inc. something edible and tastes sweet. in brief, the adjective “sweet”, which inherently belongs to gustation, is used to manifest other senses, including audition, olfaction, taction, and vision. no matter where it appears in text, “sweet” brings a pleasant feeling to the reader and makes the thing/ person it describes pleasant and attractive. in addition to the conceptual metaphors relating to human senses, “sweet” can be found in metaphorical expressions under nutrient metaphors. 4.3 metaphorical expressions expressing sweetness under nutrient metaphors besides the nutrient metaphor used for the appearance as mentioned above, this metaphor is also applied for the comprehension of other concepts manifested by the word “sweet” in english and “ngọt” in vietnamese. 4.3.1 emotion-as-nutrient metaphor emotion is any mental experience with reference to such feelings as happiness, love, fear, anger, or hatred (cabanac, 2002), which can be categorized as positive (i.e., love) or negative (i.e., anger). discussing the manifestation of emotion in language, kovecses (2000) states that a large number of emotional expressions are metaphorically used and understood, which is found to be true to linguistic expressions with “sweet”. (13) “[…] he held my hand. to give me courage.”, -“very sweet.” (truman capote, in cold blood) (14) tình iu, nó đẹp đẽ, […] ngọt ngào (hạ thu, con gái người tình) (love, it is beautiful […], sweet) the emotion the boy gives to the girl in example 13 is considered to be “sweet”. as emotion is an abstract concept while “sweet” refers to food or drink. in this context, “sweet” is a metaphorical expression underlying the conceptual metaphor emotion is a nutrient. unlike “sweet” in (13) that does not mention any particular kind of emotion, “ngọt ngào” in (14) represents love, which may bring the happiness or pleasant feelings on, making it lovely and agreeable. the adjectives “sweet” in english and “ngọt” in vietnamese are utilized not only to explain emotion itself but to depict the sentimental object. (15) she’s a real sweet person, your mother. (truman capote, in cold blood) (16) nàng […] là tất cả hương hoa, mật ngọt, mà cuộc đời ban thưởng cho một người con trai có quá nhiều đau khổ. (hạ thu, con gái người tình) (she […] is all floral scent and sweet honey that the life grants a favor to the man with great misery) the sentimental objects in examples 15 and 16 are human beings, who are understood in terms of nutrient, hence being “sweet” or “ngọt”. through the sweetness, these objects are perceived lovely, kind, and satisfying. in short, “sweet”/ “ngọt” is metaphorically used to describe both emotion and emotional objects that are characterized to be enjoyable, creating a good feeling of pleasure. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 34 published by scholink inc. 4.3.2 manner-as-nutrient metaphor manner is defined as the way in which one acts and behaves towards the others. it is found to be represented in terms of a nutrient via the word “sweet” in english. (17) he loved her pertness, her high spirits and the quaint sweet manner she had of showing her love for him. (mitchell, gone with the wind) (18) buddy always haves such a sweet way with peoples that i don't ever worry concerning him (carson mccullers, the heart is a lonely hunter) obviously, the adjective “sweet” in (17) and (18) does not refer to the taste of food or drinks but to someone’s manner. the descriptions appear to be strange and conflicting but they are completely acceptable. the wordings are, in fact, metaphorical expressions under the conceptual metaphor manner is a nutrient, where a person’s manner is interpreted and expressed in terms of a nutrient, namely “sweet”. as “sweet” is a pleasant and satisfying taste, a person with “sweet manner” is comprehended to be nice and lovely. in summary, the adjective “sweet” in english and its equivalent “ngọt” in vietnamese is metaphorically utilized rather pervasively in language. though it is used to talk about anything/anyone, “sweet” makes the reader think of positive feelings towards the things/persons it describes. 4.4 similarities and differences between metaphorical expressions with “sweet” in english and those with “ngọt” in vietnamese according to cmt, conceptual metaphor is universal; it is hence similar between different languages and cultures, which is once again demonstrated in this paper. as can be seen from table 1, most of the conceptual metaphors underlying metaphorical expressions with the word “sweet” (equivalent of “ngot”) are found in both english and vietnamese, namely tasting metaphors for hearing, smelling, seeing and nutrient metaphors for appearance, emotion, manner. besides, metaphorical expressions containing “sweet” are rather similar between the two languages, such as sweet voice/sound, equivalent to giọng nói/tiếng nói ngọt (see examples 1,2,4,5); sweet odor/smell, similar to hương ngọt (in examples 6,7,8); corresponding expressions of sentimental objects as in the following examples. (18) she’s a real sweet person. (truman capote, in cold blood) (19) anh […] ngọt ngào, khôn ngoan (châu liên, một khoảng trời yêu thương) (he […] is sweet, wise) obviously, there are several similar metaphorical expressions with the adjective “sweet” (ngọt) between english and vietnamese thanks to the universality of conceptual metaphor. moreover, metaphor is also a result of embodiment experience (phan & ho, 2020). because sweetness is the preferred taste that generally brings pleasant and satisfying feelings to human beings, (kohlmeier, 2015; molitor, 2021), as human vocabulary may not be enough to express the contentment and pleasure one perceives, the terms of sweet taste are used instead. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 35 published by scholink inc. however, metaphor is a matter of thought which is affected by cultural features; accordingly, metaphors coming into different cultures may be different. our investigation reveals two distinctive conceptual metaphors, i.e. the metaphor of touching as tasting (which only appears in vietnamese) and the manner-as-nutrient metaphor (just discovered in english). furthermore, language and culture are intertwined and unseparated; therefore, metaphorical expressions are under cultural influences (phan & ho, 2020), which is generally right in our investigation. as can be seen from the examples above, the simple word “sweet” is used in most of the cases whilst complex words are frequently used in vietnamese. that is, the adjective “ngọt” is usually modified by another component to make different meanings of the words, such as “ngọt ngào” (see more in example 5), “ngọt lịm” (see more in example 4), ngọt xớt (see more in example 3). while “ngọt ngào” refers to a general flavor, “ngọt lịm” reveals a strong feeling of pleasure and joy. in another lens, “ngọt xớt” represents the sounds that is gentle and pleasant to ears. a little differently, english shows a situation in which an affix is used, namely “sweetish” (slightly sweet). (20) he smelled the keen, sweetish odor of gin (carson mccullers, the heart is a lonely hunter) the difference may be shed light on by distinctive characteristics of word structure in each language. in english, the affixes are bound morphemes attached to roots to form new words with different meaning. in (20), it is sweetish, meaning “slightly sweet”. by contrast, an affix in vietnamese can stand alone as a syllable (tiếng) (e.g., ngọt xớt, ngọt lịm). while “xớt” often refers to a negative meaning, “lịm” with the meaning of “too x to be unconscious” carries an expressive and evaluative meaning. one more difference in our investigation is the using of compound words. some of them are found in vietnamese, including “ngọt ngào” (in example 5) and “ngọt bùi” (in example 21) but they appear not to be discovered in english. (21) […] đôi bạn thân, ngọt bùi cùng chia sẻ (hạ thu, con gái người tình) structurally, “ngọt ngào” may be formed by shortening the phrase “ngọt như ngào đường” (to be as sweet as being sugared); “ngọt bùi” is a compound adjective which is a combination of “ngọt” (sweet) and “bùi” (delicious and fatty). it is used to imply the happiness and pleasure that can be shared in (21). if there is no similar phenomenon in english, it is because english vocabulary contains fewer compound adjectives formed by “sweet”. in short, there are some similarities and differences between english and vietnamese conceptual and linguistic metaphors with the word “sweet”. the similarities are made clear by the universality of metaphor and of embodied experiences. the differences may be interpreted by the distinctions in word formation between english and vietnamese. 5. conclusion in the light of cmt, the paper investigates metaphorical expressions with the words “sweet” in english www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 36 published by scholink inc. and “ngọt” in vietnamese extracted from eight novels published in the 20th century, four in each language. the findings show 43 english linguistic metaphors containing “sweet” and 42 ones with “ngọt” in vietnamese which are identified based on pragglejaz group’s four-step metaphor identification procedure in discourse. interestingly, the metaphorical expressions containing “sweet” in english are found rather similar to those in vietnamese, such as sweet voice/sounds and giọng nói/tiếng nói ngọt, sweet smell/odor and hương ngọt, and someone sweet. in other words, these expressions are employed to describe other senses (such as hearing, smelling, and seeing), emotion and sentimental objects in both languages. however, there is a little difference between the two languages. when the manner-as-nutrient metaphor is discovered just in english, the touching-as-tasting metaphor only appears in vietnamese. the similarities are explained by the universality of conceptual metaphors and of human embodied experience. the differences are represented by the distinctive word structure between english and vietnamese. nevertheless, the limited scope of the investigation may result in some unsatisfying comparisons to some extent. therefore, it is necessary to do more researches to have a fuller picture of metaphorical expressions with “sweet” in english compared to the ones with “ngọt” in vietnamese. references astrid, w. b. et al. (2016). the relationship between taste and nutrient content in commercially available foods from the united states. food quality and preference, 57, 1-7. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.foodqual.2016.10.012 barcelona, a. (2008). metonymy is not just a lexical phenomenon: on the operation of metonymy in grammar and discourse. in c. alm-arvius, n., johannesson, & d. c. minugh (eds.), selected papers from the stockholm 2008 metaphor festival (pp. 3-42). stockholm: stockholm university press. cabanac, m. (2002). what is emotion? behavioural processes, 60(2), 69-83. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0376-6357(02)00078-5 chan, k. q., tong, e. m. w., tan, d. h., & koh, a. h. q. (2013). what do love and jealousy taste like? emotion, 13(6), 1142-1149. https://doi.org/ 10.1037/a0033758 ho, t. q. t. & phan, v. h. (2016) terms of sensory perception in english and vietnamese metaphorical expressions of love. international journal of language and linguistics, 4(2), 47-56. https://doi.org/ 10.11648/j.ijll.20160402.11 kohlmeier, m. (2015). chemical senses. in nutrient metabolism (2nd ed.) (pp. 1-23). https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-387784-0.00001-8 lakoff, g., & johnson, m. (2003). metaphors we live by. chicago and london: the university of chicago press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 37 published by scholink inc. molitor, e., riedel, k., krohn, m., hafner, m., rudolf, r., & cesetti, t. (2021). sweet taste is complex: signaling cascades and circuits involved in sweet sensation. human neuroscience, 22. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.667709 phạm, t. n. (2017). ẩn dụ từ vị giác “ngọt” trong tiếng hán hiện đại. tạp chí khoa học & công nghệ, 167(7), 43-48. phan, v. h., & ho, t. q. t. (2020). ẩn dụ: một hành trình nghiên cứu từ những góc nhìn khác biệt. tạp chí ngôn ngữ và đời sống, 12(306), 3-11. viện ngôn ngữ học. (2003). từ điển tiếng việt (in lần thứ 9). hoàng phê (chủ biên). trung tâm từ điển học, nxb đà nẵng. zawisławska, m. a., & falkowska, m. h. (2018). all my sour-sweet days i will lament and love-a comparative analysis of metaphors with the basic taste adjectives in polish and english. cognitive studies/études cognitives, 2018(18). https://doi.org/10.11649/cs.1675 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 160 original paper cfi: a working hypothesis roberto gigliucci1* 1 sapienza university, department of studi greco-latini, italiani e scenico-musicali, rome, italy * roberto gigliucci, sapienza university, department of studi greco-latini, italiani e scenico-musicali, rome, italy received: november 2, 2018 accepted: november 14, 2018 online published: november 28, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n2p160 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n2p160 abstract aim of this research’s draft is to understand the place and meaning of the arts in the human frame and society. the main hypothesis is that the role of the arts consists above all in producing objects of interpretation. this is not only a “role”; actually, it is an identity and a meaning. artworks are tools to be interpreted, meaningful structures that live only to be understood. the rule of the game is that the artwork must be per se significant (even when representing the senselessness of the world). thus, the artwork activates inevitably a call for interpretation (cfi), which is the fulfillment of its identity. the essay explores the fields of music/poetry and of cave arts, to get a preliminary setting of the scientific proposal. keywords aesthetics, system of arts, interpretation, music and poetry, cave art 1. introduction aim of this research’s draft is to understand the place and meaning of the arts in the human frame and society. the main hypothesis is that the role of the arts consists above all in producing objects of interpretation. this is not only a “role”; actually, it is an identity and a meaning. artworks are tools to be interpreted, meaningful structures that live only to be understood. the rule of the game is that the artwork must be per se significant (even when representing the senselessness of the world). thus the artwork activates inevitably a call for interpretation (henceforward cfi), which is the fulfillment of its identity, its entelechia. arts are created by humankind for humankind; they do not anyway transcend the secular dimension—even though it might seem like so—and they have a certain function within the community life. their function is to provide meaningful structures in a world that does not guarantee a meaning. consequently, the aesthetic pleasure must be reconsidered as an enthusiasm arising during the process of having the sense of the artwork. grasping a meaning is coexistent with the aesthetic emotion. they are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 161 published by scholink inc. the same thing. how to demonstrate this assumption? we want proceed towards two main goals: 1) defining the meaning of music 2) understanding the function of the prehistoric cave pictures why these two fields? because: 1) concerns the birth of the artistic production by humankind (artistic, not merely “aesthetic”), as to say the origins of every discussion about the identity of arts; and 2) singles music out because the debate on meaning in music (particularly about absolute music) has been crucial through centuries to understand the meaning of an artwork tout court. the demarcation of these boundaries we deem suitable for the deepening of the matter and the approaching the result of a hypothetical-deductive itinerary. why working hard in such an abstract realm? because within the human society, the place of the arts is not an abstract place, but a terribly concrete field for challenges. 2. method 2.1 preliminaries which is the function of art (arts) in human society? we start from that question. let us declare immediately that we have an answer. the explanation and verification of this answer will be the goal of the proposed research. it is evident, therefore, that the development of our inquiry will be formally “hypothetical-deductive”. nevertheless, we shall avoid every preconception (not pre-comprehension) and every ad hoc procedure, obviously. 2.2 what we want the ambition of our inquiry will be gaining a theory of everything in the aesthetic realm. a paradigm that may be applicable to any artistic production of any time. 2.3 importance of the proposal before summing up the working hypothesis, few words about the very consequence of this research. theories about the meaning and purpose of art have been following one another through the centuries. it is a contradictory historical frame, never ending until nowadays. unfortunately, most of these theories are not always appropriate to all artistic forms. furthermore, some classical paradigms—as the mimesis theory—blew up during the late modernity. kinds of conceptual art overturned previous certainties. historical fault lines annihilated or conversely unearthed past models. not to talk about the idea of beauty: exalted, violated and “enlarged” or “enriched” in many ways. thus, the suspect of the implausibility of an aesthetic science arises. moreover, the brutal suspect of a needlessness of art as well. the latter suspect is a real danger. artistic productions have been realized by humankind since prehistoric ages. that is a sufficient supporting document to erase suspects such as the above mentioned. the artistic productions are made by men for men; they are part of the activity of human community. they are not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 162 published by scholink inc. absolute. therefore, they have a precise relevance for all of us. and consistently they are suitable object of scientific inquiry. this said we might deem truly important the search for an overall meaning of the arts. meaning and function, within the non-absoluteness of our life, are inseparable. therefore, henceforward, when we talk about meaning we involve also function, and vice-versa. 2.4 first provisional conclusion finding the meaning of art entails finding a relevant part of our identity. it is impossible to ignore it. on the other hand, the increasingly reduction of separateness between humanistic and hard sciences offers an additional motivation for such a research as our one. then we must understand the function of the artistic production in our world. and we believe that without an interpretative model available for art itself (not only for single forms, genres, “techniques”), we could not get to substantial results. 2.5 working hypothesis we just said to have an answer to propose an answer to the demand about a scientific definition of art. we think that the fact of the interpretation is not simply one of the phenomena related to the so-called fruition of artistic objects. we are firmly persuaded that the interpretation has a role unique to define the sense of art. interpretation is the identity’s structure of the artwork, of its function. that is not a variation on hermeneutics. the thinking line from schleiermacher to gadamer and beyond is undoubtedly very precious for our work. however, our work operates in a further space, perhaps more radical, perhaps very different. therefore, we shall use the term interpretation and never the heavy word hermeneutics. we want to move the interpretation back to the origin of the artistic function and history. in a nutshell: we think that every artwork, as such, activates a call for interpretation (cfi), destined for every human being, and in this way the artwork fulfils its own role in the society. naturally, there is no transcendent call; nobody is calling from a metaphysical realm. the artwork is a tool made for the community by an author (willing or unaware he be), and the sense of this creation is just activating a cfi. the reader/spectator/listener, etc., stimulated by an artwork of every cultural level, knows, by virtue of a shared convention, that the artwork must signify something. he receives the strong cfi without exception, because this is the rule of the “game”, a serious game of course. the artwork questions us, and the consequence is that we look into it, unavoidably. 2.6 signification and pleasure it is a matter of significance. the real life is not compelled to be significant for us. we may find some daily experience, which is not semantic, from the exigent human point of view. someone goes further, stating the life to be definitely meaningless. that is because the existence does not need necessary an interpretation. being is self-justified. to be is to be is to be is to be. conversely, an artwork―which is real, obviously, but as human artifact―is created exactly to have a meaning. we all agree on that. someone ingenuously yaps on about the message. this is the lowest degree of argumentation. meaning is something solid, but not merely practical. if we (homo sapiens) have created an artistic activity oriented www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 163 published by scholink inc. to make significant objects and thus to arouse an effort of interpretation, this does not exclude the pleasure in enjoying an artwork. pleasure exists in aesthetic realm: this is a truism. how to harmonize the grasping of a sense with the delight of the contemplation, when making use of an artwork? this problem could seem the most difficult to solve. by contrast, it is a quasi-fake problem. first, scientists and philosophers have shown that thoughts and passions are overlapped, concurrent and—poetically said—“made of the same stuff”. thoughts are strictly related to meanings, and the meanings of passions are siblings of the formers. meaning is the key-concept to understand our civilization and our way of thinking and feeling. the reaction to the cfi is a blend of aesthetic emotion and yearning to catch a meaning. the interpretative ecstasy is the fulfillment of the artistic process, we might say. obviously, there are many (though not infinite) interpretations, not only one, least of all the intentio auctoris. but also this is a fake problem. 2.7 the “beauty” another fake problem is the beauty’s one. ascertained that the ideas of beauty have been marvelously contradictory through the centuries up to now, we have to rephrase that concept. briefly, the intensity of the cfi is proportional to the so-called “beauty” of the artwork. f. i. a commercial b movie may stimulate a minimum of cfi; a film by tarkovskij or kubrick drives the cfi to the maximum of intensity. therefore, we have different levels of pleasure-and-thought, depending on the expressive complexity of the artwork. 2.8 building a research how to verify the cfi theory? we want to confirm that every artwork is born to arouse a cfi and that the value, importance and beauty of an artistic production are measured up because of the intensity of cfi. the two main lines of inquiry will be primarily: 1) interrogating an art that is often considered “meaningless”, “beautiful in itself”: music. 2) interrogating the function of the primordial art, the cave painting. 2.9 music and interpretation the problem of the meaning of music is so complex and centuries old that some musicologists confess to be bored by it. in any case, it is still a matter of debate, indeed. the two opposite positions in this regard are the formalist one, against the refusal of auto-telic definition of music, on the other hand. the bibliography, as obvious, is huge. in this synopsis, we shall privilege only some aspects of the discussion. we start again from a point of view to demonstrate: we think that a “meaningless” art, namely, in the case of music, an art that means only itself, is a un-logic data. if there is the possibility of formulating a theory of everything in the area of artistic productions―and there is―we cannot conceive one kind of art absolutely separate from the parameters of all other arts. the so-called “enriched formalism”, which recently intends to go beyond classical formulations as those by hanslick, does not change the state of art. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 164 published by scholink inc. it is impossible to presume that the slightest extra-musical indication may transform the absolute (meaningless) music in a music linked to a concept or to a narration and so on. we shall produce some examples in our proposal below. now we simply say that music (a quartet, a symphonic poem, a melodrama etc.) is always an art like other arts, and therefore it is subject to the same general aesthetic institution (cfi). understanding well this particular argument will be a qualifying point of our inquiry. 2.10 cave art: a mystery? the option for the second line of research might look like an odd and incongruous choice. we think in lieu that, after having deepened the situation of an art that is said to be totally “autonomous”, for explaining a contrary opinion, we must turn to the early form of artistic expression in the history of mankind. the cfi system will be tested just on the cradle of human artistic creation. the hypotheses on the function/meaning of prehistoric cave painting have been a lot, since 19th century. we think that, beyond every geo-historical differentiation during thousands and thousands of years, beyond every possible religious, ritual, apotropaic, augural, magic function, the cave figurations are the crib of artistic expression of homo sapiens, that is, of our history. thus, the challenge is this: may we adopt the cfi theory even to the blurred and mysterious birth of artistic creativity? we think yes. 3. result 3.1 statements the meaning of arts is an object of inquiry that we can see from different points of view. i select preliminarily some areas and conceptual frameworks. a. historically 1) we can look for the role of arts in human society. 2) we can wonder if this role is entirely dependent on the various historical frames and moments. 3) we can hypothesize this role to be grounded in human sensitivity, thus only partially subject to the historical mutations. b. metaphysically 1) we can search for a metaphysical perspective, when asking for the meaning of arts. 2) we can get to conceive arts as manifestation of the absolute. 3) we can conversely develop a materialistic conception of the meaning of the arts. 4) we can get to conceive arts as a game system, a quite serious game. c. emotionally 1) we can deal with the sphere of emotions, formulating arousal theories, to understand the meaning of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 165 published by scholink inc. arts. 2) we can involve also the neuroscience to have hard paradigms for arts’ reception and reaction. 3) we can entangle thoughts in feelings to define better the complexity of emotional response to an artwork. 4) we can conversely exclude the elusive and subjective world of emotions from the inquiry on meaning of arts. d. autonomy/heteronomy 1) we can state that the arts’ field is autonomous and never heteronomous. 2) we can try to demonstrate that the purpose of art is art itself. 3) we can conversely maintain that in the artistic production pulchrum, verum, bonum are necessarily present, even in different “dosages”. 4) we can consistently argue that dulce is useless without utile in an artwork. 5) we can eventually state that the meaning/aim of the arts is humankind’s enhancement. e. representativeness 1) we can say that making art is the main way to satisfy our human pleasure in imitation (mimesis). 2) we can state therefore that the art is above all a representative activity. 3) we can add that, e. g., the music, or the architecture, are meaningful and indirectly representative arts as well. 4) we can claim, conversely, that music has no meaning but music itself. 5) we can extend that idea of pure form to all the arts, concluding whichever artwork is a form that means and represents nothing but itself. other perspectives have been offered by the history of aesthetics through centuries. our intention is to verify the hypothesis that meaning and social role of arts dwell in the activation of a call for interpretation, and first we have to resume this working hypothesis. then we shall explain how to actualize that theoretical positioning. 3.2 working hypothesis the aim of our research is then to show that the substance of aesthetic experience is a sort of cfi and our fundamental inescapable answer to it. however, as we said above, there is nothing or nobody calling from another dimension: artworks are tools for human beings, made by themselves. the aesthetic dimension does not transcend humankind: art-craft is a creation of men for men. it is social invention of homo sapiens, hence a thing with peculiar functions describing its identity. the target of our inquiry is just defining these functions. we think that the main purpose of artistic activities is on one side enabling the cfi (author’s side), and on the other trying to give original answers (consumer’s side). an artistic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 166 published by scholink inc. product is a kind of an interpreting tool. we would propose a theory of everything in the aesthetic realm—the temptation is so strong... we wish to underline the primary role of interpretation in the aesthetic process. we also wish move the interpretation back, to the origins. this is not certainly a new variety of hermeneutics. according to our idea, the interpretation is not something optional, a possibility, a matter for specialists. it is not an a posteriori. interpretation is an obligation, a necessity. interpretation is art. kunst ist verstehen (overturning the statement of schleiermacher). art is interpretation, i.e., it is meaning, thought, and interpretation is pleasure. a pleasure nearly forbidden in the real life. communis opinio considered the aesthetic experience to be essentially emotional, intuitional, if not irrational, i.e., anti-intellectual. we think that the interpretation’s problem solving is a basic component of the aesthetic experience, and we intrude it deeply into the so-called (blurred) pleasure. tasting is at the same time knowing, understanding and evaluating, that is interpreting: this equivalence was suggested by baumgarten (1735: §xcii) quoting the hebraic term tā’am (םעט). we dare to speak of an interpretational ecstasy, to stress the overlapping of enjoyment and endeavor in answering to cfi. this overlapping is almost a consubstantiality, a synolon. why this concentration of artistic functions into the fact of interpretation? because life is often (always?) meaningless, while art cannot be so: we claim art meaningful. we can say too: concluded, finished, spherical, even when an artistic work depicts the incompleteness or incongruence of life (that is anyway a meaning). in addition, when a tale includes in itself détails inutiles and simulates the lack of meaning, the vacancy of “signified” in the referential world. we agree with barthes: le “réel” est réputé se suffire à lui même. but if being is self-justified, art is not, indeed. art is similar to religion, as a response to the marks of life’s meaningless, but the meanings of art are not dogmatic, they are fluid, while religion’s ones are absolute, transcendent. we saw (e.1-3) that art is hold to be exquisitely representative (except for music and some other abstract works), since aristotle. yes, but if we give less importance to the definition of art as mimesis (and contextually to the definition of music as source-imitation of emotions), we nearly eliminate the difference between representative and non-representative arts, confining “realism” only to a merely specific formal domain, although historically relevant. this is not in contradiction with the idea of the birth of modernity as a new relationship between art and reality—from cervantes to galileo, to sum it up. actually, the cfi disregards the quantum of verisimile or the effort of effet du réel present in any artwork. thus, we can restate the marginalization of the mimesis’ theory, or simply we can say that this ancient theory is not a totalitarian theory. moreover, we can do it just resorting to the analysis of musical art, and particularly of absolute music in relation with music-literary productions. this aspect will be deepened below, in the methodological section of our proposal. why do we posit meaning and thinking in a so strict a link? well, the word mean partakes the same indo-european root with mind (oed: old english mænan, of west germanic origin; related to dutch meenen and german meinen, from an indo-european root shared by mind). simply, meaning is thought http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/mind www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 167 published by scholink inc. too. sometimes i heard it translated in italian with pensiero. we cannot think to a thought without thinking to a meaning’s production. in addition, a meaning is impossible without a thought, or without someone who would be thinking. the difference between sinn and bedeutung (frege) is without sense, if not nitpicking, in the artistic realm, where sense and meaning are not different (which is not exactly the same as to say that they are identical). an audacious analogy may be proposed with the coincidentia of esse and essentia in god iuxta saint thomas. problems of meaning are not present (included) in reality: being is meaningful, because its sense is being itself; being is self justified: being is, not-being is not, as the pre-socratics taught. this is eventually a materialistic way to describe the same discovery of the curé de campagne at the end of the journal by bernanos and of the wondrous movie by bresson: tout est grâce. everything that is, it is = everything is grace. materialism and theodicy coincide. spinoza, leibniz, sartre in the same fiery cauldron. a hotchpotch. whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent (wittgenstein); that is well, but we may say now: speaking or being silent is the same. otherwise, we can resort to art and to the cfi. an artwork is not beautiful and (or but, worse!) difficult, rather beautiful because difficult, more or less. i am not defending the marriage between art and mystery, something holy and quasi-divine. i am saying that art is interpretation, as a matter of ontology. cfi is the radiant form through which artworks manifests themselves. so, more arduous the way leading to interpretation (to interpretations, not to a unique interpretation, not to the true interpretation, true idiocy), more beautiful and exciting the artwork. however, manifestation is not an absurd aletheia-epiphany. manifestation is a simple laic word to indicate the particular rapport with an artistic object, when a saturation of sense arises and grows, generating an exquisite delight. manifestation is the expression of the function of an artwork, which is a tool, even though it so wonderful as to become for us something of sublime. and something looking dangerously absolute. there are no absolutes. artistic pleasure is not an absolute. an artist is not an absolute. an art consumer is not an absolute. homo sapiens create pernicious absolutes in his mind always and always, thinking about the massimi sistemi as well as about the daily prosaic interrelations of his life. an artwork is not an absolute that may stay enclosed in a cavern or in a private room, radiating in solitude. it must be tested; it needs a public to make sense. the cook prepares food for the consumers and the measures of the value of what is prepared is found in consumption. [...] to be truly artistic, a work must also be estethic—that is, framed for enjoyed receptive perception (dewey). art is a relative production of meaning-beauty. so art is thought. and the emotions? yes, the emotions. but the most extreme emotion is a torsion of thought as well, isn’t it? the pleasure is a delicious torture of the mind, actually. in the guise of an answer to cfi, i think that even the most ancient form of artistic expression, cave art, was an invitation to interpret that amazing combination of painted beasts, men, hands, lines, and colours. this is the second main methodological horizon we shall see below. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 168 published by scholink inc. every artwork must be interpreted, otherwise indeed there is no game. we think this is valid for music, poetry, fine arts, architecture, as if to say for all representative and not representative arts, abstract and figurative arts, narrative and not narrative arts. the game—we do not like this term, but it must be understood in its most serious meaning—is the same. 3.3 substantiations following a hypothetical-deductive line of inquiry, we have to verify the meaning of arts in their identity related to cfi. we want to start by analyzing two fields of research, as above anticipated. 3.3.1 the meaning of music the discussion about a non-representative art such as music may begin from criticizing the new (enriched) formalism of the fortunate philosophy of music by kivy. if we take the example of allegretto by beethoven (7th symphony), we ascertain that kivy writes about it that it is a grand, magnificent piece of melancholic music—but not melancholy in itself, otherwise it would be unpleasant: rather, the allegretto should wonderfully represent melancholy, and the immense beauty of this melancholy, a magnificent sumptuous musical image of melancholy. but in the light of beethovenian previous melancholic quartet 6 op. 18, and by reading its adagio entitled la malinconia (lunga-breve-breve-lunga-lunga: ♩♪♪♩♩; the same pattern of allegretto), we can philologically indentify a precise “rhythm of the melancholy” in beethoven, and the illusion of an absolute music vanishes, at least for this time. in a manner to speak that enjoying is thinking: the pleasure afforded by music listened to for its own sake is the pleasure of understanding (davies). i would substitute understanding with interpreting, but the concept is clear. then we may speak a bit about schubert and his celebre trio in es dur: here the pure pleasure of making music together, ensemble music (i.e., music as meaningless, absolute art) plays in a painful dialectic with the music as angst, anguish (i.e., music as meaning-bearer), and the aftermath is a negative dialectic, without resolution. moreover, everything that means (i.e., thinks to) implies an obliged—never unique!—answer required to the listener, and it reveals the original presence of a cfi, q.e.d. (erat/erit). anyway, the last schubert poses questions, while for instance schumann always unveils the unavailability of answers (see, for instance, the adagio espressivo of his second symphony). the last schubert (think only to the awesome extreme quartet) crushes the previous joyful belief in a simple socially self-validating music. also the unanswered questions posed by schumann are a desperate, extreme sort of cfi. another more geometric musical example: the sonatas by domenico scarlatti hide under the brilliance of the hyper-virtuoso style the neurosis of coactive repetition. eventually virtuoso habits and the compulsive mode coalesce, particularly so if the performance is not “romantically” slow and meditative but goes on fast and furious. and we can ask: what does a scarlatti’s sonata think? music is a thought. alternatively, we can propose a doubt: does a sonata think or rather does it narrate? otherwise, symmetrically, does hegel think or does he narrate in his phänomenologie des geistes? (which is one of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 169 published by scholink inc. the most beautiful novels in the xixth century). is there a link between the philosophical thought-tale and the musical narration-thought? probably the answer is yes. then a poetic-musical example: the crucial western model of complexity, don giovanni by da ponte and mozart. here, in the scene of the commendatore showing up at dinner, the musician alters the libretto’s words and mood. the serious-comical blend offered by da ponte (who follows his main model bertati) is transformed in the very tragic scene of a man in front of supreme justice. voilà a hyper-tragic scene of contrast between the bare human being and the powerful divinity messenger. the comic counterparts-lazzi of leporello are absorbed in the terrible ensemble. the nimbly funny ohibò in bertati-gazzaniga—“stolen” by da ponte3—becomes a frightening tessera of a serious grand operatic scene. don giovanni is an empio and he must meet up with his punishment. but is it a real justice, or a supreme injustice? is really don giovanni, the hero of the freedom (viva la libertà), guilty? is his challenge to society a true impiety? the ambiguity of this melodrama is actually supreme. the cfi is incredibly strong. hence, the artistic magnificence of don giovanni is incomparable. only few examples, these, to indicate the richness of the matter. the debate about the meaning of music is relatively ancient; we think to the formalism from chabanon to hanslick up to the recent positions; the bibliography is huge (cf. a few suggestions in gigliucci). the new biomusicology (wallin), that studies the origins of music (evolutionary musicology), the human brain and music (neuromusicology), the functions and uses of music (comparative musicology), enriches incredibly the frame of inquiry. how and why to proceed in the field of studies about music’s meanings? why: we think that the extreme case of music, the less representative art, is telling for us. the problem of the meaning is drastic, so to speak, in the artistic identity of music. therefore, we find this problem substantial for our research. to verify the efficacy of cfi theory, the analysis of music looks like a correct starting point. how: the relationship between music and literature (poetry for music and musical outcome, or in general comparison betwixt logos and melos) is fundamental to go on toward the definition of absolute music. we have to ascertain that cfi paradigm allows to include music in the realm of other arts, and to give up considering music as a world apart, a meaningless unique art that signifies only itself (as it were, that signifies nothing...). if the problem of meanings’ production is the problem in aesthetic sphere, first we must study the musical phenomenology from many points of view: emotions and their intertwining with thoughts, the meaning and what does it mean, the social role of music and so on. the methodology will be variable according to these perspectives of investigation. 3.3.2 cave art the second field of inquiry will be the scene of the discussion about the function and the meaning of cave art, particularly of paleolithic wall paintings. metaphysics as we know it is all but unthinkable without the image of the cave and, no doubt, without the images in the caves (rosengren). the search for an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 170 published by scholink inc. absolute beginning involves necessarily our work, to clarify a possible applicability of cfi system already to prehistoric times, to the cradle of artistic production by homo sapiens. a preliminary investigation on the main interpretations of cave art will be done. actually, after the ornamental theory, the magic-sympathetic, the structuralist, the shamanic etc., scholars nowadays prefer underline the uncertainty of every hypothesis and the probable variation of meaning and functions through millennia and in the various human settlements. nonetheless, the questions survive: homo sum, nihil humani alienum a me puto, least of all our human past. cave art calls us for interpretation, and consistently called our ancestors as well. 3.4 why and how • we have to understand if the cfi has been the identity of art since the dawn of art itself. • we have also to consider the (refutable) objections of those who do not deem prehistoric rock art as art. • we shall try to index opinions, interpretations, images, recent scientific acquisitions. • we hope in this way to demonstrate that the activation of an interpretative reaction has always been the innermost sense of art making. if there were some religious or holy implications, that should not disturb the simple, calm, perennial grounds of artistic achievement intended as a call for interpretation, an escape from the obscure and frequently meaningless life towards a realm where everything must be meaningful, must have a sense, according to a common human convention. 4. discussion the two main methodological choices above declared are a sort of pincers to grasp our issue and to verify our hypothesis. the two fields (music and prehistoric figurative art) are two extreme areas of interest, and we claim that they are significant for us for this very reason. but we must obviously consider other scopes as well. only a few examples, before provisionally concluding. i will take my first exemplar from the field of painting again, particularly from the production of one of the most popular artists of every time, caravaggio. his lazarus’ resurrection has recently been perfectly restored. roman people who saw this canvas before its return to messina’s museum, have been living an extreme, bewildering aesthetic experience. caravaggio’s lazarus: resurrection or deposition? who is calling whom? christ is talking with the death, through—almost necromantically—lazarus? mors says: cur me persequeris?, or: cras morieris (alluding to the passion), tu seras mort demain et encore plus après demain... a wholly humanized christ stands in front of death, of his own death (the cross, foreshowed by the arms of lazarus), while resurrection remains only a possibility. it is neither denied, nor proclaimed. eventually the next resurrection is a hypothesis. the new exegesis on matthew in the vocation’s painting of s. luigi de’ francesi corroborates the former interpretation of lazarus. actually, if the called is the young avid, covetous publican and not the bearded www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 171 published by scholink inc. old man who should indicate with his finger precisely the rough adolescent, then the instant selected for the picture is just the one before the conversion, so before the “miracle”. will matthew answer to christ’s calling? we are not sure of it; caravaggio makes it not certain, actually. otherwise, do we all agree upon this interpretation? probably, or rather certainly not. however, what interests us is that the supreme beauty of caravaggio’s paintings dwells in the terrible, unavoidable cfi that they command. another example, a literary one, now. a classic: bacchae by euripides. the last masterwork by the third great tragedian of 5th century athens has been read as a religious, palinodic, extreme play, or as a fierce antitheist and rationalist tragedy. if we consider bacchus as the hero, we propend for the first reading. if we appreciate the rationalist pentheus and consider him the innocent tragic victim, then we think that euripides never abandoned his bad opinion about the gods, and thus we have a proclivity for the second reading. eventually, and atrociously shortly, we can say that the dilemma has no solution, because the terrible ambiguity (in the highest sense) of the masterwork by euripides is just an insoluble conundrum, in which the culpability of the main characters has the same mould and shape of their innocence, in which ridiculous behaviour is at the same time a tragic one. bacchae activates an incredibly powerful cfi, and this is the reason of his perennial bloody beauty. these and other interpretations will be considered. the research is now only outlined. nevertheless, we hope this draft will elicit consequences and reactions. references barthes, r. (1984). le bruissement de la langue, essais critiques iv. in l’effet de réel (pp. 179-187). paris: seuil. bacchae. (1994). in j. diggle (ed.), euripidis fabulae, iii. oxford: clarendon. baumgarten, m. a. g. (1735). in b. croce (ed.), meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus (p. 33). magdeburg. reprint. napoli: vecchi, 1900. bell, c. (1914). art. new york: f. a. stokes. bernanos, g. (1936). le journal d’un curé de campagne. paris: plon. bertati, g. (1787). don giovanni o sia il convitato di pietra. in il capriccio drammatico (pp. 31-71). venezia: casali. bonds, m. e. (2014). absolute music. in the history of an idea. oxford: univ. press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199343638.001.0001 bresson, r. (1950). le journal d’un curé de campagne, movie, france, b/n, 117’. caravaggio. (2012). in d. radeglia (ed.), la resurrezione di lazzaro. roma: palombi. chabanon, m. p. g. de. (1785). la musique considérée en elle-même et dan ses rapports avec la parole, les langues, la poésie, et le théâtre. paris: pissot. chatterjee, a. (2014). the aesthetic brain. in how we evolved to desire beauty and enjoy art. oxford: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 172 published by scholink inc. univ. press. clottes, j. (2016). what is paleolithic art? cave art and the dawn of human creativity. chicago univ. press (original french edition paris: gallimard, 2011). https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226188065.001.0001 croce, b. (1900). meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus. napoli: vecchi. dahlhaus, c. (1978). die idee der absoluten musik. kassel: bärenreiter. danto, a. c. (1981). the transfiguration of the commonplace. in a philosophy of art. cambridge (mass.) and london: harvard univ. press. da ponte, l. (1995).in g. gronda (ed.), il don giovanni. torino: einaudi. david, b. (2017). cave art. london: thames & hudson. davies, s. (1994). musical meaning and expression (p. 332 & 356). ithaca and london: cornell univ. press. dewey, j. (2008). art as experience. in j. a. boydston (ed.), the later works, vol. 10 (p. 54). southern illinois: univ. press. sutcliffe, w. d. (2003). the keyboard sonatas of domenico scarlatti (pp. 145-166). cambridge: univ. press. eco, u. (1994). the limits of interpretation. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana univ. press. euripides. (1994). in j. diggle (ed.), euripidis fabulae, iii. oxford: clarendon. ferraris, m. (1998). l’ermeneutica. roma-bari: laterza. frege, g. (1992). über sinn und bedeutung. in i. angelelli (ed.), kleine schriften (pp. 143-162). hildesheim: olms. gadamer, h.-g. (1986). hermeneutik i. wahrheit und methode. tübingen: mohr. gigliucci, r. (2014). music and poetry: a call for interpretation. humanitas, 66, 407-419. https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-1718_66_21 gopnik, b. (2011). aesthetic science and artistic knowledge. in a. p. shimamura, & s. e. palmer (ed.), aesthetic science: connecting minds, brains and experiences. oxford: univ. press. hanslick, e. (1854). vom musikalisch-schönen. leipzig: weigel. hegel, g. w. f. (1807). phänomenologie des geistes. bamberg und würzburg: göbhardt. hirsch, e. d. jr. (1967). validity in interpretation. new haven and london: yale univ. press. huizinga, j. (1971). homo ludens. boston ma: beacon press. labouvie-vief, g. (2015). integrating emotions and cognition throughout the lifespan. cham (zg): springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09822-7 lawson, a. j. (2012). painted caves. palaeolithic rock art in western europe. oxford: univ. press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199698226.001.0001 kivy, p. (2002). introduction to a philosophy of music. oxford, clarendon. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 173 published by scholink inc. kunze, s. (1984). mozarts opern. stuttgart: reclam. nussbaum, m. c. (2001). upheavals of thought. in the intelligence of emotions. cambridge: univ. press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511840715 prater, a., kretschmer, h., hass, a., röttgen, h., & lavin, i. (2012). caravaggio. dov’è matteo? in un caso critico nella vocazione di san luigi dei francesi. milano: medusa. rosengren, m. (2012). cave art, perception and knowledge. houndmills (basingstoke, uk): palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137271976 jean-mariem, s. (2015). l’expérience esthétique. paris, gallimard. stecker, r. (1996). artworks. definition meaning value. university park, pennsylvania state univ. press. schleiermacher, f. d. e. (1809-1810). die allgemeine hermeneutik, geschrieben im winter 1809-1810 (angefangen den 24sten november 09) ms. schleiermacher, f. d. e. (1996). in m. marassi (ed.), ermeneutica. milano: bompiani (parallel text edition). scruton, r. (1997). the aesthetics of music. oxford: univ. press. talon-hugon, c. (2014). l’art victime de l’esthétique. paris: hermann. tatar, b. (1998). interpretation and the problem of the intention of the author. washington: the council for research in values and philosophy. aquinatis, t. (1975). in c. boyer (ed.), opusculum de ente et essentia. rome: univ. gregoriana. wallin, n. l. (1991). biomusicology: neurophysiological, neuropsychological and evolutionary perspectives on the origins and purposes of music. stuyvesant (new york): pendragon. wittgenstein, l. (2013). tractatus logico-philosophicus. london: routledge. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 79 original paper understanding immigration today: the importance of religious literacy on immigration and refugee crisis cristian j. mendoza1* 1 associated professor of catholic social doctrine, school of theology and school of church communications, pontifical university of the holy cross, rome, italy * cristian j. mendoza, associated professor of catholic social doctrine, school of theology and school of church communications, pontifical university of the holy cross, rome, italy received: march 26, 2020 accepted: april 8, 2020 online published: april 14, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n2p79 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n2p79 abstract this paper deals with the concept of immigrants and refugees when defining public policy. public understanding of immigrants and refugees comes from political definitions and from secular and faith-based organizations. most political definitions regarding immigrants and refugees are found in public policies: opening or closing borders, visa regulations, etc. these definitions include concepts regarding people who are object of the legislation under the mindset of people writing it. sometimes the legislators don’t understand the world vision of immigrants and refugees. and those who respect the law don’t always know the mindset and motivations of the legislators. so a sort of common literacy is needed. this literacy is an essential part of this study. the objective of this paper is twofold. first, it aims to identify some of the general areas lacking research to adequately address the refugee crisis. second, it aims to look forward for future research with representatives of key international entities helping immigrants and refugees. its contents are organized in three parts: outlining the basic understanding of immigrants and refugees as it is found in contemporary academic literature, showing that without common concepts it is hard to reach agreements for social collaboration. making a call to action. keywords immigrants, refugees, religious literacy, faith-based organizations, public policy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 80 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction social collaboration takes place when people know, like and trust others at least at a certain degree. for enhancing social collaboration it is essential to keep up mutual cooperation and mutual understanding between members in a given society. political authorities are responsible for enhancing social collaboration. when dealing with immigration they have a twofold challenge for integrating people from different backgrounds into the culture of their new country. first, with regards to the newcomers it is necessary to bridge somehow two worlds: the one that mobilized people are leaving and the one they are entering into. second, for the people in the hosting country is necessary to understand their own behaviors with respect to the immigrants and refugees finding a way to not only interact with them, but also for making them flourish. for the citizens in the hosting countries it seems reasonable that being with people who think different may help them to understand better their own ideas, behavior and life style. it is not about changing what they usually do, say and believe, it is about deepening the meaning of it for themselves. and so, the challenge is cultural, but not only. the center for international development (cid) of harvard university observes that in america there is an immigrant population of around 14 per cent of the total population. and considering only the entrepreneurial population of the united states, the percentage of immigrants raise to 20 per cent. immigrants influence economic development. this observation is even more noticeable when focusing in specific parts of america. for instance in the silicon valley, 46 per cent of the workers were born outside of the united states. moreover from all people working in that area, only 16 per cent were born in california. this state has around 40 million people, but the silicon valley attracts people from the whole world and benefits from that concentration of foreigners (audrestch, link, & walshok, 2015, p. 65). public policy is needed for facing these challenges as it can foster social collaboration with immigrants and refugees. people move more easily now from one country to another, or from one region to another within the same country. currently, people’s mobility makes the need for public policies more urgent, because it creates great social concerns: unemployment, lack of housing and education, etc. this concern grows especially when regards people’s movement across nations. public policies regulating people’s mobility across national borders are often built upon economic reasoning: i.e., on the one hand increasing the number of workers might generate lower wages, but on the other hand if immigrants are unskilled workers they could represent higher expenses in social aid. social research shows that public concern regards mostly cultural issues: immigrants have different beliefs and behaviors, they would not integrate with the local customs, etc. in a word, people’s mobility becomes a challenge to “the sense of us” (alvarez & hernandez, 2019, p. 7). in sum, mobility is a challenge for the common good of society. this common good is what aristotle www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 81 published by scholink inc. already defined as the good of the individual citizen but projected to the whole of the polis. for the philosopher the good of the individual is health for the physical body and justice for the spiritual soul. in the same way society should aim for health and justice for all, reaching the good of all individuals, through public hospitals, the military and prisons. public policies helping citizens to reach their common good should not only aim to economic goals. keeping in mind the holistic good of society in this paper, i will try to integrate both the widely recognized public concern regarding immigrants and refugees that is mostly economic, with the public policies addressing immigrants and refugees, in a twofold way. first, i will argue that increased religious literacy could help citizens of hosting countries to see the newcomers as citizens like themselves. this because a society recognizing every individual having a dignity rooted in his human nature, regardless of his ethnicity or beliefs, thinks in a “more human” way. this society provides better conditions for the flourishing of its members. this is part of what religious believers try to foster: they attempt to bring people together with the divine, and with each other, without exclusion. believing in a common maker, could help people to understand their common nature and common call for being a community. in other words i argue that religious faith can expand our “sense of us”, making societies more socially inclusive. and second, specifically with regards to people’s mobility, i argue that religious literacy may help citizens of “the global north” to nuance the potential negative view of foreigners moving into their countries. the name we give others makes a difference. most of the newcomers are economic immigrants, not refugees, they are workers not burdens, people with potential not with problems. the conclusions i look forward are, on the one hand, 1) that economic migrants could actually foster economic development in their new nations. especially when they are seen as someone with equal dignity to local citizens. i argue on the other hand 2) that migrants can develop cultural and human values in the hosting society, bringing in their own skills and increasing social responsibilities that are not measurable in economic terms. legislation matters, and in this case it is built on concepts embedded in culture and religion. most of the time we understand immigrants as competitors, or substitutes of our own economic activity. but we should see them as complements of what we already do. immigrants—and perhaps also refugees—are like sugar and coffee: the more you have of one, the more you need of the other. the more migrants come to a nation, the more talent will bring with them. they are not substitutes of local talent, but additions to it. religious literacy can help in the definition of immigrants and refugees as complements rather than as substitutes. i will next 1) explain the meaning of religious literacy 2) see how we use it for immigration policies and 3) compare the language of immigration policies to immigration public concern. finally, in the discussion i aim to stress the differences between them for proposing a common language for public dialogue regarding this humanitarian crisis. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 82 published by scholink inc. 2. method 2.1 the meaning of religious literacy living in a global society is always easier to find people who believe and think in different ways. when entering in contact with religious people from india or africa, where the sense of the sacred is deeply embedded in society, we could notice a lack of concepts for describing it, so finding a sort of religious illiteracy. in western society this illiteracy could lead to confuse religious with irrational behaviors, or spiritual ideals with irreal desires, promoting prejudice and bigotry. on the contrary, better understanding of religion could give people more language and tools to understand others. this understanding—related for instance to immigrants and refugees—is important to create public policies and to communicate to the general audience. religious literacy is not only necessary for policy makers but also for religious representatives, because they are not experts in every context and might also need updating in specific fields, and because they are not indifferent to the political and economics issues of society. at the end, improving religious literacy is especially important for political authorities and likewise for religious or humanitarian leaders. 2.1.1 religious literacy for public authorities governments need more a language for religions, than answers to religions. this language might require a fundamental optimism for human nature and the capacity to distinguish direct violence from cultural violence. the last limits some people for reaching goods and services necessary for a healthy, meaningful and safe existence. cultural violence is translated in tacit discrimination based for instance on ethnicity, religion or family traditions. other forms of cultural violence are discovered when looking historically to situations: the assumption that some people are different to us and that this othering is indefensible was the principle of the nazis, the slave owners, etc. the answer to cultural violence is grounded on the consideration that embedded norms and assumptions seeming natural, right and inevitable are always constructed, although they are commonly accepted. discovering the injustice behind this kind of social constructions allowed people to abolish slavery and to end the apartheid. in the case of cultural violence othering is the root of the problem. and othering is transmitted through embedded norms and assumptions where religion always takes part. some religious groups in america argued moral legitimacy for slavery by preaching from the pulpits in the united states. but at the same time, abolitionist came out from religious believers, so the influence of religion could also be very positive for society. that is why christians affirm that “when the individual is not recognized and loved in the person’s dignity as the living image of god (cf. gen 1:26), the human being is exposed to more humiliating and degrading forms of ‘manipulation’, that most assuredly reduce the individual to a slavery to those who are stronger” (john paul ii, 1988, p. 5). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 83 published by scholink inc. 2.1.2 religious literacy for humanitarian leaders humanitarian leaders creating cultural values likewise become a key factor for facing cultural violence. cultures are shaped by those who could be members of organized religions and relief associations. looking at social changes, we usually find people who in an act of courage, imagination or faith stepped out of cultural assumptions. humanitarian leaders have the conviction that personal action matters and that social changes start small—even from a negative point of view—moving later to positions of greater influence. on the contrary, hearing that our actions won’t matter is itself a form of cultural violence put in place for maintaining specific social conditions of injustice, and for keeping up with the status quo. the need for a public consideration of religious affairs is usually stressed when social issues raise. for instance, when governments aim to understand terrorism born out of religious fundamentalisms. terrorist attacks reach different publics, like the us domestic political sphere and the international community. isis produces ninety thousand media contents a day and, despite that the united states’ secretary of state or international humanitarian leaders do not have legitimacy in islam theology, these media content need a public answer (halverson, corman, & goodall, 2011, p. 100). and the needed answers should avoid fulfilling the narrative of isis, giving credit to the terrorists. religious leaders likewise need to keep the right concepts especially when public language is complex and when the aim is to reach subgroups within large organizations. not every religious believer is an extremist and not every extremist is a terrorist. in sum, there are three main reasons why every government should aim to interpret religion correctly: 1) in terms of social, political and economic affairs, religions are powerful and consequential. so if part of diplomacy is trying to get social agreements, then religion is part of that because any time the government is involved in religious issues there are dynamics of power in place. 2) religious illiteracy can lead to great harm, because for example it should not be possible to impose democracy to societies, not mattering if people want it or not. the export of religious freedom should not be coercive. 3) religious illiteracy is about educating people so that in terms of public pronouncements the government should never refer to a specific religious group as being better than others. religious literacy matters in social issues linked to immigration and refugee’s crisis, because the terms immigration, temporal resident and refugee could be mixed and confused in public policy. and understanding what does “mobilization of people” mean for society could help to enhance social inclusion. 2.2 immigration and refugee’s mobility as a humanitarian crisis we established a basic argument regarding the importance of religious literacy for defining public policy and for reaching better cultural understanding of others. next, we would like to make the case www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 84 published by scholink inc. for religious literacy with regards to the immigration and refugee’s crisis. 2.2.1 economic solutions for the crisis north america is the region of the world receiving more people from abroad looking for a better life. recent statistics show that since the year 2000, legal immigrants to the united states number approximately one million annually and 600.000 of them are just a change of status of people who were already living in america. legal immigrants to the united states now are at their highest level ever, reaching over 37 million legal immigrants. their arrival does not seem to be translated in economic betterment as “in canada and the usa, the economic outcomes of immigrants have generally deteriorated over the past 40 years, while in many european countries, which have only recently begun to receive immigrants, immigrants have also had poor economic outcomes” (warman et al., 2018, p. 54). europe presents a similar trend as “according to municipal registers (padrón continuo 2000-2016 in spain and anagrafe 2000-2016 in italy), the foreign population increased from 1.12 million to 5.03 million (78% non-european union [eu]) in italy, and from 0.92 million to 4.72 million (60% non-eu) in spain from 2000 to 2016. the share of foreigners (based on citizenship) in the total population rose from 1.8 to 8.3% in italy and 2.2 to 10.1% in spain from 2000 to 2016” (garha & paparusso, 2018, p. 1). north european countries have received even more immigrants than the south of europe in the past years. the following figure shows the proportion of immigrants—in percent of the population—in italy, denmark, netherlands, spain, germany and sweden by 1 january 2016: figure 1. proportion of immigrants in european population by country (it: italy, dk: denmark, nl: netherlands, es: spain, de: germany, swe: sweden) source: eurostat (online data code: migr_pop3ctb) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 85 published by scholink inc. like in the case of north america, the increase in number of people working in europe does not guarantee that the new settlers reach a better life in economic terms, actually “more than a third of immigrant households live with less than 50 percent of a country’s median income” (eugster, 2018, p. 461). similar patterns are observed in asia as immigration would grow along the economic development of china and thailand. immigration movements are therefore based on the expectation of economic growth and they produce economic outcomes, “a mass migration into shanghai doubled its population from 1980 to 2010, so did manchester from 1811 to 1841: movements that undoubtedly created socioeconomic opportunities for many, and yet they also accentuated inequalities” (hackl, 2018, p. 150). immigration is based on economic aspirations while refugee movement happens due to political problems. considering the amount of immigrants not reaching social and economic inclusion and the many refugees fleeing their countries in conflict, it is common today to speak about a humanitarian crisis. in the middle east some nations are not anymore socially sustainable, for example lebanon has 4.5 million inhabitants and is hosting more than 1.2 million refugees; or turkey receiving more than 3.5 million refugees keeps in one zone of the country one million refugees (un migration report, 2017; unicef report, 2018). these crisis may not be resolved only on political grounds, they need cultural and religious actions. 2.2.2 cultural solutions for the crisis both immigration and refugee movements are global problems to be addressed from economic, political and cultural standpoints. the solution of these crisis at their fundamental level is about reaching social inclusion and integration in the new countries. it requires though to understand human interchange with people coming from different places of the world, being part of different cultures, religions, ethnicity and ideas. and at the same time to understand that they have many valuable things to share with the citizens of the hosting nation. this understanding is not fruit of public policy, because “whilst these macro-level questions are of vital importance, they should not conceal the fact that migration is primarily experienced by individuals on a local level, or where the global factors that shape migration vary according to localized historical experiences and cultural factors” (castles, 2010, 2012). so the experience of the individual citizen living in the welcoming society counts a lot and “religious belief plays a key role in motivating many individuals towards social action, including the support of migrants” (kessler & arkush, 2008), therefore we argued for adequate concepts in public policies and in public expressions; both based on correct cultural and religious languages. especially now that some arabic nations—where islam is the religion of the majority—are currently welcoming catholic filipino workers and now that an important part of the immigration to europe are muslims. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 86 published by scholink inc. religious literacy is important because sometimes religion could create views of mercy and compassion for mobilized people, as for instance “within the judeo-christian tradition, narratives of forced migration are a recurring theme in scripture and are frequently used as reference points for discussing moral and spiritual challenges” (artaud, 2018, p. 405). but some other times religion could also build walls and create distances with others. 2.3 immigration and its economic outcomes: problems and opportunities both human phenomena: economic mobilization as being the principal cause of immigration, and the political crisis leading refugees to flee from their countries has existed for a long time. however, there is something new in the current refugee and immigration crisis. the current mobilization of people is considered by the scientific literature as a new humanitarian crisis for three principal reasons: 1) the rapidity with which it happens, which does not favor social inclusion and integration; 2) the political instability and violence it creates along with prejudices against others and, finally; 3) the issue of economic inequality that it brings about. 2.3.1 characteristics of the new crisis first of all, in itself immigration is not a recent human phenomenon, what is new about immigration is the volume of people leaving their countries today and the speed with which it takes place. “the combined factors of population growth, ongoing political and economic instability, and the availability of modern communication and transportation technologies have changed the scale and rapidity of human migration. the number of people currently displaced by conflict or persecution throughout the world is at its highest since the second world war” (esthimer, 2014, p. 22). the immigration crisis raises debates and discussions in the global north regarding national and cultural identity, where religion usually plays a role in the definition of individuals. second, the number of displaced people due to conflicts is also growing, making the possibility of social inclusion and integration more complex. “in general, immigrants who were selected based on their skills and labour demand might have fewer difficulties integrating into the market and society compared to those migrating for humanitarian or personal reasons, for example, refugees and family members” (eugster, 2018, p. 457). the third outcome of immigration that literature indicates is economic inequality and it seems to be the greatest concern for some scholars. in general, the economic development of the world is increasing at an accelerated pace. but considering specific social categories the increase benefits more the most wealthy, “since 2015, the richest 1% has owned more wealth than everyone else (oxfam, 2017); one ninth of the world’s population suffers from hunger (fao, ifad, & wfp, 2015), while 65.6 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide (unhcr, 2017)” (bojadžijev, 2018, p. 349). economic gain by some groups is compared to mobility gain by others, making the case that mobilization is linked to poverty. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 87 published by scholink inc. 2.3.2 mobilization and economic inequality the usual argument is that mobilization of people happens much faster and that it is more and more due to war conflicts or poverty, making global inequality worse. for some scholars inequality is a problem even in the global north, “germany, where the wealthiest 10% of households own at least 63% of all wealth, exhibits the second-highest inequality levels of all eurozone countries” (bojadžijev, 2018, p. 349). and these authors stress that “25% of the european population is categorized as at risk of falling below the poverty line, while 50 million already have. the poorest 40% of europeans own a paltry 1% of total wealth” (oxfam deutschland, 2016). inequality is a reality because “the world’s nation-states have per capita incomes that range from less than us$250 per person per year to more than us$50.000” (kuptsch, 2015, p. 341), but not every economic inequality is fruit of social injustice. other scholars therefore argue that the social issue to address in this crisis is not inequality but poverty. and poverty is not increased by immigration, but rather reduced. what generates wealth is the increase of labor, capital and ideas in terms of new products. labor and capital require respectively an increase in education and technological investment, but new ideas require specific know-how that can be provided by people from outside. “in an ideal world, migrants would bring home accumulated knowledge, transfer expertise and skills, start businesses, or invest earnings into capacity back home. in a similar vein, temporary migrants may create benefits through ‘‘brain circulation” even if they do not return permanently. ideally, this contributes to an eventual return flow of expertise, knowledge, skills and manpower” (battistella & sun liao, 2013, p. 16). in any case, the political agenda expressed by the sustainable development goals (sdg) of the united nations seems to foster a struggle against inequality. specifically, the united nation’s global agenda put in place some sustainable development goals correlating mobility and inequality, ignoring the poverty issue. “there is surprising synergy between the sdgs recognition of inequality and mobility’s significance on the one hand, and the evolution of mobility as a core concept of global inequality. this evolution includes the critique of three long-held assumptions about mobility: the idea that there is increasing mobility globally; that mobility is a self-evident phenomenon; and that movement generates positive change and an improvement of oneself” (salazar & jayaram, 2016, pp. 2-3). 2.3.3 addressing mobility misinterpretations 1) first, some authors show that mobility is not increasing globally precisely because it is a right reserved for the more skilled or wealthy members of society. several scholars observe that “recent immigration statistics from the eu show that economic integration and equalization mainly happens among countries with a similar human development index (hdi) rather than between the extremes of inequality” (agafitei & ivan, 2016), so producing more inequality. “while many from the world’s poorest or conflict-ridden areas are pushed into illegal immigration, selective immigration regimes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 88 published by scholink inc. facilitate the inclusion of those who are deemed productive” (hackl, 2018, p. 153). 2) second, the causes of inequality are not always related to the mobility of people. for example “in germany, the paritätischer gesamtverband’s (2017) annual poverty report admits that the lower middle class has lost 8% of its income over the last 20 years, alongside the 35% of households considered poor (earning 60% of the median) and incomes entailing an hourly wage of between 7.55€ and 15.29€, and thus forced to rely on social security systems” (iaq, bosch, & kalina, 2016, p. 2). what happens on the contrary its that building up the correlation helps some groups to set up public policies that privilege them. for example with this correlation between immigration and inequality, the government could raise taxes and expand its bureaucracy. some of these correlations are constructed with figures that regard temporal migrants and refugees who are not actual citizens. germany’s politics of inclusion gave angela merkel the title of chancellor of the modern world by time magazine. her government pushed for repatriation policies of syrian refugees, arguing that they would be better if going back home. the government made explicit the cultural and social need to go back. but it is also true that each refugee meant an economic burden of 50 euro per month in germany, but only €50 cents in syria. in other words, scholars argue that germany owns a mechanism to mobilize its poverty outside of the country when it is needed. 3) and the third common assumption that is changing when understanding the correlation between immigration and inequality, is that mobility does not necessarily enhances positive changes and improvement of the self. scholars evaluate its outcomes either in a positive or in a negative way. “increased or reduced inequality is one possible outcome of human mobility, as the movement of people often creates or reinforces difference and inequality, as well as blending or erasing such differences” (hackl ,2018, p. 150). within countries mobilization raises new urban planning problems, creating social issues. also in domestic policy “inequality is one of the driving forces behind mobility: a lack of opportunity pushes people out of rural areas into cities, from where they often move onwards and become international migrants” (kuptsch, 2015, p. 343). economic considerations do not fully explain the way forward for good government on immigration and refugee’s issues. in sum, the narrative of development is very important for establishing social solutions to certain issues. believing that mobilized people are unskilled would not facilitate their social inclusion, while the truth is that most mobilized people today left their countries of origin due to their skills, usually going to places where they can earn more, deciding not go back home. those who stayed at home are usually those who most needed the social support and therefore were not able to leave their homeland in search for better conditions of life. all this creates a dynamic of inequality, because experts move to places where they earn more. while non-experts stay in their own homes where there is not development. so www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 89 published by scholink inc. the situation of the poor countries is that they do not have developers because they are undeveloped but they are undeveloped because developers left. and the situation of the rich countries is that they develop thanks to their own developers and to the developers coming from outside. while the narrative of immigration is that migrants take advantage of their new countries, actually in many cases migrants give value to their new homelands. to face some of this social issues, it seems important to consider the need for a cultural change regarding people’s mobility. 3. cultural languages for the mobility of people as mentioned before, a migrant is someone mobilized for economic reasons, also inside of his homeland. the reasons for mobilization in current economic development are so complex that they do not mean the same for everybody. for instance, economic dynamism in some emerging nations reduces poverty but increases inequality, for instance “the top 1% income share rose from 7% to 22% in india, and 6% to 14% in china between 1980 and 2016” (hackl, 2018, p. 152). this economic movement leads to further consequences, for the individual and for the political sphere. 1) first of all, an immigrant is not necessarily a poor person today, “immigrants are not a homogenous group but that various forms or types of legal statuses of immigration exist” (eugster, 2018, p. 453). public policies look attentively at the language they use to call “an immigrant”, so “sweden does not officially use the terms “immigrants” or “descendants”, while some countries do (for example denmark) and others use terms such as “ethnic minorities” in addition to “immigrants” (uk), “allochthon” (i.e., non-autochthonous) (the netherlands), or “migration background in germany” (andreß-careja, 2018, p. 5). moreover, most of these terms are new as “the concept of mobility has not always been part of the development vocabulary, mostly due to the prominence of migration” (halck, 2018, p. 152), while it can be positive or negative, inequality is always criticized because is seen as manipulation for the possession of power. 2) if an immigrant is not necessarily a poor person, then the second consideration to add is that inequality in a country should not immediately relate to social conflict and poverty. “this is not to say that people always decide to move for socio-economic reasons, considering forced exiles who have no choice, alongside those who seek freedom and a different life elsewhere without social upward mobility in mind” (hackl, 2018, p. 151). moreover “most discrimination studies show that a foreign sounding name or a darker skin are enough to trigger differential treatment in labor markets no matter how integrated the person might otherwise be” (for an overview see kahanec & zimmermann, 2011). my point is that immigration crisis are mitigated by cultural inclusion. and the last produces as a result economic inclusion. cultural inclusion calls into action both faith based organizations and secular www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 90 published by scholink inc. projects that play an important role and, are more efficient when working together. for example, in a parish church in paris, social action is enacted in a broader framework so there “volunteers refer to their activities as ‘action’ (action), ‘work’ (travail) or ‘volunteering’ (bénévolat), but not as charity (charité). similarly, they explain that they are committed to or motivated by the values of solidarity (solidarité) or fraternity (fraternité), but never mention charity as a motivation; the same linguistic pattern is heard on behalf of the clergy on the pulpit. finally, the migrants who receive services are either referred to as ‘les migrants’ (the migrants) or as ‘les accueillis’ (those who are hosted), not as recipients or beneficiaries or clients” (artaud, 2018, p. 414). according to artaud, when volunteers reject the language of charity, this is partly an indication that they view charity as social condescension, a vision of charity that john paul ii describes as a “mentality in which the poor—as individuals and as peoples—are considered a burden, as irksome intruders trying to consume what others have produced” (john paul ii, 1991, p. 28). the same for the public discourse in general, “speaking of mobility rather than migration integrates social mobility into the wider framework, instead of seeing it as a separate issue” (hackl, 2018, p. 151). but the political sphere sometimes finds difficult to detach from the economic perspective, at least the united nations language does not arrive to do it: mobility is only directly addressed by two targets of the sustainable development goals n.10: ‘‘facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies”, and ‘‘reduce (...) transaction costs of migrant remittances”. the humanitarian crisis in place regarding immigration and refugees’ displacement—that results from the speed of global changes and conflicts, generating inequality—needs to get rid of political discourses that appropriate concepts and master narratives about the mobilized people. this is a cultural change exercise because we need to stop and consider why we think in the way we do about immigrants. “if we take a quick inventory of previously used and familiar concepts that do describe and operationalize immigration societies in the public field: they have either been politically contested if not defeated (such as multiculturalism), or are considered too vague for political purposes —such as diversity—, or belong to a more academic discursive field—such as cosmopolitanism—” (bojadžijev, 2018, p. 337). in sum, we need a new language for a more effective social inclusion. 4. discussion: social inclusion for immigrants and refugees most of the authors considering the situation of immigrants and refugees in the world today, indicate that one way to solve the immigration crisis is to stress the human right to dignified mobility. “this necessarily includes people’s freedom to choose whether or not to move, alongside the establishment of fair regimes that govern mobility in inclusive ways without undermining people’s agency and freedom” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 91 published by scholink inc. (hackl, 2018, p. 151). these authors stress that migrants are not competitors against the citizens of their new countries but a significant element for cultural development. but in order to foster social inclusion of migrants and refugees, the authors stand for some elements that we will describe in the following points. 1) dignified mobility means that migrants should be considered as complements to cultural growth. if immigrants are described as competitors, then the human right to immigrate would not stand in front to the rights of others and so “mobility and immobility thus have an intimate relationship, as the freedom to move for some builds on the unfreedom and immobility of others; the mobility of ‘qualified’ travelers stands vis-à-vis the mobility of ‘unqualified’ travelers” (abram, feldman bianco, khosravi, salazar, & de genova, 2017, p. 132). 2) for dignifying mobility there is a need of public policies using inclusive language that could grant full access to foreigners in a welcoming society. social inclusion of immigrants can therefore start from overcoming “the post-9/11 ‘paradigm of suspicion’ that classified freedom of movement primarily as a risk” (shamir, 2005, p. 153). that process usually takes time because “permanent residence comes along with almost unrestricted access to the labour market, education, business, social programs and civil rights, if not necessarily political rights” (eugster, 2018, p. 456). 3) religion plays a special role in the social inclusion of migrants and refugees. this is because it leads people to understand others in non-economic terms and builds a mentality for including refugees in society. “hannah arendt pointed out in ‘we refugees’ (arendt, 1996) that refugees not only symbolize suffering, but also reveal the close proximity in which civilization and barbarism truly find themselves. refugees can tell stories of the risks of losing everything in an instant, of being thrown into an existence bereft of legal protection and social security. by underscoring the tight interrelations between prosperity and loss and destruction, they hold up a mirror to the still-privileged, exposing their own fatal life strategies and grand delusions” (bojadžijev, 2018, p. 347). 4) in the case of a humanitarian crisis, poor people and refugees should not wait, they deserve the help of others. the refugee crisis has reached significant levels in europe, as “fleeing the war in syria and other global conflict zones, a large number of refugees arrived in europe in the summer and fall of 2015, of which roughly 1.3 million requested asylum in the european union and approximately 40% of them in germany” (eurostat, 2017). this point is in discussion. on the one hand some scholars argue that this is not an unprecedented situation as it “hardly exceeded the post-reunification years of the early 1990s, when masses of people fleeing the yugoslav wars, the first iraq war, and the collapse of the soviet union arrived in germany” (bojadžijev, 2018, p. 339). on the other hand, critics to the idea of a humanitarian crisis would observe that immigration figures represent a stable trend, “438.000 individuals applied for asylum in 1992, 442.000 did so in 2015” (bundesamt für migration und flüchtlinge, 2016). it seems almost like if “some people are in charge of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 92 published by scholink inc. mobility, while others some are effectively imprisoned by it” (massey, 1993, p. 61). public policy in any case ought to preserve the human right of mobility. 5) to judge about the specific human good that mobility implies it seems important to consider specific human situations. it is not possible to claim an abstract human right for mobility. that right should always depend on the specific situation of those aiming for autonomy and freedom. that because a human right is not only built upon economic growth and development considerations. this duality of mobility as freedom and imprisonment “hints at a key component of mobility equity that is not self-evident: it cannot merely be about having the opportunity to move, but must include the freedom to choose whether or not to move” (sager, 2006, p. 465). 6) the importance and attraction of economic growth makes that refugees become more a political problem that should only interest the state. this idea puts refugees out of the debates around social mobility and inequality that are mostly built on economic approaches, hiding the dimensions of the current humanitarian crisis due to forced mobility. “65.3 million people were displaced globally at the time of writing, or one person in every 113. to overcome their economically immobile positions” (hackl, 2018, p. 113), as paul collier and alexander betts argue, refugees must become autonomous economic agents. so refugees should not become part of a humanitarian problem but an element for development: it is ‘‘about restoring people’s autonomy through jobs and education” (betts & collier, 2017, p. 10). aiming for social inclusion with regards to refugees requires to fight against prejudice, because “the social problems experienced by citizens have existed far longer than the refugees, have nothing to do with refugees, and thus will not disappear should isolationism succeed in keeping refugees out” (bojadžijev, 2018, p. 347). the mobility crisis has political consequences that the private sphere faces on subsidiarity—or the international relations on solidarity—when the government does not have the capacity to fix the problem. for example, “in the gulf states powerful brokerage systems restrict workers’ rights and pressure them into compliance” (hertog, 2010; khalaf, alshehabi, & hanieh, 2014). in an effort to combat such disempowering regimes, “international collaboration has recently allowed improved rights and bargaining power in some cases of migrant labour. one example is the cross-border cooperation among trade unions through the union network international (uni) passport, which allows a unionized migrant to be ‘hosted’ by an uni-affiliated union in the destination country” (kuptsch, 2015, p. 347). the passport “offers a number of important benefits that would otherwise remain inaccessible to the migrants, such as information on working conditions and tax regulations, training courses, and legal support” (hackel, 2018, p. 157). the international organization for migration put forward one important approach that aims to connect policies across national and international levels with the help of norms. “iom designed a migration www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 93 published by scholink inc. governance index (mgi) that was taken up as part of a list of sdg indicators (unsdsn, 2015). the mgi builds on the premise that well-governed migration brings profound benefits to receiving and sending countries, while poorly managed migration causes harm and represents missed development opportunities” (hackel, 2018, p. 159). 7) in sum, not only at the personal level but also at the political level, the solution does not seem to be about measuring quantitatively the number of immigrants. italy does not enforce immigrants to register creating a risk of under-coverage, but in any case “compared to the risk of under-coverage, over-coverage seems to be the larger problem because there are hardly any incentives for de-registration if individuals leave their place of residence and this risk is especially high for mobile persons such as immigrants” (careja, 2018, p. 12). we conclude that having more refugees and immigrants is not a problem in itself. the real issue is that people in welcoming societies do not know how to act with immigrants and refugees. there is moreover the risk of setting up public policies for migrants and refugees designed for them, but neither counting on them nor putting the policies in act through them. public policies could become more inclusive and so cultural actors—including faith based organizations—would help to overcome marginalization. then people arriving to the global north will become one among others despite their differences in ethnicity, education and religious backgrounds. the question at the end is how to establish a social dialogue with others aiming not only to economic development but for resching cultural flourishing as well. according to a good part of the academia, without the active efforts of ngo’s and organized religions, the social inclusion of immigrants and refugees would not be possible in the world today. references abram, s., feldman bianco, b., khosravi, s., salazar, n., & de genova, n. (2017). the free movement of people around the world would be utopian: iuaes world congress 2013: evolving humanity, emerging worlds, 5-10 august 2013. identities, 24(2), 123-155. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289x.2016.1142879 agafitei, m., & ivan, g. (2016). first and second-generation immigrants—statistics on main characteristics. brussels: eurostat. retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/first_and_second-generation_immigran ts_-_statistics_on_main_characteristics álvarez alonso, c. & hernández, j. i. (eds). (2019). latin american geopolitics: migration, cities and civilization. palgrave macmillan: cambridge ma. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99552-6 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 94 published by scholink inc. artaud de la ferriere, a. (2018). somewhere between love and justice: a roman catholic church in paris responds to the european migration crisis. international journal of politics culture and society, 31, 397-417. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-018-9289-7 audretsch, d. b., link, a. n., & walshok m. l. (2015). the oxford handbook of local competitiveness. oxford university press: oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199993307.001.0001 battistella, g., & sun liao, k. a. (2013). youth migration from the philippines: brain drain and brain waste. makati city: unicef and scalabrini migration center. betts, a., & collier, p. (2017). refuge: transforming a broken refugee system. london: allen lane. bojadžijev, m. (2018). migration as social seismograph: an analysis of germany’s “refugee crisis” controversy. international journal of politics, culture and society, 31, 335-356. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-018-9286-x castles, s. (2010). understanding global migration: a social transformation perspective. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 36(10), 1565-1586. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2010.489381 castles, s. (2012). migration and social transformation. in an introduction to international migration studies: european perspectives. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt6wp6qz.10 esthimer, m. (2014). world confronts largest humanitarian crisis since wwii. migration policy institute. retrieved november, 2019, from http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/top-10-2014-issue-1-world-confronts-largest-humanitariancrisis-wwii eugster, b. (2018). immigrants and poverty, and conditionality of immigrants’ social rights. journal of european social policy, 28(5), 452-470. https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928717753580 eurostat. (2017). asylum and first time asylum applicants by citizenship, age and sex. annual aggregated data (rounded). retrieved january, 2020, from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-datasets/-/migr_asyappctza garha, n. s., & paparusso, a. (2018). fragmented integration and transnational networks: a case study of indian immigration to italy and spain. genus, 74, 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41118-018-0037-7 hackl, a. (2018) mobility equity in a globalized world: reducing inequalities in the sustainable development agenda. world development, 112, 150-162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.08.005 hagan, j. m. (2008). migration miracle: faith, hope, and meaning. cambridge: harvard. halverson, j., steven c., & goodall, h. l. (2011). master narratives of islamist extremism. palgrave macmillan: cambridge ma. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-11723-5 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 95 published by scholink inc. hans-jürgen, a., & romana, c. (2018). sampling migrants in six european countries: how to develop a comparative design? comparative migration studies, 6, 33. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-018-0099-x hertog, s. (2010). the sociology of the gulf rentier systems: societies of intermediaries. comparative studies in society and history, 52(2), 282-318. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0010417510000058 john paul ii. (1988). post-synodal apostolic exhortation christifideles laici. vatican city: lev. retrieved january, 2020, from www.vatican.va kuptsch, c. (2015). inequalities and the impact of labour market institutions on migrant workers. in j. berg (ed.), labour markets, institutions and inequality: building just socieities in the 21st century (pp. 340-360). geneva: edward elgar for the ilo. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781784712105.00023 lessenich, s. (2015). mobility and control: on the dialectic of the ‘active society. in k. dörre, s. lessenich, & h. rosa (eds.), sociology, capitalism, critique (pp. 98-139). london: verso. massey, d. (1993). power geometry and a progressive sense of place. in j. bird, b. curtis, t. putnam, & l. tickner (eds.), mapping the futures: global cultures, local change (pp. 59-69). london: routledge. sager, t. (2006). freedom as mobility: implications of the distinction between actual and potential traveling. mobilities, 1(3), 465-488. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450100600902420 salazar, n. b. (2013). mobility. in theory in social and cultural anthropology: an encyclopedia (p. 553). thousand oaks: sage publications. salazar, n. b., & jayaram, k. (eds.). (2016). keywords of mobility: critical engagements (vol. 1). new york and oxford: berghahn books. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvpj7jb3 shamir, r. (2005). without borders? notes on globalization as a mobility regime. sociological theory, 23(2), 197-217. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0735-2751.2005.00250.x unsdsn. (2015). suggested sdg indicators arranged by owg targets. revised working draft. denpasar. retrieved january, 2020, from http://unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/150320-sdsn-indicator-report-table-2.pdf communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 29 original paper cultivation of core competences of english major students under the inter-discinplinary guidance a case study of “the survey of british and american culture” course hanyu jin1, dongxue hu1, liping yin2, yi li3*, & dan cui4* 1 postgraduate student of the school of english, jilin international studies university, changchun, china 2 master of education management, southwest university, chongqing, china; senior teacher, zhongshan experimental middle school, zhongshan, guangdong, china 3 school of foreign languages, shenzhen institute of information technology, shenzhen, china 4 doc supervisor of yanbian university, yanji, jilin, china; doc of literature, professor, dean of institute of international languages and cultures, dean of romanticism studies center, jilin international studies university, changchun, jilin, china; postdoc of literature of school of english, beijing foreign studies university, beijing, china * dan cui, corresponding author, summerelephant@126.com * yi li, corresponding author, 172790118@qq.com received: october 11, 2023 accepted: october 28, 2023 online published: november 20, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n4p29 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n4p29 abstract the newly issued national standards by the ministry of national education for the quality of foreign language and literature teaching (hereinafter referred to as the “national standards”) clearly points out that the curriculum system of foreign language majors should emphasize the cultivation of competences and the construction of professional knowledge, especially the cultivation of cross-cultural, critical, and innovative abilities. therefore, in order to enhance college students’ autonomous study ability and cross-cultural skills, this study, based on the concepts of content and language integration, aims to explore the way to combine willis’ outline of procedure for task-based learning with the five principles of intercultural teaching, and utilize task-based teaching method, and rely on the course—“british and american culture: a course to develop critical thinking from a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. cross-cultural perspective” to respectively consider the design of autonomous study worksheets for english majors before, during, and after class, so as to improve their autonomous learning ability, cultural critical thinking and intercultural communication skills. it will be helpful for the implementation of similar courses. keywords content and language integration, autonomous study worksheets, cultural discernment 1. introduction under the impetus of “national standards”, foreign language teaching in china’s universities and colleges is undergoing a transformative revolution from a didactic culture focusing on knowledge inculcation and transmission and a test training culture to a discursive culture aiming at cultivating multiple competencies. the “teaching guidelines for undergraduate english majors in ordinary higher education institutions” requires the improvement and development of students’ autonomous study and critical thinking abilities. the textbook “british and american culture: a course to develop critical thinking” composed by zhu zhenwu, belongs to the type of parallel teaching of culture and language knowledge, which is in line with the cli education concept, that is, the teaching of language, knowledge, and culture is no longer separated. this course is designed for undergraduate english majors, who, unlike primary and secondary school students, are at a higher education level without the pressure of further education and in a more active classroom environment and academic atmosphere; they are already adults and have a high potential for independent learning and a more mature level of thinking. on the basis of combining previous theories, sun youzhong summarized the five principles of intercultural teaching, abbreviated as creed, in 2016, including critiquing, reflecting, exploring, emphasizing, and doing, which are very helpful for improving the cross-cultural communication ability, cultural thinking ability, autonomous learning and exploration ability of foreign language professionals. 2. key concepts 2.1 content and language integration (cli) content-based instruction (cbi), as an innovative language teaching methodology, was defined by brinton, snow, and wesche (1989), as “the concurrent study of language and subject matter, with the form and sequence of language presentation dictated by content material”. its creation enables the integration of content and language. however, the limitation of cbi lies in the lack of explicit instruction and corrective feedback. one solution that has been agreed in the academic field is to combine content with language learning, and so with this comes out the very hot pedagogy in europe, clil, that is content and language integrated learning. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. content and language integration (cli) as a theoretical achievement based on cbi and clil, is localized in china, and proposed by a group of experts including chang junyue, former dean of the school of english at dalian university of foreign studies, together with other pertinent experts. “cli is an educational philosophy or approach in which a target language is expected to be used as much as possible and as appropriate as possible for the teaching and learning of both content and language in integrated ways for multiple educational purposes” (chang & zhao, 2020) . the core of cli is the organic integration of content and language in education and teaching, without artificially separating the two. traditional language learning emphasizes listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills training, with emphasis on listening, expressiveness, and memorization. cli emphasizes not the language itself, but the learning of subject matter content, which is suitable for using language functions in content-dependent authentic contexts. there also exists a difference between cli and clil. this reform of the curriculum at dalian university of foreign languages does not focuses on teaching in english, but also on the mother tongue as an important medium of communication between teachers and students (chang et al., 2020, p. 14). furthermore, this reform does not stop at instruction, but goes beyond mere language teaching to a holistic education of knowledge, competence and quality. cli relies on the methodological flexibility of content-dependent teaching, which mobilizes students to take the initiative to learn through problem-driven and output-driven methods, and organically combines effective activities and tools such as heuristics, tasks, discussions, pair work, group activities, classroom presentations, multimedia tools, etc. with the teaching of subject content to improve students’ language skills, stimulate their interest, cultivate their independence and creativity, and enhance their intercultural competence (chang et al., 2010). 2.2 the textbook: british and american culture: a course to develop critical thinking from a cross-cultural perspective it’s a textbook of the “english for intercultural communication course series” launched by foreign studies. as an extension course of english for university students, this course requires a certain level of english foundation and is usually taken by second-year undergraduates in english. it consists of six units: nature and mankind, education and growth, popularity and mass, crisis and reflection, separation and integration, and technology and life. like other intercultural courses, the goal of the course is to enable students to understand the politics, economy, culture, and history of british and american countries, and to further improve students’ intercultural awareness, intercultural communication skills, english thinking skills, and overall english usage skills. however, british and american culture: a course to develop critical thinking from a cross-cultural perspective has two distinctive features, which makes it one of the best choices as the target book for this study: first, the themes of the book are oriented to the whole mankind, which are various problems that the whole world is bound to face in the process of development and exploration, and when students www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. understand, study and discuss the various themes, they will certainly help them to reflect on the problems from the perspective of the community of destiny and build the society. the second feature lies in its unique teaching mode, which adopts the principle of the order of learning as defined in the ancient chinese confucian classic the golden mean of the confucian, that is, “study extensively, inquire accurately, reflect carefully, discriminate clearly and practice earnestly”. this principle leads students to study widely, ask relevant questions, learn to think thoroughly, develop clear judgment, and finally use the knowledge and ideas gained to guide their practice. similarly, the teaching model of “ge wu zhi zhi”, which means to study the phenomena of nature in order to acquire knowledge, is based on the confucian classic the great learning. this principle requires students to inquire into the principles of things in order to gain knowledge. therefore, the use of this book to conduct the cultural analysis is a good way to bridge the gap between the traditional language teaching, culture teaching and discernment teaching, and is suitable and helpful to cultivate foreign language professionals’ logical ability, critical thinking ability, comprehensive literacy and cultural confidence. 2.3 intercultural competence the specific categorization of intercultural competence also varies, but scholars have more generally accepted the goal-based categorization proposed by the american educator bloom to build a model framework of intercultural competence along three dimensions: knowledge, attitudes, and skills. for example, byram (1997) classifies intercultural competence into cultural awareness and insight, positive attitudes toward different cultures, and the ability to behave appropriately in cultural situations. hamilton (1998), on the other hand, provides a more detailed division on top of the trichotomy, which includes awareness of one’s own cultural orientation and the similarities and differences between cultures, understanding the meaning of cultural oppression and the impact of cultural differences on communication (knowledge competence); valuing one’s own group and heterocultural groups, opposing cultural discrimination and ethnocentrism, and preferring to improve one’s life through intercultural communication (attitudinal competence); and having the ability to (attitudinal competence); the ability to identify cultural similarities and differences and to reflect on them, the ability to adopt multiple perspectives to understand situational differences, the ability to challenge discrimination and to communicate across cultures etc. (skill competence). some domestic scholars have made a comprehensive overview and summary of the components of intercultural competence, as shown in table 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. table 1. a comprehensive overview and summary of intercultural competence general capabilities specific capabilities cognitive dimension 1. understand the definition and characteristics of culture and the influence of culture on human perceptions and behaviors. 2. understand the current situation regarding other peoples, cultures, and social groups. 3. understands the causes of cultural barriers and how to overcome them. 1.understand one’s own social, cultural,and historical background. 2.understand the social, cultural, and historical backgrounds of other regions and around the world. 3.understand how social and cultural backgrounds influence individuals. 4.understand the physical and social needs of different cultural groups 5.understand how other social groups deal with the above needs attitude dimension 1.maintain a tolerant, respectful, and open mindset towards different cultures and lifestyles. 2.hold a positive attitude towards learning cultural differences. 1.respect the various behaviors of other social and cultural patterns. 2.actively regulate disputes arising from cultural differences. 3.actively fight against all forms of cultural discrimination and cultural prejudice. 4.respect the equal rights of all individuals and groups. skill dimension 1. able to interpret, relate, evaluate, learn, and adapt to culture. 2. able to engage in cross-cultural communication and contact with others. 1.identify, analyze, and criticize various behaviors of different cultural patterns 2.make contributions to harmonious coexistence among different social and cultural backgrounds in modern society 3.face up to narrow xenophobia and oppose discrimination and racism 4.conduct constructive dialogue and cooperation to calmly resolve disputes (huang & wei, 2007; jiang, 2013) 2.4 five basic principles of intercultural teaching: creed professor sun youzhong of beijing foreign studies university (2016) proposes 5 basic principles of intercultural teaching, namely critiquing, reflecting, exploring, empathizing and doing, the initial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. letters of these 5 concepts exactly form the english word creed, which we may understand as the 5 tenets of intercultural teaching and learning. principle 1: critiquing. intercultural teaching should train students to use cognitive skills to solve intercultural problems. critiquing is a professionally trained thinking process in which people actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and/or evaluating information or communication as a guide to belief and action (scriven & paul, 1987). principle 2: reflecting. reflection helps students to better understand their strengths and weaknesses, identify and question their underlying values and beliefs, challenge the assumptions behind their perceptions, feelings and behaviors, find hidden biases, acknowledge their fears and identify weaknesses and areas for improvement (rogerson, monash university, 2016). principle 3: exploring. intercultural teaching should focus on the process of exploring intercultural issues, so that learning activities are drawn by questions and become a search for new knowledge and new understanding, in which teachers are facilitators of learning activities and students actively and autonomously explore and take increasing responsibility for learning activities and competence development (spronken smith, 2016). principle 4: empathizing. in the context of intercultural communication, the american scholar calloway thomas (2015) defines empathy as “the ability to enter and prticipate in the world of the cultural other through imagination at the cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels”. principle 5: doing. learning by doing, also known as experiential learning, has become a widely accepted and effective teaching philosophy in all disciplines of education. kolb’s experiential learning cycle is perhaps the most scholarly influential and cited model regarding experiential learning theory. (morris, 2020). according to the theoretical model proposed by kolb (1984), experiential learning is a linearly related four-stage cyclical process that includes four steps: concrete experience abilities (ce), reflective observation abilities (ro), abstract conceptualization abilities (ac), and active experimentation (ae) abilities. in accordance with these principles, intercultural teaching and learning should not be dominated by knowledge instillation and lecturing, but rather by active thinking, which means that students should first master the methods of thinking and carefully design diverse cross-cultural tasks that require them to use thinking to complete. 3. the design of autonomous study worksheets in the course british and american culture: a course to develop critical thinking cli advocates giving full play to the role of the teacher as well as the role of the student (chang, 2020).contemporary language learning theories emphasize the decisive role of learners in the learning process and learner autonomy. a large number of researches show that the most important www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. factor in language teaching is the learner rather than the teacher, and the teaching should be student-centered, with the student as the main body of teaching (gao, & zhang,). therefore, english teaching should be a skill-constructing course to cultivate students’ learning ability instead of a knowledge-learning course to instill knowledge into students. autonomous study worksheet is one of the effective ways to enhance students’ independent learning ability and highlight students’ main position in teaching. after incorporating the definitions of autonomous study worksheets from several scholars, “autonomous study worksheet is a form that teachers develop for students in the smart classroom environment to guide their independent learning based on a combination of curriculum standards, materials and students’ realities, and matched with independent learning resources” (gao et al., 2020). guided by the cli concept, this paper combines the five principles of intercultural teaching proposed by sun youzhong with the autonomous study worksheets to enhance students’ critical thinking and intercultural communication skills. the autonomous study worksheets should serve the whole teaching process, which include a preview worksheet before class, a learning worksheet during class and a task worksheet after class. the details are shown in the following chart: figure 1. the autonomous study worksheet www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. 3.1 preview worksheet: clarity of purpose and gradual deepening advance organizer is a concept introduced by ausubel in the early 1960s. according to ausubel’s classic explanation, an organizer is a guide with a high level of abstraction and generalization that is presented before the learning material is presented. the organizer is the connection between new knowledge and old knowledge, providing a “conceptual anchor point” for learning new ideas and enabling the smooth integration of new knowledge into existing cognitive structures. a typical advance organizer can be a guiding case, a preview sheet, etc. in this article, a preview worksheet is used to allow students to do independent learning before class with the help of an advance organizer. the role of the preview worksheet: (1) introduce the theme of the unit, inspire students to think and understand the connotation of the theme; (2) mobilize students’ visual perception and stimulate interest in learning and exploration (3) demonstrate the learning objectives and activity tasks to understand the whole picture of the unit (4) encourage students to participate in discussions around the topic with their own background knowledge, experiences and experiences (brinkerhoffetal., 1983). structure of the preview worksheet: (1) theme. at the top of the worksheet, write down the theme of the unit with corresponding pictures, so as to fully engage students’ senses and prepare them for following study. (2) teaching objectives. the first step in learning a subject, a unit or an article is to clarify the learning goals, which is the most important. when the college english teaching guide (version 2020) mentions the dual nature of college english courses as instrumentality and humanity, it emphasizes that its instrumental nature is mainly expressed in listening, speaking, reading, writing, translating and english for special purposes, while its humanistic nature is mainly reflected in familiarizing with foreign societies and cultures, enhancing awareness and understanding of the differences and similarities of different cultures, and developing intercultural communication skills. therefore, the teaching objectives of the preview worksheets can be refined into the structure shown below: figure 2. the teaching objectives of the preview worksheets www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. (3) tasks. based on the theme of the opening page, the preview tasks are designed according to sun youzhong’s five basic principles of intercultural teaching (2016), so that students can complete the preview tasks on their own under the guidance of the worksheet and enter the classroom with their personalized ideas or achievements, and further communicate with their classmates and teachers to strengthen their correct understanding or correct their wrong ideas. for example, in the knowledge input session, the teacher can break down the information covered in the chapter into several knowledge points before class, and have students first study on their own before class with video materials and mooc to grasp the main points of the topic. the teacher divides the class into cooperative learning groups, and lets the group work together to review the information, sort out the knowledge points, form a written report, and then share the explanation with the class in the class discussion session. (4) autonomous study feedback. this part is about students’ reflection and review of the learning process after learning, which can further deepen their understanding and thinking about their new knowledge and summarize their learning process, and finally they can enter the class with their “doubts” and “gains”. many educators praise feedback for promoting students’ autonomous learning and influencing their outcomes in the process of professionally oriented english communication (dmitrenko & budas, 2021). for example, the structure of the preview worksheet for lesson 1“fog and haze” in unit 1“humans and nature” can be designed as follows as an example: preview worksheet ⅰ. theme: human and nature ⅱ. teaching objectives 1. humanistic literacy (1) humanistic knowledge: able to compare and contrast london’s urban environment and air quality in the 19th century with that of today. experience the london scene in the author dickens’ time. (2) humanistic spirit: able to advocate the scientific relationship between man and nature, and respect the laws of nature. (3) humanistic thought: able to understand that humans should deal with the relationship between man and nature and not destroy the environment uncontrollably for the sake of man’s own development, and make rules accordingly. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. 2. intercultural communication competence (1) intercultural knowledge competence: able to compare the attitudes of chinese and western cultures towards fog and find out the similarities. consider how human beings should find a balance between development and environmental protection. (2) intercultural awareness competence: able to understand the cultural environment in which china and the west live and to have an understanding and tolerance of the cultural differences between them. (3) intercultural communication strategies: able to seek harmony and avoid conflict when communicating with peers, teachers and foreign professors, and use language and expressions that are understandable to the others to present your views. ⅲ. tasks 1. critiquing: read the opening page and complete the following table: the relationship between man and nature religious and psychological perspectives ancient greek culture nature exists to serve the interests of man. christian thought placing human beings above all natural things. romantic and philosophical perspectives romantics enjoying the natural beauty and the tacit relationship between man and nature. transcendentalists it is believed that by stepping into the true beauty represented by all things natural, each person has the potential to perfect his or her divinity. ecological ethics human beings must respect not only the other members of the living union, but also the living union itself. 2. reflecting: in your opinion, what are the decisive factors that undermine the harmonious relationship between man and nature? 3. exploring: what is the natural environment like in london today? what methods have the british government tried to use to manage the environment throughout history? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 39 published by scholink inc. 4. emphasizing: go to the internet and collect pictures of urban haze in china and compare them with pictures of london haze in dickens’ time. analyse whether there are similarities between mid-19th century britain and china. when was the last time you experienced the haze and describe your experience at that time. 5. doing: find information to summarize what are the dangers of haze? and what causes an imbalance in the harmonious relationship between man and nature? what do you think such relationship should be like? explain your views through presentation. (you are adviced go online to find resources related to environmental change or protection, such as pictures, articles, videos, etc. to testify your point of view). ⅳ. autonomous study feedback my gains my doubts 3.2 in-class worksheet: cultural comparisons and critical thinking students’ independent learning skills are developed and enhanced through the implementation of a series of activities, which mainly using task-based teaching methods. the focus of the course british and american culture: a course to develop critical thinking is on the comparison and discernment of chinese and western cultures. the concept of task is quite vague. tasks can be real-world focused or instructional (nunan, 2012); they can be listing, order ing and sorting, matching, comparing, problem solving, as well as doing projects and sharing personal experiences (willis, 2007); they can be closed, semi-closed/open and open (willis, 1996) and they can be input-providing and output-prompting (ellis, 2009).in this study, the author used the outline of procedure for task-based learning proposed by willis in 1996. pre-task exposure introduction to topic and task instruction task cycle exposure task use (spontaneous) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. exposure exposure(planned) exposure planning report student hear task recording or read a text instruction (as needed) use (planned) language focus exposure exposure analysis and practice review and repeat task instruction/ use (restricted) use (spontaneous) for example, in lesson 17 (literature and consumption), the in-class learning worksheet is supposed to be designed as follows: in-class learning worksheet lesson 17 literature and consumption ⅰ. tasks pre-task discussion: “pop art” and “mass media” learn about the origins and development of “pop art” and “mass media”. then discuss the topics of most popular movies, pop songs, and reality shows in recent years and reflect how these pop cultures have influenced our lives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. ⅱ. autonomous study feedback my gains my doubts task cycle ⅰ. critiquing and reflecting: experience the different feelings brought by the original and the movie. ⅰ. read an excerpt from the original harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone. ⅱ. watch a movie clip corresponding to the original excerpt. ⅱ. exploring: after reading the text is there a text in this advertising campaign?: literature, marketing and harry potter, discuss in groups of five: ⅰ. how do you understand harry potter as both a marketing and a literary phenomenon? ⅱ. j. k. rowling wants to separate harry potter from marketing, was she able to make that happen? language focus ⅲ. emphasizing: read a chinese article: literature cannot be an “industrial product”, and compare the two articles: ⅰ. what are the same points and different points in the chinese and english articles? ⅱ. what “star writers” and literary figures do you know? which of their works have you read? how do you feel about them? ⅲ. discuss with group members: how to improve the reading interest and aesthetic level of the public? ⅵ. doing: as seen in after-class worksheet. 3.3 after-class worksheet: practical activities and cultural exchange empathy lab activity is thoughtfully designed and sequenced to promote student engagement with difference and employ reflection to deepen student learning and to connect the exercise to the curriculum (brookfield & preskill, 2012). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. doing：empathy lab topic: performing, experiencing, commenting, communicating form: performing excerpts of classic chinese and foreign literature participants: chinese sophomore english major students; international exchange students activity requirements: ⅰ. chinese students and international exchange students are divided into groups of 4-6 within their respective groups. ⅱ. for chinese students: each group selects any excerpt from a foreign classic and performs it; for foreign students: each group selects an excerpt from any chinese classic and performs it. ⅲ. finally, three outstanding works will be selected in the conference room of the international exchange building, and certificates will be issued and uploaded to the school’s official website. the international exchange students will score and select the works of the chinese students; the chinese students will score and select the works of the international exchange students. the top three with the highest scores are considered outstanding works. when students watch the results, they are able to perceive the performance work with their personal, national cultural experience, and in the process achieve cultural empathy. at the same time, the students may encounter cultural clashes and exchanges between china and foreign countries in the process of selecting excellent works, which helps to cultivate students’ cross-cultural personality. 4. conclusion in the context of global cultural integration and collision of values, the basic british and american culture courses have less class time, but they are responsible for cultivating students’ cultural thinking and discernment skills as well as improving students' overall quality and cultivating moral character. therefore, it is particularly important to actively explore the autonomous study teaching mode of british and american culture discernment courses, and to combine ideological and political thinking with critiquing ability. in the future, the world cultural competition will be more intense, and the cultivation of talents is the core of the competition. we should insist on cultivating a young generation with international vision, cultural discernment and cultural confidence. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. references ball, p. (2018). innovations and challenges in clil materials design. theory into practice, 222-231. banegas, d. l. (2014). an investigation into clil related sections of efl coursebooks: issues of clil inclusion in the publishing market. international journal of bilingual education and bilingualism, 17(3), 345-359. brinkerhoff, r. o., brethower, d. m., hluchyj, t. et al. (1983). evaluation preview. program evaluation: a practitioner’s guide for trainers and educators, 13-38. chang, j. y., & liu, z. h. (2020). theoretical support for the concept of content language integration. foreign languages and foreign language teaching, (06), 85-95, 150. chang, j. y., & zhao, y. q. (2020). the concept of content language integration (cli), its connotation and significance from content-based instruction to content language integration education. foreign language teaching, 41(05), 49-54. chang, j. y., & xia, y. (2011). a study of the effects of the content-based instruction for english majors in the chinese context. chinese journal of applied linguistics, 34(3). dimitrov, n., & haque, a. (2016). intercultural teaching competence in the disciplines: teaching strategies for intercultural learning. centre for teaching and learning publications, 16. dmitrenko, n. y., & budas, i. o. (2021). the impact of feedback on students’ autonomous esp learning outcomes. revista romaneasca pentru educatie multidimensionala, 13(2), 323-339. dowling, t. (2017). presentation, practice and production (ppp) and task-based language teaching (tblt): a defence and a critique. language and culture: the journal of the institute for language and culture, (21), 139-154. flowers, s., kelsen, b., & cvitkovic, b. (2019). learner autonomy versus guided reflection: how different methodologies affect intercultural development in online intercultural exchange. recall, 31(3), 221-237. huang, z. c., & wei, x. m. (2007). cross-cultural education: new trends in international education. global education outlook, (11), 58-64. jiang, j. (2013). reflections on the classification and cultivation of intercultural competence. comparative education research, 35(9), 18-24. morris, t. h. (2020). experiential learning—a systematic review and revision of kolb’s model. interactive learning environments, 28(8), 1064-1077. su, w. (2021). how to use modern teaching methods to cultivate students’ autonomous learning ability. open access library journal. sun, y. z. (2016). foreign language education and intercultural competence development. foreign languages in china, (3), 17-22. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. sun, y. z. (2019). principles of teaching discerning english. foreign language teaching and research, 51(06), 825-837, 959. wang, w. b. (2018). foreign language teaching and foreign language education, instrumentality and humanity. foreign languages in china, 15(02), 1, 12-16. note(s) note 1. this paper is the periodical research result of project on “a study on cultivation mechanism of foreign language high-quality students based on inter-discipline crossover and integration under value guiding” sponsored by jilin education and science leading office (wt22143); of project on research on the mechanism of independent cultivation of outstanding innovative talents in foreign languages in the context of strengthening higher education in provinces(jisu20240901); of project on “the establishment and practice of vista mode of development and transformation of english-major teaching faculty’s proficiency under new arts prospect” sponsored by chinese private higher education association(canfzg22417); of project on “the construction and practice of mode of development and transformation of foreign language teaching faculty’s proficiency in international studies of universities under multiple-discipline background” sponsored by jilin higher education association(no: jgjx2022d316); of project on “research on the design of autonomous study worksheets and the cultivation of cultural discernment for english majors under the concept of content and language integration teaching—taking the course british and american culture: a course to develop critical thinking as an example” sponsored by jilin international studies university (jwxsky2023a045); of project on “a study of the way to integrate global village cultural symbols into cultivating english major students’ foreign language competence with vision of a global community of shared future” sponsored by jilin higher education association (no:jgjx2023d442). communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 13 original paper visual construction of mainstream media‟s fusion columns under the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis zhu shuo 1* 1 school of journalism, fudan university, shanghai, china * zhu shuo, school of journalism, fudan university, shanghai, china received: june 17, 2024 accepted: june 28, 2024 online published: july 19, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p13 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p13 abstract in the era of profound media integration, mainstream media has continually innovated while upholding its foundational values and ideology. leaders talk, a hallmark of chinese mainstream “headline project”, exemplifies this innovation and embodies the development strategy to “fill every screen with quality programs”. this program leverages multimodal discourse to enhance visual construction, fostering a unique story dissemination field that aligns with mainstream aesthetics, thereby creating an equitable and approachable media image with significant international influence. through the lens of multimodal discourse analysis, and by integrating systemic functional linguistics with a multimodal interaction framework, we can dissect the visual construction methods employed in leaders talk. this analysis not only elucidates the new communication pathways for mainstream media columns in the context of media integration and multimodality, but also offers novel solutions to elevate the positive value aesthetics of mainstream media. furthermore, it provides a fresh perspective on enhancing positive value aesthetics and fortifies the theoretical underpinnings of multimodal discourse analysis within visual culture. keywords multimodal discourse analysis, mainstream media, visual construction, leaders talk 1. introduction the swift emergence of all-media has increasingly challenged mainstream media‟s ability to shape public opinion and forge consensus. promoting media convergence and developing all-media is an urgent imperative in the era of all-media and media convergence. the mainstream media has been making significant strides in creating numerous media integration brands and achieving notable success www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 14 published by scholink inc. in amplifying mainstream public opinion and permeating the global public opinion landscape with unique narratives. leaders talk, an exemplary integrated media program, stands as the innovative cornerstone of chinese mainstream “headline project” and the tangible result of the development strategy, “fill every screen with quality programs”. centered on the theme “focus on international focus, insight into the world‟s changes”, the program engages heads of state, government leaders, and heads of international organizations in dialogues with hosts and reporters, delving into global hot topics and key issues that have garnered widespread attention and sparked vigorous debate within the international community. by the end of 2023, the program is projected to have reached over 10 billion people, with an all-media audience of 508 million, 57.37% of whom are young users. the program‟s footage has been reproduced and broadcast by 549 tv stations and new media platforms across 91 countries and regions, with related reports published and cited tens of thousands of times by over 1,000 mainstream media outlets worldwide. 2. literature review this 30-minute in-depth dialogue program, produced by mainstream media, featured simple settings and grand topics, has successfully navigated the short video era characterized by “entertainment-oriented, fragmented, diversified scenes and straightforward content”. it has garnered unanimous popularity among young audiences and international viewers, underscoring the reference value of the mainstream media production paradigm in constructing the communication field and media image, while also providing a valuable research subject for the study of “visual construction in the social field”(mitchell, 2005). since its inception, leaders talk has captivated numerous scholars, most of whom have focused on text analysis and the efficacy of political communication. for instance, zhou jie analyzes the professional quality and expression strategies of foreign communication hosts within the context of international communication, examining text, discourse practice, and social practice. she argues that zou yun, one of the hosts of leaders talk, has transformed international communication into interpersonal communication through her exceptional international vision, thinking, and expression, enabling her to voice the country‟s opinions on the world stage (zhou, 2024). from the perspective of semio-narratology, li shu and others contend that leaders talk promotes equal exchange and co-prosperity, reflects grand narratives through individual stories, and effectively fosters international consensus (li shu & li lei, 2023). zhou yong and others highlight the innovative presentation of “human community” in the media discourse of leaders talk and its pioneering construction of international communication discourse (zhou, 2023). zhang taofu examines the program‟s disclosure of the country‟s development strategy within the international public opinion framework, considering www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 15 published by scholink inc. the high difficulty of interviewing dignitaries, the high concentration of intense and complex information, and the high strength of public opinion persuasion (zhang, 2023). current research indicates that although scholars have conducted thorough discourse analysis of the program, it remains challenging to summarize a more comprehensive and applicable communication paradigm at the level of “integrated media and multimodality”. thus, this study aims to uncover the underlying logic behind the successful innovation of leaders talk from the perspective of visual construction aided by multimodal discourse. the goal is to assist integrated media work by providing a reference for the formation of a comprehensive visual discourse system and to shape the audience‟s value cognition in content consumption. 3. methodology 3.1 origins and popular approaches to multimodality the term “modality” originated in biology, initially referring to the communicative and synergistic role of communication based on the interplay of visual, auditory, and tactile multisensory information. it has since been redefined within the social sciences to encompass a broad spectrum of socially constructed, culturally endowed meaning resources. modality includes images, words, layouts, gestures, music, language, and moving visuals. multimodality discourse analysis can be defined as the examination of „multimodality, which understands communication and representation to extend beyond language and encompasses the full range of communicational forms people use—image, gesture, gaze, posture, and so forth—and the interrelations among them‟ as a synthesis of representations (jewitt, 2011). in the mid to late 1980s, kress and van leeuwen were pioneers in extending discourse analysis methods beyond textual language to visual symbolic systems. utilizing halliday‟s three fundamental “meta-functions” of language, they proposed the “representational meaning”, “interactional meaning”, and “compositional meaning” of images, thereby developing a “visual grammar” for the image domain. theoretically, modalities are intended to function synergistically within a multimodal framework, with no single modality holding dominance. however, in practical communication, recipients tend to extract the maximum information with minimal cognitive effort (yang, 2017), making the visual modality the most accessible and easily comprehensible. consequently, the concept of “visual grammar” remains a pivotal core in the field of multimodal discourse analysis. following the shift from a singular critical discourse analysis to a social semiotics perspective, advancements in information technology have led to the emergence of diverse mainstream theoretical systems and research methodologies in multimodal discourse analysis in the twenty-first century. the first approach is systemic functional linguistics, which integrates the metafunctional system of symbolic resources and their meanings within multimodal phenomena. this is exemplified by delu www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 16 published by scholink inc. zhang‟s comprehensive theory of multimodal discourse analysis, which explores issues at cultural, contextual, meaning, formal, and media levels. the second approach is multimodal interaction theory, which employs the analytical framework of “modal density foreground-background continuum” to examine interactions through speech, proxemics, gestures, head movements, posture, hand movements, layout, print, music, and other modalities used in synergistic ways. beyond these popular frameworks, forceville‟s multimodal metaphor theory is also widely utilized. based on cognitive linguistics and conceptual metaphor theory, this approach posits that a multimodal metaphor involves source and target domains communicating metaphors through multiple modalities such as visuals, words, verbal symbols, gestures, and taste. metaphors exist not only in the verbal domain but can also be represented by other communicative modalities, with various modalities serving as ontologies and metaphors for symbolic means-based symbolic activities with motivation. in terms of visual construction, motivations for modal metaphors include the development of power relationships and the shaping of public perception (forceville, 2009). some overarching-themed works have intentionally employed multimodal metaphors in their construction, particularly for conveying highly condensed and abstract ideas. for instance, in the movie “real kung fu in the country‟s economy”, fuxing road studio uses cartoons to map the core of chinese kung fu onto the concept of the “new economic normal”. however, the entrenched symbol of chinese kung fu often surpasses other modalities (e.g., music, charts, and words) ideologically, leading to the failure and misunderstating of the constructive function (yang, 2017). on the positive side, this suggests that symbolic images “have a more powerful and profound constructive function on the subject in many cases” (zhou, 2017), with other modalities often serving to assist or enhance the visual. therefore, multimodal discourse analysis should prioritize understanding how the discursive practices of other modalities can complement the richness of visual communication and construction to achieve the constructive effect of influencing the cognitive subject‟s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. 3.2 divergent origins and homogeneous streams: a conceptual analysis of iconography the burgeoning interest in visual modalities and image discourse has serendipitously paralleled developments in another discipline. coincidentally, in the 1990s, w.j.t. mitchell, building on richard rorty‟s philosophical concept of the “linguistic turn” (rorty, 1979), introduced the notion of an “iconical turn” (mitchell, 1995). mitchell advocated for a “re-discovery” of paintings, asserting that visual experiences or “visual literacy” cannot be fully explicated using textual modes alone. in his work “picture theory: essays on verbal and visual representation” (mitchell, 1995), mitchell posited that paintings and texts lack inherent differences; all constructed modes of difference are related to certain ideologies, power, or interests. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 17 published by scholink inc. a review of mitchell‟s research on “images and visual culture” reveals that while the “iconical turn” emerged independently from linguistic models, it initially opposed the trend towards a generalized and symbolic approach in the field of images. however, it fundamentally emphasizes the “discursiveness” of images, integrating them as fundamental means to coexist and interact with language in reproducing and constructing reality. this perspective shares significant common ground with multimodal discourse analysis. mitchell‟s theory has evolved through continual self-critique, refinement, and development, converging gradually with multimodal practices in socially grounded visual semiotics. this study commences with multimodal discourse analysis, aiming to address mitchell‟s issues by distinguishing textual discourse from the research and focusing on other modalities (apart from text). specifically, it seeks to answer: how do these modalities aid in portraying images to create a visual construction? is this integrated representation synergistic with textual representation? before delving into these questions, it is crucial to establish the validity of the chosen research object. firstly, in dijk‟s study on discourse analysis as ideology analysis, discourse analysis was found to be a robust explanation of how ideology is expressed through various structures of texts and talk, demonstrating its applicability in western contextssecondly, mitchell‟s concept emphasizes that representational techniques in the visual domain are social, enabling the development of cognitive, affective, and ideological interpretations. these two theories brilliantly converge in ideological representation and construction, particularly in the context of current technological advancements, consumer society, and mass media integration. consequently, for research subjects such as the leaders talk series, which pertain to the theme of persuasive communication of ideology and national diplomatic propositions, utilizing discourse analysis to study the effect of visual construction is both appropriate and effective. this study scrutinizes the 84 complete video episodes (in chinese) of the leaders talk series from its inception to the present (as of july 11, 2024), employing several frameworks of multimodal discourse analysis. drawing on lim‟svisual usage of hierarchical linguistic structures, the program is decomposed into work, episode, figure, and member (o‟halloran, 2004). each hierarchical unit ascends in level, much like the various structural functions performed by different grammatical components (clauses, phrases, chunks, words) within a sentence (figure 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 18 published by scholink inc. figure 1. the composition based on lim’s visual structures taking a singular piece of leaders talk as the primary unit of work, it can be segmented into three distinct episodes: e1. on-site introduction; e2. the interview; and e3. newsreels and packaging. the e2. the interview constitutes the focal point, comprising approximately 86%-90.8% in audio-visual format, while the e3. news reels and packaging make up about 16.5%. the e1. on-site introduction constitute less than 10%. within the e2 figure 2. the interview segment, the figure includes symmetrical composition of the double shot, single shot of hosts or the leader and other basic figures; within the basic figure, there are character members (human members) such as hosts and the leader, other object members (unhuman members) such as layouts, scenes and other spatial members, and so on. figure 2. the composition of leaders talk based on lim’s visual structures www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 19 published by scholink inc. since the multimodal interaction theory is mainly applied to the interpersonal communication interaction level, that is, it only appears in the member-level segments of episode 2, this study analyzes the interpersonal interaction in interview by applying the multimodal interaction theory to this level of segments alone, to investigate how our mainstream media can realize interpersonal diplomacy under the sense of “community”. as for the other unhuman member in this level of segments, the personification and anthropomorphic theory is implemented into multimodal metaphors to show how unique aesthetic discourses are used to achieve cross-cultural empathy. beyond this, the study employs visual grammar theory to examine the compositional significance of the program image, comprising information value, salience, and framing (kress & leeuwen, 1996). it concludes by proposing a framework (figure 3) that advances multimodal visual production in mainstream media, integrating ideographic textual comparisons as necessary. in conclusion, this study endeavors to develop the framework depicted in figure 3, delineating an advanced paradigm of multimodal visual production in mainstream media through the incorporation of ideographic comparisons of textual discourses as needed. figure 3. the framework of visual construction of chinese mainstream media’s fusion columns under the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis—leaders talk as a subject 4. case study 4.1 visual grammar builds a unique story dissemination field some scholars posit that leaders talk establishes a unique narrative-sharing field, transitioning from mere information dissemination to encompass aesthetics and storytelling. the concept of “field”, drawn from bourdieu‟s sociological framework, aptly applies to the media landscape, analyzing the production, dissemination, and reception of works across diverse social contexts through visual and auditory artistic practices. these processes are influenced by capital distribution and the dynamics of social forces within the field. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 20 published by scholink inc. through meticulous work structure, episode cross-editting, and figure repetition, leaders talk conveys the nuanced aesthetics of mainstream chinese style—subtlety, symmetry, and precision—thus shaping international relations and constructing the idea of a global human community visually. it also cultivates a media figure characterized by diplomatic and news fairness. 4.1.1 structure of each “work” as previously stated, each leaders talk piece of work comprises three essential episodes. e1. on-site introduction provides background information, introducing the theme, the leader, and the focal issue through the host‟s on-site introduction. this practice aligns with the strategy of engaging viewers early, typical of short-form video production. cross-editing enhances coherence between e2. the interview and e3. news reels and packaging, validating interview content and enhancing credibility. the program‟s video discourse blends seamlessly with statements from foreign heads, enhancing the informational value of video material. e3. news reels and packaging incorporates a greater amount of information through medium-paced cuts and applies the techniques of screen dividing and camera motion to make a subtle impact on the public‟s attitudes and perceptions in the media arena. in summary, the synthesis of 84 works of leaders talk reveals its meticulously structured aesthetic, reminiscent of the distinctive style of mainstream productions. it boasts rich content, seamlessly interweaving multiple scenarios to provide more comprehensive information. its design is masterful, adeptly blending multimodal discourse with textual representation to construct viewer perceptions of the country‟s diplomatic image, key policy concepts, and public awareness. 4.1.2 pluralistic and realistic “episodes” with a sense of presence insights gleaned from leaders talk‟s social media engagements, campus presentations, media analysis reports, and extensive dissemination efforts underscore the team‟s endeavor to foster “an emotional-resonance-evoking dialogue field”. rigorous organization of focused, detailed material crafts immersive, international-to-personal dialogues in e2. the interview and realistic reporting in e3. news reels and packaging. for instance, in the 20221014 interview, the host covered the jakarta-bandung high speed railway construction site following a discussion on indonesia‟s infrastructure with the leader. the railway‟s visual representation—from the lower left corner to the upper right corner—symbolizes the project‟s scope and significance—from known to unknown areas, from real to the ideal areas. this visual narrative complements textual assertions of the country‟s comprehensive involvement in the project, paired with statements that “the jakarta-bandung high speed railway is the first overseas project in which the country builds the whole system, provides full elements, and maintains a whole industrial chain”, reflecting the leader‟s expectations. such synergies engender emotional resonance and a shared vision between audiences and interviewees, enriching the dialogue. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 21 published by scholink inc. in instances where on-site reports are impractical, as in 20230414 interview, dubbed vignettes replace on-site reports. adjusted versions effectively elucidate the leader‟s background and highlight interactions between two countries. visual juxtapositions—crowd scenes and close-ups of the leader—underscore his leadership and aspirations to alleviate poverty, fostering audience empathy and maintaining engagement despite logistical challenges（see figure 4). figure 4. two shots before the close up: the collaging of crowd scenes in 20230414 interview 4.1.3 standard and repeated “figure” in reinforcement in contrast to traditional interview norms where both host and interviewee typically angle themselves about 45 degrees towards each other with the interviewee facing the camera more, the leaders talk program employs a distinct two-person camera figure. this figure features a highly symmetrical composition where the host and the leader are positioned on opposite sides of the screen, facing each other directly in a side view. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 22 published by scholink inc. figure 5. ai generated picture with prompt of “chinese tv interview”, “host and guest seating” an ai-generated image (figure 5), prompted with keywords like “chinese tv interview” “chinese tv talk show” and “host and guest seating”, demonstrating that the computer learned interview seating arrangement differs significantly from the actual practice in leaders talk. this intentional visual design has been highlighted in special reports by the country television news. while the eye-level side view diminishes the image‟s depth and interactivity, it embodies the aesthetic symmetry and mainstream chinese aesthetics, symbolizing equality between subjects and imparting a sense of order and stability (figure 6). figure 6. the screenshots from https://www.youtube.com/@cgtn/videos aside from these innovations, leaders talk also incorporates more conventional compositions such as single shots of hosts or leaders, often using over-the-shoulder shots (ots) to maintain conversational www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 23 published by scholink inc. dynamics. speakers are typically positioned at the screen‟s 2/3 mark, which is the point easier for human visual-capture, to enhance viewer engagement. whether for the host or the leader, the close-up shots are both extremely symmetrical in beauty, constructing a field with fairness once again seeing the host as a representative of the country. background elements like wall lines, green props, windows, and paintings further enhance or subtly connect the visual narrative without distracting viewers. this sacrifice of three-dimensional picture depth and interactive visual effects aims to clarify the visual framework, emphasizing the attitude of fairness and constructing a story dissemination field in visual. beyond their compositional framing, these figures hold metaphorical significance themselves, which can be abstractedly transformed into symbols akin to political cartoons. echoing marshall mcluhan‟s maxim that “the medium is the message”, these potent visuals resonate emotionally and conceptually with audiences. 4.2 personification achieves cross-cultural empathy 4.2.1 character members: multimodal interactions in building approachable images in the format of leaders talk, hosts and the leader serve as discourse representatives of various countries and organizations, collaboratively constructing a dialogue field. this facilitates the integration of multiple discourse subjects, fostering a multidirectional and organized flow of information where diverse semantic contexts overlay harmoniously. however, beyond the structural format and agenda, this field predominantly encompasses bilateral communication, typically viewed as interpersonal. according to multimodal interaction theory, even within interpersonal communication, the audience perceives more than a simple dialogue between individuals. it involves a complex discourse communicated synergistically through various modalities—characters, multimodal paralanguage, settings, and other elements interacting collectively. as guides in the interview, hosts must swiftly organize information while employ diverse multimodal paralanguage techniques. these strategies effectively bridge psychological distances between participants, diminishing social identity barriers and also facilitate the transformation of national policies and international politics into personal narratives, thereby enhancing international communication through personalized engagement. during leaders talk, hosts often initiate interactions by adjusting their posture and movement—sitting attentively, tilting their heads, and maintaining sincere eye contact. such gestures convey respect and emotional support to interviewees, thus bridging psychological distances. these multimodal paralanguage techniques also serve for visual construction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 24 published by scholink inc. table 1. paralinguistic expression statistics for the 20221014 interview character nods smiles raise eyebrows lean forward frow shake head shrug shoulders host 31 11 31 18 3 2 1 leader 9 14 26 0 4 5 1 total 40 25 57 18 7 7 2 as can be seen, the host used significantly more paralanguage during the interview, raising eyebrows and nodding all the time, as well as maintaining a smile while listening. the leader, although being the more objective and calm party, is also influenced by the host, smiling and raising his eyebrows a great deal; it is worth noting that the leader actually smiles more than the host in this interview, which is rare, and the timing of the guest‟s smiles is very implying. paired with textual discourse that mentions “our two countries”, the leader‟s smile appeared more than five times, using simple multimodal discourse to indicate the relationship between the two countries and the attitude of their leaders towards each other ( ). secondly, at various points during the conversation, the host supplemented the verbal and emotional epithets with additional modal paralanguage. for example, during the 20221014 interview, when discussing the cultures of two countries, the host used the familiarity of indonesian folk songs in the hearts of the nation as an entry point, humming snippets of “sing sing sok” and “ai yo mama”. this music-modal paralinguistic aid is not just a more novel display for the presenter, but it also works very well in terms of communication, as can be seen in the signs of greater relaxation in the smile and body posture of the leader when the camera backfires on him (figure 9), which can facilitate interactions within the conversational field and lessen the audience‟s sense of detachment from the scene. 4.2.2 layout members: multimodal metaphors of traditional aesthetics as previously stated, wall lines, green plants, windows, and paintings in the background all contribute to the overall composition of the image. furthermore, these layout members present the symbols and metaphors of traditional aesthetics, assisting interpersonal communication and achieving personification communication. personification communication is a content presentation strategy that focuses on shaping the image of the media subject using personified verbal and nonverbal symbols. the goal of this communication method is to emphasize “personality characteristics” during the communication process in order to establish an emotional connection and interaction with the audience. it has been proved that personalized communication has excellent results in the construction of cross-cultural identity and empathy (lin, 2022). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 25 published by scholink inc. for example, if the interview is held in the host‟s country, consider using more orchids, bamboo, and other vases and potted plants with positive symbolism, to express our country‟s high praise to visiting guests and also imply the friendly relations between two countries. also, different ornaments are chosen adjusted to the different status of foreign guests, such as for the leader who loves of traditional culture and painting and calligraphy, the ink bamboo vase was placed to symbolize his interest of elegance, indifferent to fame and fortune. the fine selection of set graphics in these types of political dialogues reflects our mainstream media‟s evaluation and expectation of the leader, as well as the traditional aesthetics of subtlety and depth. if the interview takes place in the visiting country, the scene and arrangement of local characteristics are mostly chosen. even the start of the conversation in 20230210 interview is centered on the locally-produced longan, and trade exchanges between the two countries, which not only embodied respect for the local culture, but also built a more relaxed atmosphere of conversation through familiar scenery. it also created a more relaxed dialog atmosphere by constructing familiar scenes, which improves the emotional communication between the leader and our host. paralinguistic symbols have proved to be consensual and understandable by social groups through the lens of social semiotics, while traditional cultural symbols of our country (ornaments and paintings) as well as scenes and props with the color of the visiting country (special fruits, peacock models etc.) also contribute as important iconography to cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural consensus building. the personalized dissemination of paralinguistic and cross-cultural symbols reflects the country‟s development strategy shift from cultural “soft power” to “warm power” (shen, 2023), in which storytelling is about images and emotions as well as facts. among them, expressing emotion is to fully exploit the efficacy of “warm power”, as well as to provide emotional support for bridging individual differences and achieving successful cross-cultural empathy. as a result, the channel‟s overall efforts to develop competitive programs that increase the influence of international communication, the appeal of the country‟s culture, and the affinity of the country‟s image have been realized. leaders talk has also established the image of the mainstream media as a medium that provides warmth, height, and depth to dignitaries and the general public. 5. conclusion till now, the relevant data of the program leaders talk has strongly proven that the mainstream media have achieved excellent results in the integration of communication in “ideology + art + technology” and in the “all-media, multi-modal and cross-linguistic” dimensions of integrity and innovation. the program is positioned to “make the country‟s voice loud and clear” by creating a unique www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 26 published by scholink inc. communication field for the country‟s stories and tapping into the emotional resonance among cross-cultural groups. the program also fully exploits the multilingual, multi-channel, wide-coverage, and full-platform communication advantages of the channel‟s 68 languages, 191 overseas stations around the world, as well as tv, radio, and new media, and has been highly evaluated on the internet and described as “no biting teeth, no sarcastic questions, no conflict question pitting one nation against another.... no biting teeth, no sarcastic questions, no conflict question pitting one nation again. there will be no biting teeth, sarcastic questions, or conflict questions pitting one nation against another. pure interview”. this fully demonstrates the advantages of mainstream media in program producing strategy, as well as the fact that leaders talk has succeeded in visually constructing public perception and sorting out an impartial and three-dimensional image of the country to some extent. however, as the first paragraph of this paper shows when introducing the statistics on leaders talk, the program also has a large target group, namely, the young group. in other words, the innovative columns represented by leaders talk, which are characterized by the dissemination of ideas with the country‟s characteristics, also have the important goals of ideological education for young people. in this sphere, the “ip on campus” campaign has been launched in many universities in beijing, shanghai and other cities since the beginning of 2024, aiming to deepen the link between the channel and the youth groups through colorful and relatable ways. through the series of dissemination activities, the well-known mainstream ips of such as spring festival gala, anchor talks broadcast, leaders talk, etc., went into ruc, fdu, tju and many others to give lectures and interact with teachers and students of colleges and universities, which not only combines the production with the study, but also is a major practice of expanding the audience of young people and doing a good job in the ideological education. in the future, we hope to see more attempts especially in multimodal discourse. for example, in the member dimension, choose more program hosts who are more welcomed by young people; in the episode dimension, through a more complete matrix construction, to produce more shortcuts suitable for lightweight, fast-paced and no-burden dissemination. otherwise, it can learn from “news broadcast” and “anchor talks broadcast”, producing more works in the form of vertical and short video, commenting on the official version of the program or backstage storytelling, to draw closer to the young audience and form a richer media linkage and a new pattern of convergence and dissemination. leaders talk is an excellent practice for the country‟s mainstream media to make the country‟s voice heard in the arena of international public opinion. the ideological dimension of the dissenmination field of the country‟s story, as well as the emotional dimension of the resonance effect among cross-cultural groups, are the result of mainstream‟s traditional and solid program production www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 27 published by scholink inc. experience, as well as its attitude of constantly observing the right, innovating, and seeking a higher quality media discourse. the framework in this study possesses interdisciplinary characteristics and can be applied to the study of more multimodal, media-convergent artworks. meanwhile, other versions of mainstream‟s presentation on the all-media side are also worthy of further exploration, providing reference and support for the visual construction in new media products. references brown, l. b., & mitchell, w. j. t. (1986). “iconology: image, text, ideology”. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 45(2), 211. https://doi.org/10.2307/430568 forceville, c., & eduardo, u.-a. (2009). multimodal metaphor. berlin; new york, mouton de gruyter. halliday, m. a. k. (1994). an introduction to functional grammar. london, arnold; new york. jewitt, c. (2009). the routledge handbook of multimodal analysis. abingdon, oxon; new york, ny, routledge. kress, g. r, & theo van l. (2006). reading images: the grammar of visual design. london, routledge. mitchell, t. (1995). picture theory: essays on verbal and visual representation. chicago, university of chicago press. mitchell, w j t. (2015). image science: iconology, visual culture, and media aesthetics. university of chicago press. o‟halloran, k. l. (2004). multimodal discourse analysis: systemic-functional perspectives. london; new york, continuum. van dijk, t. a. (1995). “discourse analysis as ideology analysis”. language and peace, 1 jan. 1995, 41-58. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203984994-7 lin, s. d. (2022). seeking a reciprocal understanding of “harmony and difference”. intercultural communication research, (1), 37-46. li, s. (2023). high-end interview: spreading the country‟s voice in dialogue. television studies, (5), 40-43. pan, y. y. (2017). an overview of domestic multimodal discourse analysis (2003-2017)-an examination of the publication results of cssci source journals. journal of fujian normal university (philosophy and social science edition), (05), 49-59+168-169. shen, y. (2023). from soft power to warm power: discourse, dimension and vision of the country‟s international communication innovation. dongyue lunshun, (2), 62-75. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 28 published by scholink inc. xu, l. n. (2012). mitchell and the pictorial turn. journal of tongji university (social science edition), 23(03), 85-93. yang, y. (2017). short video expression: multimodal discourse innovation practice of chinese concepts in foreign communication. modern communication, 39(11), 160-161. zhou, j. (2024). exploring the discourse practice of foreign communication hosts in the context of international communication—taking zou yun, the host of “leaders talk” program, as an example. sound screen world, (06), 34-35+39. zhou, x. (2017). visual construction, visual representation and visuality—an examination of three core concepts of visual culture. literary review, (3), 8. zhou, y. (2023). “community” discourse: the international communication discourse innovation of “leaders talk” program. international communication, (4), 7-15. zhang, t. f. (2023). creating a hub node in the international opinion arena--taking “leaders talk” as an example. international communication, (4), 16-21. zhang, z. a. (2019). social insights and value enhancement behind the rise of short video industry. media, (07), 52-55. zhang, z. c., & chen, y. m. (2011). a review of three major theoretical approaches to multimodal discourse analysis. chinese english education, (31), 11. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 8 original paper reforming sectarian beliefs in iraq: winning the peace michael oler1*, anthony johnson2, anna mcculloh3, munqith dagher4, anita day5, & ian mcculloh2,6 1 krieger school of arts and sciences, johns hopkins university, baltimore, md, usa 2 johns hopkins university. applied physics laboratory, laurel, md, usa 3 arrow analytics, lithia, fl, usa 4 independent institute for administrative and civil society studies (iiacss), amman, jordan 5 northrop grumman corporation technology services, mclean, va, usa 6 accenture federal services, arlington, va, usa * michael oler, krieger school of arts and sciences, johns hopkins university, baltimore, md, usa received: november 30, 2020 accepted: december 14, 2020 online published: january 25, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n1p8 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n1p8 abstract sectarian violence continues in iraq affecting regional and world security. neuroscience techniques are used to assess the mentalizing process and counter-arguing in response to videos designed to prevent extremist radicalization. measurement of neural activity in brain regions of interest (roi) assists identification of messages which can promote favorable behavior. activation of the medial prefrontal cortex (mpfc) is associated with message adoption and behavior change. public service announcements (psas) have not been effective in reducing violence in iraq. this study demonstrates that the four psas investigated in this study do not activate the mpfc. the rlpfc is a brain roi associated with counter-arguing and message resistance. this study demonstrates that reduction in activity in the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rlpfc) is associated with decreased sectarianism. engagement was measured and is associated with activity in the frontal pole regions. we introduce functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fnirs) to measure the neural activity of highly sectarian iraqis in response to these anti-sectarian messages. neural activity was measured while viewing three psas and a fourth unpublished video. all four videos are intended to reduce sectarianism. a novel sectarianism scale is introduced to measure sectarian beliefs before and after the messages. this sectarian scale has high internal consistency as measured by cronbach’s alpha. measured activation of brain rois are correlated with changes in the sectarian scale. twelve sunni and twelve shi’a iraqis participated in the study. subjects were shown the four videos in randomized order, while equipped with a fnirs neural imaging device. all four videos produced significant engagement. none of the videos reduced sectarianism nor caused brain activation of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 9 published by scholink inc. adoption. this is consistent with the widely held iraqi public perception that the psas are ineffective. only one video, which was un-published, caused reduced sectarian beliefs. this un-published fourth video was associated with decreased counter-arguing. counter-arguing is associated with message resistance. keywords counter-arguing, fnirs, functional near infrared spectroscopy, influence, mentalize, message adoption, public service announcement, region of interest, resistance, sectarian 1. introduction: historical background iraq is located in the cradle of civilization between the tigris and euphrates river. successive empires invaded and controlled iraq, including sumeria, babylonia, assyria, greece, rome, the mongols, and the ottoman turks. baghdad was a center of culture, learning, and commerce for islam in the middle ages until the mongol invasion in 1258. iraq became a british mandate after the first world war, followed by an independent monarchy. this monarchy was followed by decades of violent upheaval, then ba’ath party control in 1968. most iraqis are muslim. there is sectarian conflict between sunni and shi’a arabs, who both speak arabic, and kurds, who speak kurdish. iraq has been described as an “artificial” nation, comprised of geographically clustered sectarian strongholds. in world war i the ottoman empire sided with germany, threatening british access to oil and other interests. britain invaded basra, then the rest of iraq. after world war i, britain created iraq. the british mandate in iraq involuntarily united diverse groups who were not cohesive and who had significant ties to outside entities. iraq was held together by the overwhelming, brutal dictator, saddam hussein, his family, and sunni ba’ath party. osama bin laden founded the sunni organization al-qeada. bin laden led the al-qeada attack on the united states in 2001. in 2003, the united states attacked and occupied iraq. after the united states invaded iraq in 2003, the coalition provisional authority disbanded the iraqi army and removed ba’ath party members from power. the failure to impose law and order allowed civil unrest and sectarian violence. weakened states with unresolved ethnic and sectarian conflicts can become lawless, ungoverneable, and havens for terrorists (kirmanc, 2013), (haddad, 2011). this fueled the uprising of islamic state of iraq and the levant (isil). isil is also known as the islamic state in iraq and syria (isis). in 2014, isis occupied substantial territory in syria and iraq. civil conflict in iraq persists. isis continues to be a potent terrorist threat. isis has been known to use social media to recruit supporters from throughout the world, including the united states and great britain. isis remains a worldwide threat in spite of territorial losses in iraq (haddad, 2011). iran supports shi’a militia insurgents in opposition to united states forces and policies. in 2004, the iraqi occupation government launched anti-terror media campaigns. “terror has no religion” sought to counter sunni-inspired al-qaeda. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 10 published by scholink inc. “say no to terror” followed. 350 videos and 60% of youtube commentators responded negatively to “say no to terror”. concerns were expressed regarding the format, agenda, and cultural and political barriers (al-rawi, 2013). former united states chairman of the joints chiefs of staff general joseph francis dunford jr. held a conference of allied defense chiefs in 2018. military progress has been made against violent extremism in iraq. “the military can deal with the symptoms of terrorism, but it cannot solve the root cause (dunford)”. general dunford clarifies the need to “describe the nature of the challenges...in context...and craft more comprehensive solutions to deal with violent extremism (dunford)”. the conference acknowledged concern that military interventions promote recruitment to terror groups (garamone, 2018). 2. neuroscience of persuasion activation observed within certain brain regions of interest (roi) can be predictive of future behaviors. asymmetric activation, left greater than right, of roi’s in the frontal lobe poles indicates engagement. activation of the roi in the medial prefrontal cortex (mpfc) indicates adoption of new behavior (falk, 2010*),(burns, 2018). activation of the mpfc predicts behavior better than the self-reported intentions of subjects (falk, 2010**). activation of the roi in the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rlpfc) indicates counter-arguing (burns, 2018), (schmidt, 2018). counter-arguing is argument in opposition to a stated position. counter-arguing is analogous to message resistance. the rlpfc communicates with and counter-balances the mpfc in normative, decision-making. this communication occurs below the level of consciousness. messages selected on the basis of brain activity in focus groups can be generalized to whole populations (falk, 2012), (falk, 2013). this study measures brain activity by functional near infrared spectroscopy (fnirs) (ferrari, 2012). the prefrontal cortex recruits and organizes input and activity of large brain networks. activation of the medial prefrontal cortex (mpfc) indicates shifts in brain networks. cooper reports shifts in brain networks predict behavior (cooper, 2018). when a person changes one’s mind that person is switching brain networks. the mpfc is a switch that shifts networks based on disparate input including stored memory, emotion, and active sensory input. the switching process occurs below conscious awareness. we are all subject to subconscious social influences. social influences, including electronic media, can affect decision-making. normal people can be prosyletized and radicalized. 3. methods participants: participants consisted of 24 male adults of iraqi citizenship and ethnicity, planning to vote in the 2018 iraqi election, and residing in amman, jordan (age m = 23.52 years, sd = 3.07). all were arabic speakers and provided informed consent in arabic to participate in this study. all participants were paid for their participation. johns hopkins university institutional review board approved the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. study. of the 24 participants, 12 were sunni muslim and 12 were shi’a muslim. all subjects were assessed to hold high sectarian bias using the sectarianism scale described below. participants were recruited by phone to participate in a video marketing study. the authors obtained permission to use the data for secondary analysis for the purpose of this paper. sample size was determined based on the maximum number of participants that could conduct the study, given limited time, facilities, and resources. a priori power analysis using effect sizes in previous social neuroscience work with type i error of 5 percent and 80 percent power suggests a sample size of 14 participants. 4. materials neural measurements were conducted with a nirsport imaging unit, which is a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fnirs) device manufactured by nirx (nirx.net/nirsport). this device was selected because of its small size, portability, and greater ecological validity than other neural imaging alternatives. the nirsport unit has eight light sources and eight light detectors configured to measure the prefrontal cortex over 23 channels of data. one drawback of the nirsport is limited spatial coverage and the inability to measure activity in deep brain structures. measurements include the medial prefrontal cortex, frontal poles, dorsal and lateral prefrontal cortex. these regions in the outer cortex and are several centimeters in size, within the measurement resolution of fnirs of 1-3 cm. four headcaps of different sizes where used to affix the light sources and detectors to participants. spatial positioning was standardized using the 10-10 ui external positioning system. light intensity was emitted at 760 nm and 850nm wavelengths with a 7.81hz sampling rate. four video commercials intended to reduce viewer sectarianism using different persuasion tactics were used a stimulus in this study. video one, labelled “chess”, is an animated chess game. opposing pieces represent al-qaeda and shi’a militia. the animated chess pieces from opposing sides fight each other with graphic violence. the video ends with the two militia leaders (kings) walking off the board together. this video suggests participants in sectarian violence are being a used as pawns in a chess game. this is meant to be a shocking and provocative appeal, motivating viewers to challenge their sectarian beliefs and seek more information. video two, labelled “nice”, shows two elementary school boys as friends. the boys pray together. time is forwarded to show the friends grown as adults. it becomes apparent that one friend is sunni and the other is shi’a. this demonstrates the similarity between sunni and shi’a sects. this is intended as a positively framed message encouraging sectarian unity. video three, labelled “grad”, shows the graduation of a group of students. a young female graduate and her proud mother are portrayed. then there is an explosion. the video switches to the graduate’s mother crying over her deceased daughter. the video narrates “isil destroys families”. this is meant as a shocking and provocative appeal. video four, labelled “basheer”, is a monologue by popular iraqi comedian ahmad www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 12 published by scholink inc. al-basheer. basheer argues at length that iraq should disband shi’a militias and avoid sectarianism. this is meant to be a somber and conciliatory appeal, focusing on similarities and iraqi national identity over sectarian identities. 5. procedure prior to viewing any videos, all participants completed a survey measuring their level of sectarianism, defined as a bias toward their own sect, sunni or shi’a islam, and a prejudice toward other sects. the survey consisted of eight questions, rated on a scale ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree). the eight questions consisted of the following: 1) i would not mind if a qualified [sunni/shi’a] was appointed as my boss; 2) i have often felt admiration for [sunni/shi’a]s living here; 3) most politicians care too much about [sunni/shi’a] and not enough about the average iraqi; 4) i would never marry a [sunni/shi’a]; 5) sunnis and shi’as are different in the way they practice islam; 6) [sunni/shi’a] are different in the values they teach their children; 7) sunnis and shi’a are different in regards to their honesty/trustworthiness; 8) sunnis and shi’a can never be really comfortable with each other, even if they are close friends. note that the [sunni/shia] in the above scale indicated the other sect, that was not the sect of the participant. some of the items were reverse coded. the items were averaged to create a composite scale ranging from 0 to 10. following the pre-video sectarian beliefs survey, participants watched the four anti-sectarian videos. participants viewed baseline content for 30 seconds, consisting of a blank screen in a dark, quiet room. following each video, the participant would view a blank screen again for 30 seconds. the were 24 different permutations of video ordering. participants were randomly assigned to a permutation, constrained such that for all 6 permutations beginning with a given video, half would be viewed by a sunni and half would be viewed by a shi’a. immediately following each video, participants were asked to self-report on level of identification, response efficacy, and perceived effectiveness. this was done using a single item, 5-point likert scale. two weeks following initial data collection, the same eight-question sectarianism survey was re-administered to assess change in sectarianism following video intervention. 6. neural data processing fnirs data was pre-processed using nirslab. event markers captured the beginning and end of each video and baseline period. the length of each video is known, so reliable start/stop times for each baseline and video stimuli are recorded. discontinuities in neural signals were removed. several of the relevant channels were over-saturated. four of these were repaired by interpolating over no more than 15 frames (approximately 2 seconds). the others were discarded from analysis. this resulted in the exclusion of 2 participant’s data, leaving usable data for 22 participants. band pass filtering was applied to all signals with a low cutoff frequency of 0.01 hz and a high cutoff frequency of 0.2 hz. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. this effectively removed biometric noise in the neural signal data. a principal component analysis (pca) algorithm was used to identify and remove motion artifacts from the data. light intensity was converted into a percentage change in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration relative to baseline using the modified beer-lambert law. the first and last 7 seconds of each video stimulus was truncated to account for delayed response due to the participant’s hemodynamic response function. data for each channel were exported to a text file for statistical analysis using r. r is a free, popular, and open source statistical computing and graphics language and environment. since fnirs measures a relative frequency, an absolute activity measure was estimated by scaling the neural signal for each fontal pole between zero and one by subtracting the minimum value from the beginning of the baseline period through video completion, then dividing by the range in maximum to minimum over the same time period. for each frame (data point) the left value was divided by the right value and this value was then divided by the sum of the two values. the log of the resulting value was used for calculations. figure 1. fnirs channels measuring a priori brain regions of interest we focus measurement in three key brain regions of interest. the level of engagement or disgust toward video content was estimated by asymmetry in the frontal poles. people with greater left than right activity experience engagement with stimuli, while people with greater right than left frontal pole activity experience disgust. we use the formula (l/r)/(l+r), where l and r refers to the brain activity in neural channels 11 and 13 respectively as indicated in figure 1. message adoption was estimated by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 14 published by scholink inc. activity in the medial prefrontal cortex observed in channel 12. counter-arguing toward stimulus was estimated by activity in the right lateral prefrontal cortex observed in channel 18. four research questions are investigated in this experiment: r1: are the videos cognitively engaging? we hypothesize that all four videos will cause cognitive engagement in participants as observed by a significant increase in left greater than right frontal pole activation (channels 11 and 13) during the video compared to the blank screen viewed immediately prior. r2: do the videos increase adoption of the message? we hypothesize that the published videos will not increase adoption. increased adoption will result in decreased sectarianism. lack of adoption will not reduce sectarianism. adoption is shown by activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (channel 12). r3: do the shocking, provocative videos affect counter-arguing? we hypothesize that the provocative videos, video 1, the chess video, and video 3, the grad video, will exhibit higher levels of counter arguing. the un-provocative, pleasant videos, video 2, the nice video, and video 4, the basheer video, will not exhibit counter-arguing. counter-arguing is shown by activity in the right lateral prefrontal cortex (channel 18). r4: does decreased counter-arguing (channel 18) increase message integration and adoption (chanel 12)? we hypothesize that videos with high cognitive engagement and low counter-arguing will exhibit higher activity in the medial prefrontal cortex. behavior is not limited to individual regions of interest, but is more reflected in changes in larger circuits. overall, a pattern of increased engagement, decreased counter-arguing, and increased adoption will likely correlate with decreased sectarianism. the decrease in sectarianism will be measured between the pre-video survey and the two week post-video survey. all statistical tests will apply the student t-test to compare the block average of neural signals while participants viewed stimulus material against those while they viewed blank screens prior to stimulus. the t-test will be corrected for heteroskedasticity. 7. results: summary of key findings reduced sectarianism is the intended effect of all four videos in this study. the sectarian survey has high cronbach’s alpha equalling 0.78, indicating high internal consistency. there is no observed difference in sectarian score between sunni and shi’a. all four videos were engaging (table 1). there was no effect of engagement on sectarianism (table 2). none of the videos shows increased neural activity associated with adoption of new behavior (table 3). video 2 shows decreased neural activity association with adoption (table 4). none of the videos show an effect of adoption on sectarianism (table 5). none of the videos show increased neural activity associated with counter-arguing (table 6). videos 2 and 4 show decreased neural activity associated with counter-arguing (table 7). only video 4, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. the basheer video, showed decreased sectarianism. none of the published videos, videos 1, 2, and 3, had any effect in reducing sectarianism. this confirms iraqi public opinion that public service announcements against sectarian violence are not effective. video 4, the basheer video, has not been published. the basheer video shows decreased sectarianism as a function of decreased counter-arguing (table 8). we believe this indicates decreased resistance to the message. 8. findings asymmetric activation of the frontal poles, left greater than right, measured in channels 11 and 13, indicates engagement. all four videos show significant increase in engagement according to two-sample t-tests comparing baseline and stimulus block-average: table 1. increased engagement video p-value chess 0.0007 nice 0.0010 grad 0.0170 basheer 0.0009 figure 2. engagement measured in channels 11 and 13 there is no significant effect of engagement on sectarianism in a regression model: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 16 published by scholink inc. table 2. effect of engagement on sectarianism video p-value r-squared chess 0.1486 0.12 nice 0.4152 0.04 grad 0.9213 0.00 basheer 0.3555 0.05 activation of the medial prefrontal cortex, measured in channel 12, indicates adoption of new behavior. none of the four videos shows increased adoption: table 3. increased adoption video p-value chess 0.675 nice 0.9368 grad 0.2251 basheer 0.7183 figure 3. adoption measured in channel 12 video 2, the nice video, shows decreased adoption: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. table 4. decreased adoption video p-value chess 0.325 nice 0.0632 grad 0.7749 basheer 0.2817 there is no effect of adoption on sectarianism in a regression model: table 5. effect of adoption on sectarianism video p-value r-squared chess 0.3985 0.05 nice 0.5353 0.03 grad 0.9118 0.00 basheer 0.7791 0.00 activation of the right lateral prefrontal cortex, measured in channel 18, indicates counter-arguing. none of the videos showed increased counter-arguing (figure 4) in a one-tailed, two sample t-test: table 6. increased counter-arguing video p-value chess 0.4917 nice 0.9664 grad 0.7636 bashir 0.9799 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. figure 4. counter-arguing measured in channel 18 video 2, the nice video, and video 4, the basheer video, shows decreased counter-arguing in a one-tailed, two-sample t-test comparing baseline and stimulus block-averages: table 7. decreased counter-arguing video p-value chess 0.5083 nice 0.0335 grad 0.2364 basheer 0.0201 video 4, the basheer video, shows decreased sectarianism as a function of counter-arguing in a regression model: table 8. effect of counter-arguing on sectarianism video p-value r-squared chess 0.4176 0.04 nice 0.7784 0.00 grad 0.4225 0.04 basheer 0.0112 0.32 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. the basheer video was not a published public service announcement. the basheer video is the only video to demonstrate the effect of decreased sectarianism. this video is longer and allows the audience to identify with the speaker, a popular comedian and cultural icon, through evocative rhetoric. one individual scored a statistically significant increase in sectarianism, greater than two standard deviations above the mean. this was a twenty year old sunni with a bachelor’s degree, with no known unusual characteristics compared to the rest of the population. 9. discussion: the results are significant these findings confirm the impression that public service announcements are not effective in reducing sectarian violence. the findings are original. the iraqi, arab populations, sunni and sh’ia, have not been previously studied. iraqi culture is not well understood by neuroscientists from western, industrialized countries. these findings are relevant for local, regional, and world security. we evaluate the mental processes of engagement, adoption of new behavior, and decreased message resistance as a function of brain regions of interest. adoption of new behaviors has been demonstrated to relate to activation of the medial prefrontal cortex. a favorable profile of neural activity supporting behavior change might include high engagement (left greater than right frontal pole), increased adoption (medial prefrontal cortex), and decreased counter-arguing (right lateral prefrontal cortex) relating to decreased message resistance. the basheer video most closely fits this profile. the basheer video is engaging and has decreased message resistance relative to message adoption. the basheer video is the only video which reduces sectarianism. all videos were engaging, none of the videos increased adoption, nor decreased sectarianism as a direct function of adoption. the provocative videos, video 1, the chess video, and video 3, the grad video, did not affect adoption or counter-arguing. of the pleasant videos, the nice video decreased adoption and counter-arguing, and the basheer video decreased counter-arguing, but not adoption. the nice video did not decrease sectarianism. the basheer video decreased sectarianism. each video has distinct features: video 1, the chess video, is violent, provocative, and engaging. the chess video does not increase adoption or counter-arguing, nor does it decrease sectarianism. video 2, the nice video, is pleasant in tone, and engaging. the nice video decreases adoption and counter-arguing, but does not decrease sectarianism. video 3, the grad video, depicts violence and is provocative, and engaging. the grad video does not increase adoption or counter-arguing, nor does it decrease sectarianism. video 4, the basheer video is pleasant in tone, and engaging. the basheer video does not decrease adoption but does decrease counter-arguing and sectarianism. the basheer video decreases sectarianism as a function of counter-arguing, not adoption (tables 5, 7). the results of the unpublished basheer video suggest a relationship between reduction of counter-arguing in the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rlpfc) and reduction of sectarian beliefs: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 20 published by scholink inc. function of the rlpfc is complex and incompletely understood. hutcherson describes the interplay between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in cognitive regulation generating decision-making (hutcherson, 2012). the ventromedial and lateral prefrontal cortices cross-talk, arguing and counter-arguing back and forth, counter-balancing each other, resulting in normative processing below the level of consciousness. anatomic differences in these regions affect cognitive processing (schmidt, 2018). attitudes and actions regarding sectarianism are a behavioral state. transformative processes and influences affecting behaviors include engagement, identification, emotion, narrative immersion, reviewing previous experience, internal dialogue, innoculation, and resolving cognitive dissonance. cognitive dissonance results from conflicting information, beliefs, or feelings, causing discomfort. individuals tend to resolve the conflict by various mechanisms to achieve consistency to resolve discomfort (festinger, 1957). inoculation involves reinforcing previously held beliefs (banas, 2010). inoculation helps protect an individual against un-wanted change. the majority of iraqis already reject violence and terrorism, and tend to view sectarianism as a recent, externally incited phenomenon, caused by the american invasion. the basheer video is different from the published videos. basheer is a popular comedian who addresses the audiences directly in a personal manner. the basheer video is longer than the published videos. iraqis identify with basheer who is popular. affirmation of core values increases the effectiveness of a message (falk, 2015). kaplan reports challenges to establish political beliefs can increase activity in the default mode network. the default network mode is associated with self-representation and disengagement from external reality (kaplan, 2016). the audience relates to basheer whose message reinforces negative perceptions of violence and terror. innoculation of established beliefs against sectarian violence could explain the decrease in sectarianism seen in the basheer video. soutschek evaluated the role of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlpfc) in decision-making regarding cooperation. previous studies, including those using functional magnetic resonance imaging, reported a correlation between cooperative behavior and dlpfc activity (emonds, 2012). soutschek used trans-cranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt the dlpfc while playing the prisoner’s dilemma game. in the prisoner’s dilemma game, the subject risks short-term loss, even if the other player has previously defected, to accrue long-term benefit. to make that strategic decision, the subject has to suppress the impulse to defect. this is an important cognitive control process. disrupting the dlpfc magnetically disrupts that cognitive process. incapacitating the dlpfc decreased cooperation rates. this was most pronounced when the partner had previously defected (soutschek, 2015). this experiment demonstrates that the dlpfc contributes to strategic decision-making in the prisoner’s dilemma game. soutschek infers the dlpfc plays a role in weighing long-term versus short term benefits. prefrontal cortex is a relatively late evolutionary development, moderating behavior, allowing mutual altruism, among non-relatives, as a basis for cooperation and survival (soutschek, 2015). “few things are as fundamental to human www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 21 published by scholink inc. progress as our ability to arrive at a shared understanding of the world” (kaplan, 2016). 10. limitations: several concerns limit the ability to generalize these results “functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) has become the gold standard for in vivo imaging of the human brain. in practice, fnirs is a more convenient and less expensive technology than fmri” (cui, 2011). fnirs correlates well with fmri (cui, 2011). fnirs is limited relative to fmri. fnirs lacks the spatial discrimination of fmri. the mpfc has voxels of function identified below the level of fnirs discrimination. for example, activation of the mpfc predicts behavior change, whereas activation of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmpfc) is more specifically associated with narrative immersion. this is a significant limitation since narrative immersion plays a key role in decision-making. the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmpfc) plays multiple, varied roles including social, cognitive, and affective functions (hiser, 2018). confirmatory evaluation by fmri may be necessary for better spatial resolution. similar limitations likely affect other roi including the rlpfc. fnirs has a decreased signal-to-noise ratio (snr) than fmri. fnirs can not access deep brain structures, whereas fmri can (cui, 2011). measuring behavioral change is problematic. all subjects were male and education levels varied, although this was not controlled. this study assumes a relationship between extreme beliefs and the capacity, willingness, and propensity to commit violence. implicit is the assumption that reducing sectarianism will reduce sectarian violence. the sectarian survey has not been validated or used in other settings. the study design may have inappropriately increased engagement scores. videos were contrasted with a blank screen. instead of a blank screen between videos, it might be useful instead to use videos with some neutral content. the videos do not generate a large range of signal strength to facilitate discrimination. future studies should create a greater range of output values across input stimuli. the effects of one video lasts well past the baseline/rest period and into the subsequent stimuli. this may contaminate findings. dynamic changes occur within the span of a single video, between videos, and beyond. subsequent events, including sleep, may affect integration of changes. it is reasonable to question whether any single, brief intervention may change deeply rooted, inter-generational beliefs and biases. motivational states play a role in behavior change. falk’s smoking cessation studies involved subjects who expressed a desire to change behavior to quit smoking. motivation was not addressed in this study. the subjects in this study are highly sectarian, and in focus groups did not express any desire to change that fact. it is reasonable to infer that the subjects were not likely motivated to decrease sectarianism. one subject significantly increased sectarian beliefs for unknown reasons. emotion plays a role in prefrontal cortical, cognitive processing (dor’e, 2019*), (kaplan, 2016). the predictive value of activation of regions of interest is moderated by emotional influences (dor’e, 2019)**. emotional states were not addressed in this study. the focus groups offer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. insights into thoughts and emotions: the videos elicited opinions and revealed mood states. the violent chess video evoked skepticism motivating a desire to seek more information. common responses to the nice video was that all muslims should get along and that sectarianism is a relatively new phenomenon. the grad video message is that “isil destroys families”. the grad video evoked emotion, but failed to address sectarianism, more addressing terror and violence. the greater length of the basheer video is problematic for confounding error in fnirs measurement. the majority of people in the middle east reject al qaeda and isil. this is already widely accepted. the subjects are iraqi expatriates residing in amman, jordan. this may indicate biases limiting generalizations to the iraqi population. this may include personal experience with sectarian violence which may have led to expatriation. the authors acknowledge cultural and social biases, including western origins, and military backgrounds and associations, including service in iraq and the global war on terror. 11. future areas of inquiry this study provides interesting findings which should be explored. there is a need to develop and identify messages which activate adoption in the mpfc to decrease sectarian beliefs. further research is needed to evaluate the relation of adoption to counter-arguing affecting target behaviors. further study is needed of the relation between counter-arguing and decreased sectarianism including demographic influences. further research is needed to optimize the location of the counter-arguing region of interest for each subject, as this may vary by individual and with cap fitting. fnirs is a cost-effective tool to measure the effectiveness of video messages. confirmation and delineation of key findings with functional magneticresonance (fmri) imaging would be useful. it may be useful to develop simple tools for field use which focus solely on the mpfc and rlpfc, create better signal discrimination, upload data to a central processor, develop streamlined analytic algorithms, including exception and error handling, and provide quick feedback to the field. a direct measurement of mpfc and rlpfc activation in the field would be useful, perhaps a using color indicator. it might be interesting to monitor continuous telemetry output of rois during various stimuli, including speeches, debates, movies, and athletic events. video messages could be formulated, selected, and tailored to population segments. this could optimize efficacy and efficiency, including likelihood of propagation, or going viral. ineffective media campaigns waste resources and good will. "mass media can powerfully affect [health] decision-making"(falk, 2016). further study may provide insight into how social media promotes radicalization, including domestically in the united states. many neurologic processes underlying behavior change are not under conscious control. normal people are vulnerable to subliminal messaging, and some people are vulnerable to radicalization and violence. likewise, we are subject to ethical countermeasures, including education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 23 published by scholink inc. the authors hope this investigation will stimulate discussion and research regarding sectarian violence in iraq and elsewhere. future areas of inquiry include exploring and refining methods to study how social messages lead to behaviors, including organized violence. studying violent acts of terror is limited by ethical and practical constraints. surrogate violent behavior, such as sport-related fighting, may be an appropriate venue to study violent beliefs and behavior. naturalistic and retrospective investigations might be useful to gain insight in designing more rigorous studies. future studies might include characterizing the mental transition from sectarianism to planning to implementation of violence. negative behaviors may be countered, redirected, and reformed by positive messages which activate the brain. persuasive messages can change behavior. we seek to reduce sectarian-inspired violence in iraq. messages should be legitimate, transparent, and respectful (aly, 2014). iraq has an ancient, venerated history of heterogeneous cultures. iraq has endured millenia of invasions and decades of brutal dictatorship, war, and domestic violence. it would be useful to learn how social media promotes radicalization. enduring peace, based on pluralistic tolerance, is worthy of our best efforts. we seek to honor the commitment and sacrifices of those who served to secure the future and freedom of iraq. the impact of sectarianism in iraq, the middle east, and the world, merit further inquiry. 12. conclusion public service announcements (psas) do not reduce sectarian violence in iraq. this experiment measures neural activity in subjects viewing psas against sectarianism. neural activity is correlated with changes in sectarianism. infrared spectroscopy measures activity in three key brain regions of interest. activity in these brain regions involve: (1) getting attention, (2) changing behavior, and (3) resisting behavioral change. three psa videos fail to activate behavioral change and have no effect on sectarianism. a fourth, un-published video decreases resistance to behavioral change, decreasing sectarianism. this suggests a potential relation between the brain region which changes behavior and the region which resists behavioral change. messages which activate new behavior need to identified and studied in relation to their effect on sectarianism. infrared spectroscopy is a convenient, inexpensive, and effective tool to identify persuasive messages to reduce sectarian violence in iraq. cost effective analysis of brain activity can assist selection of messages which may go viral to reduce sectarian violence. this may be a useful tool to ethically influence behaviors which reduce violence and enhance security. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 24 published by scholink inc. references al-rawi, a. k. 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(2018). chiefs of defense conference looks to “win the peace” against violent extremism. in u.s. central command, media, news articles (oct. 2018). retrieved from http//www.centcom.mil/media/news-articles/newsarticle-view/article/1664771/chiefs-o f-defenseconferencelooks-to-win-the-peace-against-violent-extremism/ haddad, f. (2011). sectarianism in iraq: antagonistic visions of unity. oxford press, usa. hiser, j., & koenigs, m. (2018). the multifaceted role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in emotion, decision making, social cognition, and psychopathology. biological psychiatry, 83(8), 638-647. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.10.030 hutcherson, c. et al. (2012). cognitive regulation during decision making shifts behavioral control between ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal value systems. journal of neuroscience, 32(39), 13543-13554. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.6387-11.2012 kaplan, j. t., gimble, s. i., & harris, s. 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(2015). the importance of the lateral prefrontal cortex for strategic decision making in the prisoner’s dilemma. cognitive, affective, and behavioral neuroscience, 854-860. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-015-0372-5 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper transparency culture & ecclesial responsibility: reflections on institutional communications cristian mendoza1* & carl beekman2 1 school of church communications, pontifical university of the holy cross, rome, italy 2 pastor, rockford illinois, united states of america * cristian mendoza, school of church communications, pontifical university of the holy cross, rome, italy received: march 4, 2018 accepted: march 19, 2018 online published: march 27, 2018 doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p1 abstract we aim to provide a theoretical framework for enhancing the catholic church’s culture of transparency. we therefore define concepts of culture and transparency, stressing some of the institutional consequences due to their interaction. finally, we apply these principles to the ecclesial institution’s fields that are attractive for the public square: the administration of temporal goods, the use of information and the dispensation of sacraments and religious teachings. defining culture as the setting up of behavioral standards, we realize that the ones regarding transparency have been constantly raised in the last years by society, while the church has remained stable in its long-term organizational principles. applying a culture of transparency for the church would therefore require to understand the dynamic of cultural change within the church that is essentially united to the preservation of its own spiritual purposes. also builds within itself a culture that sustains a culture of accountability. ecclesial institutions as any institution, builds and sustains trust through its diligent and consistent refusal to abuse the power given. the ecclesiastical institution would change its standards of transparency when it is needed to keep up with its original mission not when it is just an exigency of its cultural environment. keywords transparency standards, culture, ecclesial responsibility, information use 1. transparency culture for faith-based institutions we aim to describe the meaning of a culture of transparency for the catholic church understood as a hierarchical institution. we will not therefore consider the temporal goods regarding the catholic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 2 published by scholink inc. schools, hospitals or libraries, but only those belonging to the ecclesial institution as for instance the buildings of the diocesan curia, parish churches and shrines, etc. likewise the culture of transparency about the use of information will not take into account the catholic media, but only what diocesan officers do with the faithful data. and for the same token we think about the dispensation of sacraments and teachings being in the hands of ordained ministers, not other spiritual benefits from religious congregations or movements. the elements left apart are very important for the mission of the church, but only by delimiting our field of study would allow us to define the specific question we want to answer. we will thus start with the definition of concepts as culture and transparency, and the meaning that their interaction has for the ecclesial institution. 1.1 defining culture culture is a modern concept that did not belong to greek philosophers, as for them culture was referred only to the cultivation of land. the concept evolved until the 17th century, when it was understood as an opposition to nature. “we might say that whereas man encounters nature, he creates culture; culture and not nature is what distinguishes him from other living beings” (o’callaghan 2017, p. 2). the idea of “culture against nature” made of culture a sort of “social inertia” helping us to make things without the difficulty of thinking why we do what we do. it is therefore so hard today to define culture, because for understanding it we would need to think about the roots of our actions, considering why we do what we do. uncovering our culture is therefore a real challenge. nevertheless, culture has an interest for faith-based institutions despite its complexity. believers would not normally aim to let social trends take their way, although some affirm that opposing faith to culture could become a strategy for christians in a post christian environment (dreher, 2017). faith rather lead us to change society than to leave it aside, so christians in their lives focus on the values which make up the ethos of a people, to what is called “living culture”, as “the synthesis between culture and faith is not just a demand of culture, but also of faith... a faith which does not become culture is a faith which has not been fully received, not thoroughly thought through, not faithfully lived out” (john paul ii, 1982). among the different definitions of culture, one of the closest to the social teaching of the church observes that creating culture is to establish a series of behavioral standards on which we can develop general agreements regarding our common wellbeing in society (scruton, 2009, p. 186). according to those standards, what is above the social expectations is accepted and recognized and what falls short is on the contrary rejected and criticized. the sum of behavioral standards constitutes culture in society. in french culture for instance, there are a series of standards of behaving at table constituting good manners that do not necessarily need to be observed in other nations. for faith-based institutions, cultural standards do not only refer to external actions, but also to desires and aspirations as christian morality stresses the need not only of doing and saying what is good, but likewise to desire and love it. for johnathan sacks, modern standards constituting the ethos of our western culture can be enclosed in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 3 published by scholink inc. seven values rooted in the sacred scriptures. and they are: 1) the human dignity including personal freedom and our real capacity of choosing among different options, 2) the idea that faith is linked to fidelity in human relations, stressing our personal responsibility and the role of our conscience, 3) the respect of the human life as a gift from god, 4) the existence of a culture of justice and guilt in contrast to a culture of honor and glory, 5) having marriage as a fundamental base of society, 6) a covenant-nature of society, referred to solidarity, equality and personal responsibility as principles that are not only individualistic, as actually the fact that our parents’ faults are ascribed to us is positive in the bible and finally, 7) every human power is subjected to the power of god that at the end grounds all social order. rabbi sacks understands that these values are nowadays under risk (sacks, 2016). they are so because when we accept today behaviors, expressions and desires that some years ago we rejected, we actually change our cultural standards. and when there is a general lowering of the behavioral standards so that morality in society gets lost, the judeo-christian culture withers away. in the context of christian culture, the standard linking with transparency is the one regarding the existence of a culture of justice and guilt, in opposition to a culture of honor and glory. this point is important as in a culture of honor the one who is guilty remains with the fault attached to its person, aiming thus to hide; while in a culture of guilt although we hide, our conscience will always be in place inviting us to clarify our actions and to open ourselves to the help of others (ratzinger, 2007, p. 21). so believers measure themselves against their maker, not against others. and therefore forgiving is essentially biblical while putting people to shame is not. there are some national cultures of guilt, where its members ask for pardon while there are other cultures driven by fear of losing honor, where no one desires ever to be in shame in front others. in the last kind of culture, what matters is society rather than god. and transparency therefore seems to be related to social expectations in western society rather than to our personal identity and morality. 1.2 defining transparency in society transparency then is a characteristic of some material realities, which in the last decades has been applied to human institutions for stressing the positive public reception of their clear administration. on the one hand, “transparency has become one of the most cherished and celebrated, yet unquestioned, ideals and aspirations of contemporary society” (christensen & cheney, 2015, p. 70) and “it has gained a quasi-religious significance in debates over governance and institutional design” (hoods, 2006, p. 3). on the other hand, as an influence of the culture of honor, many times just to mention the word does not induce memories that are generally positive, but rather painful and possibly punitive. stressing transparency is at the end positive as it allows us to face that when there is material debt in public institutions, very close at hand there is also an immense amount of personal-spiritual debt, so cultivating people’s morality matters for society. despite the raising of transparency standards, not all public institutions can be transparent in the same way. considering for instance the state, hospitals or ecclesiastic institutions we could observe that there are degrees of transparency and of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 4 published by scholink inc. non-transparency that should be respected and maintained in benefit of the common good. “everyday uses of non-transparency lubricate all the small encounters of life that make society function” (schudson, 2016, p. 176). transparency can also be understood as a practice of good government, having objective elements making of it a social virtue. therefore the church’s authorities affirm “that traditional principles of social ethics like transparency, honesty and responsibility cannot be ignored or attenuated” (cv, p. 36). transparency as making better the moral behavior of individuals acting in society helps to resolve common problems according to the truth, distancing themselves from abuses and performing in accordance with the objective demands of morality (csd, p. 198). the issue is how to apply this principle to the church in western countries. looking to one side, “in the last 30 years the western society has experienced a raise in the right to know”, so we live today in a society requiring always more information from social institutions (schudson, 2016, p. 175). ours is therefore a society asking for the right to provide others with more information, although sometimes it would not be needed. and sometimes the church has not changed its standards of transparency, remaining however accountable to its spiritual mission. so the church’s accountability could often fall below current social standards, being for that rejected or criticized in the public square. however, in those cases the ecclesiastical institution is not less transparent as it “has nothing to hide” (shaw, 2008). our point is that the cultural standards of transparency have gone up and the church remained the same, therefore the ecclesiastical institution is receiving a call for transparency and is expected to give an answer. the response that the church can give regards the ecclesiastic responsibility that is not only pastoral or hierarchical, regarding on the contrary laypeople as well. but, the call for transparency in the church is still perceived as an urgent one. looking to another side a culture, once created, does not necessarily remains alive, cultural inertia many times stops and so inside of the church there is a growing trend towards transparency. in the case of faith-based institutions, new personal interactions are built around traditions rather than on social expectations, customs or mindsets. the church is “the building of god” (lg, p. 6), a divine and human institution, whose transparency requires from its authorities governmental, procedural, financial and communication clarity; granting to them also information, participation and stewardship. so the church requires her ministers to be accountable for what they teach, do and govern (cic, p. 1279; cceo, p. 1023), but also to all of the faithful to be accountable of their personal responsibility in regards the ecclesiastic institution. so church’s leaders “are urged to suitably and without interruption perfect their knowledge of divine things and human affairs and so prepare themselves to enter more opportunely into conversation with their contemporaries” (po, p. 19). however, setting up new cultural standards is not an easy task and so culture changes slowly, it is not possible to change culture in just a few years. to the specific mindset of believers and the low speed of cultural changes we should add that the relationship among the culture and the church in the western world is not as it was in the first centuries www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 5 published by scholink inc. of christianity. then it was a totally new cultural change and so the new paradigm was easier to perceive, while current western culture has christian roots that we likewise observe in the mindset of secular people. the task to establish a culture of transparency is “not so much cognition but recognition, not so much knowledge but acknowledgement, not so much conquest but thanksgiving” (o’callaghan, 2017, p. 12), so the relationship among christian and western culture is the one that parents have with their children. there are several consequences of this cultural shift that we will next need to consider carefully. 1.3 transparency in the church transparency in the church is an exigency for its spiritual mission, not just a strategy for better organization. giving an answer to the call for transparency requires the exercise of practical knowledge regarding the mechanisms or systemic explanation of “the church’s ownership” in practical terms. if transparency is the answer to “the practical question of having temporal and spiritual goods as well as information” then, it is about the communication of ownership-sense to the totality of what is owned, in terms of temporal goods, information and means of salvation. when for instance we have a hammer in our hands, it is in relation with the table we build, and we build it because we need it for our lives as humans (polo, 1996, p. 43). likewise in the church we possess temporal goods as economic means, we transmit information we own through media and we are responsible for dispensing the “efficacious signs of grace, instituted by christ and entrusted to the church, by which divine life is dispensed to us” (ccc, p. 1131). the practical question of having all those means is for the mission of governing, sanctifying and educating in the church. transparency therefore is not immediately good government. the sense and need of having a hammer is the building of a table needed by humans. the sense and need of having means of information, temporal goods and spiritual assets in the church requires as condition to keep them as means, not as ends. in the church, we do not move transparency standards according to common social expectations regarding nonprofit institutions (bowman, 2002, p. 293), but on the needs according to its spiritual mission. so, transparency in the church grows in a dynamic way more on the need of renewing her evangelization capacity, than on external trends coming from civil society. which makes the institution adaptable in communicating and governing with clarity its own resources (zalbidea, 2016, p. 178). it does not only imply the moral responsibility that every public institution has to be accountable, but also the need to be understandable for preserving the church’s original mission. and for being understandable we need time. only after many years we will overcome the image of secrecy some have forged, but as gadamer observed time ago, we should not fall in the prejudice of living without prejudices (gadamer, 2013, p. 339). regarding cultural changes the urgent needs are not resolved in immediate actions as we reach real change and constant renovation when we are able to modify the accidental, preserving the essence of long term values and traditions. we do not only want to know how to implement transparency as a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 6 published by scholink inc. right––or accountability as a duty––in the church, because aiming only for transparency laws in the church would create confrontation. it likewise happens in human organizations with transparency that is not often in place––due to defect––and we could find disagreement with it as a lack of desire––due to fear, knowledge and formation. at the end, having a deformed governance, could give place to bodies ruled out of objective integrity and accountability to its values, just maintaining self-preservation and keeping the status quo. religious institutions, and the church in particular, also on the side of their leaders are quite interested in the pursuing transparency (francis, 2014, p. 383). therefore it is not enough to explain the activities the church carries forward, but also to make clear why it does not carry forward other activities. not only what we do, but also why we do not do what we do not accomplish matters for instituting transparency. if the institution itself does not freely realize transparency, then it will come to realize that what it compromises is the very thing it longs for in religious freedom. which is the very soul of each religious institution, as it exists in itself and in the public square. finally, focusing mostly on social interactions, leaving thus apart economic and political performances, we observe that transparency is not a technique for solving problems. when an institution sets up strategies to obtain transparency as an answer to a problem, it is too late. transparency is not the solution, but an important prevention. transparency, as we understand it, relies on the principle of subsidiarity, communicating the intention of the institution in a prudent and judicious manner (zalbidea, 2016, p. 74). the task of the church is “to safeguard and administer its goods in light of the mission of evangelization with special care for the needy” (francis, 2014b, p. 1). 2. towards the control of intransparency according to luhmann, we have been moving always faster since the second half of the past century towards a bigger control of intransparency (luhmann, 1997, p. 363). social expectations allowed us to develop medicine under the desire to understand always better the body functioning. we have also grown our understanding of techniques boosting sciences and research on new fields as neurobiology, quantum physics, and particles accelerators. with regards to the intentional behavior of human being, we observe a faster development of psychology and psychoanalysis. the examples could be enlarged to communications technology studied in connection with neuronal inputs, or to stem cells’ and cloning research. these efforts aim to maintain the control of intransparency, as many public actors understand that we should necessarily clarify and understand all what we do not know about reality, which would be the only way to move civilization forward. “even as a social value, the meaning of the term varies, for example from transparency of past activities and accomplishments, where accuracy and reporting is emphasized, to transparency with respect to future ambitions and plans, where participation, credibility and trust worthiness are central dimensions” (christensen & cheney 2015, p. 72). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 7 published by scholink inc. society is moving towards the control of intransparency, and therefore we want to understand how our body works enhancing biology and medicine, we want to understand our way of rationalizing and thus we developed psychoanalysis and yoga, we want to establish political and economic controls in order to stop the growth of systems we do not know entirely how they work. the church is challenged by a society that understands transparency as the natural consequence of social interaction, becoming a balance of information among those making part of the institution and reflecting about the values for their belonging as in tension against those making possible the existence of it. on the one hand, transparency is considered as “an inclusive and appealing word encompassing candor, predictability, integrity, honesty, full disclosure, etc.” (bennis, golemand, o’toole, & biederman, 2008, p. viii). but on the other, for some transparency is to “hold two truths fundamental: all information should be free and that one should mistrust authority and promote decentralization of power” (saunders, 2011). the awe and wonder the faithful experience living in society and controlling intransparency needs direction when referred to the ecclesial institution, because the disclosure society leads us to “the world of uberization, one in ‘which no one really works for anyone nor owes responsibility to readers or to riders’ (bar,t 2015, p. 24)”. transparency should be provided with education and formation since the beginning. faithful want to know about financial decisions, information availability and the access to sacraments and religious ceremonies and so the pastors of the church need to answer in the best possible way. 2.1 temporal goods’ administration transparency regards the church’s temporal goods (cic, 1287 §2), and the key principle for it is administering with professionalism. those are goods that “according to their nature and ecclesiastical law, should be administered by priests with the help of capable laymen as far as possible” (po, p. 17). nature refers to the purpose of their use: “for the carrying out of divine worship, for the procuring of honest sustenance for the clergy, and for the exercise of the works of the holy apostolate or works of charity, especially in behalf of the needy” (cic, 1254 §2). and administration stresses the non-personal property of them and so the responsibility of the faithful, ordained or not, involved in their administration who should always be keenly aware of their responsibility to ensure that these economic resources is always directed to those ends (miñambres, 2015, p. 586a). so transparency by the church’s nature should be and is an act of responsibility on behalf the public juridical person of the church owning temporal goods that were provided in freedom by the ecclesiastical community (cic, p. 1257 §1). transparency is about sustainability and is linked to the institutional mission. institutions need to respond to their mission otherwise in the future they will not get neither information nor financial resources. in the case of the church, putting in place a right stewardship of temporal goods, will make them flourish by the proper governance and ordering of them, adapting the utilization of technology to benefit her needs to communicate in order to evangelize in full credibility (young, 2016, p. 204). it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 8 published by scholink inc. would tie together the spiritual and temporal responsibility of the church, “carrying forward the work of redemption in poverty and under oppression” (lg, p. 8). a governance that initiates transparency and accountability would be true to the principles that founded the church as an institution, and here “the organizational level of analysis is especially important because that is where transparency policies, practices, and images are ultimately manifested and tested” (christensen & cheney 2015, p. 72). some administrators of dioceses, who happen to be professionals in the administration of enterprises or financial institutions, propose solutions. what about cross training within the organization? joint commissions? as well as information sharing, as long as it is extremely secure? for instance, the us government is employing over 12.000 functionaries in the different general inspector’s offices. only in the 2008, they “conducted investigations that identified more than $4 billion the igs were able to recover, and produced more than 6.000 indictments, more than 6.000 successful prosecutions, and nearly 5.000 suspensions and disbarments” (schudson, 2016, p. 253). and that was and is observed as competency and fidelity to the mission of government. several questions regard likewise the church’s financial acquisitions: how to operate with property, and what are the implications of these for the poverty that is lived in the church. how could we ensure that these or any other assets/security should not compromise the church and her mission? not only for the holy see, but also for other structures belonging to the local churches, the maintenance schedules on temporal goods, are essential, they are referred to their budgets but should also be resource sustainable in the long term period. there could be sometimes routine maintenance schedules for larger temporal goods, hvac, plumbing etc. and the contracts should be re-negotiated (preventative and otherwise) with transparent processes to address possible problems. transparency is not for solving a problem, but to make prevention of it. on the one hand some faithful consider reasonable bringing to the consideration of the bishop if there has been thought of opening up in each diocese a preferred provider network of vendors whom have provided the due diligence to the local churches, and will cooperate with the church’s mission, providing the best contract per product. that would make faithful aware that we as a church, both local and universal have purchasing power, so able to demand such things, using a positive leverage in benefit for those most in need. on the other hand, some faithful consider the risk of corruption, where the most power the hierarchical institution has to purchase or to influence in society, the most it needs to answer for it. although the first initiative could work for the church in some nations, for the most cases what would be desirable when aiming for transparency in the church would be living a healthy subsidiarity where every single body responds for its actions and where the ecclesiastical authority exerts due vigilance. the measure to judge about a degree of transparency cannot be only subjective though, so depending merely on social expectations. transparency should respond to the objective reality that is considered for every individual, as “its current pursuit reflects a quest for good governance through new regimes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 9 published by scholink inc. of global visibility, comparability and legibility” (e.g., garsten & de montoya, 2008; lord, 2006; tapscott & ticoll, 2003). current transparency international standards create difficulties for the administration of the ecclesiastical institution’s temporal goods. on the one hand, institutional cultural standards move towards providing extensive financial reports while diocesan offices could appear in lack of financial explanations. we know that temporal assets are to be transparently made accountable to its members, the people of god, bishops, priests, laity, etc. according to the original mission of the church and that financial information should be communicated to its members at least annually by law, becoming in this case a moral obligation. the legal obligation in industry is between two parties, either individuals or corporate to others, for instance when the annual fiscal report is presented, it could be either with too much information, or not enough. stakeholders and shareholders of institutions could at first glance look at financial reports and glaze at them with confusion, so not only a lack but also an “excess of financial information” could lead to inefficiency and inoperation (lamming et al., 2004, p. 299). “the excess of information produced in the name of openness may function to “blind or dazzle the receiver” and in this way be used to hide conditions and circumstances that organizations prefer to keep in the dark” (christensen & cheney 2015, p. 81). often because the manner in which the report is presented leaves little expectation for question and answers. the church in some nations responds to this trend providing more financial information. in these cases transparency is in place due to external exigencies as in the case of the church in italy for receiving taxes from the italian state or by the exigencies of historical reasons as the case of the church in germany needing to be financially transparent in order to keep up with the several relief services and educational centers linked to the hierarchical church. actually the pope is also stressing “the fundamental directive that it is necessary to separate in a clear and unequivocal way the direct management of the holy see’s patrimony from the control and vigilance over the activity of management”. (francis, 2016, §4). on the other hand, “there has certainly been a significant increase in the volume of financial reporting over the past century. yet most of what is produced, however technically accurate it may or may not be, is extremely inaccessible to the average stakeholder” (henriques, 2007, p. 69). cultural standards therefore require more and more mediation for getting financial understanding within institutions. “contemporary transparency systems make citizens and consumers highly dependent on intermediaries—environmental advocates, community representatives, political pundits, investigative reporters, financial analysts, and others—who can translate complex information into more simple formats that allow users to incorporate conclusions easily” (christensen & cheney, 2015, p. 83). an acting person in the public square with goods that are temporal, where the immediacy and the accountability fit into the normal public discourse, might find difficulty to understand a lack of financial understanding within public institutions, no matter if they are more value-driven than www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 10 published by scholink inc. functional to economic, political or social expectations. in the catholic church we often face the similar case. the expectation that organizational leaders would have high training for financial understanding could happen at the most essential level, the parish level or local church and possibly also at the bishops’ conferences, as well as the dicasteries in rome. for the sake of our conversation we would consider the moral obligation of understanding––while the technical knowledge could be translated by professionals––so what needs further evaluation is to determine when exactly transparency is a matter of what becomes intentional. the key will be to perform some initial systematic forensics to discern whether or not there are defect of intention when “carrying out the activities of monitoring, verification, analysis and offering recommendations (francis, 2016, p. 1.c). if so, then steps should and will be made to make up what is made lacking personally and institutionally so as to remedy the defect. there are several initiatives for promoting financial understanding in the as for instance the center for church management and business at villanova university in philadelphia, the santa croce pontifical university program of church management in rome or the national leadership roundtable in america, to give some examples. they use the terms from which, since the beginning of this century, the economic industry and political groups base their standards in attempt illustrate value where it is lacking. this could be understood as an aim of translation of some of the church’s issues into institutional categories, just as consultants would do when applying solutions from one organization to another, and “the secret of good consultancy is to redefine a problem so that it matches a readily available solution” (bryson, 2000, p. 159). their scope therefore is to “recognize” rather than to ‘cognize’ the elements needed for transparency, aiming for an “absolute transparency that builds authentic collegiality” (francis, p. 2015). 2.2 transparency in information use a person’s interaction with society and one’s self has been intensified with the increase of technology in the last two decades (romano, osborne, truzoli, & reed, 2013). this change and progression in technology though good, has had an impact on people that was unexpected. in the case of most westerners, their view or impression of themselves, how they see and communicate with others, the intimacy with which they share their thoughts, etc. is now not kept in their hearts or written in a diary, it is expressed for the world to see. this movement is not anymore called publicity as the economic term would do for products on sale, but “publicness” understood as the social trend of making available for everybody most of our daily behavior, having important consequences (habermas, 1989, p. 23). “established in sweden as early as 1766 and consecrated after world war ii by the united nations as a human right, freedom of information is an ideal that underscores society’s commitment to rationality, justice, and democracy. more recently, the ideal of transparency has been reflected in corporate governance, where the emphasis on corporate ethics presupposes an ongoing attempt to reduce organizational secrecy” (eldomiaty & choi, 2006). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 11 published by scholink inc. on the one hand, information and communication technologies (ict’s) are creating attraction and distraction also inside the church. due to the immediacy of wanting to know and the importance given to the present moment, we can observe a movement for contrasting media-distraction aiming for discernment or discretion, self-reflection and privacy. however, the contrasting group is still a minority looking forward for a new culture within the ongoing use of media technology (li, 2010, p. 205). but ict’s are also very attractive and media information in dynamism would allow the church to communicate objectively and subjectively who we are and what we do. so the church understands ict’s as a positive movement and the history of the church teaches us likewise that every time that there was a need for clarification, councils, synods and similar gatherings have been set up to solve controversy. transparency should foremost be a beacon of internal and external clarity of mission, able to make the church legitimate (giving hope) respecting at the same time the objective truth of the organization. so it is not enough with being positive about ict’s but we need to understand how they work and what is the culture leading media attraction and distraction. therefore we are aware of the real value that media and technology is reaching, as “the internet does not change out intellectual habits against our will. but change them it does” (carr, 2010, p. 92). but on the other hand, the church is not quite familiar to ict’s development––it does not adjust to their standards––just as it is not very often interested in organizational theories or in communication strategies. these perspectives are falling beyond of the shared interests of the pastors of the church. the faithful of the church however––just as any other member of an institution moving towards change––are trying to discuss about intentional and unintentional defects, and how practically to address them, with clergy and laity alike. all parties, even though afraid, have to be willing to dialogue and address communication for overcoming the defect objectively. transparency does not change the government of the church or its laws and institutions, but it stresses that faithful are interested in the way in which things are done, decisions are made, funds are used, plans are prepared, strategies are proposed, people are encouraged and developed, the future is thought about, ideas are fixed and created, the faithful are included and so on. and it would also help us to understand that other social actors as other members observe us with equal interests and actions. streamlining information security and personnel is essential particularly within the church, when speaking of transparency as the beginning of eliminating particular silos that could be used to hold leverage not always in full fidelity to the mission of the church. therefore we observe that there are some cultural standards in place that could serve as a path for enhancing transparency for the use of information in the ecclesial institution. first, information means today interaction, not control. so we can require always more information from others. for instance in the last 10 years we passed from 5 to 84 percents of internet users being enrolled in social media platforms, although today only 20 percents of active uploaders of information to the web are reaching 97 percents of views, and critics observe that they are mostly unknown and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 12 published by scholink inc. fostered by the principal net actors: google, facebook, apple and amazon (van, 2013, p. 116). but when 60 million of people are getting access to wikipedia’s concepts every day (jenkins, 2008, p. 279)––although only around 1.200 individuals have configured above 80 percents of those contents (van, 2013, p. 163)––we should aim to be part of the movement as we know that by participating, we are creating a “global wisdom”. the interaction approach would be stress for the church in some nations where media are controlled by the state and real information does not appear, which could become a serious issue. second, with regards to information availability, recognizing defect is the initial step in addressing transparency. from there is a process of discernment whether intention was pure or not. this facilitates improved communication, also bringing transparency, where there has been either darkness or even disillusionment. miscommunication or poor communication with personnel is one example of how transparency can have an important impact on an organization, particularly with the church. for example, a pastor of a parish fails to give his employees a performance evaluation. this would give the impression to the employees that all is good, no news is good news and that they are performing as he sees fit. not until the next pastor comes and until there is a financial audit does there appear a modicum of transparency. it may appear that there are disgruntled employees, parishioners, false financial being presented, and no employee evaluations. which does not necessarily mean that the prior pastor was intentional in this behavior. most often, in the case of the church, most are very capable as leaders, and are accountable for much, a pastor for all of the people in his parish’s geographical area. but sometimes the pastor is not prepared nor did he have the tools to govern, so he need to recognize defect stressing the intention. and finally, although information use is expensive it is needed for sustainability. the creators of youtube obtained more than $300 million each by selling their platform only 10 months after its creation (carr, 2008, p. 130). google is a company worth 169,38 billion already in 2009 that did not report loses in the financial crisis, actually reaching its highest profit level in 2012, 10.79 billion (fuchs, 2014, p. 128). interaction is thus very valuable in the public square. making the church information-transparent is not only to provide the web with information, it is also about changing the culture of understanding new technologies inside the church and that could make the institution sustainable in the long term because information transparency aims for inclusion. this area of transparency opens up a need in the formation of faithful as without transparency there is a tendency in all of us for not reaching the best of our capacity. making an institution transparent with regards to its public information is not only to organize its public image but to make others aware that they actually belong to it. up and down transparency could mean personal responsibility or stewardship (miñambres, 2012, p. 282). its results are endless. it allows the risk of having a leader surrounding himself by those who only agree with him, instead of those objectively faithful. so, cooperation with the faithful should be a stabilizing force for the local pastor. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 13 published by scholink inc. 2.3 transparency in dispensing sacraments western culture stresses that “transparency is required or the public is unable to accurately judge the actions of governments and their institutions” (dobson & hunsinger, 2016, p. 224). transparency in the church would also be about its members’ capacity for understanding––in public––the sense of preserving and dispensing sacraments and religious teachings. it is a recognition or intuition that is the alacrity of understanding not what we can perceive, but the reason of our being involved in worship and sacramental life. social life is not fully disclosed either, so the challenge is not only for faith based institutions as, “when we insist that legal or legislative processes be ‘transparent’,” for example, we are usually requesting that nothing is hidden from view. often, however, we do not know what we are not seeing because we take it for granted in looking beyond. in this way, demands for more information can in some situations be insatiable habits rather than actions likely to yield insight or shared discovery” (christensen & cheney, 2015, p. 77). when transparency becomes an act of individual and institutional freedom directed towards the end of that institution, then it involves self-reflection and examination of the moral actions, purification of institutional memory and accountability for such actions in the public and private spheres. in other words, “the call for transparency is essentially a rejection of established representations” (christensen & cheney 2015, p. 77). only when done in creativity it can avoids dismay and sense of betrayal that could appear when a false image of the institution is projected as the real image (berry, 2011, p. 7), confusing her transcendent mission with just an opaque chimera of a public presence of religion. transparency in this case is not only an exercise where an institution takes into account what it has as assets, liabilities etc. and in the event to benefit or avoid conflict. transparency as it concerns the church’s spiritual goods applies to and is accountable for more than an institution or corporation in the most general of terms. the scandals regarding priests’ morality arise a great exigency of transparency, because the intention of the whole spiritual mission of the church gets obscured when we doubt about the ministers’ personal behavior. and transparency in this case or the intuition of spiritual realities is not obtained with concepts we understand––and that we can likewise reject––but the intuition of reality is perceived through learning about others’ lives, as living realities that we can like or dislike but that we cannot describe as false. the way for transparency in this case is to show in public the full sense of the life of those who deeply believe and the consequences of their living for others. transparency in dispensing sacraments and religious teachings can be set in place not only with the presentation of pastoral activities, but rather with the clarification of the sense and intention of worship. ordained ministers act on behalf of laypeople having the right to receive the spiritual fruits through the divine worship and apostolate. the dispensation of spiritual goods passes through the pastors and so transparency in this case refers to the pastor’s personal accountability. transparency in spiritual goods dispensation requires therefore ongoing personal formation of the pastors of the church. explaining the plan of ongoing formation at all levels, spiritual, human, professional and when needed psychological, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 14 published by scholink inc. would communicate in an effective way the intention of the institution that is about communicating the truth of who the church is, how she acts, what she possesses (temporal and sacramental assets), lived in her liturgical life, all revealing through her members (hierarchy & laity, n.d.) so that all will see and know that christ “fully reveals man to man himself” (gs, p. 22). those who possess the authority of office from the church should be trained as a competent transparent witnesses to the faith that has a unity of intention and purpose of the church. on-going formation in administration as well as prayer, spiritual direction, teaching and preaching are essential for priests. this also unifies their formation as well as intention that binds the pastoral office. in the case that defect is found in those that are faithful to the church and not to just human interests, church’s authority should try to give them tools to become competent, if they are willing. it is seems to be pastorally essential. the experience of the last years has thought the authorities of the catholic church that if defect is serious, immediately remove the problem. without hesitation but with prudence and clarity. document, investigate, and use the due diligence. question all sides, and look to ensure whether or not one is being deceived. acting without due diligence or out of fear, comfort, public appeasement will only communicate not charity nor wisdom, but a lack of interior depth of institutional character and faith. fear of being litigated is not as bad as fear of losing souls. failure in prudent due diligence not only damages the reputation of the church, it truly damages the subjective faith of the flock and the shepherds, as well as future on-going evangelization of future vocations due to lack of transparent intent to the objective truth with clarity. self-preservation should not be an obstacle to the original mission of the church. so for putting transparency in place when speaking about its original mission, we should aim for sharing information not for surrendering it. there is no need to answer questions no one has asked about. at the end the issue of transparency is about disclosing the essence of the church, of not confusing means and goals. the temporal goods we have in the church might be the result of historical inheritances, perhaps anonymous, and they need to be oriented towards the spiritual mission. christian culture and social institutions constitute a moral dynamic, as they have not only supported the passing of time but have actually configured the ethos of the whole western tradition (scruton, 2016, p. 57). 3. conclusions transparency can be learned when it is linked to memory. aiming for a renewed culture of transparency in the catholic church would lead us to consider the sense that accountability and personal responsibility could acquire in the institution preserving her temporal and spiritual goods. therefore we could acknowledge a series of obstacles for remedy, as for instance memory of errors and punishments that we, as a collective body or as individuals have suffered in the past. the last pontificates have faced serious problems on the moral behavior of ministers of the church and also in the administration of the temporal goods, the first issues have been addressed courageously especially www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 15 published by scholink inc. during the pontificate of benedict xvi and also with pope francis. administrative issues will be more and more present as civil society presses for financial and information transparency. from the human dimension of the church, we observe that there is, like in many public institutions as well, fear of change. it is connected to transparency, as we tend to understand it like the result of punishment, rather than a requisite for development. changing does not mean ignoring the spiritual goals and essence of the institution, but rather a key modeling of the structures for serving the faithful in a better way. alasdair macintyre counted transparency among the secondary virtues, those that “concern the way in which we should go about our projects; their cultivation will not assist us in discovering upon which projects we ought to be engaged” (macintyre, 1967, p. 24). transparency could thus be a social virtue, used by the church that understands well her spiritual mission. but, changes in the administration of temporal goods and in the custody of information would lead us to improve institutional government. transparency should be put in place in freedom––whether it be in secular or religious institutions––not in a manner that is punitive, for this is often how it is perceived; meaning that we set it up too late. this makes the word and process relative to that of removing a tooth or a cancer, painful…, particularly if the memory of the event from the past is painful. especially when referred to the granting of spiritual goods, transparency begins with an interior conversation personally based on objective and honest expectations that have clearly been communicated. these should be followed up on and have to be reasonable as to the time-frame to be accomplished. it is about communicating the good, not about recalling bad experiences. it is a very positive virtue, used like an interior light of charity to reveal any defect to motivate one to act for the good, in freedom…, and if not, only then remedy and if possible, penalty eventually takes place. this also can be an act of charity, for the good of the person but also for the common good, whether it be for the institution or society as a whole. transparency in this sense, when used pro-actively in freedom, is to be used as a wonderful tool to enable the person or agency to utilize their freedom to reflect or mirror where they are going, what or if there are any defects and to continue/discontinue so as to progress towards the end of the institution. for the church living transparency in freedom, means to be transparent in all aspects of its proposed assets: material, immaterial, temporal, and most important, spiritual. because the point of transparency is the common good of the individual or members of society and members of the church. transparency allows us to overcome poverty. we could find poor government, where poverty in this sense is what saint thomas aquinas used to define as the lack of a due good. we might observe that, generally speaking, there is poverty of information in the church, while faithful would like and expect to be informed and to inform in a clearer way about for instance the pastoral plans, the election of bishops, the construction of new churches, the number of vocations, etc. we also could experience poverty of communication, because although we may know some of the key data regarding the development of the church, there would be reluctance to make it public. communication in this sense www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 16 published by scholink inc. would mean create communion, even when there are some problems to be faced, according to the information we can know, communicating them in an adequate way could be crucial for their prompt solution. finally, we could also experience a sort of poverty of desire, as we observe that the faithful of the church would rather prefer to follow norms than to imply their own lives for developing the institution. non-transparency fosters their believing without belonging. shepherds of the catholic church are not aiming to make the non-ordained faithful part of the life of the church, but they are rather aiming to make the church part of the life of the faithful. it is only in this second case that the institution would develop not in tension with economic or political improvement, but according to the laws ruling society as it would be a natural part of social development. for that, the church should not aim to resolve the immediate problems of society, as the essential human solutions are not found in the urgent, but in long-term traditions taking into consideration ideas and institutions. in this sense, the poverty of desire would not be overcome by proposing attractiveness in the public square but by becoming challengers and inspirational guides of social development, precisely because the last focus in the immediate (political and economic trends), humanity needs someone taking into consideration the long term period of time. as habermas observed, “under pure technocracy citizens do not look for a rational consensus on the practical dominion of their own destinies” (habermas, 2007, p. 39). the church is to lead and consult by example in humility and steadfast resolution to the integrity of what has been handed on in the sacred deposit. some best practices that could become a map for proposing transparency enhancement in the catholic church are: when you want to offer information for the faithful, define a real default story or teaching and make it available for everybody. when you want to ask for a contribution, request for a default amount of money or define a specific project, but make other amounts and pastoral projects available if needed. do not give excess of information. when you want people to attend a specific course on religion, propose them general relevant contents and make available specific attentions for those who might need it. for making the financial information transparent, publish the names of the members of the financial council of the diocese. be inclusive in information offering, create blogs and options to the official narrative. show different options for understanding the pastoral activities of the parish church or the diocese and make interactive the proposals for the pastoral diocesan plan. provide a landline, or someone that faithful could see in full trust, when hoping that the church is able to give them suggestions for deciding in complex familiar or personal situations. make the pastors available. do not try to explain everything, but rather to make understandable the essential with regards to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 17 published by scholink inc. mission of the church. do not give answers to questions no one has asked for, as all information is used soon or later and not always in full fidelity to the original mission of the church. when asking for information from faithful, provide them with active protection, so that they know that you are not using their data for other purposes, besides the pastoral evangelization. consolidation is not necessarily transparency, it would be desirable that every ecclesiastical body could present its own financials and be responsible for its own activities. references abbreviations of church documents (n.d.). retrieved from http://www.vatican.va al: francis. 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(2016). the obligation of transparency in the administration of temporal goods of the church in canon 1287 § 2. rome: pontificia università della santa croce. zalbidea, d. (2016). transparencia y rendición de cuentas en el ordenamiento canónico: dar razón de la misericordia. pamplona (spain): universidad de navarra. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055162 https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199229758.001.0001 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 52 original paper a study of the construction and communication strategies of china’s international discourse in the context of new digital media —a case study of li ziqi ziyao zhao 1* 1 the subsidiary experimental school of the northeast normal university * ziyao zhao, the subsidiary experimental school of the northeast normal university received: march 3, 2025 accepted: march 18, 2025 online published: april 2, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n1p52 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n1p52 abstract under the background of new digital media, the development and dissemination of short video in china is in full swing. li ziqi’s short video is good at spreading chinese traditional culture and makes important contribution to the construction of china’s international image. li ziqi’s retirement and comeback as the top tier is worth discussing. her success is due to high-quality and scarce content with idyllic life as the theme, international communication power that is widely welcomed internationally, strong personal image and aesthetic form that is full of colorful chinese culture and so on. therefore, the construction and dissemination strategy of china’s international new media discourse has become rich and diversified, gradually cooperating with the theme to get further optimized. keywords new digital media, chinese international discourse, construction and communication, li ziqi introduction the development of intellectual property (ip) shows the trend of diversification and globalization (feng & li, 2019, pp. 33-37). with the progress of science and technology and the popularization of the internet, the development of short video is making the robust progress. among many short videos, li ziqi quickly became popular around the world and stood out from the rest. before retiring in 2020, li ziqi, as a creator of short videos, had a solid fan base, and her works were favored by domestic and foreign audiences. but as the passage of time and the renewal of new media, short video creators faced www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 53 published by scholink inc. unprecedented challenges. so did li ziqi. therefore, she chose to retire and refine herself for that moment. after three years’ silence, li released two videos on douyin, kuaishou, weibo and youtube in the afternoon of november 12, 2024, announcing her return. the videos swept across mainland china and overseas and exploded in an instant (document to proof). there is no doubt that li ziqi is still the top tier. it is worth discussing and studying that li ziqi chose to retirement from the peak and returned as the top tier, and it is paid close attention to by academic circles at home and abroad. as far as domestic research is concerned, many scholars focus on the researches of chinese cultural values, traditional culture and chinese cultural symbols (liu, 2021), cross-cultural studies in international discourse (xin & ye, 2020, pp. 7-23), aesthetic form (liu, 2020, pp. 84-87), and the effective dissemination of chinese culture of li ziqi’s short videos (ye, 2020). as far as international research is concerned, the international community attaches great importance to it and actively carries out research on li ziqi’s videos. they discuss how she has successfully demonstrated chinese traditional rural life and culture to the world through video content, as well as the role of such communication in bridging cultural barriers and enhancing international understanding and appreciation of chinese culture. as far as cultural communication is concerned, scholars analyze that the reasons why she has gained much attention and fans on international social media includes content creation strategy, communication mode and other aspects etc. and the rural life presents the study of the appeal from the rural lifestyle she depicts to modern society and the significance of this presentation to arouse people’s re-understanding of the value of the countryside. it has been confirmed by studies that her image and role as a woman, focusing on her independence, competence and creativity as a woman in a rural, as well as on the international impact on the female image and role perception. as far as the commercial value is concerned, some studies affirm its brand and commercial value, discuss the construction and development of her personal brand and the reference and enlightenment of her successful business model in the international scope. 1. construction of international discourse li ziqi has become popular all over the world for she has attracted the attention of netizen after three years of retirement. there are three main reasons for this. first comes to the continuous output of high-quality content: in more than 3-year hiatus, li ziqi did not go with the flow, but continued to visit intangible cultural heritage artists to constantly understand chinese traditional culture and enrich her own knowledge reserve and accumulate materials for high-quality content creation, constantly innovating and developing. traditional chinese culture deserves our attention, too. li ziqi’s videos set china’s countryside as the stage and mainly cover farming culture, cooking culture and handicraft culture. farming culture as a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 54 published by scholink inc. kind of custom culture is cultivated by human beings in long-term agricultural production. it is one of the earliest cultures in the world= that exerts greatest influence on human beings, and the most extensive cultural type in our country (peng, 2011, pp. 145-150). li ziqi embodies farming culture in a unique way and displays various traditional farming techniques in li ziqi’s video that often take “the whole life of a crop” as the theme, recording the whole process of ploughing in spring, planting in summer, harvesting in autumn and storing in winter, and showing how those crops such as cucumber and tomato germinate from a seed to blossom and bear fruit. she personally participated in farming activities such as sowing, irrigation, fertilization, harvesting and other farming activities, so that the audience can intuitively understand the hardships and beauty of traditional farming. in the video, li ziqi uses traditional agricultural tools and techniques, which is also closely linked to farming culture. li ziqi successfully planted tomatoes by adopting the traditional agricultural planting method of plug tray (seeding tray) in the video on july 14, 2020. li ziqi used seedling blocks and film sheds to grow cucumbers in a video on july 29, 2020, which undoubtedly combines traditional agricultural wisdom with modern planting techniques. these tools not only prompt the growth of crops, but also reflect the profound and handed down from generation to generation of traditional farming culture. also, cooking culture is an indispensable part of human that not only meets people’s fundamental physiological needs, but also becomes a bridge linking the cultural exchange (xu & guo, 2013, pp. 2-9). cooking culture integrates the choice of ingredients, the proportion of seasoning, the cooking methods of chefs and the eating customs and eating habits of different places. it reflects human understanding of food essentially. in this process, people constantly innovate cooking methods, which is an important carrier for communication and inheritance between different regions and cultures. the videos of li ziqi are filled with cooking methods of traditional chinese cuisine, vast majority of her videos, it can be seen that she does everything by herself and is strict with herself, from learning how to make, selecting materials, preparing ingredients to cooking. every step is carried out in strict accordance with ancient and traditional processes. during the process of making cuisine, li ziqi tries her best to maintain the original taste of the food materials. she acquires food raw materials by using original labor methods, contains and prepares the food materials with simple tools, and then cooks the cuisine with traditional cooking methods. this cooking way not only retains the original taste of the food, but also shows the charm and connotation of traditional chinese cooking culture. li ziqi’s cooking videos are not merely the introduction and display of cuisine, but more the reflection of a positive attitude towards life and the transmission of positive values. through her own hands and efforts, she vividly shows that high-end food materials often only need the simplest cooking methods and conveys a life philosophy of diligence, simplicity and harmonious coexistence with nature to the audience. meanwhile, li ziqi also shows the profound www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 55 published by scholink inc. background and infinite charm of chinese cooking culture to the world through her videos. handicraft culture is an important carrier that bears the long history of the chinese nation and the memory of traditional chinese culture. through manual skills, accumulated practice and pure natural material materials, its finished products can express rich spiritual connotations (pan, 2018, pp. 46-52). in today’s era when machine-made products can replace handmade ones, handicraft products have gradually faded out of people’s lives. however, li ziqi as a pure stream adopts the dissemination method of new media and the lens of the camera to unfold gradually one exquisite picture after another about traditional chinese handicraft culture to people. in every frame and every background of li ziqi’s videos, there lies li ziqi’s deep awe for traditional chinese handicraft culture and her determination to inherit it, which further reflects the true meaning of “fine work takes time”. 2. spreading of traditional chinese intangible cultural heritages the shu embroidery culture, stitch by stitch, embroiders the delicacy and tenderness of the land of bashu. shu embroidery is famous in china for its exquisite craftsmanship, the application of colors and unique stitch techniques. li ziqi displayed the shu embroidery culture through videos. her videos seem to place the viewers in the cultural journey of thousands of years, making people intoxicated. on august 12, 2019, li ziqi shot a video on seeking knowledge of the shu embroidery culture. on august 15, 2019, li ziqi shot a video on the embroidery of the shu embroidery culture, showing every step of the embroidery in detail. on august 16, 2019, one day after learning the culture of embroidery, li ziqi learned the skill of making clothes with the shu embroidery culture from her teacher. on august 19, 2019, she shot the last video about shu embroidery, integrating the skills of the previous two videos, making a dress for herself with the shu embroidery craftsmanship and showing the detailed process. wooden movable type is also among those important categories. in the era of working with printers and printing machines, the wooden movable type printing technique is particularly precious for it is not only a carrier of words but also a symbol of the wisdom of ancient chinese people and needs to be passed down. li ziqi used the wooden movable type for typesetting, conducting a dialogue with the ancients in today’s digital age, which is even more precious. from august 21, 2018 to august 24, 2018, li ziqi released a total of five videos about wooden movable type. from sharpening the knife, typesetting, writing the characters on the wooden blocks with a brush, carving, printing on the paper, and finally using carrier pigeons to send messages. each step is complex and extremely tests patience and concentration. finally, li ziqi demonstrated the oldest movable type printing in china to the world. here comes to the silk flowers, which is probably mistaken for real ones, for each flower condenses the emotions, time and efforts of the handicraftsman. on april 18, 2021, li ziqi released a video, the content of which was making a set of peach blossom phoenix coronets using the traditional silk flower craftsmanship. li ziqi first drew the pattern of the petals on the cloth, then cut them, dyed them with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 56 published by scholink inc. rouge radishes aired them, picked the stamens of peach blossoms, and finally combined them. the finished product was like real peach blossoms blooming slowly. the silk flowers in li ziqi’s hands are not only colorful and diverse in shape, but also reveal an exquisite and transcendent vitality, which can show that all these are based on li ziqi’s wonderful craftsmanship. then blue dyeing follows up with the previous one. the blue dyeing technique develops with many years comes with its unique color and concept, radiates new vitality and vigor in modern society. from march 23, 2020 to april 20, 2020, for nearly a month, li ziqi successively shot 9 episodes of videos using the blue dyeing technique, dyeing indigo-starting the vat-engraving the flower pattern plate-applying the resist paste-batik-dyeing the cloth (from sowing-harvesting and beating indigo-starting the vat-engraving the flower pattern plate-applying the resist paste-batik-dyeing the cloth-making clothes-appreciating flowers). every step bears the efforts of li ziqi. the clothes made with the blue dyeing technique are simple yet elegant, perfectly combining traditional culture with modern civilization. silkworm and mulberry customs represent people’s desire for the high quality life. from silkworm rearing to silk reeling and manufacturing, silkworm and mulberry culture carries the agricultural wisdom of the chinese nation for thousands of years (tao & zhang, 2007, pp. 171-177). from october 17, 2018 to november 6, 2018, li ziqi shot the production of silk quilts. through the handmade silk quilts, she showed the process of silk production, including boiling cocoons, rinsing silkworm pupae, opening and fluffing silkworm cocoons, airing, after airing, evenly spreading the cotton pouches, observing while spreading, laying them layer by layer on the platform, filling in the thin places, spreading out the thick places, finally, spreading to the desired thickness, finishing and trimming the corners, then fixing them with needles and threads, evenly fixing them with needles and threads to prevent the cotton from running out, and finally putting them into the quilt cover, and the silk quilt was completed. li ziqi personally participated in the entire process of silkworm and mulberry, reflecting the hard work and warmth contained in the customs. papermaking is a typical case for chinese ancient wisdom. a piece of paper contains the thousand-year history of chinese civilization. papermaking is one of the four great inventions of china, which enables chinese civilization to be recorded and passed down. on december 18, 2017, li ziqi shot a video named “the past and present of goupipi paper” (goupipi paper is a kind of product of papermaking), and its content was about the entire process of making goupipi paper. the process can be divided into the following steps: collecting materials, processing the bark, boiling the bark, cleaning and pounding, pulping and spreading the pulp, and the last step is cutting into the finished product. in every process of making goupipi paper, li ziqi’s respect for culture is reflected. as a matter of fact, brush, ink, rice paper and inkstone, also known as “the four treasures of the study”, are tools for writing in ancient china, and they are even more symbols of culture. during the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 57 published by scholink inc. period from april 1st, 2019 to april 14th, li ziqi filmed videos about the production process of the four treasures of the study. she utilized a large number of natural materials and introduced the production process with verbal descriptions. in this video, li ziqi also practiced chinese calligraphy, freely wielding the brush and ink, allowing people to experience the powerful and unique charm of chinese calligraphy. carved lacquerware craft with hidden patterns, also known as “red lacquer carving with hidden designs”, is a treasure of traditional chinese lacquer art. it is known as the “four famous dans of peking handicrafts” together with cloisonné, ivory carving, and jade carving. on november 12th, 2024, li ziqi, who had been stopped updating her videos for three years, made a strong comeback with a video titled “carved lacquerware craft with hidden patterns, carving out the auspicious atmosphere of purple qi coming from the east”. the production process of carved lacquer with hidden patterns is cumbersome and intricate, mainly including the following steps: firstly, the decorative work needs to be produced by the application of many coats of lacquer to a core material, and each layer must dry enough before applying the next staining, until the appropriate thickness is achieved. next the craftsman can design the pattern and carve out the contour of the pattern on the lacquer body. then, colors or apply decorative items such as gold or silver foil can be filled on the body. finally, the entire surface will be covered with transparent lacquer, so that the patterns can be faintly visible and forming a unique artistic effect. during the whole production process, carving is the most complex and fascinating stage. it requires the craftsman to possess superb skills and extensive experience. meanwhile, the “purple lacquer cabinet” made by li ziqi has a homophone for “zi qi’s return” in chinese, which also signified li ziqi’s triumphant return after a three-year hiatus. throughout her videos, li ziqi shows the charm and uniqueness of traditional chinese culture to the world (zhao, 2007, pp. 127-129). the core values of traditional chinese culture reflect the wisdom and ideological essence of china. li ziqi’s videos present a rich variety of traditional chinese culture, demonstrating its profound cultural heritage, and spreading it worldwide with unique aesthetic value and artistic expression. 3. the expatiation for li ziqing’s successful video the success of cultural output and cross-cultural communication plays an important role. li ziqi’s videos successfully spread china’s traditional culture, cuisine, handicrafts, and other content in a visual and symbolic way to global audiences.besides, beautifully composed frames can not be ignored. the popularity of li ziqi’s videos is also attributed to her filming and editing techniques. the composed frames are beautiful, and the colors are vibrant, providing a visual treat for audiences. her filming techniques mainly have the following characteristics: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 58 published by scholink inc. it’s worth mentioning that he symmetrical composition plays an important part for his technique is frequently adopted by li ziqi in scenes showing traditional architecture and rural landscapes. for example, when filming traditional chinese courtyards, the photographer always uses the courtyard’s central axis as a benchmark, keeping the buildings, plants, and other elements on the left and right sides in a symmetrical distribution, giving a harmonious and stable beauty to the shot. this filming technique can well display the symmetrical beauty in traditional chinese culture. besides, the framework composition makes a sense too. li ziqi is skilled at utilizing natural elements or the framework of architectural structures to highlight the main subject of her videos. for instance, when making traditional cuisine, she often films indoors through a window, where the window forms a natural framework, so that the audience’s attention can be better focused on li ziqi, and the layer feeling of the whole framework can be better enhanced. also, the camera techniques play an indispensable role too. close-up shot: this is highly used in li ziqi’s videos. during the filming process of handicraft production, this technique can capture the details of the production process, such as the shot of drawing petals when making silk flowers. in the process of cooking, this technique can focus on the color and texture of the ingredients, significantly stimulating the audience’s visual senses and enhancing the attractiveness of the food to viewers. long shot deserves our attention. this is frequently used to show the overall rural landscape and panoramic mountain views. for example, li ziqi often starts her videos with a long shot showing the entire village, mountains, and fields. this gives viewers a general impression of the environment and renders a peaceful and distant rural atmosphere, setting the emotional tone. here comes the tracking shot. this allows viewers to see the changes and production process of the entire scene more continuously. for example, when filming li ziqi walking home along a rural path, the photographer can use a tracking shot, so that viewers will receive a sense of continuity in time and space, better immersing them in the scene. then comes the color matching. the harmony of natural colors deserve our attention. li ziqi’s videos are set in rural life, with colors dominated by natural hues. including the green of plants, the blue of the sky, and the black of the soil, all those colors can provide a uniquely fresh, natural, and beautiful visual effect. in addition, the color contrast cannot be ignored. in showcasing traditional costumes and architecture, color contrast is utilized by li ziqi. for example, in wooden architectures, she wears bright-colored clothing that forms a sharp contrast with the building’s colors, highlighting both the character and li ziqi’s wisdom in color matching in her videos. the last lighting application can be presented in full utilization of natural light. most of the videos are filmed through the natural light. when filming rural landscapes, the photographer applies the first ray of sunlight in the morning to create a sense of peace, while the afterglow of the evening sunset gives a sense of serenity, further inspiring viewers’ longing for this lifestyle. as a matter of fact, the effects of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 59 published by scholink inc. sidelight and backlight are also of high priority. sidelight is often used to shoot the outline of people or objects. sidelight makes the outline of the person clearer, enhancing the dimensionality of the scene. and backlight is usually used for special visual effects, creating a halo effect that can make the frame more artistic. it also deserves our attention to notice the the effective sound effects. as one of the indispensable elements of short videos, sound has played a significant role in improving the expressive force of short videos and enhancing their communication effects. it occupies a major position in the content creation of short videos. specifically, the adoption of sound in li ziqi’s videos is mainly manifested in the following aspects: in terms of vocal expression, she extensively uses dialogue and narration mainly in mandarin and sichuan dialect, achieving an emotional empathy with the audience. in terms of sound effects, natural and action-related sounds are recorded, making people feel a strong sense of the hustle and bustle of life. in terms of musical expression, the use of light and melodic instrumental music successfully evokes a sense of leisure and contentment in rural life. compared with other dialogues, the dialogue between family members always makes people feel particularly warm, involuntarily reminding people of themselves and evoking viewers’ emotional memories. this aligns with foreigners’ expectations of chinese family life and interactions. as a matter of fact, it is quite important for people to notice the function of conveying peace and beauty. li ziqi’s videos create an idyllic atmosphere of tranquility, far from the hustle and bustle of the city. they allow people to feel inner peace and a longing for a simple life in the fast-paced modern world. the interactions between li ziqi and her family in the videos are filled with the warmth of kinship, which makes viewers feel the warmth and happiness of home and cherish the time spent with family even more. conclusion this paper examines li ziqi’s short video career as a paradigm of effective cross-cultural communication and global intellectual property development. central to her success is her strategic portrayal of traditional chinese culture through three pillars: farming, cooking, and handicraft cultures, which collectively showcase china’s intangible cultural heritage. by meticulously documenting processes like shu embroidery, wooden movable type printing, silkworm customs, and carved lacquerware, her videos bridge historical traditions with modern aesthetics, emphasizing craftsmanship and cultural preservation. li ziqi’s hiatus and return underscore an effective strategy to sustain relevance and quality, reinforcing her status as a top-tier cultural ambassador. her work transcends mere entertainment, serving as a conduit for global audiences to engage with chinese traditions, thereby enhancing international discourse and understanding. this case study highlights the potential of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 60 published by scholink inc. digital media in revitalizing cultural heritage and fostering cross-cultural appreciation. references feng, y. j., & li, j. (2019). creating national cultural symbols: value construction of chinese traditional culture ip from the perspective of cultural consciousness. china editor, (09), 33-37. liu, z. r. (2021). research on the construction and reception of chinese cultural symbols from the perspective of external communication. liaoning normal university. pan, l. s. (2018). protection inheritance innovation derivation-the protection and development path of traditional craftsmanship. journal of nanjing university of the arts (fine arts and design), (02), 46-52. peng, j. s. (2011). the connotation of farming culture and significance to modern agriculture. northwest ethnic studies, (01), 145-150. tao, h., & zhang, s. y. (2007). analysis of the symbol composition and the connotation of etiquette governance of silkworm and mulberry culture. journal of southwest university (social sciences edition), (06), 171-177. xin, j., & ye, q. q. (2020). analysis and reflection on the cross-cultural communication of chinese culture on international social media platforms: a case study of comments on li ziqi’s videos on youtube. journalism and writing, (03), 17-23. xu, x., & guo, j. l. (2013). construction of thematic database based on domain ontology—taking chinese cuisine culture knowledge base as an example. modern library and information technology, (12), 2-9. ye, q. q. (2020). research on intercultural communication of chinese culture in the context of social media. central china normal university. zhao, y. (2007). viewing the charm of chinese traditional culture through the popularity of chinese language. journal of liaocheng university (social science edition), (04), 127-129. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 73 original paper measures of harm from heavy metal pollution in battery technicians’ workshop within ilorin metropolis, kwara state, nigeria henry olawale sawyerr1, morufu olalekan raimi1&2*, adedotun timothy adeolu1 & oluwaseun emmanuel odipe1 1 department of environmental health sciences, school of health, allied and environmental science, college of pure and applied sciences, kwara state university, malete, kwara state, nigeria 2 department of community medicine, environmental health unit, faculty of clinical sciences, niger delta university, wilberforce island, bayelsa state, nigeria * morufu olalekan raimi, department of environmental health sciences, school of health, allied and environmental science, college of pure and applied sciences, kwara state university, malete, kwara state, nigeria; department of community medicine, environmental health unit, faculty of clinical sciences, niger delta university, wilberforce island, bayelsa state, nigeria received: april 27, 2019 accepted: may 14, 2019 online published: may 28, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n2p73 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n2p73 abstract soil pollution with heavy metals (hms) has been of much interests lately and is one of the major issues to be faced globally and requires attention because heavy metals above their normal ranges are extremely threatened to both biotic and abiotic life. it was therefore of interest to conduct study to assess the extent of heavy-metal contamination of soils within battery technicians’ workshops within ilorin metropolis, kwara state, nigeria. a total of twenty-five composite soil samples were collected from six selected battery charger workshop within ilorin metropolis and analyzed for the presence of heavy metals using atomic absorption spectrophotometer. result reveals significant positive relationship between mn and fe (r=0.511**, p<0.001), mn and cu (r=0.565**, p<0.001), fe and cr (r=0.895**, p<0.001), fe and cu (r=0.823**, p<0.001) and between cr and cu (r=830**, p<0.001). result also shows significant negative relationship between mn and cr (r=-0.679**, p<0.001), pb and cu (r=-0.468*, p<0.05) respectively. the pollution status of heavy metals in soils was evaluated using quantitative indices (pollution index–pi). the result shows that zn was moderately contaminated while other heavy metals (pb, cd, cr and cu) had very slight contamination (pollution index<0.1). the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 74 published by scholink inc. ilorin metropolis soils of kwara state were found to have a moderate to very slight contamination respectively. large variations in pi values of zn revealed that soil in those areas of the city, which are influenced by anthropogenic activities, have moderate concentrations of zn resulting in “considerable risk”. the findings of this study recommend comprehensive continuous annual monitoring and auditing and further studies on the level of these heavy metals in the near future to ascertain long-term effects of anthropogenic impact is forestalled to protect the men and the environment. this should also involve larger coverage with studies on ground water around such locations. furthermore, continuous metals speciation should be carried out so that the form and extent of metal bioavailability can be evaluated further. keywords considerable risk, auditing, comprehensive monitoring, eco-environment, metal speciation, pollution, bioavailability, technicians, ilorin metropolis 1. introduction soil pollution from heavy metal (hm) has become a serious issue in many parts of the world (chen et al., 1997; islam et al., 2016; zhongmin et al., 2018) and also due to its ubiquity natures, trace level toxicity, bioaccumulation and persistence, elevated heavy metals (hms) in soil milieu and thus soil contamination with hms has been globally attracting much attention (waseem et al., 2014; pavlovic et al., 2016). substantially, hms that have been accumulated in soils can be release to other environmental media, such as groundwater, rivers, atmosphere and crops, and consequently poses hazard to human beings and ecosystems (wei & yang, 2010; obiora et al., 2016; cocarta et al., 2016). heavy metals (hm) are ubiquitous natural substances in soils, which could be both natural (lithogenic inputs via weathering of parent materials and bedrocks) and anthropogenic in origin (zhongmin et al., 2018; islam et al., 2016). conversely, global enrichments of hms in soils are primarily due largely to human activities (luo et al., 2012). more importantly, naturally occurring metals in the earth’s crust, and their contents in the milieu can vary between different parts of the world resulting in spatial variations of concentrations background. the metals distribution in the environment is governed by the properties of the metal and influences of environmental factors (khlifi & hamza-chaffai, 2010; morufu & clinton, 2017; olalekan et al., 2018; raimi & sabinus, 2017). despite the 92 naturally occurring elements, about 30 metals and metalloids are potentially toxic to humans, be, b, li, al, ti, v, cr, mn, co, ni, cu, as, se, sr, mo, pd, ag, cd, sn, sb, fe, cs, ba, w, pt, au, hg, pb, and bi. although, quite a number of citizens are exposed primarily to these contaminants in the workplace, the main route of exposure to these toxic elements for most people is through their diet (food and water). the chain of trace metals contamination usually follows a cyclic order such as: industry, atmosphere, soil, water, foods and human. though toxicity and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 75 published by scholink inc. resulting public health threat of any contaminant are, of course, a concentration function, it is well established that relatively low levels of chronic exposure to heavy metals and metalloids can cause adverse effects (agency for toxic substance and disease registry (atsdr), 2003a, 2003b, 2007, 2008; castro-gonzález & méndez-armenta, 2008). as a result, there has been increasing apprehension, particularly in the developed world, about exposures, intakes and absorption of heavy metals by humans. populations are increasingly demanding a cleaner environment in general, and reductions in the amounts of contaminants reaching people as a result of increasing human activities. a practical implication of this trend, in the developed countries, has been the imposition of new and more restrictive regulations (european commission, 2006; figueroa, 2008). despite the subject importance, this paper therefore assesses the soils anthropogenic influences, which has become necessary due to increasing population pressure on soil characteristics. these anthropogenic influences, most often been researched upon in the context of industrial production, transportation, mining, mechanic workshop, construction and manufacturing have resulted in increased heavy metals notably zinc, iron, lead, cadmium, chromium, copper and manganese in the soils surrounding these activities and ultimately to the biosphere which call for further assessment on soils effects (johan, 2011; morufu & clinton, 2017; raimi & sabinus, 2017; olalekan et al., 2018). interestingly, biological effects of metal can be beneficial or harmful to humans and the ecosystem. though, majority of metals (e.g., cadmium, mercury, and lead) in the ecosystem are non-essential and of no importance to biological systems, although some metals (e.g., cobalt, copper, chromium, iron, zinc, and manganese) are essential and are known for important biological functions in humans (caussy et al., 2003; odipe et al., 2018). metal introduction into the soils have been through various natural and anthropogenic sources (ajmone-marsan & biasioli, 2010; wong et al., 2006; raimi & sabinus, 2017; morufu & clinton, 2017; olalekan et al., 2018). the disposal of major anthropogenic sources which include electrical and electronic equipment, paints, pesticides, incineration of domestic waste, atmospheric deposition from industrial processes, and power plants, as well as, traffic-related activities such as fossil fuel combustion, spills of motor oil, and wear and tear of brakes and tires (ajmone-marsan & biasioli, 2010; wong et al., 2006; morufu & clinton, 2017). “human exposure to metal contaminated soils occurs through inhalation of contaminated dust, ingestion, and dermal contact” (ng et al., 2015). the total metals concentration in the soil is usually employed as a measured of the soil pollution. but, using total metal content typically overestimates exposure since physicochemical properties of the soil matrix such as ph, texture, and organic matter content can sequester the metal and reduce its bioavailability (ruby, 2004). nevertheless, the amount of bioavailability in a contaminant is a function of the absorptive capacity of the body following skin contact, ingestion, or inhalation (ng et al., 2015). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 76 published by scholink inc. heavy metals pollution in aquatic environment is a growing global problem and it has currently reached an alarming rate. various sources of heavy metals originate from anthropogenic activities like draining of sewerage, dumping of hospital wastes and recreational activities (morufu & clinton, 2017). conversely, the natural occurrence of metals in small amounts may enter into aquatic system through leaching of rocks, airborne dust, forest fires and vegetation. as heavy metals cannot be degraded, they are being deposited continuously and incorporated in water, thus causing pollution of heavy metal in water bodies (morufu & clinton, 2017). “the presence of heavy metals in the water may have a profound effect on the microalgae which constitute the main food source for bivalve mollusks in all their growth stages, zooplankton (rotifers, copepods, and brine shrimps) and for larval stages of some crustacean and fish species. furthermore, bioconcentration and magnification could lead to high toxicity of these metals in organisms, even when the exposure level is low. under such conditions, the toxicity of a moderately toxic metal could be enhanced by synergism and may cause the population of fish to be declining. apart from destabilizing the ecosystem, the accumulation of these toxic metals in aquatic food web is a public health threat and thus their potential long-term impact on ecosystem integrity cannot be ignored” (ogoyi et al., 2011). 2. battery charger workshop one major anthropogenic source of heavy metals into soil is the disposal of batteries from battery charger workshop. this has become an ever-increasing topic of discussion in the developed countries due to the presence of heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, copper, zinc, manganese, nickel and lithium. in addition, the chemical composition of the electrolyte is also harmful to the environment if not properly disposed or managed. lead acid batteries also known as wet cell batteries are most frequently used to power cars, trucks, smaller vehicles and other large pieces of equipment. lead also known to be a persistent bioaccumulators toxic (bbt) chemical with well documented neurological effect in human exposed to vehicular lead-acid batteries which contain a significant amount of lead, 18 to 20 pounds (i.e., about 8.3 to 9kg) in most vehicles. the disposal of lead-acid batteries in a solid waste landfill which is illegally dumped, the lead sulfuric acid tends to seep into the soil affecting the soil nutrient and contaminate ground water. nigeria with an estimated population of 205 million is a fast-growing developing country and annually, batteries and electronics are used in application more than ever. daily, consumers, businesses and industry, local state and federal government agencies generate these battery wastes. most people in nigeria are ignorant of battery waste toxicity. as a result, it is important to have some measures of bioavailability of soil-borne contaminant for a more accurate assessment of the associated risk to population health. importantly, soil ingestion most often is a risk pathway to concentration of contaminant in the soil which is relatively high to other sources (ng et al., 2015). thus, the present study goal was to assess the concentrations of heavy metals (mn, fe, cd, cr, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 77 published by scholink inc. cu, pb, zn) in surface soils in a battery charger workshop within ilorin metropolis. a secondary goal was to determine the difference in concentration level of heavy metals within the selected sites and thirdly was to assess different methods to determine pollution indexes commonly used in soil pollution. soils sampling in public places is important because the influence of trace metal pollution on population health, especially battery technicians, is strong and well documented (simpson, 1996; dor et al., 1998; mielke et al., 1999; sawyerr et al., 2016). consequently, sampling sites were publicly accessible places such as battery charger workshop where most between humans and soils interaction takes place. 3. research methods 3.1 description of the study area ilorin is located between northern and southern nigeria on latitude 80 3” n and longitude 40 35” e with approximation of 100km2 land mass (orire et al., 2013). the city comprises of ilorin west, east and south with a population of 777, 667 (npc, 2007). the major tribe is yoruba with hausa, fulani and nupe as minority (orire et al., 2013). ilorin is known as gateway city between northern and southern nigeria (muhammed, 2006). the major activities in the city ranging from agriculture such as food crop to cloth weaving, leather work, tie and dye, mat making to modern business, industrial and administrative activities (figure 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 78 published by scholink inc. figure 1. map of nigeria showing the location of the study area 3.2 sample collection, preparation and analysis twenty-five composite soil samples were collected from six selected battery charger workshop within ilorin metropolis with a soil depth calibrated auger at a depth of 0-15cm representing the topsoil (table 1 and figure 1). the soil samples were then air dried, crushed, passed through a sieve, put in clean polythene bags and stored at room temperature for laboratory analysis using standard techniques. 1g of the sieved sample was weighted into a 125ml flask that was washed with acid and rinsed with distilled water. acid digestion with conc. perchloric acid (4ml), conc. nitric acid (10ml) and sulphuric acid (2ml) was carried out. the content was thoroughly mixed and digested on bibby hot plate and heated gently at low temperature of 550c. heating was continued until white dense fume observed. the solution was allowed to cool and 40ml of distilled water was added to it. it was further boiled for about 1 minute at a moderate temperature of 550c. the solution was allowed to cool finally and filtered into a 100ml volumetric flask and make up to the mark with doubly distilled water. the digested sample was analysed with alpha 4 atomic absorption spectrophotometer (chem-tech. analytical) with epson lx-300 printer. each preparation of sample was repeated in triplicate. this followed standard procedure described in sawyerr et al. (2016). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 79 published by scholink inc. table 1. soil samples from battery charger workshop location zone gps co-ordinate longitude latitude site a tipper garage 4.617128 8.493058 site b basin 4.596861 8.504036 site c sango 4.585183 8.508949 site d tanke 4.612684 8.48142 site e fate 4.584707 8.49803 site f fate-tanke 4.597613 8.489728 4. method of data analysis data were analyzed using descriptive statistics correlation and analysis of variance. means and standard error of means were computed for each of the heavy metal and the univariate relationship among heavy metal was done using correlation and differences in heavy metal between the sites were compared using anova. the statistical packages for social sciences (spss version 22.0) was used to enhance data analysis and statistical significance was established at 0.05 level of significance. the p-value<0.05 was considered significant. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 80 published by scholink inc. 5. results and discussions 5.1 results table 2. correlation matrix showing the relationship between the heavy metal parameters parameters mn (mg/kg) zn (mg/kg) fe (mg/kg) pb (mg/kg) cd (mg/kg) cr (mg/kg) cu (mg/kg) mn (mg/kg) 1 zn (mg/kg) -0.220 1 fe (mg/kg) 0.511** -0.117 1 pb (mg/kg) -0.150 -0.010 -0.124 1 cd (mg/kg) 0.088 -0.232 0.051 -0.117 1 cr (mg/kg) -0.679** -0.139 0.895** -0.196 0.236 1 cu (mg/kg) 0.562** 0.026 0.823** -0.468* 0.185 0.830** 1 *significant at 5%, **significant at 1% (p<0.0). correlation coefficient is a measure of the linear correlation between two variables and giving a value between +1 and −1. the correlation coefficient data is important in order to deduce the possible sources of the metals in the soil samples. based on the data, where 1 is total positive correlation, 0 is no correlation, and −1 is the total negative correlation. it is widely used in the sciences as a measure of the degree of linear dependences between two variables. thus, table 2 shows the nature and strength of bivariate relationship between any of the physico-chemical parameters. however, the correlation factor for various metals were derived and shown in the table above. as for the metal to metal correlation, result reveals significant positive relationship between mn and fe (r=0.511**, p<0.001), mn and cu (r=0.565**, p<0.001), fe and cr (r=0.895**, p<0.001), fe and cu (r=0.823**, p<0.001) and between cr and cu (r=830**, p<0.001). result also shows significant negative relationship between mn and cr (r=-0.679**, p<0.001), pb and cu (r=-0.468*, p<0.05). this means that direct relationship exists between these variables which implies that as one of the heavy metal increases, the values of the other heavy metal also increase, and the reverse is the case for negative relationship. the correlation coefficients between the concentrations of the different metals indicate a links between them, which probably reflects their related origin. the wastes which could be indiscriminately disposed within the various workshops are possible sources of these metals. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 81 published by scholink inc. table 3. variation in heavy metals across five locations location mn (mg/kg) zn (mg/kg) fe (mg/kg) pb (mg/kg) cd (mg/kg) cr (mg/kg) cu (mg/kg) tipper 2.20±0.47a 47.13±5.90a 3.65±0.54a 1.09±0.17a 0.00±0.00a 2.25±0.32a 2.08±0.39a basin 1.90±0.52a 41.38±4.63a 3.23±0.39a 1.31±0.31a 0.13±0.12a 2.18±0.35a 1.60±0.32a sango 2.98±0.46a 42.40±4.21a 3.70±0.54a 0.99±0.13a 0.01±0.01a 2.36±0.35a 2.06±0.34a tanker 2.73±0.69a 41.63±4.17a 4.15±0.21a 0.94±0.17a 0.01±0.01a 2.53±0.21a 2.40±0.58a fate 2.85±0.33a 37.75±2.64a 3.74±0.22a 0.28±0.83a 0.01±0.01a 2.29±0.19a 1.98±0.21a table 3 presents variation in heavy metals across five locations (tipper, basin, sango, tanker and fate). result reveals that there is no significant difference in heavy metal between tipper, basin, sango, tanker and fate (p<0.05). table 4. comparism with regulatory guidelines and other studies heavy metals 1993 usepa standard odewande and abimbola, 2008 (ghana kumasi) godfred et al., 2017 (addisababa) demlie and wohnlich, 2006 mean sd mn (mg/kg) 0.70 0.21 zn (mg/kg) 6 227 264 85.4 63.50 1.77 fe (mg/kg) 3.70 0.16 pb (mg/kg) 420 95 97 31.4 1.07 0.07 cd (mg/kg) 0.5 8.4 0.64 3.22 0.03 0.02 cr (mg/kg) 30 64 124 64.7 2.32 0.12 cu (mg/kg) 40 47 75 31.8 2.02 0.13 table 4 reveals that the concentration of heavy metal obtained in this study were all less than that obtained in adewara adesoji odewande and akinlolu f. abimbola (2008), ghana kumasi, addis-ababa and that of 1993 usepa standard. however, the present study mean for zn is more than 10 times higher than the 1993 usepa standard. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 82 published by scholink inc. table 5. pollution index parameters range mean sem remarks zn (mg/kg) 0.20-0.45 0.30 0.013 moderate contamination pb (mg/kg) 0.01-0.02 0.01 0.001 very slight contamination cd (mg/kg) 0.000-0.63 0.03 0.02 very slight contamination cr (mg/kg) 0.02-0.04 0.02 0.001 very slight contamination cu (mg/kg) 0.03-0.08 0.06 0.004 very slight contamination pollution index are used to assess the level of soil contamination and/or pollution. table 5 reveals level of pollution as a result of heavy metal contamination and the result shows that zn was moderately contaminated while other heavy metals (pb, cd, cr and cu) had very slight contamination (pollution index<0.1). 5.2 discussion present study was conducted in order to assess the extent of heavy-metal contamination of soils within battery technicians’ workshops. as soil pollution is dangerous for both ecosystem and human health, as a result, it is needful to assess the soil quality, as this is a very important issue related to human and environment. for this purpose, this study found significant relationship among some of the parameters. specifically, the result revealed manganese to be significantly related with iron (0.511) and copper (0.565), furthermore, the iron was found to be significantly related with chromium (0.895) and copper (0.823). all these parameters were found to have significant positive relationship with manganese except chromium which had perfect negative relationship. this result implies that as manganese, iron and chromium of the soil increases, copper and chromium increases significantly. indicating that they were likely contributed simultaneously (closely associated) (adewara, 2008; sawyerr et al., 2016). however, for manganese, the reverse was the case such that as the manganese of the soil increases, chromium decreases significantly. indicating poorly correlated elements might have different geochemical factors influencing their concentrations in the soils (adewara, 2008). while the result for lead was significantly negative. perfect negative relationship was obtained between lead and copper revealed significant negative relationship with each other (p<0.05). the correlation coefficients between the concentrations of the different metals indicate links between them, which probably reflects their related origin. the wastes which could be indiscriminately disposed within the various workshops are possible sources of these metals. furthermore, previous research reported excess intake of hms from soils can result in numerous diseases (uversky et al., 2001). for example, chronic exposure to arsenic (as) can lead to dermal lesions, skin cancer, peripheral neuropathy, and peripheral vascular disease (smith et al., 2006), while chronic ingestion of cadmium (cd) can have adverse effects such as prostatic proliferative lesions, bone fractures, kidney dysfunction, hypertension lung cancer, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 83 published by scholink inc. pulmonary adenocarcinomas (lin et al., 2013). excessive intake of lead (pb) can damage the skeletal, circulatory, nervous, enzymatic, endocrine, and immune systems (nieboer et al., 2013). thus, human health risk via direct exposure to soil hms should not be ignored. many studies have shown that urban soils receive loads of contaminants that are usually greater than the surrounding sub-urban or rural areas due to the higher tempo of anthropogenic activities of urban settlement (adelekan & alawode, 2011; sawyerr et al., 2016). this is supported by this study based on the concentrations of the metals investigated. however, the presence of copper in the study area could be a result of several factors including; automobile wastes containing electrical and electronic parts, such as copper wires, electrodes and copper pipes and alloys from corroding vehicle scraps which have littered the surrounding vicinity for a long time, with released metals from the corrosion gradually leaching into the soil (nwachukwu et al., 2011; sawyerr et al., 2016). for manganese, it appears that the levels of mn in the soils investigated is increasing gradually and need to be closely monitored to prevent any further increase. because the continuous use of battery workshops pose threat to the health of the users and general public, particularly children and vulnerable people. in addition, anthropogenic activities have contributed to the presence of zinc from auto mechanic since this element is found as part lubricating oils additives (abenchi et al., 2010; sawyerr et al., 2016). however, the concentration of zn in this study is small compared with many other studies (nwachukwu et al., 2010; nwachukwu et al., 2011). although, when compared with usepa standard, the present study mean is more than 10 times higher than the standard which call for concern and may be hazardous to health (morufu & clinton, 2017). while, for cd, the results are also in the same range as those reported by other workers in other parts of nigeria (abenchi et al., 2010; adelekan & alawode, 2011). furthermore, it is reported that pb has the highest composition of heavy metals in waste oils (oguntimehin et al., 2008). also, the levels of pb could be elevated by the amount of waste oil, presence of automobile emissions, and expired motor batteries indiscriminately dumped by battery chargers and auto mechanics in the surrounding areas (sawyerr et al., 2016). this could perhaps be attributed largely to the cluster’s nature of activities in the auto mechanic. nevertheless, it is important to know that there are no soil quality guidelines for heavy metals in soils in nigeria (iwegbue et al., 2006; ipeaiyeda et al., 2007) and hence comparisons were made with those of other countries (odewande & abimbola, 2008; godfred et al., 2017). the concentrations of the metals, however, were relatively low and variation in heavy metals across five locations reveals that there is no significant difference in heavy metal between tipper, basin, sango, tanker and fate (p<0.05). also, trace metal concentrations in the study area do not exceed their respective state (table 4). the average trace metal concentrations for the study area are several times lower than those for regulatory guidelines and other studies (table 4). even compared to cities described as intermediate or by the respective authors (odewande & abimbola, 2008; godfred et al., 2017), the concentrations observed in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 84 published by scholink inc. the study area of the present study remain low (table 4). the pollution index was derived by employing the pollution index as defined by lacutusu (lacatusu, 2000). a distinction between soil contamination and pollution range was established by means of the contamination/pollution index c/pi (table 5). this represents a metal content effectively. c/p index values greater than unities (1) defines the pollution range and when lower than unity the contamination range. the standard employed for interpreting soil heavy metals contamination/pollution index varies from country to country based on the chosen factors (kestern & forstner, 1989). the pollution index assessment indicates that most of the metals fall within the “very slight contamination” and “moderate contamination” range in the soil. in all samples, the soil is found to be slightly polluted by cadmium, lead, chromium and copper while zinc is being found in the “moderate pollution” range. thus, exposure to lead has been linked to delays in physical or mental development in children. in adults, lead exposure may potentially cause kidney problems and high blood pressure when exposed to levels above the maximum contaminant level for extended period of time. children, infants and pregnant women are even more susceptible to the damages caused by lead ingestion. cadmium exposure tend to accumulate in the human body affecting negatively several organs: liver, kidney, lung, bones, placenta, brain and the central nervous system (morufu & clinton, 2017; castro-gonzalez & mendez-arnenta, 2008). other damages that have been observed include reproductive and development toxicity, hepatic, haematological and immunological effects (apostoli & catalani, 2011; atsdr, 2008; morufu & clinton, 2017; raimi & sabinu, 2017). for chromium, it has been found to be very toxic and carcinogenic to human and cause eczematous dermatitis, cancer of the lungs, nasal and paranasal sinuses as well as suspected cancer of the stomach and larynx (atsdr, 2000; morufu & clinton, 2017; raimi & sabinu, 2017). in addition, studies from khlifi and hamza-chaffai (2010) noted that zinc cause several diseases to humans, fatalities resulting from lung damages caused by inhalation of high concentration of zinc chloride, causes damages to mucus membranes of the nasopharynx and the respiratory tract when ingested since it could cause digestive disorders and constipation. 6. conclusion the study identified elevated concentrations of heavy metals including mn, cd, cr, cu, fe, pb, and zn in surface soils in the commercial hub of ilorin metropolis in the study area, trace metal concentrations are considerably lower compared to regulatory standard and other studies. this suggests that trace metal concentrations in ilorin soils are related to the size and activities of the city, presumably because of the more intense land use. pollution indexes were determined to assess the trace metal pollution www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 85 published by scholink inc. level in the area. the contamination indexes led to generally similar conclusions about the proportion of polluted sites, which is relatively low in the study area. this study assessed the extent of heavy-metal contamination in soils within battery technicians’ workshops using some pollution indexes. however, the overall pollution indices and carcinogenic risks, incorporating bioaccessibility data, contributed more to the overall risk: lead is known to affect almost every organ and system in humans (developmental, cardiovascular, reproductive, neurological, ocular, hematological, and renal) while chronic exposure to other heavy metals can result in irritation of the stomach and intestines, blood vessel damage, skin changes, and reduced nerve function (morufu & clinton, 2017). it is therefore concluded that continuous use of such battery technicians’ workshops may pose a threat to the health of the users and call for the continuous monitoring through agencies of government. 7. recommendations consequent upon our findings, it is recommended that government should intensify on the management of wastes in the battery technician workshops and should carry out comprehensive continuous monitoring and auditing to forestall the effects of waste oil related problems on the environment, 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(2011). trace metal deposition in soil from auto-mechanic village to urban residential areas in owerri, nigeria. proc. environ. sci., 4, 310-322. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proenv.2011.03.036 obiora, s. c., chukwu, a., & davies, t. c. (2016). heavy metals and health risk assessment of arable soils and food crops around pb-zn mining localities in enyigba, southeastern nigeria. journal of african earth sciences, 116, 182-189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2015.12.025 odewande, a. a., & abimbola, a. f. (2008). contamination indices and heavy metal concentrations in urban soil of ibadan metropolis, southwestern nigeria. environmental geochemistry and health, 30(3), 243-254. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-007-9112-2 odipe, o. e., raimi, m. o., & suleiman, f. 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(2018). health risk assessment on heavy metals ingestion through groundwater drinking pathway for residents in an oil and gas producing area of rivers state, nigeria. open journal of yangtze gas and oil, 3, 191-206. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojogas.2018.33017 orire, i. o. (2013). urban retail and wholesale behaviour ilorin metropolis. kwara state, nigeria. ilorin journal of business and social sciences, 15(1), 119-132. pavlovic, p. et al. (2016). assessment of the contamination of riparian soil and vegetation by trace metals—a danube river case study. science of the total environment, 540, 396-409. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 89 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.06.125 raimi, m. o., & sabinus, c. e. (2017). an assessment of trace elements in surface and ground water quality in the ebocha-obrikom oil and gas producing area of rivers state, nigeria. international journal for scientific and engineering research (ijser), 8(6). ruby, m. v. (2004). bioavailability of soil-borne chemicals: abiotic assessment tools. human and ecological risk assessment: an international journal, 10(4), 647-656. https://doi.org/10.1080/10807030490484291 sawyerr, h. o., opasola, o. a., & abdulrahman, h. (2016). environmental occurrence of heavy metals in battery chargers workshops in ilorin northcentral nigeria. european international journal of science and technology. retrieved from www.eijst.org.uk. simpson, t. (1996). urban soils. in g. j. h. mccall, e. f. j. de mulder, & b. r. marker (eds.), urban geoscience (pp. 35-60). taylor and francis, london. smith, a. h. et al. (2006). increased mortality from lung cancer and bronchiectasis in young adults after exposure to arsenic in utero and in early childhood. environmental health perspectives, 114, 1293-1296. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.8832 uversky, v. n., li, j., & fink, a. l. (2001). metal-triggered structural transformations, aggregation, and fibrillation of human alpha-synuclein—a possible molecular link between parkinson’s disease and heavy metal exposure. journal of biological chemistry, 276, 44284-44296. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.m105343200 waseem, a. et al. (2014). pollution status of pakistan: a retrospective review on heavy metal contamination of water, soil, and vegetables. biomed research international, 2014, 813206-813206. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/813206 wei, b., & yang, l. 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(2018). assessment of soil heavy metals for eco-environment and human health in a rapidly urbanization area of the upper yangtze basin. scientific reports, 8, 3256. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-21569-6 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 69 original paper implementation assessment of electronic records management system in bayelsa state, nigeria samuel terungwa abaya1, chris orga2, aziba-anyam gift raimi3, morufu olalekan raimi4*, & daniel josephine kakwi5 1 nigeria centre for disease control and prevention, yenagoa office. nigeria 2 enugu state university of science and technology business school, nigeria 3 department of business administration, faculty of management sciences, federal university otuoke, nigeria 4 department of environmental management and toxicology, faculty of sciences, federal university otuoke, bayelsa state, nigeria 5 department of community health, faculty of health sciences, plateau state university, bokkos, jos. nigeria * morufu olalekan raimi, department of environmental management and toxicology, faculty of sciences, federal university otuoke, bayelsa state, nigeria received: july 15, 2023 accepted: july 31, 2023 online published: august 15, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n3p69 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n3p69 abstract the quality of information available to medical practitioners when delivering treatment to patients influences the outcome of service delivery. in the healthcare industry, health information technology has been shown to improve patient safety and treatment quality. the purpose of this research is to identify the facilitators and hurdles to the deployment of an electronic records management system at nduth, okolobiri. for this study, a descriptive cross-sectional research design was used. the stratified random sample was taken from the 204 staff members that participated in the survey at nduth okolobiri. telephone interviews were also conducted with a small number of hospital staff who had deployed the electronic records system. according to the findings, the majority of participants (51.0%) were female, with an average age of 37(sd+9.0) years. the respondents’ overall understanding of electronic records management systems was 45.9%. the overall implementation rate was 22.8%. the study’s facilitators were leadership support along with the availability of ict equipment, whereas the barriers were funding, a lack of power, insufficient ict infrastructures, administrative challenges, poor staff compliance, a lack of government support, and poor maintenance of software and ict equipment. the findings indicate that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 70 published by scholink inc. government and private enterprises should invest more in healthcare delivery via electronic records management systems. this is critical because the quality of information that medical practitioners have access to when caring for patients influences the effectiveness of health service delivery. it has also been discovered to ensure the proper operation of health institutions. keywords electronic health record management, strategic framework, health information exchange, supportive policies, healthcare, nigeria 1. introduction in delivering qualitative and effective healthcare services in any nation, hospitals play a very important role which cannot be over emphasized (ojo & popoola, 2015; morufu et al., 2021a, 2021b). health records are crucial for the efficient preparation, development and administration/delivery of optimum healthcare services (adeleke et al., 2014; tuebi et al., 2021; raimi et al., 2021a). the level of information available to medical practitioners when delivering care to patients influences service delivery outcomes (olalekan, 2020a, olalekan et al., 2020c). exact, reliable and relevant information is a critical asset for the establishment and monitoring of healthcare services provided at all levels be it primary, secondary, or tertiary levels; thereby making the health sector a highly information-demanding industry (oweghoro, 2015; raimi et al., 2019b, raimi et al., 2021a). in the healthcare industry, health information technology has been shown to improve patient safety and treatment quality. one of the six elements recognized by the world health organization as required for effective health strengthening is a health information system (ohiri et al., 2016; raimi & raimi, 2020; raimi et al., 2020a). electronic “records management is a subfield of information as well as communication technology (ict) concerned with the entirely automated way of managing official documents in organizations” (gift & obindah, 2020; ile & ojohwhoh, 2021). the term “electronic records management system” refers to the use of computer hardware and software to handle both automated as well as non-automated data (duranti, 2010). in healthcare delivery or hospital setting, electronic record management system is a software designed for the purpose of ensuring and improving quality management of all areas in the healthcare system ranging from medical to administrative functions for effective organization and delivery of quality and timely healthcare services (shoewu et al., 2020; raimi et al., 2022). hospital management systems brings together computerized records of all daily activities of administrative and personnel, patient information as well as accounting details (shoewu et al., 2020). effective hospital management system is useful in gathering relevant information in a seamless flow across the healthcare facility which supports effective decision making for administration, patient care and financial accounting. without effective management system of healthcare facilities, healthcare needs of the population will not be met or improved. hence, in order to perform healthcare services effectively and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 71 published by scholink inc. efficiently, there is need for an effective health management system (toussaint, 2015; omidiji & raimi, 2019; raimi et al., 2019c; raimi et al., 2020b; adedoyin et al., 2020; olalekan et al., 2020b, d). olumide (1997) refers to management as the practice of accepting responsibility for using others to accomplish goals in order to achieve timely, effective and efficient results. efficient and effective resource management provided in the delivery of quality healthcare services goes beyond just medical qualification and years of experience; but requires effective management (oleribe, 2009). records management is a proven tool for effective and efficient administration in both private and public sectors. effective record management systems provides information that are useful in decision making, as well as improving proper planning so as to be able to deliver maximum, timely and efficient results (bhana, 2008; raimi et al., 2021a; raimi et al., 2022). while, nigeria is currently experiencing a persistent push for the computerization of health information and healthcare processes, as well as the number of those who want it has increased. on the contrary, according to adeleke et al. (2014), the government is changing its goals and strategies for using and implementing health information technology. in light of this, the national health information and communication (health ict) strategic framework was developed by a multi-sectoral group of stakeholders under the direction of the nigerian federal ministries of health (fmoh) and of communication technology (fmct) beginning in late 2014 and throughout the first half of 2015 (federal ministry of health, 2016). an assessment of the enabling environment for health ict was conducted in 2014. the report, “assessing the enabling environment for icts for health in nigeria”, identified the need for a coordinated health ict strategy. the report concluded that nigeria is transitioning from “experimentation and early adoption” to “developing and build up” (figure 1) (federal ministry of health, 2016). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 72 published by scholink inc. figure 1. current state of nigeria’s enabling environment for health ict source: (federal ministry of health, 2016) nigeria is becoming a significant global powerhouse with a growing population and economy. to maintain the path to prosperity, improvements in the health system are needed to ensure and optimize the health and wellbeing of the country’s citizens. despite the health issues, nigeria’s growing telecommunications including information and communication (ict) industries as well as the worldwide development of ict for health (health ict), are opening up new avenues for strengthening the health system and improving the overall quality of healthcare delivery (federal ministry of health, 2016; raimi & ochayi, 2017; raimi, 2019; gift & obindah, 2020; koleayo et al., 2021a, 2021b). thus, the increasing populsation in nigeria is responsible for increasing demand of healthcare service delivery. however, the management group is in charge of monitoring and guaranteeing patient satisfaction and overall quality of life by delivering quality health care services be it medical or administrative sections (erinosho, 2008; erezina et al., 2023). sunfortunately, electronic record management system is only mostly applicable in medical aspect of the hospital in the form of electronic health record. the only teaching hospital in bayelsa state, the “heart of the niger delta area in nigeria, is niger delta university teaching hospital (nduth), okolobiri. it was established as a teaching hospital” in 2007. hence, this survey looks at the facilitators and barriers to the application of electronic record management system in nduth okolobiri. the following objectives are to assess the knowledge of staffs of nduth on “the usage of electronic record management system for data management; to determine the level of implementation of electronic records management system by the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 73 published by scholink inc. management of nduth; to determine the facilitators to the implementation of electronic record management system by the management of nduth; to assess the perceived barriers to the implementation of electronic records management system by the staffs of nduth” okolobiri. 2. methodology 2.1 research design for this study, a descriptive cross-sectional research design was used. the sample was obtained from the entire employees of nduth okolobiri using stratified random sampling. this strategy was chosen because it can yield evidence that can be extrapolated from the sample study’s empirical findings, which is one of the qualities of high-quality research. data from the participant were gathered using the mixed survey method. interviews and questionnaires were used to achieve this. 2.2 description of the study area the research was carried out at the niger delta university teaching hospital in okolobiri, yenagoa local government in bayelsa state. 2.3 sources of data the “current research relied on primary data gathered from participants via structured questionnaires and interviews. the participants were niger delta university teaching hospital okolobiri, yenagoa, bayelsa employees who were chosen using stratified random” selection. 2.4 study population niger delta university teaching hospital (nduth) management staffs (5), doctors (51), nurses (76), laboratory scientist (13), consultants (81), pharmacist (3) and administrative staffs and others (215) 2.5 sample size determination the taro yamane formula was used to compute the sample size for this investigation, which is as follows: ( )21 en nn + = where, n = 519, e =0.05. ( ) 225 2975.2 519 2975.11 519 05.05191 519 2 == + = + =n . hence, sample size of 225 was estimated. 2.6 sampling techniques the sample on which the study was conducted was chosen using stratified random sampling. participants for the interview were selected using convenience sampling from the different individuals (staffs) that use electronic records management system in niger delta university teaching hospital (nduth) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 74 published by scholink inc. okolobiri. 2.7 instrument for data collection the study used questionnaires and interviews to obtain its data. the questionnaires were personally distributed. only hospital workers who use the electronic record management system were interviewed. 2.8 validity of the instrument with the help of research professionals in this area, the questionnaire underwent face and content validity testing to determine whether it measured the things it was designed to evaluate. 2.9 instrument reliability the questionnaire was tested and retested on a few persons to ascertain the extent to which they produce the same response. 2.10 methods of data analysis descriptive statistics using frequency distribution as well as percentages were used to assess the respondents’ individual traits. facilitators and “barriers to the implementation of electronic record management system in niger delta university teaching hospital, okolobiri was established using chi-square (aided by statistical package for social sciences-spss). qualitative data analysis according to abdulraheem et al., (2018), funmilayo et al., (2019) and gift & obindah (2020), is desirable for this to take place simultaneously with data collecting so that researchers can develop an understanding of the research questions, which in turn influences both the sampling and the research questions. the phone conversations were organized into categories for easier analysis so that they would represent the goals of the study. the data was analyzed from the themes derived from the study objectives which are; the knowledge of the use of electronic record management system in nduth, the level of implementation of electronic record management system in nduth, facilitators to the implementation of electronic records management system in nduth and the obstacles to the execution of electronic records management system” in nduth. 3. results completeness of data/response rate although there was a perfect response rate, only 204 of the 225 questionnaires that were distributed and collected were used, which resulted in partial data (90.7% complete). the demographic variable (information) and study questions were ultimately analyzed using the 204 questionnaires. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 75 published by scholink inc. table 1. socio-demographic information on the respondents (n = 204) characteristics frequency percent (%) gender male 100 49.0 female 104 51.0 total 100 age group (years) 18 – 24 14 6.9 25 – 31 50 24.5 32 – 38 53 26.0 39 45 46 22.5 46 – 51 23 11.3 52 and above 18 8.8 mean ± sd (years) 37 ± 9.0 total 100 religion christianity 198 97.1 islam 0 0 others 6 2.9 total 100 discipline doctor 48 23.5 nurse 44 21.6 pharmacist 25 12.3 accountant 2 1.0 hmis/record officer 21 10.3 lab scientist/technician 27 13.7 admin. officer 25 12.3 others 11 5.4 total 100 department med. records 16 7.8 administration 35 17.2 account 3 1.5 pharmacy 25 12.3 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 76 published by scholink inc. nursing 43 21.1 laboratory 28 13.7 resident doctors 25 12.3 consultant 7 3.4 others 22 10.8 total 100 cadre junior staff 79 38.7 senior staff 113 55.4 management staff 12 5.9 total 100 source: field survey, 2021. the sociodemographic details of the respondents were shown in table 1. the results showed that more than half were females (51.0%) and their mean age was 37 (sd ± 9.0) years. majority (97.1%) were christians. the respondents were selected across several disciplines but those who were doctors, nurses, accountant, pharmacist and admin. officers were in the majority (23.5%, 21.6%, 13.7%, 12.3% and 12.3% respectively). majority of the respondents were in nursing, administration, laboratory, resident doctors and pharmacy department (21.1%, 17.2%, 13.7%, 12.3% and 12.3% respectively). a greater proportion of the respondents were senior and junior staff (55.4% and 38.7% respectively). table 2. knowledge of electronic record management system (n = 204) characteristics frequency percent (%) heard of erms yes 188 92.2 no 16 7.8 best description of erms* a system for global learning 11 5.4 name of a government agency 1 0.5 software for data management 192 94.1 ever seen erms yes 146 71.6 no 558 28.4 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 77 published by scholink inc. ever used erms yes 70 34.3 no 134 65.7 type of erms known* electronic health record 117 57.4 computerized physician order entry 46 22.5 powermed 17 8.3 medinotes 17 8.3 practice management ultra system 8 3.9 others 60 29.4 knowledge of use of computer software yes 168 82.4 no 36 17.6 overall level of knowledge good knowledge (45.9%) poor knowledge (54.1%) * multiple responses applicable source: field survey, 2021. table 2 revealed the knowledge of electronic record management system among the respondents. findings showed that the overall knowledge of electronic record management system among the respondents was 45.9%. almost all (92.2%) had heard of electronic record management system. more than half (94.1%) described electronic record management system as a software for data management. a greater proportion of the respondents (71.6%) had seen electronic record management system. however, those who had used electronic record management system were a little above one-third (34.3%). the types of electronic record management system known by the respondents were electronic health record (57.4%) and computerized physician order entry (22.5%). more than 50% of those surveyed (82.4%) indicated that they have a knowledge of the use of computer software. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 78 published by scholink inc. table 3. implementation of electronic record management system (n = 204) characteristics frequency percent (%) have erms in hospital yes 60 29.4 no 101 49.5 unknown 43 21.1 use erms (last 2 weeks) yes 24 11.8 no 180 88.2 type of erms used (n = 24)* her 12 50.0 cpoe 5 20.8 powermed 10 41.7 medinotes 2 8.3 practice management ultra system 1 4.2 others 4 16.7 frequency of use of erms never 114 55.9 rarely 31 15.2 sometimes 30 14.7 always 16 7.8 often 13 6.4 received training on erms yes 27 13.2 no 177 86.8 deployment of erms in department yes 52 25.5 no 152 74.5 overall level of implementation good implementation (22.8%) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 79 published by scholink inc. poor implementation (77.2%) * multiple responses applicable source: field survey, 2021. table 3 revealed the level of implementation of electronic record management system among the respondents. the overall implementation level of electronic record management system was 22.8%. less than a third (29.4%) had electronic record management system while a lesser proportion of the respondents (11.8%) had used electronic record management system. the common electronic record management system used by the respondents were her (50.0%), powermed (41.7%) and cpoe (20.8%). those who used electronic record management system frequently were in the minority [always (7.8%) and often (6.4%)]. only a few of the respondents (13.2%) had received training on electronic record management system. less than a third of the respondents (25.5%) had electronic record management system deployed in their department table 4. facilitators to the implementation of electronic records management (n = 204) characteristics frequency percent (%) have ict equipment yes 130 63.7 no 74 36.3 know how to use ict equipment yes 115 56.4 no 89 43.6 willingness to use erms not willing 1 0.5 somewhat not willing 20 9.8 undecided 6 2.9 somewhat willing 0 0 willing 177 86.8 erms can improve work outcome yes 199 97.5 no 5 2.5 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 80 published by scholink inc. ways erms can improve work (n = 199)* minimal errors 82 41.2 improved information sharing 127 63.8 increase speed of delivery 145 72.9 information security 107 53.8 better clinical decision 82 41.2 others 4 2.0 available support of government for use of erms yes 35 17.2 no 169 82.8 encouragement by leadership on use of erms yes 125 61.3 no 79 38.7 * multiple responses applicable table 4 showed the facilitators to the implementation of electronic record management system. the overall implementation level of electronic record management system was 22.8%, more than half (63.7%) had ict equipment. those who knew how to use ict equipment were a little above half (56.4%). majority (86.8%) of the respondents were willing to use electronic record management system. a greater percentage of the respondents (97.5%) mentioned that electronic record management system could improve their work outcome. increase speed of delivery, improved information sharing and information security were identified as the major ways that the use of electronic record management system could improve work. majority (82.8%) stated that there was no support from the government to encourage the usage of electronic record management system. however, more than half (61.3%) stated that they were encouraged by the leadership on the usage of the electronic record management system. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 81 published by scholink inc. table 5. barriers to the implementation of electronic record management system (n = 204) characteristics frequency percent (%) availability of consistent power supply for erms yes 41 20.1 no 163 79.9 effort by management to encourage use of erms yes 137 67.2 no 67 32.8 sufficient funding to procure erms yes 32 15.7 no 172 84.3 form of resistance to use of erms yes 62 30.4 no 142 69.6 reasons for resistance (n = 62) no proper training 18 29.0 non-compliance of doctors 3 4.8 staff attitude 5 8.1 poor funding 11 17.7 poor electrical supply 7 11.3 others 14 22.6 barriers to implementation of erms* funding 172 84.3 administrative challenges 91 44.6 government policy 42 20.6 inadequate ict equipment 134 65.7 awareness 101 49.5 others 8 3.9 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 82 published by scholink inc. * multiple responses applicable table 5 revealed the implementation barriers of electronic record management system. majority (79.9%) revealed that consistent power supply for electronic record management system was not available. more than half (67.2%) stated that the management were making efforts to encourage the use of electronic record management system. a greater proportion of the respondents (84.3%) stated that there was no sufficient funding to procure electronic record management system. about a third (30.4%) revealed that there was resistance to the usage of electronic record management system. no proper training (29.0%), poor funding (17.7%) and poor electrical supply (11.3%) were identified as the reasons for resistance to the usage of electronic record management system. the major barriers to the electronic record management system implementation that were identified were funding (84.3%), inadequate ict equipment (65.7%), awareness (49.5%) and administrative challenges (44.6%). table 6. facilitators to the implementation of electronic record management system in nduth okolobiri (n = 204) frequency x2 p-value observed (n) expected (n) residual n (%) facilitators yes 125 102.0 23.0 10.373 0.001* no 79 102.0 -23.0 total 204 * chi-square test at 0.05 level of significance; decision: result is significant at p < 0.05 the results on tables 6 above provided an investigation into the overall significance of the model. the estimated value of the test showed that chi-square result (x2) is 10.373 at p = 0.001 (p < 0.01). this finding demonstrates the existence of enablers for the adoption of an electronic record management system at nduth, okolobiri. as a result, we reject the null hypothesis (h0) and come to the conclusion that there are factors that help nduth, okolobiri adopt an electronic record management system. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 83 published by scholink inc. table 7. obstacles to the adoption of electronic management system in nduth okolobiri (n = 204) frequency x2 p-value observed (n) expected (n) residual n (%) barriers yes 41 102.0 -61.0 72.961 0.000* no 163 102.0 61.0 total 204 * chi-square test at 0.05 level of significance; decision: result is significant at p < 0.05 the results on tables 7 above provided an investigation into the overall significance of the model. the estimated value of the test showed that chi-square result (x2) is 72.961 at p = 0.000 (p < 0.01). this finding demonstrates that nduth, okolobiri faces challenges in implementing an electronic record management system. we therefore come to the conclusion that there are obstacles to the adoption of an electronic record management system at nduth, okolobiri, and reject the null hypothesis (h0). 4. discussion in this study, there were 51.0% female and 49% male. the respondents were from different departments and disciplines but those who were doctors, nurses, pharmacist, laboratory scientist, hims and administrative officers were the majority. the age group between 32-38 years were the highest and more senior staffs compared to junior staffs constituted the respondents with 54.4% and 38.7% respectively. a study carried out in a tertiary hospital revealed that while factors like age and work experience had a significant association on the use of electronic health records among workers, sex and occupational category had no significant association with employee’s perspective towards their use (shahbahrami et al., 2016; raimi et al., 2019a; olalekan, 2020a, olalekan et al., 2020c). the study also shows that there is an overall 45.9% knowledge of the use of electronic records management system, also more than 82.4% of those surveyed are familiar with using software on a computer. this can be corroborated with studies conducted in india among nurses in ludhiana, punjab, india with an ict literacy level of 75% (raja et al., 2004) also in australia with an ict literacy of 70% (kuek & hakkennes, 2020) and in a referral hospital in northern ethiopia with an ict literacy of 74.3% (mohammed et al., 2013). this can be associated with the age of the respondents and their exposure in the use of mobile devices, emails and the internet. also, this study shows an overall implementation level of 22.8%, only a few13.2% of health workers have received training on the use of electronic record management system. there was also a 25.5% deployment of electronic record management system to the different department in the hospital. according to a study conducted in “obafemi www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 84 published by scholink inc. awolowo teaching hospital, osun state, nigeria (oauth)” a great percentage of the participants use electronic records for clinical documentation, the study further shows that lack of computer knowledge and training are also factors that limit implementation of electronic records (ogbonna et al., 2020). similar studies highlighted the lack of training and support and also availability of computer equipment as a significant limitation to the adoption of electronic record system (boonstra & broekhuis, 2010). in terms of the facilitators to the implementation of electronic records management system the result shows that 86.8% of respondents have a willingness to use electronic record system, 63.7% of the respondents have ict equipment’s in their department. the result also shows that there is only 17.2% support from government while there’s is 61.3% support in the adoption of electronic records management by the leadership of the hospital. according to the respondents, the usage of electronic records management will increase the speed of delivery, improve information sharing, increase information security, lead to minimal errors and better clinical decision (raimi & ochayi, 2017). according to a study by akhtar et al. (2016), the successful adoption of an electronic health record system depends on the health professionals’ desire to use it applications. however, it is necessary to assess respondents’ readiness using a more specific tool, such as the “electronic health information management system success factor,” which has been implemented in a teaching hospital in nigeria (ojo & popoola, 2015). the study further states that technical factors such as hardware, software compatibility, ease to use software, sufficient hardware must be present, as must sufficient system support providers are important in the implementation of electronic records system (ojo & popoola, 2015). additionally, it has been found that organizational elements like top management commitment to the performance of the electronic management system, which includes support from the various departments involved in operations, rapid management attendance to systems operations, and maintenance, are also important. in conclusion, the study demonstrates that elements like leadership style including an organization’s dedication to the deployment of an electronic records system contribute to its success (ojo & popoola, 2015). similar studies by lorenzi et al. (1997) also corroborates the findings that organizational factors are decisive in determining the success of electronic record system. this study shows that funding is a major roadblock to the adoption of electronic records management system. other factors highlighted by the respondents are inconsistent power supply, inadequate ict equipment, awareness and administrative challenges. factors identified from phone call discussion not mentioned by the respondents include; poor staff compliance to data entry, lack of internet connectivity, lack of government support, software ineffective, lack of centralized data management system, poor maintenance of computers and software and poor interconnectivity of the system. according to studies, the chronic underfunding of health has made a significant contribution to the unstable health systems in africa (chen et al., 2004; senkubuge et al., 2014). previous research in nigeria found a strong correlation between funding and the use of an electronic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 85 published by scholink inc. records system (ojo & popoola, 2015). similarly studies conducted in korea by yoon et al. (2012) observed that among all the elements that help electronic health records adoption financing was reported as the highest facilitator and barrier. electricity supply has also been observed to play a crucial part in healthcare delivery, the united kingdom department of health and the study conducted by gift et al. (2020), gift and olalekan (2020) named electricity as the most vital infrastructural service since without it none of the other applications will run (odiawa, 2017; gift et al., 2020; gift & olalekan, 2020). ict equipment’s have also been observed as a significant challenge to the adoption of electronic records system. the introduction of an electronic records system had previously been seen as being hindered by a lack of ict infrastructure (martínez et al., 2005; ouma & herselman, 2008; ward et al., 2006), this has been associated with poor budgetary allocation to healthcare in nigeria (akinsete, 2016; samson et al., 2020). lack of awareness was observed as an obstacle in the implementation of electronic records system, this is consistent with earlier research which observed that the dearth of knowledge by stakeholders is an important factor responsible for the poor adoption electronic records systems (diero et al., 2006; fullerton et al., 2006). administrative and government support was also observed as barrier to the implementation electronic record system in this study. similarly a study conducted by attah (2017) observed that poor administration plus a lack of government support were noted as a major challenge. this is corroborated by earlier research which indicated that poor administration contributes largely to the weak health system in the african states (chen et al., 2004; senkubuge et al., 2014; olalekan, 2020a, olalekan et al., 2020c; morufu et al., 2021b; erezina et al., 2023). the adoption of an electronic records system was found to be hampered by staff compliance and internet connectivity. this has been noted in comparable studies that have noted the importance of staff compliance in the adoption of electronic records systems. the study also reveals that internet access is a challenge to the implementation of electronic records systems. this was observed to be as a result of epileptic internet connectivity in most part of nigeria. internet connectivity was observed to be important in the running of electronic records system (attah, 2017). for the interview, the findings present a view of some implementing officers of electronic records management system in nduth, okolobiri. the views are from phone conversations with a data clerk, pharmacist and the health information management lead (hod) in the hospital. four sub-sections are used to display the results, one for each of the four study topics. the understanding of how to utilize an electronic record management system (erms) is covered in the first segment, while the degree of adoption is the focus of the second. whereas the third and fourth sections examine the enablers and impediments to nduth’s adoption of an electronic record management system. the knowledge of the use of electronic record management system in nduth all of the correspondents concurred that hospital staff members have a solid understanding of how to use the hospital’s electronic record management system. additionally, they discussed some previous www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 86 published by scholink inc. trainings on the use of electronic record management systems and expressed confidence in the staff members’ and colleagues’ knowledge of those systems. the most common definition of electronic record management system used by the respondents was: “electronic record management system is the management of records or information using electronic device or the digital method of records management”. level of implementation of electronic record management system in nduth according to the head of department of health information management (him) in nduth different departments in the hospital have their own electronic record system, departments such as accounting, pharmacy, laboratory and records all have an electronic record system for data management respectively. the hod also stated that there are two record systems in the hospital for which data is managed; the general electronic records for the daily running of the hospital and that of the bayelsa health insurance scheme (bhis). he also alleged that there is only about 30% implementation of electronic record management in nduth. according to the data clerk, the system is used to access health records of patient’s especially primary data of patient for issuance of birth certificate and the likes. he further stated that the system is locally hosted in the department and is accessible to all staffs of the department. although no significant implementation in terms of usage among doctors and nurses but there is a good knowledge of the usage of electronic record management system among doctors as well as nurses. facilitators to the implementation of electronic record management system in nduth a few facilitators were identified on the phone call discussions. some of which are; availability of computers for data entry and administrative support by the management of the hospital in keeping with the use of electronic record system. according to the respondents the system in use was designed by the chief medical director (cmd) of the hospital, who also does the trouble shooting and maintenance. barriers to the implementation electronic record management system in nduth some barriers were identified in the course of the phone call discussion some of which are; inconsistent power supply the hospital runs mostly on generator because of the erratic power supply, cost of running generators are high hence it is difficult to maintain consistent power supply in the hospital. the generators also run within a particular time period and therefore it might be difficult to consistently enter data using electronic record system in the hospital. lack of centralized data management system the findings from the discussions with the different correspondents from each department. all correspondents noted that they operate a different system from the other departments using electronic record management. the pharmacy correspondent stated that the software in use is e-pharmacy while the other respondents said the software used in their department is a locally hosted record management www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 87 published by scholink inc. system only accessible within the department. software not so effective some of the respondents also stated that the software currently been used in the hospital is not effective. according to the pharmacy respondent, the software has some challenges in performing analysis on prescription and issues with requisition. no internet connectivity the respondents also emphasized the need for internet supply on the hospital. according to them there is no internet supply in the hospital in the hospital and there is also poor internet connection in the area where the hospital is located this also discourages electronic data management in the hospital. poor staff compliance to data entry the respondents also said that there is a poor compliance to electronic data entry from some staffs of the hospital. according to one of the respondents there are persons designated to enter data so as to ensure that all required data are captured on the system. funding issues the respondents also mentioned the challenge of funding with regards to the management of electronic records. the usage of an electronic records management system in a hospital cannot be operated and maintained effectively due to a lack of resources, according to all respondents. poor maintenance of the computers and software all the respondents emphasized the need for maintenance of the computers and software. they all agreed to the availability of computers but stated that most of the computers require some form of maintenance to run optimally. some staffs not sound with the use of computer the correspondents also said that some staff also require some training in the use of computers to be able to enter data electronically. according to them because of the poor knowledge of the use of computers by some staffs, this also stands as a hindrance to the implementation of electronic record management system in the hospital. poor interconnectivity of the system according to the correspondents all departments have their own record management system that are not connected to any other department. lack of government support in electronic records management the correspondents also stated that there is no support from government in terms of electronic records management. the technology benefits the hospital as well as the government in maintaining track of the state health insurance program, according to the institution’s hod of health information management. consequently, the government must encourage the adoption of computerized records management. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 88 published by scholink inc. recommendations from the respondents from the phone call discussion, the respondents made the following recommendations for effective utilization of electronic records managements system in the hospital. the need for government support and funding, the need for more trainings and orientation of staffs on the use of electronic record management system. the respondents also made mention of the need to have a centralized data management system that accommodates data entry from all departments of the hospital also the optimization of the system to perform data analysis. summarily, the findings from the interview from the phone call discussions shows that there is significant knowledge of the use of electronic records management in nduth, implementation of the system is skeletal as just few persons and department use electronic records in records documentation. at the moment there is no significant use of electronic records management system by doctors and nurses. the facilitators to the implementation of electronic record management are availability of computers and support from the management of the hospital particularly the cmd in ensuring the continuous running of the system. the barriers identified in the use of electronic records are; lack of funding, poor power supply, software challenge, poor internet connectivity, poor staff compliance, poor maintenance of computers and software, system not centralized and lack of government support. 5. limitations of the study participants may not be completely sincere with their responses to the facilitators as well as obstacles to the implementation of electronic record management system in nduth okolobiri for fear of been queried or penalized. 6. conclusion this study’s primary goal was to determine what helped and hindered nduth, okolobiri’s adoption of an electronic records management system. this is crucial to provide context for the hospital’s level of adoption of electronic records management systems and some of the implementation problems. planning, developing, and delivering the best healthcare services all depend on the availability of health records. the quantity and accuracy of information that medical practitioners have access to when caring for patients influences the effectiveness of service delivery. the study was conducted across different disciplines and departments of the hospital. the findings from this study shows that there is 45.9% knowledge of electronic records management system by staffs of the hospital, the level of implementation of electronic records management is 22.8% as most departments do not use electronic records system for data capturing including doctors and nurses. some of the merits highlighted by the staffs of the hospital for the acceptance of electronic records management system are increased speed of delivery, improved information sharing, information security, minimal errors and better clinical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 89 published by scholink inc. decisions. the factors responsible for the implementation of electronic record management system as observed from this study was the leadership of the hospital which was 61.3%, this particularly was credited to the chief medical director (cmd) by the implementers of the system in the hospital and the availability of ict equipment’s which was 63.7%. the major obstacles to the implementation of electronic records management system in the hospital were funding (84.3%), inconsistent power supply (79.9%), inadequate ict equipment (65.7%), lack of awareness (49.5%), administrative challenge (44.6%).others identified from the phone interviews are poor staff compliance, lack of internet connectivity, ineffective software, system not centralized, poor maintenance of ict infrastructure and software and lack of support from government to implement electronic records management system. 7. recommendations the following are some recommendations that will make it easier to deploy an electronic records management system in healthcare delivery: 1) the need for public private partnership (ppp) to support the adoption of electronic records management system in government owned secondary and tertiary facilities. 2) organizing periodic seminars for healthcare professional to boost their capacity to use electronic records system. 3) the necessity of utilizing an electronic records management system as part of medical education in training medical personnel 4) the need for government support in relations to policies as well as funding towards supporting the implementation of electronic records management system. 5) tertiary institutions can also consider developing and maintaining their own electronic records system for efficient management of their facilities. acknowledgements we thank the staff of the niger delta university teaching hospital okolobiri for their frank collaboration in the framework of this research. declaration of interest/competing statement the writers affirm that they do not have any competing or conflicting interests. funding there was no funding for this study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 90 published by scholink inc. date availability and material the corresponding author will provide the datasets created and/or utilized in the current work upon reasonable request. authors contributions not applicable to the mono-authored manuscript. references abdulraheem a. f. o., olalekan, r. m., & abasiekong, e. m. 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(2012). adoption of electronic health records in korean tertiary teaching and general hospitals. international journal of medical informatics, 81(3), 196-203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2011.12.002 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper exploring the impact of keats’s poetry on hyperion wang shengnan 1 1 wang shengnan, jilin international studies university, changchun, china received: may 9, 2025 accepted: may 24, 2025 online published: june 21, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p1 abstract it is an important topic today that how can we draw the essence from the works of excellent writers or artists, then learn their creative methods and ideas, add ourselves innovative inspiration and perspectives to create our own works. and in this paper, we can find out the key answer. this paper first introduces the research background and the significance of the topic selection, then we appreciate the beauty in john keats poetry. the next part continues to analyze the impact of keats’s poetry on hyperion from five aspects, including themes, the use of language, religion, eternity and the way to explore the relationship between human and nature. as the representative poet of the second generation of british romanticism, john keats did profound influence on later generations of writers, especially dan. influenced by keats, simon’s discussions on themes, religion, writing style and characteristics, as well as the relationship between man and nature have formed his own writing style: the pursuit of beauty: at the same time, he also combines aesthetic elements with scientific elements through grand narration, delicate characterization and rich symbolic meanings. his book hyperion deeply discusses the topics of aesthetics, philosophy, religion, eternity, and the relationship between man and nature, providing readers with a shocking reading experience. keywords beauty, religion, eternity, the relationship between human and nature 1. introduction it is an important topic today that how we can draw the essence from the works of excellent writers or artists, then learn their creative methods and ideas, add ourselves innovative inspiration and perspectives to create our own works. many scholars have studied keats’s poetic style, but they have not studied the influence of his poems on other writers’ works, and i will explore and study this topic through this article. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 2 published by scholink inc. in this paper, the author first introduces the research background and the significance of the topic selection, then we appreciate the beauty in john keats poetry. in the next part the impact of keats’ poetry on hyperion will be analyzed from five aspects, including themes, the use of language, religion, eternity and the way to explore the relationship between human and nature. 2. inspiration of beauty in keats’s poetry for later writers as we all know, beauty is a central topic in keats poetry, and it appears in many forms and levels. through the analysis of keats’ poems, we can deeply explore his understanding and expression of beauty. first of all, keats’s depiction of beauty is often closely connected with the natural. his poems are full of praise and appreciation of nature, and the beauty in nature contrasts to sadness of poet. such as “when streams of light pour down the golden west, and on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest. the silver clouds, far-far away to leave. all meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve”. in “o! how i love, on a fair summer’s eve”. the golden sky, silver sky and the cool west wind make the poet forget his sadness temporarily. actually, it expresses his melodious sorrow. other examples are “my heart sings of the beauty of summer” in “ode to a nightingale” and “the beauty of autumn, as picturesque as poetry” in “to autumn”. in these verses, keats combined beauty with natural scenery, demonstrating his deep love and awe for nature. secondly, keats’s comprehending of beauty is also reflected in his depiction of human nature. the figures in his poems are often of noble quality and beautiful appearance, such as achilles in the greek hero in the greek ancient ode, and mrs elphinstone in to madame elphinstone. in these figures, keats shows his understanding and pursuit of beauty. in addition, keats’s understanding of beauty is also reflected in his view of art. he firmly believe that art is the creator and disseminator of beauty, as he wrote in “to sir george beaumont”: “art is the true reflection of beauty”. this view is fully reflected in his poetry creation, which has beautiful language, vivid images and deep emotions, showing his deep understanding and unique expression of beauty. he has influenced many later writers to use aesthetic elements and imagination to express themselves and form their works. 3. the impact of keats’s poetry on hyperion hyperion has been influenced deeply by keats’ poetry. the impact of keats’s poetry on hyperion includes themes, such as beauty, love eternity and so on. it also contains the way of using language and religion. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 3 published by scholink inc. 3.1 themes the theme of john keats’s poetry is primarily focused on beauty, and love. the theme of john keats’s poetry is primarily focused on beauty, love, and the transience of life. he often explored the idea of immortality and the desire to escape the limitations of human existence through art and imagination. keats also delved into themes of nature, spirituality, and the human condition, expressing his thoughts on these subjects in a lyrical and emotional style. for example，in keats’ s “bright star” , keats wrote this poem to his beloved miss fanny brawne. through this poem, he conveyed his sincere feelings to fanny, longing to be united with her forever, even after death, with their souls never to be separated. however, the impoverished keats was taken away by illness at the age of 25. although they were not married, fanny, who deeply loved him, was emotionally devastated after his death and took a long time to recover. moreover, fanny believed that she had already married him. she was willing to wear black for three years to mourn for keats, readi ng the love letters he wrote to her repeatedly in her room every day and wandering alone in the area where they once lived. “bright start, would i were steadfast as thou art”, “or gazing on the new soft -fallen mask of snow upon the mountain and moors”, “pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast to feel for ever its soft fall and swell” express the theme of beauty and the love to miss fanny. the theme of hyperion is the exploration of the human condition in the face of scientific and technological advancement, identity, mortality, and the meaning of life in the face of rapid technological. so we can came out the result that both works explore the relationship between human and outer world. 3.2 the use of language john keats’ poetry is known for its use of vivid imagery, rich language, and musicality. he often employs metaphors, similes, and personification to create a sense of beauty and emotion in his poems. additionally, he uses alliteration, assonance, and consonance to create a musical effect. keats also frequently employs enjambment and caesura to create a sense of rhythm and flow in his poems. in hyperion, it uses a variety of writing techniques to create a vivid and immersive world, engage the reader, and convey its themes and messages. here are some of the key techniques used in hyperion, such as descriptive writing, imagery, foreshadowing, symbolism, irony, allegory and so on. simmons uses descriptive writing to create a detailed and realistic world for the reader. he describes the settings, characters, and events in great detail, allowing the reader to visualize the story clearly. “it had been a warm, rainy day in keats, hyperion’s capital, and even after the rains stopped a layer of clouds moved slow and heavy over the city, filling the air with the salt scent of the ocean twenty kilometers to the west. toward evening, as the gray daylight was beginning to fade www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 4 published by scholink inc. into gray twilight, a double sonic boom shook the town and then echoed from the single, sculpted peak to the south” (p. 102). imagery is used throughout the book. for example, the writer use his imagination to create a horrify image and atmosphere: wagner. “wagner is good only for thunderstorms, he thought. he closed his eyes but the lightning was visible through closed eyelids. he remembered the glint of ice crystals blowing through the tumbled ruins on the low hills near the time tombs and the colder gleam of steel on the shrike’s impossible tree of metal thorns. he remembered screams in the night and the hundred-facet, ruby-and-blood gaze of the shrike itself”. foreshadowing: foreshadowing is used to hint at future events and build suspense. for example, early in the book, the character of endymion has a prophetic dream that foreshadows his later actions. at the same time, the seven pilgrims in the novel are each saddled with a mysterious and profound background, and their personal stories are like clues that gradually converge into the grand picture of the entire civilization. these foreshadows are cleverly laid out at the beginning of the story, and gradually revealed as the story progresses, making the reader rethink the trajectory of each person’s life and the fate of the universe in a shock. symbolism: symbolism is used to convey deeper meanings and themes. for example, the rose is a recurring symbol in the book that represents love, sacrifice, and redemption. the church of shrike and the mysterious time tomb on the planet hyperion symbolize the power of religion and the fear and yearning of mankind for the unknown. the image of the shrike, a fierce bird with a habit of sticking its dead body in the thorns to store and tear food, symbolizes the metal monster shrike in the book, suggesting the relationship between creation and creator. all in all, both works used descriptive writing, imagery, a lot of metaphor and simile and so on to explore the relationship between human and nature and reflect on human philosophy. 3.3 religion 3.3.1 john keats’s religious view and religion in his poetry keats poetry has strong religious over tons. keats’ poetic theory and poetry creation are deeply influenced by christian thought, which originates from the education he received in his youth and social fashion at that time. although keats was devoted to the pagan spirit, the christian thought was still the core of his religious thought. in addition, keats’s life and creative career were influenced by religion from a pluralistic religious thought background, that is, the coexistence of christian salvation thought and greek pantheism thought. for example, in the eve of st. agnes, the poet uses a series of religious word “pray-er, holy, priest, confession, piety, worship to the gods, cross, lights, saints, angels, apgans, temples,witches” to depict the characters and describe all the activities before st. agnes day. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 5 published by scholink inc. in the night before st. mark, keats also uses a lot of religious world to introduce what happens before st. mark day, such as: sabbath, believers, prayer, holiness, piety, martyrs etc. his poem contain profound rational meaning, which are not limited to the material and sensory levels. they embody the poet’s religious feelings, present obvious religious images, and apply the christian model. it can be seen from the poem that keats was a poet who sublimated his spirit to the sublime realm through the sensory experience of the secular world. 3 .3.2 dan simmons’ religion in hyperion the religious ideas in the series of hyperion series are quite rich. for one thing, the work is influenced by john keats’s long poem hyperion, whose original story of the olympian gods replacing the titans through war echoes science fiction’s main line of battle between the ultimate ai and human gods of the future. at the same time, hyperion series have many religious symbols, such as the time tombs and the church of shrike. these elements have strong religious overtones, exploring divinity, destiny, and the crisis of human belief. this is obviously influenced by keats’s deep exploration of mythology, religion and philosophy in his poetry. what’s more, each pilgrim’s experience explores to some extent the relationship between personal beliefs and religious beliefs. in hyperion, we see elements of real-world religions such as christianity, buddhism and taoism cleverly woven into the story by simon. for example, the priest pauli represents the unyielding spirit, the detective and the consul are both love themes, and the scholar is a family theme. in addition, kernel perfected the technique of the cross and made a deal with holy to supply holy’s church of the holy spirit with the technique of rebirth, on which the church evolved into “rebirth” the christian element is embodied in a christian sect called the control of the holy core. the ideological basis of this sect is zen buddhism, and its leader design inspiration comes from jesus, which indicates that the religious system in hyperion is influenced by christianity. in addition, some of the titles in the series are also derived from greek mythology, further enriching the multicultural background of the religious system. buddhist elements are mainly reflected in the influence of zen buddhism. the zen spirit sect is a religious organization under the background of the universe. its religious belief combines the zen self-cultivation of eastern philosophy with the salvation thought of western christianity. this fusion reflects the common ground of buddhism and christianity in spiritual pursuit and self-salvation, making the zen spirit sect a unique religious entity in the hyperion. buddhist elements are mainly reflected in the influence of zen buddhism. the zen spirit sect is a religious organization under the background of the universe. its religious belief combines the zen self-cultivation of eastern philosophy with the salvation thought of western christianity, forming a kind of cynical religious belief. this fusion reflects the common ground of buddhism and christianity in spiritual pursuit and self-salvation, making the zen spirit sect a unique religious entity in the hyperion. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 6 published by scholink inc. 3.4 eternity 3.4.1 the eternity in john keats poetry john keats was a romantic poet whose poems are full of explorations of eternity themes. in his poems, keats not only recorded the relationship between man’s inner world and the outside world, but also tried to explore the relationship between reality and ideal, reality and eternity, and soul and the present world. in the poem “ode to the ancient urn” in greece, keats gives a double aspect to the instant picture left by the ancient urn: love and eternal loneliness. keats believes that passionate love and lonely life seem opposite, but they are the true of life. reality is cruel, art is idealized, only the combination of art and reality, is the true beauty in life, beauty is eterna l. in addition, in “ode to a nightingale”, keats adopts “bright star”, “snow”, “the moving waters”, “love’s ripening breast” and other images combine the thoughts about love, death, love and ideal. in my opinion, the poet uses the song of the nightingale to symbolize the eternal joy of nature and contrast it with the nature of life in the real world. in short, the eternal theme of keats’s poems goes through his exploration of life, love, death and nature, showing his pursuit of beautiful things and yearning for eternal values. 3.4.2 the eternity in hyperion in the science fiction novel hyperion, eternity is a central theme. keats’s poetry image of death and eternity deeply influences the work, and the city of hyperion in the novel also embodies this spirit of pursuing eternity. the story of hyperion is set in the future after an event known as the “great mistake”, in which humanity is forced to leave earth and scattered across the galaxy. with the help of artificial intelligence, humanity has established overlords and established connections using the remote portals provided by the inner core energy. in this context, the need for eternity became a universal human emotion. both the exploration of the real word and the contemplation of human destiny are filled with the desire for eternity and the fear of nothingness. specifically, the eternal theme in hyperion is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is to explore the relationship between human destiny and the universe by depicting the future world and technological elements such as artificial intelligence. time travel in hyperion is an important technological element. through time travel, the characters in the novel are able to travel to different eras and witness the changes of history and the rise and fall of civilizations.this experience across time and space gives the characters a deeper understanding of the universe and the fate of humanity, which leads to thinking about humanity’s place and future in the universe. the artificial intelligence technology in “hyperion” is highly developed, such as the intelligent robots “cyberman” and “overlord” in the book. these ai agents are not only highly intelligent, but www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 7 published by scholink inc. also able to communicate deeply with humans and even influence human decisions. the characters in hyperion undertake a wide range of cosmic explorations, including expeditions to distant galaxies and encounters with unknown civilizations. these explorations have not only expanded the horizons of mankind, but also triggered reflections on the origin, structure and ultimate fate of the universe. the universe in the novel is depicted as a vast space full of wonders and dangers, in which humans are both small and great. the second is to express thoughts on the eternal themes of life, love and death through the inner monologues and story lines of the characters. in hyperion, through the experiences of father rainer hoyt, simon explores the meaning of life and death. father holy witnessed firsthand the suffering of his close friend father paul duret due to the cruciform worm, which enables humans to come back to life after death, but has huge side effects that make people lose their minds. this plot deeply touches on the relationship between immortality and human nature, as well as the nature and value of life. in addition, saul’s story further explores the fragility and impermanence of life. his daughter rachel developed merlin’s disease, a disease that turned back time on her, eventually causing her life to reverse from old age to infancy and then to disappearance. saul’s story is a reflection of parents’ selfless love for their children, but also of life’s inevitable loss and grief. these elements together constitute the unique science fiction narrative style and profound philosophical connotation of hyperion. 3.5 the way to explore the relationship between people and nature 3.5.1 john keats’s nature way john keats, as the outstanding representative of 19th century british romantic poetry ,his love and praise of nature are fully reflected in his poetry. he is good at using descriptive techniques to create poems, combing a variety of emotions with nature perfectly, and looking for the inspiration of creation from life. nature is an important theme in keats’s poems, and he can always find inspiration from nature. he regarded nature as the dwelling place of his soul and the ultimate place of his body to live. only nature could relieve his loneliness and bring him a homely feeling, as well as his place of residence and ultimate belonging. this kind of deep feeling and nostalgia for nature made his early poems show a deep attachment to nature. such as “sleep and poetry”, “i stood on tiptoe on the hill” and endymion etc. however, keats was not only a lover of nature, but also a poet who thought deeply about the relationship between human and nature. he believed that the human is the part of nature and should live in harmony with nature. he used the imagination and the mobilization of the sense to depict beauty, he made nature in keats’s poems become not only a vivid landscape paintings, but also a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 8 published by scholink inc. kind of induction to beauty. in general, keats explores the relationship between man and nature in his own unique way, expressing both love and respect for nature and revealing the close connection between human and nature. his poems not only show his deep love for nature, but also his pursuit the idea of human and nature coexist in harmony. 3.5.2 dan simmons’s way in keats’s poetry, there are many nature elements. for example, in his poem “ode to a nightingale”, there is “but here there is no light, save what from heaven is with the breezes blown through and winding mossy ways” show the nature way of keats, while in dan simmons’ novel hyperion, the relationship between humans and nature is explored through various themes and motifs. one of the central themes is the tension between human civilization and the natural world, which is represented by the contrast between the bustling cities of earth and the untamed wilderness of mars. throughout the novel, the characters grapple with their place in this relationship, as they confront the challenges and dangers of living in a harsh, alien environment. some characters, like the shrike, embody a primal, almost connection to nature, while others, like endymion, struggle to reconcile their desire for progress and civilization with their respect for the natural world. another important aspect of the relationship between humans and nature in hyperion is the role of technology. the advanced technologies that allow humanity to travel to mars and explore its mysteries also have unintended consequences, such as polluting the environment and disrupting delicate ecosystems. this raises questions about the ethics of technological progress and its impact on the natural world. overall, hyperion presents a complex and nuanced exploration of the relationship between humans and nature, highlighting both the potential benefits and drawbacks of our interactions with the environment. conclusion this paper first introduces the research background and the significance of the topic selection, then we appreciate the beauty in john keats poetry. the next part we will analyze the impact of keats’s poetry on hyperion from five aspects, including themes, the use of language, religion, eternity and the way to explore the relationship between human and nature. all in all, john keats’s poetry offered a lot inspiration and writing techniques to the work hyperion. all these could reflect the dan simmons’ respect and appreciation to john keats. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 9 published by scholink inc. acknowledgement i would like to extend my gratitude towards my family and friends for their unwavering support and encouragement. their love and understanding have been a constant source. references barnard, j., stillinger, j., & keats, j. (1982). the poems of john keats. studies in romanticism, 21(3), 541. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/25600389 bode, c. (2000). hyperion, “the fall of hyperion”, and keats’s poetics. the wordsworth circle, 31(1), 31-37. doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/twc24044192 burden, d. h. (1992). romantic medicine and john keats. endeavour, (3), 156. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/0160-9327(92)90105-x burkett, a. (2025). eternity in british romantic poetry. european romantic review, 36(1), 167-171. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10509585.2025.2454784 cui, d. (2023). knight romance and poetic politics: keats’s inheritance and transcendence over spenser in british poetic tradition. english and american literary studies, (02), 41-53. cui, d. (2023). poetic shadow and movie reflection: a glimpse into the social folklore of the late regency of britain and the evolution of keats’ recanonization from the bright star. journal of lvliang university, (04), 23-29. deane, n. (1999). keats’s lover’s discourse and the letters to fanny brawne. the keats-shelley review, 13(1), 105-114. doi: https://doi.org/10.1179/ksr.1999.13.1.105 eaves, m., & levinson, m. (1990). keats’s life of allegory: the origins of a style. studies in romanticism, 29(3), 491. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/25600856 lindop, g. (2004). romantic poetry and the idea of the dream. the keats-shelley review, 18(1), 20-37. doi: https://doi.org/10.1179/ksr.2004.18.1.20 o’neill, m. (2016). john keats: a new life. the keats-shelley review, 30(2), 173-174. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09524142.2016.1205883 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper meta-analysis of the curvilinear relationship between rate of delivery and message persuasiveness sang-yeon kim1, mike allen1* & raymond preiss2 1 department of communication, university of wisconsin-milwaukee, milwaukee, united states 2 university of maryland university college-asia, yokota air force base, japan * mike allen, department of communication, university of wisconsin-milwaukee, milwaukee, united states received: december 21, 2018 accepted: january 14, 2019 online published: january 22, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n1p1 abstract for five decades researchers investigated whether increasing the speed of the delivery of a persuasive message produces more message comprehension and attitude change. the experimental literature on this issue appears inconsistent, with many mediating variables introduced in an effort to reconcile disparate findings. this meta-analysis seeks to determine how persuasion is influenced by the rate of message delivery. the data provide support for a curvilinear model, indicating that persuasion is maximal for moderate speech rates. results are discussed in terms of source credibility and mechanisms of message processing. keywords delivery rate, compressed speech, persuasion, curvilinear model 1. introduction two areas of application dominate the examination of the delivery rate-persuasion relationship: instructional communication and technological advances. one of the most frequent comments that instructors of public speaking make to students involves the rate of speaking. most often, the recommendation is to slow down. the basis for recommending that a speaker slow down reflects the belief that faster rates of speaking reduce comprehension of the message. fast rates may negatively affect pronunciation, organization, and emphasis, and ultimately lead to poor message comprehension. the rate-attitude change question is also important due to technological advances. digital media technology allows virtually all mediated persuaders to “time compress” messages and regulate the rate of message delivery. both audio and video delivery can be altered to “fit” available time slots or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 2 published by scholink inc. adjusted to optimize persuasive impact. these reasons are not discrete, as message comprehension is often associated with persuasion, and attitude change can result from ineffective or uncritical message processing. the majority of past studies, however, focus on the persuasive impact of speeded or compressed speech in comparison to that of a normal delivery rate. there exists a disproportionately small amount of research examining effects of messages delivered at a lower-than-normal rate. and, most importantly, no systematic observation exists encompassing the whole spectrum of delivery rates. therefore, our understanding of the rate-persuasion relationship remains only half-complete. this meta-analysis seeks to establish the rate-persuasion relationship on a broader continuum. we explore related issues including the impact of delivery rate on message comprehension and persuasion, and meta-analyses of experiments examining the persuasive effects of compressed or speeded messages. 1.1 speech rate and comprehension of interest to communication researchers focusing on social cognition is the issue of comprehending messages at various rates of presentation. the question is whether the rate of speaking increases or decreases the comprehension of a message. empirical findings are mixed or inconsistent. some studies indicate no significant differences existing among listening comprehension at various rates of speech. gill (1975) and hagaman (1976) discovered that students listening to compressed speech did no better or worse on comprehension tests than students listening to normal speech. for gill (1975), the comparison was made among 125 wpm, 174 wpm, and 223 wpm, while hagaman (1976) made comparisons between 150 wpm and 190 wpm. also, sticht (1968a) found no significant differences in recall among the compressed speech conditions ranging from 75 wpm to 222 wpm, while barabasz (1968) provides evidence that reducing the time of a college lecture by one-third through accelerated speech did not adversely impact either recall or retention. barabasz explored reducing “normal lectures” from 21 minutes to 14 minutes, and from 18 minutes to 12 minutes. overall, these studies indicate that accelerating the rate of speech does not necessarily compromise comprehension. other studies propose or demonstrate the possibility that listening comprehension would be maximal at a normal speaking rate, the rate at which a speaker reads aloud a message. sticht (1972) in particular argued that the relationship between rate of speech and listening comprehension is curvilinear. sticht maintained that listening comprehension decreases at speech rates below normal due to lack of listener attention and above normal speaking rates because extra effort is inadequate to cope with incoming information. consistently, reynolds’ (1976) and adelson’s (1975) results indicate that normal speech rate (175 wpm) is more conducive to learning than compressed speech (275 wpm). these studies propose that the optimal recall and retention is possible only at normal rates of speech around 150 wpm to 175 wpm. related research indicates a threshold in the amount of increase in speech rate that allows the listener to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 3 published by scholink inc. maintain message comprehension (i.e., threshold hypothesis). for example, nelson (1948) shows that comprehension, while varying little between adjacent speech rates, reaches the top at 125 wpm and then gradually decreases to the bottom at 225 wpm. similarly, mcconville (1982) demonstrates that the level of comprehension is similar when comparing between 275 wpm 175 wpm conditions, but plummets when compression reaches 375 wpm. sticht’s (1969) research corroborates that the rate of speech is the most powerful contributor to the decline in comprehension observed at accelerated speech rates. goldhaber and weaver (1968) consistently document a significant decrease in comprehension between the rates of 175 wpm and 325 wpm. the threshold hypothesis receives additional support. foulke (1966) demonstrates that recall decreases rapidly after 253 wpm. from a follow-up study, foulke (1968) also reports that comprehension may not be seriously affected until the word rate extends beyond 300 wpm. foulke hypothesizes that even though word intelligibility, or the ability to recognize words and phrases, remains high in both of the experiments, the reduction in perception time needed to decode the incoming information adversely effected listening comprehension. thus, these studies support the idea that normal speech enhances listening comprehension and that comprehension can only be sustained if accelerated rates are maintained below 300 wpm. several studies indicate that slower than normal rates of speech may also impede listening comprehension. sticht (1968a) documents a significant decrease in comprehension when the rate of delivery falls from 100 wpm to 75 wpm. consistently, mcconville (1982) shows a significant drop in comprehension when the speech rate declines from 175 wpm to 75 wpm. rossiter (1971) reports comprehension of compressed speech declining significantly at rates slower than 175 wpm. the focus of these studies has been on determining the “ideal” listening comprehension conditions. when a relationship appears between listening comprehension and the rate of speech, it is characterized most often by the ability to comfortably comprehend materials in the “normal” range of speech or because of the extra effort to comprehend materials presented at faster rates of speech is extended. a meta-analysis on the comprehension of compressed messages (preiss & gayle, 2006) indicates that compressed speech adversely affects listening comprehension; information retention tends to decrease as the speech rate accelerates from normal or conventional to compressed (r = -.42, k = 28, n = 3,274). collectively, the mean effect lends credence to foulke and sticht’s (1969) claim that understanding “spoken language implies the continuous registration, encoding, and storage of speech information and these operations require time” (p. 60). as the authors argue, the increased rate of speech seems to disallow enough processing time for incoming materials to ensure information retrieval. importantly, this meta-analytic evidence provides a partial support for the curvilinear or the threshold predictions. the study highlights the fast side (i.e., normal to compressed) of speech rates, completing the right half of the curvilinear model, where comprehension decreases as increases the speech rate. the left side of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 4 published by scholink inc. the model, where comprehension is projected to decline as the speech rate decelerates from normal, simply remains unsubstantiated due to lack of data. another meta-analysis covering the whole continuum of delivery rates should produce data needed to find a more definitive answer. 1.2 speech rate and persuasion scholars point out that both lower than normal and faster than normal delivery rates violate expectations and interfere with message processing (hausknecht & moore, 1986; machlachlan, 1982; see also labarbera & machlachlan, 1979), proposing a curvilinear relationship between delivery rate and attitude change. this notion corresponds to the curvilinear prediction between speech rate and comprehension as discussed above. assuming that a sustainable persuasion requires a thoughtful processing of the message arguments, both comprehension and persuasion must culminate at moderate rates of delivery provided that the message was sufficiently strong. as rate exceeds processing ability, peripheral persuasion is expected, in which elements other than argument quality (e.g., perception of the source) predict persuasibility (see hausknecht & moore, 1986). scholars interested in communication and social cognition seek to understand the perceptions and mechanisms associated with persuasive rates of delivery. early speech communication researchers noticed that dynamic or charismatic speakers gained effectiveness by using their rate of delivery strategically (e.g., dietrich, 1946) and conjectured that message processing and source perception may account for rate-based influence outcomes. faster delivery may be perceived as a marker of sincere belief or endorsement. this perception may create an expectation that the excitement in the delivery of the message reflects enthusiasm, emotionality, and commitment to the topic. scholars of speeded communication indicate the audience tends to prefer sources speaking faster than normal (e.g., hausknecht & moore, 1986). apple, streeter, and krauss (1979) observed that fast delivery is associated with perceptions of speaker competence and trustworthiness, as well as with persuasion. miller, maruyama, beaber, and valone (1976) conclude that fast talkers are perceived as being more confident in their positions on topics. while this reasoning indicates a positive relationship between rate and persuasion, it is not unbounded. extremely fast delivery may convey desperation or coercion as well as impede a clear message comprehension. similarly, a speaker talking extremely slowly may bore the audience or appear less competent than he/she actually is, with inviting unnecessary critiques. while currently there exists little empirical support for the curvilinear rate-persuasion relationship, the curvilinear prediction is not incompatible with the existing evidence supporting the positive rate-persuasion relationship. results from past studies, mostly on the impact of “speeded delivery”, only indicate that a moderately fast delivery produces more persuasion than a “normal” speech rate. whether or not a slower-than-normal or extremely slow/fast delivery rate would actually dampen source credibility and/or persuasion remains unclear. that is, the evidence supporting the positive rate-persuasion relationship might www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 5 published by scholink inc. actually be revealing only a small part of the larger picture of the curvilinear prediction. this meta-analysis examines the rate-persuasion relationship on an extended spectrum incorporating the effects involving slow delivery rates. 1.3 rq: is the association between speech rate and persuasion linear or curvilinear? 2. method collecting quantitative studies about a phenomenon and converting results into a common metric can resolve statistical inconsistencies and test for homogeneity of effects. experimental studies of speech rate, compressed speech, time compressed speech, and persuasion were retrieved using the computer-based retrieval systems eric, education abstracts, academic universe, psychinfo, dissertation abstracts, business abstracts, communication index, and communication and mass media complete. the reference section of each manuscript was searched for additional studies involving delivery rate and persuasion. three inclusion rules were applied to manuscripts. an experiment had to: (a) adopt some measure of persuasion related to the rate of speech measured in words/seconds per minute; (b) contain a quantitative estimate of the rate’s impact on persuasion; and (c) provide adequate information to allow conversion of results into a common metric for comparison. the 18 manuscripts located in the search contained separate effect sizes meeting all the criteria for the effect or rate of delivery on persuasion. 2.1 coding of studies the studies provided a comparison between two different rates of delivery (measured in words per minute) of the persuasiveness of a message. studies that used more than one rate of delivery allowed for multiple comparisons. the comparisons use the particular rate of words per minute to indicate a fast or slow rate of presentation. each acceptable manuscript was coded for the year published, the word per minute comparison, and the number of participants. a total of 44 rate-persuasion comparisons were identified (for the summary of data, see table 1). the summary statistics of each study were converted to product-moment correlations so that the magnitude of outcomes attributable to delivery rate could be standardized across studies. the correlations were weighted for sample size and then averaged using a random effects model described by hunter and schmidt (2014). a χ2 test was conducted to determine if the variance in the observed sample correlations exceed that expected by random sampling error (hedges & olkin, 1985). a statistically non-significant result indicates that the amount of variability is probably by chance, whereas a significant result suggests a potential existence of a moderator as a systematic cause of the variability. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 6 published by scholink inc. table 1. effects included in the meta-analysis (k = 44) author* year wpm (slow) wpm (fast) r n dietrich 1946 165 185 .387 760 mack 1970 153 180 .174 120 1970 153 218 .180 120 1970 153 278 -.127 120 1970 180 218 .006 120 1970 180 278 -.180 120 1970 218 270 -.174 120 wheeless 1971 145 296 -.054 296 gunderson 1976 125 150 0 229 miller 1976 102 195 .503 359 1976 111 140 .294 60 1976 111 190 .294 60 1976 140 190 .294 60 woodall 1978 161 179 -.040 247 maclachlan 1978 150 187 .564 222 ritter 1982 150 187 -.028 120 schlinger 1983 160 192 -.250 240 nickell 1984 150 175 .166 40 1984 150 200 .166 40 1984 150 225 -.220 40 1984 175 200 .166 40 1984 175 225 -.220 40 1984 200 225 -.220 40 hausknecht 1986 165 215 .067 160 1986 165 264 .067 160 1986 215 264 -.067 160 moore 1986 137 178 .128 160 1986 137 219 .128 160 1986 178 219 .128 160 vann 1987 173 190 .251 40 1987 173 207 .209 40 1987 173 224 -.167 40 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 7 published by scholink inc. 1987 190 207 -.251 40 1987 190 224 -.167 40 1987 207 224 -.167 40 kittle 1989 153 172 .106 60 1989 153 191 .159 60 1989 172 191 .051 60 smith 1991 144 182 .118 66 1991 144 214 .236 66 1991 182 214 -.118 66 smith 1995 180 220 .176 94 mcgehee 1996 163 226 -.072 240 lucia 1998 111 201 .053 120 *only the first author is listed. see references for complete citations. the prediction that the relationship is curvilinear was examined by establishing the correlation between the median speech rate (i.e., [wpm of the “fast” condition—wpm of the “slow” condition] / 2 + wpm in the “slow” condition) and the size of persuasion. given the prediction, the two variables must be inversely related; the manipulation would initially return a large positive effect when the speech was read relatively slowly in both conditions because the “slow” speech would be perceived to be usually slow; the size of the effect should decrease to zero as increases the wpm for both treatment conditions which should be perceived to be similarly moderate; and finally, the effect starts to reverse in direction and intensify in size as accelerates the wpm for both conditions to an extreme because the speech read in the ‘fast’ condition must be perceived to be too fast to comprehend. 3. results the overall analysis involving 44 heterogeneous set of estimates (χ2[43, n = 5,645] = 286.43, p < .05) indicates that faster rates of presentation are associated with increased persuasiveness of the message, = .114, n = 5,645. a subsequent analysis tested the predicted curvilinear relationship between the median wpm and the effect size. the sample size and the induction strength (i.e., “fast” wpm—“slow” wpm) were also added to the linear equation to isolate the unique impact for median wpm on persuasion. consistent with the prediction, the median wpm had an ample negative effect for persuasion, β = –.588, p < .001 (note 1). neither the sample size (β = .225, p = .08) nor the induction strength (β = .074, p = .57) had a statistically significant impact for the outcome at level α = .05. as figure 1 (left) illustrates, the effects (a) start out ample positive for lower median wpms, mainly occupying quadrant ii of the plane, (b) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 8 published by scholink inc. retreat close to the zero point for moderate median wpms near around 181, the median wpm of the entire sample, (c) and then recover the power, this time in the opposite direction, with filling quadrant iv, as the median wpms increase even further. figure 1. date scatterplot figure explanation: scatter plots predicting the observed effects from median speech rates (md, left) and from a new variable reproduced to follow a curvilinear model (d, right). the black vertical dotted line (left) indicates the median speech rate (wpm = 181) of the entire sample. n = sample size. d = distance in wpm or induction strength (i.e., “fast” wpm—“slow” wpm). the dashed white line summarizes the pattern in a linear function. the shaded area represents the ci95% region. in an attempt to document more definitive evidence, we created a new predictor of the observed effects. to the extent that the relationship between speech rate and persuasion is indeed curvilinear, persuasion must culminate at the inflection point (i.e., median wpm = 181) such that moderate speech rates return the optimum persuasion, and the level of persuasion declines as the speech rate deviates from the point in either directions. given the curvilinear assumption, the new predictor (d) is a function of (a) the respective distance of the slow and the fast wpm from the optimum point of 181 wpm (i.e., effect size) and (b) the slope obtained by connecting their (i.e., “slow” and “fast”) points projected onto the curvilinear function (i.e., direction of the effect); the slope becomes positive (negative) when the fast (slow) wpm is closer to the median, and zero when the slow and the fast wpms are away from the median equally. according this rule, for example, a study that compared 141 wpm and 171 wpm returns www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 9 published by scholink inc. d = +30; ||171-181| |141-181|| = 30, and the slope is positive because 171 (fast wpm) is closer to 181, or more persuasive than 141 (slow wpm) (note 2). the curvilinear model should return zero if a speaker was communicating at a slow rate of 161 wpm and a fast rate of 201 wpm because each rate is 20 wpm off of the optimum in the opposite direction. to the extent that the curvilinear prediction is true, this new variable (d) must correlate positively with the observed effects. to test the hypothesis, a linear equation was established, in which d, induction strength, and sample size independently predict the observed effects. consistent with the prediction, d had an ample, positive impact on observed effects β = .607, p < .001. the impact of same size (β = .222, p = .08) and that of induction strength (β = .124, p = .35) were statistically ignorable (see for illustration figure 2, right). figure 2. curvilinear display of analysis figure explanation: a curvilinear mechanism used to reproduce the effects. the model considers 5 possible conditions; in a and b, the fast speech rate is closer to the optimum wpm (md = 181) than the slow speech rate, creating a positive slope, hence the effect must be positive; when the slope reaches zero as in c (i.e., the fast and the slow speech rates are away from the optimum wpm by the same amount), so must be the effect because persuasibility of both the “slow’ and the ‘fast” conditions are equally less optimal; d and e consider the opposite situations of b and a, respectively, that is, as the slope turns negative, the slow speech rate becomes closer to the optimum wpm than the fast speech rate, hence the effect must be negative. importantly, it should be noted that, due to the symmetric nature of the curvilinear assumption, a' and a'' represent an equally non-optimal persuasion. therefore, the two www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 10 published by scholink inc. effects (i.e., a – a' and a – a'') remain indistinguishable in the current model. mathematically, the effect is calculated following: d = | slow wpm – 181 | – | fast wpm – 181 | for positive slopes (fast wpm closer to 181) = –1 × (| fast wpm – 181 | – | slow wpm – 181 |) for negative slopes (slow wpm closer to 181) = 0 for zero slope (fast and slow wpms equally distanced from 181) current results indicate a curvilinear relationship between the rate of speaking and the persuasiveness of the message. that is, as the speech rate increases, so does the attitude change up to a point where it levels off and then starts to diminish as the speech rate accelerates further. 4. discussion the curvilinear test received strong support in this meta-analysis. distance from the 181 wpm inflection point was strongly associated with persuasion. this curvilinear model predicts persuasion based on the extent to which the baseline rate is approached or exceeded in either directions. essentially, the inflection point of 181 wpm seems to reflect the upper end of the normal speaking rate; the persuasiveness of the message improves as a speaker increases from a low wpm up to about 181 wpm, and further increases in speaking rate starts hampering the persuasiveness of the message. the homogeneity test indicates the presence of possible moderator variables. although we were unable to isolate the moderator(s), it may be that the prediction is operating on certain topics or for receivers of certain demographics only. future studies are recommended to extend the current one by including more contextual variables for analysis (e.g., recipient demographics, topics, anti-, pro-social, or commercial). future research needs to examine why the curvilinear relationship exists. one explanation was that faster speaking reduces the ability to comprehend or understand the arguments. at some point, the rate of speaking approaches a speed that a person, particularly unaccustomed to such rates, can no longer comprehend. the failure of high rates of delivery to be more persuasive may simply reflect the inability to process the information. a second explanation may deal with the perception of the message situation. unusually fast rates are often associated colloquially with deception or dishonesty, “fast talking salesman”. a listener may understand the argument but react negatively because a very high rate may incur feelings of deception. unlike the moderately fast rate that may indicate excitement and intensity, a faster rate may generate negative thoughts about the speaker. future research needs to evaluate the nature of the perceptual issues that may explain the manner in which the message becomes less persuasive at higher/lower rates of delivery. the current meta-analysis does not address or directly consider what perceptual changes are taking place in the mind of a set of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 11 published by scholink inc. message receivers when one compares messages. essentially, the changed rate of presentation creates a different set of reactions that ultimately mediate the outcome of attitude change. this meta-analysis provides no direct evidence about the nature of the process that should be taking place to generate the particular outcomes. rate-persuasion studies should be designed to include source perceptions and comprehension as fundamental variables. the results may help clarify whether the rate-induced attitude change takes comprehension-based or credibility-based mechanism or some combination of both. the results from the meta-analysis favor the curvilinear model. while moderators may affect actual persuasion, the baseline rate provided a threshold that governed persuasion. approaching the expected, conversational rate was associated with greater attitude change. rates lower or higher than this inflection point were associated with less attitude change. this insight offers opportunities for exploring several competing explanations for the rate-persuasion relationship. references adelson, l. (1975). comprehension by college students of time-compressed lectures. the journal of experimental education, 44, 53-60. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.1975.11011513 apple, w., streeter, l. a., & krauss, r. m. (1979). effects of pitch and speech rate on personal attributions. journal of personality and social psychology, 37, 715-727. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.5.715 barabasz, a. f. (1968). a study of recall and retention of accelerated lecture presentation. journal of communication, 18, 283-287. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1968.tb00077.x dietrich, j. e. (1946). the relative effectiveness of two modes of radio delivery in influencing attitudes. speech monographs, 13, 154-158. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637754609374901 foulke, e. (1966). comparison of comprehension of two forms of compressed speech. exceptional children, 33, 169-173. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440296603300305 foulke, e. 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(1968a). some interactions of speech rate, signal distortion, and certain linguistic factors in listening comprehension. george washington university, alexandria, va. report number humrro-pp-39-68 (eric document reproduction service no. ed 099932). https://doi.org/10.1037/e424832004-001 sticht, t. g. (1969). learning by listening in relation to aptitude, reading, and rate-controlled speech. humbro technical report 69-23 (eric document reproduction service no. ed 037666). https://doi.org/10.21236/ad0701150 sticht, t. g. (1972). learning by listening. in v. h. winston’s (ed.), language comprehension and the acquisition of knowledge (pp. 285-314). new york: wiley press. vann, j. w., rogers, r. d., & penrod, j. p. (1987). the cognitive effects of time-compressed advertising. journal of advertising, 16, 10-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.1987.10673072 wheeless, l. r. (1971). some effects of time-compressed speech on persuasion. journal of broadcasting, 15, 415-420. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838157109363661 woodall, w. g., & burgoon, j. k. (1984). talking fast and changing attitudes: a critique and clarification. journal of nonverbal behavior, 8, 126-142. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00986999 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 14 published by scholink inc. notes note 1. the same result was upheld when the predictor variable was replaced by points randomly selected between the “slow” wpm and the “fast” wpm. note 2. the curvilinear model is symmetric and thus considers the distance in absolute terms. that is, in the current model, 171 wpm and 191 wpm are equally less persuasive than the optimum, and hence indistinguishable. the same outcome would result when we had the fast wpm of 191 and the slow wpm of 141. see the notes under figure 2 for more detailed explanation. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 118 original paper toxic & hegemonic masculinity, gender stereotypes & resonance: the problematic snickers’ “get some nuts” ad campaign satrajit ghosh chowdhury1, victoria lapoe1* & craig davis1 1 e. w. scripps school of journalism, ohio university, athens, oh, usa * (correspondence author) victoria lapoe, e. w. scripps school of journalism, ohio university, athens, oh, usa all authors contributed equally received: august 13, 2019 accepted: august 24, 2019 online published: september 5, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n3p118 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n3p118 abstract this paper discusses the ethical implications of the snickers’ ad campaign, “get some nuts”. through priming, framing, race, gender and sexuality stereotypes, researchers explore cultural resonance and hegemonic ideologies within this ad. in this study, close to 200 students examined separate international ethical standards toward this 30-second commercial starring mr. t. student comments collected indicated that implicit racist, sexist and homophobic lenses resonated and caused ethical concerns. keywords toxic, gender, sexuality, race, lgbtq+ and advertisements 1. introduction on august 14, 2019, the advertising standards agency (asa) of the united kingdom exercised a change; the same ethics board, which remained silent because it considered a 2008 snickers ad with the tagline “get some nuts” to be in good humor, removed two ads that perpetuated stereotypes. both 2019 ads, one for volkswagen and the other for philadelphia cream cheese, stereotyped traditional gender roles—showing adventurous males, clueless dads and a caretaking woman. when banning the two ads, asa stated, “we did not consider that the use of humour in the ad mitigated the effect of the harmful stereotype” (picheta, 2019, para. 9). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 119 published by scholink inc. eleven years earlier, asa held a different attitude toward gendered stereotypes. on july 13, 2008, snickers aired a 30 second tv commercial starring mr. t in his full sergeant bosco b. a. (short for bad attitude) baracus mode; a character he famously played in the 1980s series the a-team. this ad aired in the united kingdom and germinated from the campaign tagline—“get some nuts”, derived from its usual, award-winning theme, “you’re not you when you’re hungry” (elliot, 2013; miller, 2016). the mr. t ad aired as follows: the scene opens with a male-presenting speed walker on the side of a neighborhood road. suddenly mr. t appears, on the back of a flatbed truck, armed with a snickers-firing machine gun, drives through a suburb and starts to growl at him. mr. t says, “speed walking? i pity you fool! you [sic] a disgrace to the man race. it’s time to run like a real man!” mr. t starts to shoot snickers’ bars at the speed walker, “take that speed walker! do it again sucker and that’s gonna [sic] be trouble with a capital mr. t!” as the speed-walker starts to run like the implied way a real man should run, mr. t looks at the camera and echoes the tagline, “get some nuts” (sweney, 2008a). this paper intentionally explores these older ads, as students may not be familiar with them, to examine students’ feelings toward international advertising and ethics—examining cues understood in terms of gender and sexuality stereotyping. the commercial with mr. t and the speed walker was one of the three ads (macleod, 2009) in the campaign that decreed upon its viewers, what acting like a man really means and the answer for those who don’t, should get some nuts. a pr blitz followed the ad campaign—one in particular where mr. t unveils his “top 10 must do’s” for becoming more of a man in that summer of 2008 (sweney, 2008a). mars, incorporated, the u.s. based confectionary giant, pulled off the ad fifteen days after its first airing, even though it did not air yet in the u.s. and it received almost no complaints or backlash in the u.k. (sweney, 2008b). the advertising standards authority in the u.k. said that during the campaign’s run, they only received two complaints and hence, did not investigate the commercial for a breach of advertising code (sweney, 2008b). the us-based human rights campaign (hrc), the largest lgbtq+ advocacy group in the country, released a statement saying that the ad condones violence against lgbtq+ community and those who don’t conform to the idea of perceived masculinity (sky news, 2008, p. 2). bob garfield, a columnist for advertising age, published an open letter to omnicon president jim wren, asking immediate action against the ad (garfield, 2008). hegemonic construction of masculinity the homogenized notions of masculinity arise from hegemonic constructions of masculinity. marxist thinker and writer, antonio gramsci (1995) was the first to develop the concept of hegemony. on cultural hegemony, gramsci proposed that members of a ruling class or group in an attempt to exercise their power will suppress ideas and norms that go against the established norms. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 120 published by scholink inc. gramsci’s concept of hegemony is the basis for hegemonic masculinity, which enforces restrictions in behavior based on gender roles which favor the dominance of the masculine culture practiced by the majority of men (connell & messerschmidt, 2005; courtenay, 2000; parent, gobble, & rochlen, 2018). resonance of formulated myths of masculinity are deeply imbued in cultural framework, where gender binary and its related actions are a part of the cultural resonance. cultural resonance and myths are “interpretative toolkits that media and individuals use to narrate stories while explaining reality, promoting the values perceived as important to society, and reinforcing negative images of a group” (lapoe, b. r., lapoe, v. l., berkowitz, & bemker, 2018, p. 117). scholars first began discussing the concept of hegemonic masculinity, masculinity and its definition and the experience of men’s bodies through their field studies of gender inequality in australian high schools (connell & messerschmidt, 2005; kessler et al., 1982). deriving their concept of hegemony from gramsci, connell and messerschmidt (2005) says, “hegemony did not mean violence, although it could be supported by force; it meant ascendency achieved through culture, institutions, and persuasion” (p. 832). hence, hegemonic masculinity defines a particular construct of being an honorable man and forces or persuades all other men to follow that construct ignoring the complexities and fluidities that lies in the core of male identity (gutmann, 1996). fluidity in masculine identity several critics of hegemonic masculinity have argued that this singular, holistic approach to male identity is flawed as it cardinally imposes a construct of the character of men and determines a false sense of unity, when reality is fluid and contradictory (petersen, 2003). the concept of masculinity is primarily defined on the biological dichotomy of sex; however, the resonance must also occur through the cultural defined aspects and fluidity (connell & messerschmidt, 2005; kimmel, 2004). commenting on the whole construct of “boys-will-be-boys”, messner (2004) observes that not only gender and male identity, but race also plays an important role in defining hegemonic masculinity, that which is perpetuated and accepted. “hegemonic masculinity is a malleable symbolic strategy for wielding power” (messner, 2007, p. 478) and hence, like any form of bigotry, works only in favor of the conventionally defined straight-white-males (messner, 2004, 2007). creating a mental construct: priming effects of media when transformed to the platform of media, priming affects people’s cognition and subsequent behavior or judgements related to media content. hence, priming is an “effect of some preceding stimulus or event on how we react…to subsequent stimulus” (roskos-ewoldsen, d. r., roskos-ewoldsen, b., & carpentier, 2002, p. 97). media, in this sense acts as a prime, or an agent activating stimulus event that affects a pre-activated knowledge structure/s (bargh, 1989; pechmann, 2001). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 121 published by scholink inc. mass media coverage and presentations has the potential to activate particular cognitions, a mental construct, that promotes evaluation of other social elements, concepts and ideas (domke, shah, & wackman, 1998). schema theory, hence, suggests that the information processing or the evaluation that goes behind the reinterpretation of the mental construct that builds their cognitive knowledge structure, is connected to perception of the environment. the activation of the mental construct allows schema to act as a raw material (or provide a cue) to facilitate the shaping and processing of the information gathered, and its evaluation. this helps the individual to understand their surrounding social environment (fiske & taylor, 1991; graber, 1988). cognitive structures are temporally bound, which means that their activation depends on contextual cues and they remain accessible for a certain period of time; however, there is a positive relationship between the frequency of the contextual cues and the time period of accessibility (wyer & srull, 2014). higher the frequency of the cues, higher the time period of the structures to stay in the cognition. rather than forming a judgement based on their whole memory of knowledge, people tend to rely on these particular cognitive structures as they are easily accessible when activated by a contextual, familiar cue (iyengar & kinder, 1987). spreading activation and mental models information and knowledge forms cognitive structures that are stored in memory in the form of nodes. these nodes are interrelated and helps to construct a concept. an activation threshold is connected to these nodes and when the activation level exceeds the threshold it triggers other connected concepts accordingly. psychology describes this phenomenon as spreading activation in network models of memory (roskos-ewoldsen, d. r., roskos-ewoldsen, b., & carpentier, 2002). for example, if the node that stores the brand name chevrolet is activated, there is a high probability that the node related to car will also be activated. spreading activation works to minimize the activation threshold for other related nodes—closer the relation, lower is the activation threshold. framing and priming how the media disseminates its information; how it’s framed and presented has a significant influence over human consciousness (entman, 1993; price, tewksbury, & powers, 1995). entman defines framing as selection “of some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation” of the intended information (1993, p. 52). this presentation leads to the creation of individual frames, which mentally stored as clusters of ideas that helps individuals process information (entman, 1993; scheufele, 1999). framing of media content acts a prime to activate some preceding stimulus and process the information based on that stimulus. a relation between the two exists as priming helps to create a mental construct and framing helps to create the prime (roskos-ewoldsen, d. r., roskos-ewoldsen, b., & carpentier, 2002; entman, 1993). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 122 published by scholink inc. a number of socio-structural or organizational variables influence the framing of information, news or event at a mass media level (shoemaker & reese, 1996). however, at individual level an ideological variable may contribute towards framing of information (tuchman, 1978). in the fourth stage of media effects, mass media have a strong impact in constructing social reality by “framing images of reality…in a predictable and patterned way” (mcquail, 1994, p. 331). this property of social constructivism that comes with media framing has the potential to reinforce and resonate stereotypes. cultural resonance and priming stereotypes social constructivism caused by media framing and influence, depends mainly on media’s transmission of certain ideologies related to familiar cultural themes that resonate with audience’s existing perception of the environment. mass media select and construct cultural themes to give coherent meaning (ettema, 2005; shomaker & reese, 1996). this external construct of meaning, at media level, works the same way as mental construct of meaning at an individual level (domke, shah, & wackman, 1998). when both these levels match or become similar, the message resonates to produce socio-cultural and traditional symbols (iyengar & kinder, 1987). schudson (1989) hence, identifies resonance as a dimension of aphoristic cultural power where it (resonance) “is not a private relation between cultural object and individual, not even a social relation between cultural object and audience, but a public and cultural relation among object, tradition and audience” (p. 170). salient social constructs in memory, can also give rise to an individual’s information processing, where that person scans everything he/she/they sees through the constructs that already exists in knowledge. stereotyping rises from these constructs as media constructs tend to affect “knowledge structures linking a social group to a set of traits or behavioral characteristics” (hamilton & sherman, 1994, p. 3). from this, pechmann’s (2001) “stereotyping priming model” emerges. the model indicates that people who are exposed to related primes are far more likely to judge targets on stereotypic traits, as perceived on some other media construct earlier; and they will treat those targets accordingly. scholars have conducted a number of studies on the effect of priming on reinforcing stereotypes: priming men to sexist videos to activate their sexist attitude towards women (rudman & bordiga, 1995); effects of consumer-rich television programs on adult students and their construction of social reality through them (o’guinn & shrum, 1997); and effects of antisocial rock music videos on subsequent antisocial behavior in youths (hansen & hansen, 1990). studies have also found that a celebrity endorser will produce more positive responses from consumers, create more resonance, than a non-celebrity endorser would (atkin & block, 1983; petty & cacioppo, 1983). celebrities tend to transfer meaning to the products or brands (mccracken, 1989) by reflecting their own personalities to that product or the brand (kaikati, 1987). the commercial, hence, attracts attention, remains memorable and the product becomes credible and desirable (spielman, 1981). the prominent culture in which celebrities gain their status provides symbolic meanings and values to their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 123 published by scholink inc. stature (mccracken, 1989). hence, in a way, choice of a particular celebrity endorser for a commercial is a strategic move to bring in the symbolic meanings attached to him/her/them that ultimately “mirrors the fundamental cultural orientations and values of that society” (choi, lee, & kim, 2005, p. 86). cultural orientations and values are apparent in advertising strategies. studies have shown advertising messages that conform dominant cultural norms, tend to be more persuasive than those that go against the relative cultural values or norms (cho et al., 1999; han & shavitt, 1994; taylor, miracle, & wilson, 1997). it is, thus, easier to conform to existing biases, stereotypes and hegemony than to contradict them. this study examines audience perception of stereotypical portrayals of (non) masculinity in a 30 second commercial of snickers starring mr. t. more formally, this study seeks to answer the following research questions: rq1: in what ways do college students view and process a historical advertisement in the present socio-cultural context, considering the ever-changing advertising landscape? rq2: what does the resonance of stereotypes imply about inter-gender, race and sexuality relations in society? 2. method this study begins with a qualitative conceptual analysis of the snickers advertisement broadcasted in 2008 in the united kingdom, starring mr. t. the goal of this qualitative analysis is to understand how media primes the cognition of its audience through framing its content in a way that creates resonance and ultimately reaffirms stereotyping (hansen & hansen, 1990; o’guinn & shrum, 1997; pechmann, 2001, rudman & bordiga, 1995). the themes that the researchers tackle in this study mainly includes hegemonic masculinity and reinforcing a singular idea of masculinity or manhood, discriminating against everyone else who exists beyond that stated gender norms. as altheide (1996) once stated, the goal of qualitative research is to recognize the processes and characters of social life and to find a sort of meaning about it. the researchers used ettema’s (2005) approach of analyzing and identifying figurative language used in the snickers advertisement. moreover, berkowitz (2005) used a similar qualitative approach to his longitudinal study of symbols and motifs embedded in news content. he showed that frequent repetitions of certain narratives can lead to its adoption in general cognition. this study also conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of student comments in a large mid-western university—examining the advertisement and its international ethical implications if the ad aired in 2018. hence, in the spring 2018, researchers separated students into two groups—one was to follow the american advertising federation principles and practices for advertising ethics (institute for advertising ethics, 2011) and the other followed the british code of advertising practice (the bcap www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 124 published by scholink inc. code, 2010). students watched the ad, received a handout with the code of ethics, and responded on a sheet of paper if they would air the ad—and why—based on the code of ethics they were following. following the exercise, students, who were not briefed on this ad, noted they were not aware of the public controversy surrounding this ad, which aired several years earlier. this research included 193 respondents, out of which 96 students (49.74%) replied for u.s. ethical standards and 97 students (50.26%) replied for u.k. ethical standards. 3. results our first research question dealt with college students’ processing of ethics in entertainment driven advertising. majority of students, who participated in the survey (almost 61%), said that mars should’ve discontinued the advertisement. the primary issue that the students had with the advertisement was that it was unethical in its portrayal of the speed walker as “less of a man” and the violence used in the commercial to convert him to a real man: “...the way in which the commercial was filmed didn’t serve high ethical standards”. one respondent noted: ethical standards are put in place so that the media stays honest and neutral to serve the public. they should treat all consumers fairly. by seeing this commercial it is easy for people to identify that the commercial was unfair to a minority group. the violence used to make a real man out of the speed walker has also been a cause for concern, according to these students: “i would justify discontinuing the television commercial because of all the controversy going on pertaining to gay, lesbian, etc. not to mention the violent presence in the commercial is very offensive here in the u.s. currently”. the commercial used violence against the speed walker to make him more manly-stereotyping the concept of manhood and masculinity, as one student said, “it advocates for violence against feminine men”. another one says that, “the ad does promote a sense of violence and discrimination against a type of group of people…” stereotyping of men and/or “real men” students discussed concerns with the advertisement for it primes and fuel stereotypes, as many remarked, “...it offensively goes along with stereotypes and calls people out on being different...” and “it emphasizes negative masculine stereotypes. it also suggests that the man is ‘a disgrace’ due to his implied sexuality”. commenting on the advertisement’s framing of speed walking as a feminine, non-masculine trait, one student noted that such message can “send out the idea that any man who show feminine quality is not as much of a man as [a] more masculine man [would be]. therefore, i would discontinue the ad”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 125 published by scholink inc. language used in the commercial also became a factor for the students as one stated that he would lobby to discontinue the ad “because of the offensive language used in the ad. ‘run like a real man’. this is insinuating the speed walker was not a ‘real man’, in the eyes of the society and he shouldn’t be speed walking because it questions his masculinity”. arguing for the discontinuation of the advertisement, one student says something similar: “it implies that men who aren’t super macho should be hurt; that is offensive to those who are not...this ad does not serve the public”. the commercial’s judgement on how to act as a man—on how to be a real man raises the concern for ethical fairness in inclusivity and promoting healthy self-image. “this relates to when the guy in the truck tells the guy running, ‘disgrace to man’s race’. one cannot judge another by the way one runs”, a student observes. students vented about the advertisement, noting it violates the freedom of an individual to act freely and be themselves and employs violence to mold them to the hegemonic concept of masculinity: it suggested that violence and hyper-masculinity was encouraged to force another human into acting “normal”. whether or not this ad resembled homosexuals or not, it violated their right to freedom or to act as they please. forcing another to act a certain way or dress or run a certain way can suggest inferiority and conformity, which can lead to increased discrimination against minorities. students also perceived that “the ad essentially portrays men who have what society has determined as more feminine qualities as less of a man, and that is morally wrong”. besides the fact that the advertisement “portrays certain stereotypes in a negative light…it could possibly encourage someone to make bad or harmful choices that they typically wouldn’t”. use of dominancy and violence to impose mainstream characteristics is the root to toxic and hegemonic masculinity (connell & messerschmidt, 2005). toxic masculinity in implications while promoting a conceived idea on how to act as a real man, the commercial inadvertently crossed the boundaries of toxic masculinity. toxic masculinity mushrooms on the spectrum of real manliness (messner, 2007). as a student wrote, “the ad caters to toxic masculinity”. by questioning the masculinity of the speed walker, the ad’s creators, through humor, perpetrates the notion that his action was not masculine—that he wasn’t acting the way a man should act. the problematic approach of the commercial, supplies a medium for social construction of masculinity—what to accept and what to reject. society is already brimming with stereotypes like this, where people who don’t conform to gender binary more often than not, faces discrimination and hatred. the advertisement adds more fuel to that conversation by priming gender binary norms and ultimately strengthening stereotypes (pechmann, 2001). a resonance, is thus, created from these priming stereotypes, however, acceptance of these stereotypes and taking offense is a subjective matter. subjectivity is “the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 126 published by scholink inc. herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world” (weedon, 1987, p. 32). the personal interests and values—being attached to one’s own emotion and preferences—that guides subsequent action and evaluation (bloom, 1996; smith, 1993). continuation and subjective interpretation students present prudent argument on dealing with the ethics of the advertisement based on any report that it might receive. students said that, “if enough people reported the commercial for its content or its effects on its viewers, the ad should be reviewed and if found offensive discontinued”. one even felt that the ad was “harmless and humorous rather than offensive”. some students also pointed out that u.s.-based human rights campaign (hrc), in itself, perpetrated stereotype of the lgbtq+ community by making out the speed walker to be gay. this is significant as the whole rationale about pulling the ad lies in hrc saying that it was offensive to the lgbtq+ community. as one writes, “the ethical standards in the u.k. need[s] evidence to link speed walking and homosexuality, [otherwise] the commercial should keep running.” while another student says, “there is nowhere in the commercial that says the man fast walking is gay in the first place”. even though these students argue for the continuation, they also reflect on the framing of the language used in the commercial. general consensus agrees that it is better to cut down on the ethically offensive message in the advertisement. one student note, “i would take out the sentence about being a real man, because i think that’s the main argument on why the ad is offensive”. another one says that he “would discontinue running the advertisement because there is violence towards the speed walker and is told to ‘run like a real man’, which can be offensive to homosexuals and/or women”. similarly, “there are other stipulations regarding the issue of sex and gender issues. even though it isn’t specifically implied that the man running is a product of discrimination, there is still the slogan that resonates ‘get some nuts’”. race and stereotypes however, one underlying meaning that this advertisement primes is regarding race representation. the overarching theme of the commercial has been toxic and hegemonic masculinity, and using an african american man behind the machine gun, opens door for further evaluation. using a black man to promote violence is sure to activate mental constructs that is already lined with social constructs of stigmatized african american men with acts of violence (entman, 1994; ramasubramanian, 2007). students also discusses this kind of stereotypes: “mr. t is black and violent in the commercial which is a large stereotype of african americans today so they may find this ad offensive. also, he is bullying the speed walker which is a frowned upon act today”. this kind of stereotyping creates social constructs, which transforms to mental constructs and stored in our memory as nodes. these nodes require small effect of media priming and framing to get activated. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 127 published by scholink inc. once activated they reinforces existing stereotypes and creates resonance. the positioning of a black man behind the machine gun, which is an already stigmatized racial group, could have greater cognitive repercussion compared to a white man in the same position (messner, 2007). 4. discussion our qualitative analysis suggests that when reviewing, students found the commercial offensive, but still relied on the number of complaints made to the advertising standards agency (asa) in 2008. the main issue appeared to be: the commercial poked fun at those who do not conform to the norms of traditional masculinity. also, the advertisement condones the use of violence to convert men to real men. what is more concerning is that the advertisement when it aired in united kingdom in 2008, only received two complaints (sweney, 2008b), while a month prior to this amv bbdo, the same ad agency that made the snickers commercial, created an ad for heinz deli mayo which showed two dads kissing received 213 complaints. the heinz deli mayo ad was consequently pulled off the air because of the number of complaints it received (advertising educational foundation, 2018). within this study, the researchers believe this discrepancy may be rooted in the concepts of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. the snickers ad starring mr. t received only two complaints possibly because the ad confirms the audience’s preconceived notions and ideas about masculinity (nickerson, 1998)—feeding into their existing biases. whereas, the heinz deli mayo ad goes against generally accepted societal norms that is rich in hegemonic masculinity, which censures all other forms of men and masculinity, creating cognitive dissonance (festinger, 1957). this kind of negative portrayal of lgbtq+ people has been widely accepted by the general consensus. lgbtq+ community now, not only includes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, but has extended to include and embrace one and all, especially those who do not conform to the gender binaries (nowakowski, 2017); however, violence against this community has been in a steady rise. according to fbi reports of 2017, the percentage of attacks has remained the same, even after ten years. moreover, 60% of these attacks targeted gay men, the highest in the category by 35 percentage points (fitzsimons, 2018). similarly, in a survey conducted in 2013 among a population of 1,197 lgbtq+ adults, 58% of the respondent said that they are a constant target of slurs and jokes due to their sexuality (pew research center, 2013). these statistics are important to report as this study sought to answer how stereotypes regarding toxic masculinity builds and propagates. the majority of students (61%) said that they would discontinue the advertisement. these students appeared to understand the unethical message of the commercial and condemned the whole idea of the use of violence to convert a man to a real man. however, 39% of the students still said that they would continue the ad if it were to be broadcasted today. given that a majority of the students said that they would discontinue, we can realize how the landscape of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 128 published by scholink inc. perception has changed. recently, as we stated earlier, asa received 125 complaints from viewers in united kingdom regarding a philadelphia cream cheese advertisement showing two hapless dads and a volkswagen advertisement depicting men as overachievers and women in stereotypical caregiving roles (picheta, 2019). the number of complaints is overwhelming and it shows that the landscape of media representation and its perception and acceptance has changed. a necessary step towards social recognition. conventional form of masculinity has implemented its roots in social cognition. the gender dichotomy fails to be inclusive and hence create discrimination against those who do not conform, in this widely diversifying world. pew research center in 2017 (parker, horowitz, & stepler, 2017a) reported that 53% of the american population said that they look up to men who are manly or masculine compared to only 7% who doesn’t. two-thirds of men (68%) and 60% of the population said that this idolization of masculinity is a good and positive thing (parker, horowitz, & stepler, 2017a). the same data also revealed men observes personality traits like “emotional”, “feeling”, and “vulnerable” negatively. they do have a mixed view on “caring”, where the scale is split 50-50 on that trait (walker, blallk, & van kessel, 2018). about six-in-ten adults say that there is too little emphasis on encouraging boys to talk about their feelings (parker, horowitz, & stepler, 2017b), whereas, more than eight-in-ten men say that they face pressure to be emotionally strong (horowitz, 2019). while conceptualizing a masculine trait imbued with care, elliot (2016, p. 252) says that “caring masculinities can be seen as masculine identities that exclude domination and embrace the affective, relational, emotional, and interdependent qualities of care identified by feminist theorists of care”. in a first-of-its-kind, american psychological association issued guidelines to help psychologists work with men and boys (pappas, 2019). the guidelines indicated a number of fragmentations in male gender identity especially the existence of multiple masculinities. the development took the researchers 13 years, drawing from 40 years of research, to publish these guidelines. the guidelines said that a clinician’s role should be “to encourage men to discard the harmful ideologies of traditional masculinity (violence, sexism) and find flexibility in the potential positive aspects (courage, leadership)” (pappas, 2019, para. 33). apa asserts on the flexibility of manliness, the same tough demeanor that has the power to save a soldier’s life in battlefield can destroy the domestic life with a romantic partner or a child (pappas, 2019). apa also said that the ideas and notions of traditional masculinity harms marginalized groups who don’t conforms to those ideals and stereotypes. these men are bullied or attacked by other men and boys. queer men, trans men and asian men are stereotypically considered to be un-masculine to a point of societally-define feminine and this often leads to psychological distress (berlatsky, 2019; pappas, 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 129 published by scholink inc. meanwhile, within the advertising industry, changes are occurring in terms of representation. in january 2019, gillette, the grooming brand, published its new ad campaign with the tagline “is this the best a man can get?” the one minute and 48 second advertisement addressed issues like toxic masculinity, sexual harassment and cat calling under the thick cloud of #metoo era (kelly, 2019). moreover, lgbtq+ community and households are now considered an essential target audience for advertisers and tv show producers (koblin, 2019). with the increase in the audience size, strategies are being developed and promoted for niche entrepreneurs to target and influence lgbtq+ consumers (el hazzouri, main, & sinclair, 2019; hrc, n.d.; schneider & auten, 2018). studies suggests that intergroup contact typically reduces intergroup prejudices (patchen, 1999; pettigrew & tropp, 2006). this is the concept of intergroup contact theory (pettigrew & tropp, 2006). in other words, the more there is an amalgamation of two groups who holds prejudiced view of the other, the more there is a chance that the prejudice will minimize (ayoub & garretson, 2017). hence, it can be said that the more there is perceived positive representation of lgbtq+ people as well as of men, who do not conform to the hegemonic norms of masculinity, the more it will become easier for society to accept them; or change their views and prejudices as well as become more prudent towards this whole issue. this research also gives way to future studies based on gender representations in entertainment driven advertisement. future studies could also include other advertisements and media content where stereotyping of men and masculinity has caused long drawn implications in the mind of the general conscious. this study tallied student feedback and notes that this is convenient and not generalizable data; however, we hope this study provides intuitive assistance for future explorations of media priming promoting masculine hegemonic, gender stereotyping and prejudice, along with ethical pressure of standards, by incorporating existing literature and thematic analysis of media content and student survey. references altheíde, d. l. 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(2014). memory and cognition in its social context. new york, ny: psychology press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315807591 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 263 original paper yasujirō ozu’s cinematic language and the aesthetics of healing fengmuhan li 1* 1 school of arts, media, and communication, university of leicester, leicester, united kingdom * fengmuhan li, school of arts, media, and communication, university of leicester, leicester, united kingdom received: november 2, 2024 accepted: november 18, 2024 online published: november 26, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p263 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p263 abstract this paper explores the unique cinematic language and healing aesthetics of yasujirō ozu by comparing his film style with that of classical hollywood. unlike hollywood’s focus on plot-driven action and emotional conflict, ozu utilizes “intermediate space”, “360-degree rule”, “low-angle shots”, and “graphic configuration” to depict serene everyday life, breaking away from classical hollywood’s narrative conventions and establishing a novel japanese visual experience. the following findings reveal that ozu creates a distinct healing effect through meticulously designed spatial compositions and narrative rhythm. rather than relying on dramatic conflict, this effect emerges from spatial ambiance and visual stability, offering viewers a space for emotional buffering and psychological rest. drawing on environmental and gestalt psychology, this study delves into the therapeutic mechanisms within ozu’s cinematic language and analyses its profound influence on modern japanese healing cinema. keywords ozu, healing genre, japanese aesthetics, intermediate space, 360-degree rule 1. introduction classical hollywood cinema, in both its production process and style, established a systematic paradigm. first, spatial elements must serve narrative action and avoid diverting viewers’ attention from the storyline, while filming typically adheres to the “180-degree rule”, with dialogue scenes often using the “shot-reverse-shot” technique (thompson & bordwell, 1976). characters are expected to be goal-oriented, advancing the plot through a classical editing style that follows a “cause-and-effect” chain, with spatial composition deliberately rendered “invisible” (pramaggiora & wallis, 2020). in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 264 published by scholink inc. short, the classical hollywood style centers on “invisible” spatial continuity and a cause-and-effect narrative chain, creating a seamless viewing experience driven by goal-oriented characters. in contrast, yasujirō ozu’s films, such as the end of summer (1961), introduce a distinct storytelling approach that produces a different emotional experience. through careful depictions of everyday life and various technical choices, ozu creates a sense of calm and healing for viewers. rather than focusing on intense narrative progression, he emphasizes subtle emotional relief in his handling of space, character portrayal, and emotional expression. this unique style has profoundly influenced the development of japan’s “healing” film genre. this paper uses the classical hollywood narrative style as a comparative tool to explore how ozu’s techniques of spatial composition and narrative intervals create a unique healing effect. by doing so, it reveals the far-reaching impact of ozu’s personal style on the aesthetics of healing in cinema. 2. comparative analysis: the end of summer (1961) and classical hollywood cinema 2.1 intermediate space in the end of summer, yasujirō ozu skillfully incorporates a unique cinematic language by placing sequences of static shots between scenes. these shots, often depicting landscapes, narrow alleys, or everyday japanese architecture, are referred to by scholars as intermediate space (thompson & bordwell, 1976). in classical hollywood cinema, this approach is rare as the emphasis is typically on narrative action, with any non-essential visual elements avoided to keep the audience focused on the storyline. intermediate space in ozu’s work functions not only as a transition between shots but also as a poetic expression. these seemingly unrelated static sequences create a visual and emotional experience, breaking away from the traditional expectation that every shot or scene directly contributes to advancing the story. by offering the unique aesthetic that transcends conventional storytelling, ozu allows viewers to experience the poetry of everyday life in the narrative’s pauses. to construct these intermediate spaces, ozu uses four main techniques: focus, color act, cutaway, and transition. by manipulating focus and color, ozu directs viewers’ attention to seemingly insignificant details within the frame; through cutaways, he shifts their gaze from the core plot to peripheral spaces, subtly suggesting the passage of time; and with transitions, he smoothly connects different spaces through a series of shots, crafting delicate intermediate spaces throughout the film (thompson & bordwell, 1976). in the end of summer, transitions are widely used, setting a clear contrast with classical hollywood’s editing standards, which typically follow a strict “cause and effect” chain with scene transitions managed by fade-ins and fade-outs. ozu, however, prefers the straight cut, yet his approach is far from abrupt. through carefully designed shot sequences, he achieves visual continuity between seemingly unrelated scenes, skillfully creating rich intermediate spaces between shots. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 265 published by scholink inc. picture set 1. “barrels” transitional scenes picture set 2. “bank and ancient tower” transitional scenes picture set 3. “ancient tower and green mountain” transitional scenes for example, the first set of transitional scenes in the film presents barrels of various sizes in an alley, captured from different angles and accompanied by background music to create a unique atmosphere. the second set of scenes employs a long shot to depict the contrast between the modern building housing a bank and an ancient tower, visually juxtaposing the new and the old. in the third set, a medium shot again presents the tower, followed by a separate static shot of the mountain framed by lush green trees, creating a sense of visual depth and continuity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 266 published by scholink inc. this unique technique is more than just a substitute for traditional “fade-in” and “fade-out” transitions; on a deeper level, it reflects the japanese aesthetic concept of mono no aware, rooted in zen buddhism’s awareness of impermanence (railey, 1997). mono no aware does not merely denote sadness but is a “sensitivity to things” (de bary, 1995). japanese artists often use imagery such as a waning moon, falling cherry blossoms, and withering leaves to convey this delicate emotion, establishing an emotional resonance between characters and their surroundings—an aesthetic ozu’s cinematic language perfectly embodies. at the same time, this technique creates both intermediate spaces and narrative intervals, inviting the audience into a space for contemplation beyond the immediate story and visuals. through these transitional shots showing contrasts between new and old, near and far, the audience can feel not only the passage of time and the shifts within the family but also a subtle sadness for life’s impermanence. in classical hollywood film style, objects are typically presented only to the extent required by their narrative function, without drawing extra attention. however, in this film, ozu frequently uses what could be called “hypersituated objects”—these objects appear on screen with significance that goes beyond their basic narrative role, becoming key elements in constructing intermediate spaces (thompson & bordwell, 1976). this approach is especially evident in transitional scenes and cutaways, where these objects often take on symbolic meanings. for example, after a scene where the father lies bedridden with family members visiting him, ozu inserts a cutaway shot of a gravestone, subtly foreshadowing the father’s eventual fate. thus, transitional scenes create intermediate spaces that do more than simply link one scene to the next; they deepen the film’s unique emotional atmosphere. these spaces give viewers a moment to pause and reflect, with each shot standing as a visual poem on its own. in these subtle details, we could see ozu’s deep grasp of traditional japanese aesthetics and his unique and innovative approach, inviting viewers into a richly layered and contemplative experience. 2.2 360-degree shooting rule next, we turn to the 360-degree rule. before exploring this technique, it is essential to understand the conventional 180-degree shooting method. in classical hollywood cinema, the 180-degree rule plays a crucial role, allowing the camera to move within a semi-circle around the action—this approach, particularly popular in fictional genres, ensures spatial consistency between shots (such as in dialogue scenes), preventing shifts in the background that might distract the viewer and maintaining the narrative’s focus (thompson & bordwell, 1976). however, ozu deviates from this convention by moving beyond the 180-degree rule to embrace the 360-degree technique, a stylistic choice he applies throughout the end of summer. the 360-degree rule permits the camera to capture the entire circle around the scene, rather than restricting it to a half-circle. this method becomes evident in scenes like the one in which akiko, the eldest daughter, returns home www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 267 published by scholink inc. and meets her sister noriko and son. here, the camera reveals all four walls of the room, offering a complete sense of the setting’s layout. picture set 4. dialogue shot with the camera positioned between characters in addition, ozu’s approach to 360-degree shooting includes a distinctive technique: positioning the camera at the center of a scene or between characters, often with actors facing the camera directly. this method is quite rare in conventional cinematography, but could create a uniquely intimate viewing experience, allowing audiences to quietly observe the characters’ emotions and interactions without breaking the narrative boundaries. ozu’s use of the 360-degree rule not only became a hallmark of his personal style but also had a profound impact on japanese cinema and broader eastern filmmaking, in clear contrast to the 180-degree shooting space typical of classical hollywood films. rather than being confined to maintaining spatial continuity or advancing the narrative, ozu’s method opens up a more expansive viewing space, inviting audiences to retain their own self-awareness while watching, with more room to reflect, imagine, and engage with the nuances of the story (thompson & bordwell, 1976). 2.3 low-angle shots another distinctive feature of ozu’s style is his frequent use of low-angle shots. in classical hollywood cinema, the camera is typically positioned at a natural human height of around 5 to 6 feet, centring on characters to ensure visual continuity and create an accessible and immersive narrative for viewers (bordwell et al., 2003). however, in the end of summer and many of ozu’s other films, the camera is frequently placed at a lower level, capturing characters and scenes from a slightly upward angle. this unique technique has two main motivations: one is japan’s tatami culture (bordwell, 1988). in traditional japanese households, people often sit directly on the floor, so many family activities naturally unfold from a lower viewpoint. thus, the low-angle shots provide a more culturally authentic setting for storytelling. beyond cultural context, the other reason reflects ozu’s artistic vision: he believed that viewing characters and scenes from a low angle created a sense of calm and tranquility, aligning with his poetic approach to everyday life. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 268 published by scholink inc. 2.4 graphic configuration ozu’s films are also noted for their unique approach to graphic configuration, a technique that is not a necessary element in classical hollywood films. through an analysis of the end of summer and other works, we can see that ozu frequently relies on graphic matching to create visual cohesion between scenes, which involves establishing a visual link between consecutive shots by repeating similar elements, such as lamps, furniture, or character positions (thompson & bordwell, 1976). since the 360-degree shooting style can lead to highly varied backgrounds across shots, and the use of straight cuts may result in abrupt transitions, strong visual connections become essential for maintaining coherence (thompson & bordwell, 1976). for instance, before the first family dinner scene in the end of summer, ozu introduces a series of transitional shots featuring a blue lampshade. this same lampshade reappears in the dinner scene, creating a subtle visual echo. additionally, in many dialogue scenes, characters face the camera directly, creating varied backgrounds across shots. in such cases, the characters themselves act as abstract graphic elements, preserving visual continuity. 2.5 everyday family narrative a final area of comparison lies in the narrative property of this film versus that of classical hollywood cinema. traditional hollywood films generally feature goal-oriented plots, where characters’ actions are closely tied to a central objective, ensuring a clear narrative drive. in contrast, ozu’s works, including the end of summer, often center on the everyday lives of ordinary families, exploring themes such as father-daughter relationships, sibling bonds, and marital affection (bock, 1978). this narrative choice is closely linked to ozu’s personal life experiences. as a deeply filial son, ozu had a profound love for his mother, and this affection is fully reflected in his films, forming a central theme within his work. furthermore, this focus on daily life aligns with the japanese aesthetic of yūgen, a concept inspired by zen’s notion of emptiness, which celebrates the beauty of what is hidden and the profound depth beyond visible things (tsubaki, 1971). by depicting everyday routines and employing a slow narrative pace, ozu creates a broader inner space for the audience to experience unspoken emotions, rather than through direct dialogue or dramatic scenes. this approach contrasts with the intense emotional outbursts and clear-cut plot conflicts typical of classical hollywood films. in ozu’s films, it is the seemingly mundane moments, silent exchanges, and unresolved mysteries that offer audiences a subtler and more profound emotional experience—an embodiment of the “unseen” power that yūgen seeks to express. with these distinctive filming techniques and narrative approaches, ozu elevates the ordinary rhythms of daily life into a profound art form in the end of summer and many of his other works. simple scenes of family dinners, casual conversations, and leisurely walks become, under ozu’s lens, deep explorations of life’s impermanence and the complexities of family relationships. this unique style, which ritualizes everyday life and imbues ordinary scenes with poetic depth, not only established a new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 269 published by scholink inc. aesthetic paradigm in japanese cinema but also opened up fresh narrative possibilities for world cinema. 3. therapeutic functions of filmic techniques in ozu’s cinema ozu yasujirō’s cinematic style lays the groundwork for both the visual aesthetics and core values central to the modern japanese “healing” genre. building on prior research on ozu’s unique style, the following discussion will apply theoretical frameworks to deconstruct the therapeutic impact of his approach and analyze its influence on our little sister (2015) and little forest: summer/autumn (2014) such japanese contemporary healing films. ozu creates an “intermediate space” through static cutaways and transitional scenes, using spatial stillness and intentional blank spaces to provide an emotional buffer that allows viewers to step away from life’s busyness and intense emotions, guiding them into a more nuanced emotional experience. it is widely recognized that moments of intense joy or sorrow are common techniques in traditional cinema, providing audiences with emotional value and experience within a short viewing time. however, neuroscience research indicates that experiencing such emotional extremes leads to heightened neural activity and a higher energy demand, potentially resulting in neural fatigue with sustained stimulation (ishii et al., 2014). further, studies by baumeister and others (1998) have shown that self-regulatory resources are limited, meaning that handling intense emotional experiences requires substantial self-control and psychological energy. this can lead to “ego depletion,” leaving individuals feeling fatigued or even emotionally hollow after prolonged stimulation. ozu’s work disrupts this pattern with his intermediate space, crafted through quiet and straightforward narratives. this provides viewers not only with emotional pacing but also acts as a tool for emotional regulation. through static spatial compositions and environmental depictions, audiences become attuned to subtle emotions often overlooked in daily life, fostering a deep sense of inner resonance. this aligns with principles in environmental psychology, which suggest that tranquility in space and surroundings promotes emotional regulation and psychological recovery (kaplan & kaplan, 1989). compared to intense emotional highs and lows, the “stillness” in these spaces encourages viewers to discover subtle emotional comforts. additionally, slow art theory offers a complementary perspective on this emotional experience, suggesting that a slow narrative pace and static visuals allow viewers to connect more deeply with emotions, achieving an internal emotional satisfaction through aesthetic immersion (reed, 2017). ozu’s intermediate space, which moves beyond mere plot progression, avoids the psychological energy depletion caused by intense emotional stimulation. instead, it facilitates subtle emotional resonance and internal healing, providing viewers with a space for emotional release and stability—ultimately achieving the therapeutic effect associated with the “healing” genre. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 270 published by scholink inc. let’s examine how the 360-degree rule and low-angle shots complement each other to create a healing effect in cinema. the 360-degree shot not only expands the spatial scope of the frame but also enhances the fluidity of movement, resulting in softer storytelling and a more natural, realistic film experience. in terms of low-angle shots, bruce block (2020) mentions in his book that this technique brings viewers closer to the characters’ experience, especially by simulating the daily perspectives of characters in family narratives like the end of summer. this approach strengthens the audience’s connection with the characters’ world. from the perspective of environmental psychology, low-angle shots often reduce the perception of spatial distance, especially in enclosed or indoor settings. this makes the camera’s presence feel subtler and enables a more direct interaction with the characters. by lowering the angle, the psychological distance is reduced, making the scene feel more intimate and approachable. edward hall’s concept of “intimate distance” (1969) proposes that as physical proximity increases, emotional exchange becomes easier and more natural. in films, low-angle shots create a closer spatial distance between characters and viewers, enhancing a sense of psychological intimacy. together, these techniques contribute to a “healing” cinematic experience. the 360-degree shot allows viewers to sense an open interaction between characters and their surroundings, evoking a feeling of spaciousness that releases spatial limitations and gives a visually “healing” sense of expansiveness. meanwhile, low-angle shots shorten the perceived distance between characters and viewers, fostering an emotional connection and sense of calm within this open space. these techniques work hand in hand, visually constructing the healing atmosphere characteristic of ozu’s films. similarly, the extensive use of graphic configuration in ozu’s films also plays a significant role in creating a healing effect for audiences. according to gestalt psychology’s principle of “visual constancy”, viewers tend to seek visual patterns and consistency when faced with constantly changing scenes and images, which helps maintain a sense of cognitive stability (koffka, 1999). by linking different times and spaces through the repetition of similar graphic elements—such as lamps, furniture, or character placements—ozu allows the viewer’s visual system to naturally identify and match these repeated elements. this visual stability helps viewers maintain a sense of psychological constancy and security amid the film’s shifting narrative and scene changes. in a rapidly changing world, these visual symbols provide a familiar order for viewers, offering a “constant space” within the film to rely on. this constancy can help reduce emotional fluctuations, offering a sense of calm and comfort that is visually and psychologically healing. while graphic configuration creates visual constancy, viewers experience this stability on a visual level. ozu’s choice to forgo hollywood’s goal-oriented narratives in favor of everyday life narratives builds an emotional and psychological sense of familiarity and stability. norman (2004) suggests that recognition of familiar everyday settings and emotional connections brings viewers psychological www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 271 published by scholink inc. reassurance. in the end of summer and many of ozu’s films, the main scenes depict everyday family interactions, such as eating, chatting, or walking together—scenes that are deeply familiar to audiences. as a result, viewers naturally project their own experiences onto the characters’ lives, achieving a sense of emotional resonance. this resonance differs from the intense emotional response elicited by hollywood’s strong plots and dramatic conflicts; instead, ozu’s focus on the genuine, continuous flow of daily life provides a familiar and stable emotional environment for the audience. this familiarity and sense of safety open a path for comfort and healing. taken together, the two key features of ozu’s films—graphic configuration and everyday life narratives—offer viewers both visual constancy and emotional coherence. this dual stability effectively alleviates viewers’ real-life anxieties, providing a healing experience during the film. in the realm of contemporary japanese healing films, ozu yasujirō’s influence is unmistakable. take our little sister and little forest: summer/autumn, for instance; these films both carry forward ozu’s core cinematic language and aesthetics of healing. in our little sister, director hirokazu kore-eda avoids dramatic conflict, instead using a calm narrative atmosphere and gentle pacing to depict the everyday interactions and subtle details of life among four sisters. this seemingly simple approach allows viewers to become naturally immersed, slowing down to experience the delicate emotions woven into the story. visually, our little sister also reflects ozu’s style, particularly through the use of low-angle shots in indoor scenes. this technique not only continues ozu’s intimate visual perspective but also reinforces the genuine warmth of family bonds, allowing the audience to experience the peaceful and authentic feeling of connection alongside the characters. little forest: summer/autumn further develops ozu’s “intermediate spaces” technique, using reserved portrayals of nature and farming activities to create a psychological respite for viewers. through extended shots that capture the changing seasons, the film not only offers visual pleasure but also provides a slow-paced space for viewers to settle their emotions. these environmental shots gently draw viewers away from the pressures of daily life, inviting them to relax into a natural rhythm. in scenes of farming and cooking, the film crafts a calm atmosphere through simple, focused routines, allowing viewers to find an inner peace within these everyday rhythms. unlike traditional films that rely on emotional conflict, little forest responds to modern audiences’ desire for calm and enduring emotional experiences with its low-stimulation, slow-paced narrative. this approach keeps ozu’s aesthetic alive in contemporary cinema, offering audiences psychological comfort that transcends everyday stress. 4. conclusion in the end of summer (1961), ozu yasujirō’s unique cinematic language is evident in the plain everyday scenes of family life alongside carefully crafted spatial design. this cinematic language is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 272 published by scholink inc. reflected not only in technical innovations—such as crafting intermediate spaces with the use of negative space, employing the 360-degree rule to break from the traditional 180-degree rule, creating intimacy through low-angle shots, and establishing visual continuity with graphic configuration. more importantly, these techniques seamlessly merge with ozu’s emphasis on narratives centered on everyday life rather than goal-driven action, all with the aim of providing a psychologically safe space where viewers can rest and reflect throughout the film. the transitional shots in ozu’s films, referred to as intermediate spaces, may appear to be simple landscape scenes, yet they provide viewers with emotional pauses and moments for reflection. the 360-degree shooting rule expands the viewer’s visual field, creating a sense of openness and spaciousness, while low-angle shots are not only aligned with the japanese custom of sitting on the floor but also foster a viewing experience that feels both equal and intimate. additionally, the use of graphic configuration and family everyday life narratives throughout the film builds a dual sense of visual and emotional stability for the audience. these techniques elevate ozu’s films beyond mere artistic expression, establishing a unique “healing aesthetic” that gently soothes and reassures. from our little sister (2015) to little forest: summer/autumn (2014), we see this aesthetic tradition continuing and evolving in contemporary japanese cinema. these works carry forward ozu’s unique approach to space and time, as well as his attention to the small details of daily life. in today’s fast-paced society, this slow, detailed narrative style and the affectionate gaze on ordinary life offer viewers a rare opportunity to pause and breathe. this perhaps explains why, in an age of information overload and rapid tempo, ozu’s healing aesthetic has not become outdated but instead demonstrates even greater relevance. in traditional formalist film studies, technical analysis often stops at the level of technique itself. however, by analyzing the connection between ozu’s audiovisual language and its emotional impact, we uncover a more meaningful possibility: film techniques can serve not only the narrative but also have a direct effect on the viewer’s psychological experience, creating a lasting healing effect. this creative philosophy, which combines technique, aesthetics, and psychological healing, not only enriches the possibilities of cinematic language but also offers a valuable direction for the development of modern cinema. references baumeister, r. f., bratslavsky, e., muraven, m., & tice, d. m. (1998). ego depletion: is the active self a limited resource? journal of personality and social psychology, 74(5), 1252-1265. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.74.5.1252 block, b. (2020). the visual story: creating the visual structure of film, tv and digital media. routledge. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 273 published by scholink inc. bock, a. (1978). japanese film directors. kodansha international ltd. bordwell, d. (1988). ozu and the poetics of cinema. princeton university press. bordwell, d., staiger, j., & thompson, k. (2003). the classical hollywood cinema. routledge. de bary, w. m. t. (1995). the vocabulary of japanese aesthetics, i ii iii. in japanese aesthetics and culture: a reader. state university of new york press. hall, e. t. (1969). the hidden dimension. anchor. ishii, a., tanaka, m., & watanabe, y. (2014). neural mechanisms of mental fatigue. reviews in the neurosciences, 25(4), 469-479. https://doi.org/10.1515/revneuro-2014-0028 kaplan, r., & kaplan, s. (1989). experience of nature: a psychological perspective. press. koffka, k. (1999). principles of gestalt psychology. routledge. kore-eda, h. (director). (2015). our little sister. toho; gaga corporation. mori, j. (director). (2014). little forest: summer/autumn. shochiku. norman, d. a. (2004). emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. basic books. ozu, y. (director). (1961). the end of summer. toho. pramaggiora, m., & wallis, t. (2020). film a critical introuduction (4th ed.). london laurence king publishing ann arbor, michigan proquest. railey, j. m. (1997). dependent origination and the dual-nature of the japanese aesthetic. asian philosophy, 7(2), 123-132. https://doi.org/10.1080/09552369708575457 reed, a. (2017). slow art: the experience of looking, sacred images to james turrell. university of california press. thompson, k., & bordwell, d. (1976). space and narrative in the films of ozu. screen, 17(2), 41-73. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/17.2.41 tsubaki, a. t. (1971). zeami and the transition of the concept of yugen: a note on japanese aesthetics. the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 30(1), 55. https://doi.org/10.2307/429574 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 45 original paper the personal became political: a social media analysis of princess mako of japan and her controversial engagement masako okura1 1 political science program, school of policy, justice, and public safety, columbus state university, columbus, ga, usa received: october 26, 2023 accepted: november 12, 2023 online published: november 24, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n4p45 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n4p45 abstract this is a netnographical study of tweets about princess mako of japan, who married in 2021 without any fanfare—no official engagement, no wedding ceremony, no wedding reception, and no dowry, thus defying convention. her parents opposed her marriage to a controversial figure, and public opinion was largely against her. her engagement was meant to mark a personal milestone; yet, it quickly developed into a national political controversy, ultimately questioning the raison d'être of the constitutional monarchy. the personal became political. traditional media, as well as social media relentlessly criticized her choice, pushing her deep into post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd). this study aims to decode covert messages embedded in the negative tweets directed at her to uncover the sentiments twitter users knowingly or unknowingly propagated. keywords twitter, royalty, marriage, social media, japanese imperial family, netnography 1. introduction 1.1 overview princess mako of akishino, a niece of the reigning japanese emperor naruhito, and the eldest daughter of crown prince akishino, encountered substantial adversities when her unwavering resolve to marry kei komuro, her longtime boyfriend, shook the very foundation of the constitutional monarchy in japan and strained relations between the imperial family and the public. what began as a tale of her personal milestone slowly evolved into a political crisis, scrutinizing the raison d’être of the imperial family and taking on the form of a bizarre, twisted dark comedy that nobody expected it would become. in conjunction with national media outlets, social media platforms constructed an image of her “unofficial fiancé” as the quintessential villain, branding him a gold-digger unworthy of the princess. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. on september 3, 2017, the imperial household agency arranged a 10-minute press conference for the couple to meet with journalists for the first time since the news of their impending engagement broke in may. as the young couple beamed at each other, nobody could have foreseen that the “unofficial engagement” would remain so until just a few weeks prior to her marriage in 2021. it was equally impossible to predict that social media platforms would echo hysterical and sensational media reports and amplify the agitation. most of all, princess mako (note. 1) had likely never envisioned that the relentless attacks by the traditional media and social media platforms on her personal choice of a spouse would ultimately drive her deep into ptsd. for the subsequent four years, national media outlets would continue to extensively report on her prolonged “unofficial” engagement and its implications on preserving the constitutional monarchy in the 21st century, as well as the legitimacy of prince akishino’s family within the context of the imperial household. rumors circulated that the mother of the bride disapproved of her daughter’s choice and was in constant distress. the once-close father and daughter no longer talked to each other. even after her delayed betrothal, prince akishino, at a press conference, refused to address the man his daughter married by name, opting to call him the “spouse of my daughter” (prince akishino’s press conference, 2021). the public fully understood its implication. ultimately, the defiant princess emerged triumphant, succeeding in her quiet but open rebellion against the patriarchal rule, a public spectacle previously unseen among the imperial family. public opinion was divided, as her engagement symbolized much more than the union of two young individuals. to progressives, her public revolt symbolized the women’s empowerment as she defied the patriarchy and never surrendering to the pressure excreted by media and sns. to traditionalists, she was perceived as a spoiled child who prioritized her personal interests over her obligations to the people and the country, without showing consideration for the criticism toward her behavior and the public’s sincere concern about her well-being. in the end, those traditionalists failed to impose on her the japanese imperial version of marianismo—idealizing her as a suffering, selfless princess willing to sacrifice personal happiness for her duty to the people and the nation, and in exchange, earning their love and admiration. she was cast as both a heroine and a rebel, but her true identity lies somewhere in between. 1.2 statement of purpose this article utilizes a netnographical approach to gauge the social whisperings about princess mako on twitter (note. 2) in response to the traditional media coverage. the primary focus of this study is to reveal the embedded narratives in the context of negative tweets about the princess, which twitter users may have knowingly or unknowingly transmitted. glancing at a single tweet may not present a clear picture of the nature of these narratives, however, examining the aggregation of negative tweets may present a far better chance of revealing covert messages behind publicly shaming the princess. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. what is it that the twitter users truly wanted to convey? this study hypothesizes that by targeting princess mako, twitter users knowingly or unknowingly embedded additional narratives expressing their frustration over the sociopolitical issues confronting japan. dissatisfaction with the dysfunctional and stagnant sociopolitical arrangements is a recurring theme in present-day japan as lawmakers have thus far failed to effectively address the public’s concerns and provide immediate relief. such grievances may include economic stagnation, student loan debt, no growth of real income, and widening income gaps as a consequence. as long as twitter users could find an outlet to vent their frustrations, it would not have made much difference whether the chosen target was princess mako, a celebrity, a world-class athlete, or even an ordinary citizen, who under some unfortunate circumstances, garnered undue attention and “went viral”. in this sense, she became indeed a victim of harassment in this unregulated cyber-ecosystem, although it could have been anybody. she was exploited and used. 1.3 significance of study unlike the duchess of sussex, meghan markle, the japanese imperial family members rarely grant interviews, which presents a significant challenge to the researchers of communication. shielded by the secrecy often referred to as “chrysanthemum curtain”, and confined in a “gilded cage”, it is difficult to even speculate on their views concerning the persistent and often irresponsible media coverage they receive, as well as those from social networking sites. when they do occasionally take questions, the press is required to submit questions beforehand to the imperial household agency, allowing the imperial family members enough time to examine the nature of the questions and practice their responses. by design, there are no impromptu exchanges between the media and the imperial family members. in addition, the imperial family members customarily refrain from addressing political issues as the japanese constitution grants them merely symbolic power, devoid of any political influence. while there are books on those female members available, most fall into the category of hagiographies, often overly sentimentalizing and idealizing their existence as model womanhood to be emulated. meanwhile, these female members often headline women’s weekly gossip magazines with a focus on their fashions, beauty, conflicts with in-laws, and children, most of which come from unnamed “reliable sources”—possibly, fictional characters. hence, without their own branding platforms for self-producing in the age of social networking, female members of the imperial family have limited options to shape their public personas and images, resulting in a perpetual loss of autonomous power to define themselves. only a small number of japanese researchers have ventured into the field of study on female imperial family members and traditional as well as social media (hamada, 2023; ibaragi, 2010, 2014, 2019; kayama, 2021; shikata, 2004; takana, 2023), owing, in part, to the lack of sufficient first-hand information such as interviews, and the limited number of existing scholarly works to cite from. this dearth of reliable literature may create a vicious cycle, potentially discouraging scholars from pursuing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. their research agendas. therefore, studies examining the nexus between the media landscape and princess mako, or on any female members of the imperial family for that matter, substantially lag behind those on markle, although the two strong-willed royals’ open rebellions against the patriarchal institutions are highly visible. in light of these circumstances, it is crucial that scholars take a step forward to conduct more comprehensive studies on the female imperial family members and their relations to the media. this study aims to take such a step toward achieving the goal by examining relentless social media abuse targeted at princess mako and uncovering embedded narratives that netizens may have knowingly or unknowingly disseminated. 1.4 outline the following section of this article will recount the princess’s saga and explore how japanese traditional media outlets employed agenda setting, framing, and priming to shape the discourses on her impending engagement, thereby controlling the creation and interpretation of her public image and that of her unofficial fiancé. additionally, this portion will examine the role of social media platforms as echo chambers, further amplifying and sensationalizing such media coverage against the couple. 2. the saga 2.1 frame of analysis analyses of how japanese media outlets portray the female members of the imperial family echo their portrayals of women in a broader context: objectification, a disregard for systemic gender inequality existing in the private sphere, excessive glorification of traditional gender roles, and utilization of female members to demonstrate connections with the greater public (matsumura, 1991 as cited in shikata, 2004, p. 90). the media’s focus on women’s care ethics serves to further emphasize the patriarchal structure of the imperial household, in which men are associated with the public sphere and women are relegated to a secondary role—literally always walking steps behind their male counterparts within the imperial household. such portrayals reflect the essence of the imperial household law, which stipulates that only male descendants of a reigning emperor are eligible to assume the chrysanthemum throne and female members lose their imperial status once they marry. in their reporting on the imperial household, japanese media—especially women’s gossip magazines—often employ the “family drama framework” (sonoda as cited in ibaragi, 2023, p. 96). this framework denotes a reporting style that emphasizes family relationships—such as power dynamics among them, potential discord, tension between a new bride and her mother in-law, and family tragedies—mirroring daily experiences of ordinary families all over japan. oftentimes, storylines in those family dramas are formulaic, with the family eventually overcoming these difficulties and tragedies, reaffirming their trust and love, and resolving conflicts in stories with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 49 published by scholink inc. satisfactory endings. such a formula, while predictable, may resonate well with ordinary viewers and readers precisely because of its predictability, assurance for righting wrongs, and the ultimate triumph of the protagonists, which meets their general expectation for family dramas. the framework enables viewers and readers to relate easily to the protagonists, allowing them to live vicariously through their favorite characters. thus, taking sides with their favorites naturally becomes inevitable, or an integral part of the family drama framework. 2.2 the sage began on may 16, 2017, the government-owned tv channel nhk announced that princess mako of akishino was set to be engaged to kei komuro, her college sweetheart of five years. the scoop triggered a media frenzy as rival tv channels, newspapers, and tabloid papers immediately jumped on the bandwagon reporting their impending engagement. not to be outdone by the traditional media, netizens joined the virtual national celebration, wishing them happiness and reinforcing their perceptions that this princess was different, a breath of fresh air. unlike other members of the imperial family, she opted to go to a private christian university, not the customary school that was established more than 170 years ago to educate children of aristocrats and members of the imperial family. the fact that she met komuro by chance at a study abroad information session and started dating shortly thereafter resonated well with the young generation, as such a chance encounter can happen to any college student. some even retweeted an old news story about her secret and anonymous volunteer work in an area affected by the great east japan earthquake in 2011. they perceived her differently from other members of the imperial household, almost as if she were one of their own. likewise, komuro garnered a positive impression among netizens for his daring courage to date a princess with a security detail. despite enduring the personal tragedy of losing his father at the age of 10, he thrived by entering one of the top universities in japan, participating in a study abroad program, and eventually finding employment as a law clerk. in this context, the announcement of princess mako’s impending engagement guaranteed a perfect happy-ending storyline within the framework of a family drama that ends on a high note. according to hamada (2023), who analyzed social whispering on sns about the couple since the media scoop of their impending engagement, positive tweets stood out, which included the episode of how they met or what they talked about at the press conference (p. 26). however, in a twist reminiscent of a typical family drama storyline, an unexpected problem arose. on december 12 of the same year, a women’s weekly gossip magazine published a sensational scoop about komuro’s mother, kayo. this revelation opened the floodgates for a series of salacious follow-up reports, exposing dark secrets within the family. the magazine alleged that she was a “deadbeat” who refused to pay back 4,000,000 yen, roughly equivalent to $35,000, to her former fiancé. according to the article, she believed it was a cash gift and used the money to finance her son’s education, including his study abroad program, a notable achievement in his life. the report www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. characterized the komuro family as morally and financially irresponsible, living far beyond their means and lacking sincerity in repaying their debts (“makosama totsugisaki”, 2017, p. 23). on top of that, taxpayers and netizens were shocked by subsequent reports alleging that the komuro family inquired whether prince akishino, the princess’s father, could repay the debt on their behalf (“is kei komuro”, 2018, kokunai section). the prince insisted that komuro first publicly explain the debt situation before proceeding to their wedding planning, a demand that komuro disregarded. the public quickly came to learn that kayo’s husband committed suicide, followed by another suicide by her father-in-law, and the report insinuated that kayo was a beneficiary of their life insurance policies both literally and metaphorically. the steady stream of such sensational stories by the traditional media, whether unknowingly or knowingly, mobilized and agitated netizens, intensifying their attacks on the princess online. such scandalous news raised significant concerns among netizens, who began to question whether komuro had the clean background necessary to marry a princess. according to hamada (2023), the overly critical and insinuating media reports about komuro’s mother were clear turning points in how twitter users perceived the narrative of their impending engagement. these reports heavily emphasized his troubled financial situation to the extent that some twitter users referred to him as a leech, accusing him of intending to exploit the princess as his personal atm (p. 28). then ensued act 3 of the family drama that heightened the crisis and raised tension. on february 6, 2018, the imperial household agency announced that the princess’s official engagement would be postponed until 2020. frustrated, prince akishino reiterated that the komuro family must resolve the financial matter swiftly and release a public statement to clarify their stance. partly to escape a media frenzy, komuro abruptly left japan in 2018 without offering any explanation about his family’s debt or informing his future father-in-law about his plan. instead, he enrolled in the fordham university law school in new york city. rumors circulated that komuro, unable to finance his law school education and room and board, resorted to borrowing money, this time from his former employer—casting further doubt on his financial acumen. upon learning of the media reports, twitter users criticized, branding and ridiculing him as an unemployed gold digger intent on using and exploiting the princess for social climbing. twitter users, employing “either or” thinking, simply reduced him to an unemployed man with no money, which was technically correct as he was in school and not working. however, the fact that the media and twitter users focused on jobless status could reflect the patriarchal family ideal where men are supposed to be gainfully employed and the stable breadwinners. moreover, his departure from such a long-standing norm caused them to believe he was less than a regular man (hamada, 2023, p. 27). thus, this family drama framework of reporting stirred additional bashing, casting komuro as standing at the opposite end of the spectrum from an ideal patriarchal mode of manhood, emulating a dependable, sturdy oak. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. facing mounting pressure from the media, the public, and the future father-in-law, komuro finally commented publicly about his mother’s debt in 2019, claiming that the financial dispute was already resolved. the komuros claimed it was a cash gift, not a loan as his mother’s former fiancé claimed, and thus they had no legal obligation to repay him. the case would have been closed had it happened in the united states. however, in japan, where moral obligations come prior to legal obligations, offering an apology even when one is not at fault is an absolute necessity to foster cordial relationships with others. in the court of netizens’ opinions, twitter users rendered him a guilty verdict: he was a classless amoral deadbeat with whom the imperial family should never associate. a september 2019 survey revealed that only 38% of the people expressed that they would wish her happiness (“makosamano gokekkon”, 2021). his subsequent much-anticipated release of a statement in 2021 failed to win the public’s support and furnished another opportunity to attack him even further. citing article 24 of the japanese constitution, which provides that “marriage shall be based on the mutual consent of both sexes”, princess mako’s family eventually caved in. on october 1, 2021, the imperial household agency announced the princess’s engagement. shortly after, a long-kept secret was revealed: she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. during the long, frustrating period of uncertainty, she feared being permanently stuck in this situation (“makosama hukuzatsusei”, 2021). on october 26, 2021, the imperial princess married without fanfare: no official engagement, no wedding ceremony, no wedding reception, and no $1.4 million dowry, a customary one-time payment to princesses to maintain dignified lives as former members of the imperial family. a public opinion survey by a tv station revealed an entirely different result this time, clearly showing a change in tide: 61% of people expressed that they wished the couple happiness (shoji, 2021, news section). nevertheless, a small faction, led by a youtuber and consisting of about 100 individuals who advocated for preserving the integrity of the imperial household, protested against her marriage in tokyo as well as in several major cities across japan (“komuro keisan”, 2021). the couple had a press conference on the day they registered their marriage, the first such occasion since their initial press conference following the scoop of their impending engagement in 2017. the former princess, now a commoner, declined to respond to one of the questions—the debt issue—as it reminded her of relentless media criticisms that tormented her and tarnished her husband’s reputation. the newlywed promptly repaid his mother’s debt to her former fiancé, likely utilizing his wife’s savings. they swiftly left japan and settled in new york city, where they have resided ever since. the nationwide hysteria and frenzy surrounding princess mako and komuro seemed to diminish somewhat after komuro managed to pass the new york bar exam on his third try, although they still frequently grace the headlines of japanese gossip magazines. 2.3 explaining the bashing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. many factors could provide insights into the intense bashing and nationwide hysteria against the couple, beyond the family drama framework and customary cyberpsychological analyses on human emotions. three factors stand out prominently; institutional failure; embedded gender biases in institutional practices; and the new digital business model. institutional failure: unlike other royal households in the world, the imperial household agency did not have a proper channel to release information about the imperial family during the crisis, since a public relations office did not exist. the agency’s crisis management skills also came into question, because their default approach to false information in media reports is to maintain a dignified silence. prince akishino, deeply concerned about the media’s relentless attacks on his daughter, shared his thoughts that correcting a single inaccuracy could result in misleading people into assuming that the rest of the story is accurate. (“prince akishino’s”, 2021). twitter users in japan learned a long time ago that the imperial household agency would never fight back or ask for retractions, and thus, they would never be held accountable for their speech. the career bureaucrats chose dignified silence” —acting as if nothing happened—as their modus operandi to “protect” the imperial family members from harassment and abuse online. this passive stance effectively gave journalists and netizens carte blanche to target the princess. embedded gender bias in institutional practices: beyond the typical discussions on gender and media bias centering on objectification, communion, and ascribed secondary roles, it is arguable that embedded gender bias in institutional practices adversely impacted the deepening crisis surrounded the princess. it is noteworthy that the imperial household agency did not conduct a vetting process on komuro before the government-owned tv channel broke the news of the princess’s imminent engagement. although the imperial household agency customarily conducts background checks on prospective brides marrying into the imperial family well in advance, in this case, they did not perform one for the princess because she was marrying out. such deliberate differentiations based on gender reveals the embedded gender bias within the agency. unlike the british act of succession, article i of the imperial household law of 1947 clearly stipulates that only male descendants of emperors are eligible to succeed to the throne, making princesses irrelevant to succession from the day they are born. in other words, the bureaucrats refrained from vetting komuro because the princess would not retain her imperial title after marriage. this suggests that marriages of female members entail a personal accountability on their part, and a vetting process is not for the sake of the wellbeing of those involved but rather to maintain the integrity of the imperial household. had the agency conducted the thorough vetting of komuro, they might have warned the komuro family about the potential problems, enabling them to resolve the financial dispute in private prior to their engagement, or at least advising them to settle for the sake of public relations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. new digital business model: yahoo news japan stands out as the largest and most popular media portal in the country, offering almost all news feeds for free, ranging from leading newspapers to gossip magazines. due to the decrease in print subscriptions, media outlets today heavily rely on page-per-view (ppv) revenues on online platforms, such as yahoo news japan, to supplement their dwindling profits. thus, hamada argued (2023) that the more sensational content becomes, the more it attracts readers, resulting in an increase in ppv revenues (pp. 37-38). another distinctive feature of yahoo news japan is its layout: a comment section immediately follows each article, and comments go live immediately. although some restrictions are in place, the platform essentially operates as an unregulated digital ecosystem without an instant fact-check function. hamada observes that this business model not only contributed to the sensationalization of news but fostered the spread of misinformation or disinformation as well, potentially skewing readers’ perspectives towards komuro or the princess (pp. 28-29). 3. analysis of tweets 3.1 methodology utilizing the netnographical approach, this section focuses on exploring the dominant narratives embedded in negative tweets about the princess’s prolonged “unofficial” engagement that twitter users knowingly or unknowingly disseminated. in this study, “negative tweets” refer to posts that include, but are not limited to, patronizing, discouraging, harassing, abusive, and defaming content. table 1. tweets by hashtag hashtags english translation number of tweets 眞子様 mako sama (her name with an honorific) 345 眞子さま mako sama (her name with an honorific) 2,900 秋篠宮眞子 mako of akishino (formally styled name) 46 眞子 mako without an honorific 603 小室眞子 mako komuro (her name with her husband’s family name, with no honorific) 1,958 total: 5,852 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 54 published by scholink inc. on october 26, 2021, the day princess mako and kei komuro announced their marriage, 5,852 tweets with hashtags in five different categories appeared on twitter. these hashtags can be classified into two main categories, both of which refer to princess mako. two hashtags include honorifics— “sama”—which are used to show respect to people of higher standing, and they can be further divided into two subcategories with “sama” (様) being more formal than “sama (さま). the other three hashtags are names without honorifics, including the following variations: mako, mako of akishino, and her new married name, mako komuro. sample size: among the 5,852 tweets posted on the day of their marriage, 1,965 tweets are used for this research. the first part of the research attempts to examine whether distinctive differences in tweet content exist between groups using honorifics and those without. in japanese culture, using honorifics when addressing someone of higher standing or even strangers is critical, serving as a sign of respect and courtesy to demonstrate no ill feelings. this distinctive practice differs greatly from the customs in the u.s., where, for example, solicitation and promotional letters often omit using formal titles such as mr., mrs., or ms. when addressing potential clients and customers. taking into account this cultural context, this research presents the first hypothesis. 3.2 hypothesis 1 hypothesis 1: the proportion of negative tweets is higher in tweets without honorifics than in those with honorifics. applying a real-life situation in japan—where it is uncommon to use honorifics when insulting others—this research predicts that such an embedded cultural norm also reflects on users' behavioral patterns online. figure 1. negative tweets www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. as predicted, significant differences exist between the group that used honorifics and the one that did not. an overwhelming majority of the tweets in the honorifics group are expressing support for the princess and her husband, wishing them happiness, praising their determination, and encouraging the couple to ignore nosy, patronizing naysayers. on the other hand, the three hashtags without honorifics presented a drastically different picture, averaging 68.76% negative tweets. among the three subcategories in this group, the hashtag with her first name only stood out with 80.09% negative, with tweets questioning her judgment, belittling her, predicting their marriage would fall apart soon, wondering about how her individualistic and selfish conduct would impact the constitutional monarchy in the future, and lamenting about the damages to the japanese traditions symbolized by the imperial family. 3.2 hypothesis 2 to determine the specific subjects that the users who tweeted about the princess focused on in their negative messages, this research categorized the sampled tweets into the following 10 categories. table 2. coding code 1 mental health code 2 tax, spending code 3 system and structure (constitutional monarchy; future of the imperial family; future of japan) code 4 prediction (future life; possibility of divorce) code 5 relations with the general public code 6 komuro (the princess’s husband; his mother code 7 princess mako (personality, conducts; sexualization; objectification) code 8 the joint press conference on the day of their marriage code 9 general, unclassified negative comments code 10 any combinations of codes 1-9 most codes are self-explanatory, such as mental health (code 1) and comments about her husband and mother-in-law (code 6). however, some terms require further explanation. in japanese colloquial parlance, the term “tax thief” refers to the imperial family members, politicians, bureaucrats, law enforcement officers and public servants considered incompetent and not worthy of their tax-funded salaries and expenses. some people wrongly assume that the imperial family members “do not work”, and thus, they may find it problematic that the princess does not do their bidding. the term “press www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. conference (code 8)” was included because all the tweet samples were collected on the day of the joint press conference held for the former princess and her husband. lastly, code 7, labeled princess mako, also includes gender-related issues such as sexually suggestive messages and objectification of her body. hypothesis 2: the largest number of subjects is expected to be found in code 2 (tax) and code 3 (system and structure). the twitter users from the sampled tweets may have used princess mako as a venue for venting their frustrations about their private lives. general dissatisfaction in life has emerged as a recurring theme in japanese politics. the public opinion survey conducted by the cabinet office of the japanese government (2023) reveals that 47% of people are dissatisfied with their life, and 39% report a lack of fulfillment in 2022. in terms of income, 40.4% expressed dissatisfaction, while only 7.7% believed that their life would improve (pp. 4-12). the data from the oecd (2023) indicate that average wages have stagnated for the past 22 years, with an increase of a mere $81 since 2020, representing the smallest wage increase among countries that showed growth. such a dismal record may be attributed to the japanese government’s inability to implement effective public policies that could generate immediate or even short-term wage growth. although japan prided itself on being the world’s second largest economic unit since 1968, china grabbed the title in 2011. once known for providing the world market with sophisticated and reliable high technology, korean brands, such as samsung, now dominate the world market with cutting-edge consumer goods. the situation is a far cry from the days when sony’s walkman was the sought-after item in the 1990s. customary business practices, coupled with offshore production and outsourcing, have resulted in the decrease in the number of well-paid factory jobs for high school graduates. this study predicts that negative tweets about princess mako contain covert or embedded messages reflecting users’ dissatisfaction with japanese sociopolitical stagnation and lawmakers’ inability to bring about significant changes. thus, she was used as a scapegoat. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. figure 2. classifications excluding the “combinations” (code 10) and general unclassified negative comments (code 9) such as “disgusted”, the most frequently used code in the “with honorifics group” is code 6, which targets princess mako’s husband and her mother-in-law. this is followed by code 7, which is against the princess herself, and then by code 3, against the system and structure. on the other hand, in the “no honorifics group”, the aforementioned codes 3 and 7, along with code 5, “relations with the public” comprised the top 3. as for the combination (code 9), in the “without honorifics” groups, 20.9% included code 3 (system and structure), followed by code 7 (princess mako) at 19.75%, and code 5 (relations with the public) at 15.80%. in the “honorifics group”, code 7 (princess mako) ranked first at 20.78%, followed by code 8 (press conference) at 19.80%, and code 5 (relations with the public) at 16.83%. the research findings for the “with honorifics” group did not fully support hypothesis 2, although “system and structure (code 3)” did rank among the top 3 categories. in the “without honorifics” group, code 3 (system and structure), topped the ranking, thereby partially validating the hypothesis. the comparison between the two groups suggests that the choice to use or not to use honorifics may have influenced, perhaps unknowingly, their choice of specific targets of harassment. the “honorifics group” seems to focus more on the parties directly involved (the princess and komuro) whereas the “without honorifics” group appears to focus on broader issues related to the system and structure. their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. negative tweets address topics such as the imperial family, and the future of the constitutional monarchy in japan, as well as the once cordial relations between the imperial family and the public. it is interesting to note that tweets about the sexual objectification of the princess or sexually suggestive messages comprised only an insignificant number, unlike many netnographical studies on tweets about female celebrities or female athletes (guerin, 2017; litchfield et al., 2015, 2018, 2021). several factors may have contributed to the lack of sexually suggestive messages: 1) the intervention by twitter japan, which applied the newly revised japanese defamation law, significantly more stringent than that of the us, to review potential violations of user agreements; 2) the tweets were collected on the day of their wedding, providing a very narrow time frame and topic for discussion; 3) it can be argued that a culturally embedded reverence for the imperial family may have acted as a barrier against the sexual objectification of the princess, whether or not a user is consciously aware of this. 3.3 frequently used terms after coding, the subjects that drew the attention of the twitter users became clear. however, it remains unclear as to what specific issues within those subjects that they focused on. in order to investigate the content in great detail, this study analyzed the 45 most frequently used keywords in the sampled tweets, listing the top 10 with the highest frequency first and the least frequent, last. table 3. top 10 keywords with honorifics ranking without honorifics 会見(press conference) 1 会見(press conference) 国民(citizens) 2 秋篠宮 (prince akishino) 皇室(imperial family) 3 国民(citizens) 秋篠宮(prince akishino) 4 皇室(imperial family) 親 (parents) 5 日本(japan) 私 (private) 6 私(private) 悪い(bad) 7 税金(tax) ptds 反対 (oppose) tie 祝福 (blessing) tie 8 悪い(bad) 9 天皇/天皇制 (emperor/imperial system) 10 誹謗中傷 (defamation) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 59 published by scholink inc. after excluding those obvious terms such as “the princess”, “[her] husband” and “marriage”, the terms “press conference”, “citizens”, “imperial family”, “prince akishino”, “parent”, and “private” stood out in the “with honorifics group”. on the other hand, in the “without honorifics” group, the top five terms were identical to those in the “with honorifics” group for the first four entries: “press conference”, “prince akishino”, “citizens”, and “imperial family”. however, a new term, “japan” emerged to round out the top five. it is also noteworthy that “freedom” and “victory” ranked significantly higher in the “honorifics group”, whereas “exit” had a higher ranking in the “without honorifics group”. the most striking similarity between the two groups is the extent of criticism directed at prince akishino, the father of the bride. netizens relentlessly denounced him for his presumed inability to control his daughter, questioning why he could not cancel the unofficial engagement. such a mindset may seem puzzling to people unfamiliar with japanese cultural norms, as netizens were convinced that the father—who is the head of the family—ought to be held accountable for the conduct of his 30-year-old daughter, as if she were a little girl incapable of making her own decisions and in need of paternal guidance. this perspective reflects the family-drama framework of media reporting that was previously mentioned in this article. when reporting on the imperial family, viewers are led to believe that the head of the family is the ultimate decision-maker of all issues concerning the family and in charge of conflict resolution. moreover, the crown prince’s alleged inability to handle his personal affairs and tame public opinion has raised grave concerns about the future direction of both the imperial family and the imperial system. currently, prince akishino is first in the line of succession and will, at some point, symbolically represent patriarchism both within the nation and within his own household. the social whisperings on twitter gave the impression that netizens still held onto age-old beliefs in the patriarchal system, in which the man of the house is the head of the family and reigns as the ultimate decision-maker, capable of enforcing his will and setting the moral standard for the family. to these netizens, the imperial family symbolizes the ideal form of japanese family life, and as such, it ought to demonstrate exemplary conduct. another noteworthy finding is that “conference” appeared first in both rankings. the term was not simply used as a reference to the event or an occasion but was primarily used to express the twitter users’ disappointment and anger toward how the imperial household agency organized it: no improvised questions, no live q&a. they were let down by princess mako’s refusal to respond to one of the pre-submitted questions concerning her in-law’s debt problem, as relentless media fixation on it had partly contributed to her ptsd. twitter users interpreted her attitude, whether accurately or inaccurately, as implying that “suggestions and concerns” about the financial issue and her personal affairs from the general public and the media were nothing more than harassment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 60 published by scholink inc. it is important to reiterate that members of the imperial family rarely conduct press conferences. nevertheless, some felt frustrated that the couple did not seize the opportunity to reconnect with the public and sway public sentiments in their favor. some twitter users believed the young couple could have presented themselves more reconciliatory to ease public concerns or at least offer apologies for stirring controversy and causing concern. none of this happened, which immensely dismayed them. in this sense, the young couple arguably missed the greatest opportunity to produce favorable self-images and rebranding, perhaps due to the lack of public relations office in the imperial household agency or perhaps due to the absence of someone akin to a spin doctor. their machiavellian moment was forever lost. the most frequently used terms in both the “honorifics” and the “without the honorifics” groups appear to be similar, if not identical. however, the content analysis reveals that the aggregated tweets collected from the two distinct groups evolved with two distinctive focuses: the “honorific group” shares more personal feelings and judgments toward princess mako’s decision to marry a controversial man, expressing disappointment and an inability to wish her good luck. on the other hand, the “without honorifics” group delves into broader issues, discussing the future of japan, and the imperial system as well. this is evident in the gap in ranking of the most frequent terms between the two groups. terms such as “tax thief”, “exit”, and “abolish [constitutional monarchy]” are ranked much higher in the “without honorifics” group, while terms, “freedom [over duty]”, “[unable to give] blessing”, and “disappointed” emerge higher in the other group. this is also consistent with the previous finding that the “with honorifics” groups pour their personal emotions toward the saga, while the “without honorifics” group looks at japan from a macro perspective, expressing their grave concern for the constitutional monarchy. 3.4 decoding narratives by connecting the dots—or, more specifically, connecting the most frequently used keywords—this research uncovered distinct narratives embedded in social whispering about princess mako. since reproducing tweets can involve copyright infringement, twitter prohibits such reproduction without the author’s consent. therefore, the following sections incorporated not the entire wording from each tweet but only partial wording in order to convey the nuance while abiding by twitter's user agreements (note. 3). by assembling the most frequently used terms, two distinctive narratives emerged from the sampled tweets. “with honorific” group “princess mako is a spoiled child who refused to sacrifice her private life for the good of the nation and the public, although it was expected of her. we are very disappointed by her conduct and cannot give her our blessing. why is it impossible for prince akishino, her father, to persuade her to break off her relationship with an unworthy man and prioritize her duty to her people and responsibility as a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 61 published by scholink inc. member of the imperial family? his parenting skills are quite questionable. the princess revealed at the press conference that she suffered from ptsd although she did not appear to have it. she accused the public of defaming her and her husband in the media and on the sns. however, it was actually the princess who defamed the citizens by expressing their legitimate concern about her involvement in the affairs of the private citizens (komuro’s debt). the press conference appeared as her triumphant victory disregarding the public sentiments, and she was hostile, defiant, and selfish. she is obligated to respect the public opinion—our voice—because we pay her living expenses through our taxes, and she should have given up her love. do not ever come back to japan! do not ever use taxpayers’ money again. we are not paying for your rent in new york city. we are not buying flight tickets for you. no more first class. since princess mako refused to do our bidding, she is a tax thief”. several inaccuracies concerning her financing are prominent in this narrative. the netizens seem to be under the impression that the imperial family members “do not work” or do not have their own assets, and thus live off taxpayer money to maintain their privileged lifestyle. in a sense, the netizens are tacitly applying a business model to their relationship with the imperial family, where the employer (they) pays a salary (a tax) to the employee (princess mako) and expects the employee to work as the employer dictates. alternatively, it is comparable to the japanese business-client relations, where clients (they) believe that “customers are like gods” (or in english, “customers are always right”.). consequently, the netizens unknowingly or knowingly transformed into paying customers and asserted their rights to receive what they believed they paid for. in this sense, their negative tweets take on more on a personal tone, imploring her disappointing conduct throughout the saga and expressing their concerns about her new life. in addition to such personal expressions, the “without honorifics” group presents another dominant narrative. “without honorific” group “we were disappointed that princess mako destroyed the trust we held in the imperial family and damaged the relationship between the imperial family and the citizens. the imperial family members ought to be more attentive to public sentiment and sacrifice their private lives for the good of the nation because they were destined to live a life of service. if the imperial family cannot listen to the public, what is the point of financially supporting them? they just took advantage of their privilege, exercising power over the public without caring about us. as she refused to perform her duty, the princess should have voluntarily exited the imperial family long ago. her selfish conduct affected the favorable relationship that the imperial family had established with the public, which may, in turn, affect the future of the constitutional monarchy in japan. crown prince akishino also exhibited his inability to manage his own household; how is it possible to believe that he will represent the imperial family and the nation with dignity and integrity when the time comes to succeed to the role of emperor? his family www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 62 published by scholink inc. should have exited from the imperial household altogether. it is high time that we seriously considered abolishing the imperial system and reexamining the sociopolitical system that is not working anymore”. the second narrative is similar to the one examined in the “with the honorific group” up to a point. from their perspective of this second group, princess mako’s saga highlighted not only her questionable conduct but also the future of the institutional arrangements of japan at the macro level. by decoding the negative tweets in this group, it became evident, however, that the twitter users were not necessarily exasperated with princess mako. their criticism went far beyond her personal conduct. although this research initially hypothesized that twitter users were venting their frustrations about sociopolitical stagnation in japan, the findings suggest that their frustrations stem from other issues. it is not about stagnant japan, where many feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled in their lives, but it seems that witnessing a changing japan frustrates them. they wanted to hold on to something that symbolizes stability in a rapidly changing world—something that never changes. the imperial system fits into this category, with its history of 126 emperors from the same lineage, setting it apart from other royal families around the world. article i of the japanese constitution clearly stipulates that “the emperor shall be the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people”. however, princess mako’s conduct shook the foundation of their belief and the unity that the imperial family should facilitate. their faith in stability was crumbling. their exasperation reflects current debates in japan about tradition versus progress, exemplified by issues of diversity and an uncertain future direction. for example, in 2021, the japan olympic committee and the tokyo organizing committee selected naomi osaka, a black haitian-japanese grand slam champion in tennis, as the final torch bearer to light the olympic cauldron, and this decision ignited intense debates on who counted as japanese and what japanese citizenship ought to entail: can a black woman who lives in the united states and speaks only broken japanese represent japan just because she has a japanese mother and possesses a japanese passport? another controversial issue that reflects changing attitudes in japan is the recent trend in restroom design, which features “men’s” and “gender-free” sections while eliminating women-only restrooms. this trend, intended to accommodate transgender individuals, has raised significant safety concerns among women and for young girls. tokyu kabukicho tower, a multipurpose facility, opened its door in april featuring “gender-free” restrooms in an effort to acknowledge diversity and to align with the un sustainable development goals—especially, the goal of leaving no one behind (“jendaresu”, 2023). however, this novel initiative was short-lived; just four months after its opening, the management company was compelled to redesign the restrooms into “men’s”, “women’s” and “multipurpose” facilities. this change was due to mounting concerns about crimes and harsh criticisms for relegating women to secondary-citizen status by denying them access to their own restrooms. in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 63 published by scholink inc. japan, it appeared that efforts by both the public and private sectors to promote diversity and multiculturalism are inadvertently coming at the expense of women, making them even more inclined to adhere to gendered traditions. yet, at the same time, these women resent the gendered traditions that exclude them from decision-making about their own restrooms. considering all these controversies about promoting diversity, it is challenging to argue that japanese women today enjoy relative gender equality. currently, japan ranks 125th in the global gender gap report compiled by the world economic forum (2023), dropping 9 places compared to last year. it is immediately followed in the ranking by jordan, india, tunisia, turkey, nigeria, and saudi arabia—all developing nations (p. 11). yet, japan ranks 5th in undp’s gender social norm index (2023), which draws its data from a series of public opinion surveys about gender equality (p. 24). this suggests that, contrary to other statistical indicators, many in japan believe that women enjoy relative equality. in essence, many seem to believe in a level of gender equality that might not actually exist. traditionalists respond both to real changes occurring in japan and to “perceived” or hypothetical threats that may exist only in their minds. relying on personal anecdotes, they view the dramatic advancement in women’s status with fear, concerned that it signals a collapse of traditional gender hierarchies. for them, the sight of a self-determined princess serves as a reminder of the perceived shifting status of women in japan, and the corresponding perceived degradation of men’s status. for those who feel left behind by these changes, the japan they once knew is fading away. this was a japan with distinctively established gender roles, where men earned respect from their families as dependable breadwinners. they may now feel emasculated in a new economy where real wages have stagnated over the last 20 years, and a man's paycheck is no longer sufficient to support his family, pay bills, fund his children's college education, and secure a comfortable retirement. that japan, characterized by a traditional division of labor where women could, if they chose, stay at home without entering the labor market or having to handle double shifts, is now a thing of the past. princess mako has become a symbol of this changing japan: a place where a defiant imperial princess can choose personal happiness and freedom, abandoning her duty, thereby challenging patriarchal norms. they were forced to realize that they cannot control the princess, even though she has been provided for by taxpayer funds. it may be frustrating for them to see her act as though she owes nothing to anyone, not even the taxpayers, fueling their resentment. the stable japan they once knew has been replaced by a new, unsettling landscape that threatens their interests and makes them feel like foreigners in their own country. thus, in the second dominant narrative, princess mako just happened to be the individual whom they selected and harass online. they could have chosen someone else, but she happened to exhibit the traits that symbolize gender equality in japan that traditionalists are reluctant to acknowledge and accept. consequently, she became a convenient scapegoat. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 64 published by scholink inc. 4. after the saga 4.1 public relations in april 2023, approximately two and a half years after the revelation of princess mako’s mental health issues, the imperial household agency established a public relations office. it is quite surprising and unthinkable to many that it took so long to establish a pr office. for now, the office is responsible for updating the imperial household agency's website, which features information about the imperial family, as well as for crafting a plan to incorporate sns into their public relations strategy. they are likely about a decade behind in the media revolution, especially considering that the british royal household actively uses social networking services to promote favorable images of its members. 4.2 concerns the agency made quite an intriguing decision in appointing a chief of pr. maiko fujiwara used to be a career bureaucrat who previously served for the national police agency, a part of the national public safety commission of the cabinet office, and was in charge of surveillance and investigation of foreign espionage, corporate espionage, radical ideological groups, and terrorist groups. it is still premature to predict what the newly-established pr office actually intends to do, but the choice of fujiwara may be concerning. in addition to disseminating favorable images of the imperial family, this office may invest more energy, time and money in cracking down on the press. such effort in itself is not a problem, as the agency was not serious about addressing defamatory and unfounded content before. but where to draw the line? what levels of criticism toward the imperial family will be allowed if that happens? japanese people, in general, have a broader definition of slander nowadays. even if a statement is accurate with supportive evidence, one can be held accountable for “hurting feelings”. today, such a subjective hypersensitive act is synonymous with the concept of slander. instead of disseminating favorable images of the imperial family, this new pr office may be more interested in cracking down on the press regardless of the level of its criticism toward the imperial family. if that is the case, it may further antagonize the public, who felt betrayed by prince akishino and princess mako and lost their respect for the imperial family. as the highest-ranking officer in the pr office, fujiwara confronts a difficult task to balance the two different needs—utilizing the media to create favorable images of the imperial family, and at the same time restraining the powers of a free press to protect them from real or perceived criticism. in the next few months or even longer, the press must test the waters to determine the extent to which fujiwara will invest her time and energy in cracking down on undesirable media coverage or uncooperative journalists. regardless, establishing the pr office was the right decision. the enforced dignified silence is a dangerous approach that undermines the mental wellbeing of the female members of the imperial family. it would also affect the heir presumptive and his marriage in the future. what woman would want to marry a prince knowing that she would be on her own and nobody would protect her from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 65 published by scholink inc. hysterical media? what the agency has done in the past may come back to haunt it. its bureaucratic modus operandi has been to postpone addressing problems until change becomes absolutely necessary. it could become even more difficult for a future emperor to look for a suitable spouse who can maintain a stiff upper lip and smile for the media and the public, as if to suggest that relentless criticism does not concern her. 5. conclusion princess mako and kei komuro’s engagement and marriage were supposed to be milestones in their personal history. however, it soon transformed into a bizarre, twisted political drama that ultimately questioned the raison d'être of the imperial family and the constitutional monarchy in japan. the personal became political. it exposed the dialectic struggle between the proponents of traditions and progress, as well as the resentment among those who feel left behind by a changing japan. she was used to express the public’s dissatisfaction; she was used by the traditional media trying to impose an ideal imperial womanhood on her; she was used as a catchy headline by the media to earn more page views and generate more profits in the new digital economy. the public and the media failed to impose on her the japanese imperial version of marianismo, which is a life dedicated to public service despite sacrificing her private life. she will not be the last person to be used as long as the media continues to rely on the traditional family drama framework, where age-old patriarchism still thrives, to report on the imperial family. however, maybe she was not an isolated, vulnerable, and tragic victim trapped in the rigid institution. maybe she was more calculating than she appeared to be in public, as many negative tweets claimed, but with positive intentions. we saw a glimpse of a strong, self-determined princess at the joint press conference on the day of her marriage. she confessed that it was her idea to live abroad rather than in japan, and she was the one who asked komuro to go to the united states for his law school education and create a base for their future. it was she who told komuro not to return the money his mother “had borrowed” from her former fiancé, as there was no legal obligation to do so. although her tactical decision backfired and led the media to create an image of her fiancé as a deadbeat, shameless social climber, she proved to be a decision-maker, or at least a co-decision-maker, in her relationship with komuro. it could be argued that her resistance to her parents, the public, and the media may not be a form of self-defense; the self-determined princess may have been on the offensive throughout the saga, inching closer to her goal every day by using any means possible behind the scenes and almost severing her relationships with members of her family. nevertheless, the experience of princess mako behind the chrysanthemum curtain since 2017 remains an enigma to the public. the path she took to liberate herself may seem ironic to some: to flee from the patriarchal institution of monarchy in which women are required to keep silent to abusive media and sns; she ended up www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 66 published by scholink inc. entering into, arguably, another patriarchal institution—a marriage. some may assume that she used her marriage as a means to escape from the closed imperial household to be free, and her husband may be merely an accessory to her plan. no one in the public knows her authentic self as she has not granted any interviews or written essays detailing her thoughts during her prolonged “unofficial” engagement. on some occasions, when dealing with the media and sns, dignified silence may work better than disseminating more information than needed. princess mako and her husband would never appear on japanese tv and discuss how painful it was for them to see abusive sns posts or how frustrating it was for them to realize that the imperial family did not seem to embrace komuro, her husband. providing interviews on tv as a celebrity is undoubtedly a profitable business as meghan markle demonstrated, and perhaps the couple would be able to woo sympathy from the public. but at what cost? they may choose to go back to japan once their self-imposed semi-exile to the united states is no longer needed. they will probably maintain a low profile in the united states, no matter how financially desperate they may become. nevertheless, one hopes that she is now able to firmly establish her new identity in a new country and is able to appreciate the fact that she is now a decision-maker along with her husband, far away from the japanese imperial system that enforced her silence. she may not be a tragic figure, after all. references cabinet office of the japanese government. (2023, february 16). kokumin seikatsu ni kansuru seron chosa [public opinion survey relating to citizens lives]. retrieved from https://survey.gov-online.go.jp/r04/r04-life/index.html guerin, a. n. (2017). elite female athletes’ perceptions of new media use relating to their careers: a qualitative analysis. journal of sport management, 31(4), 1-42. hamada, k. (2023). makosama ha naze kokomade basshingu saretanoka [why has princess mako been criticized so much]. in r. kayama (ed). iine! botan wo osumaeni [before you press like!], 21-54. akishobo. ibaragi, y. (2010). how did women’s weeklies in japan represent the issue on princess aiko’s school refusal? the content analysis of headline sentences and articles on the magazines. shuppan kenkyuu, 41, 155-183. ibaragi, y. (2013). the imperial family converge in the weekly magazine between january-july 2013. shuppan kenkyuu, 44, 95-113. ibaragi, y. (2019). how did women’s weeklies in japan represent the issue on the abdication of the emperor akihito? [the discourse analysis of headline sentences and articles on the magazine reports]. shuppan kenkyuu, 50, 71-90. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 67 published by scholink inc. jendaresu toire wazuka yonkagetsude haishi [gender-neutral restrooms, abolished in just four months]. (2023, august 3). the tokyo shimbun. retrieved from https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/267703 kayama, r. (2021). naze makosama no gokekkon ha basshingu saretanoka [why has princess mako’s marriage been criticized]. shuwa system. komuro keisan & makosama no gokekkon hantai “koushindemo” houdou de “sengo hatsu no ijyoujitai” ga torendo iri”. [demonstration against kei komuro and mako sama, protest march trending]. (2021, october 21). the chunichi shimbun. retrieved from https://www.chunichi.co.jp/article/351391 komuro keisan no haha ‘koushitsu de sapotowo’ to youkyuka [is kei komuro’s mother requesting support from the imperial family?]. (2018, february 16). news post seven. retrieved from https://www.news-postseven.com/archives/20180215_652364.html/3#google_vignette litchfield, c. et al. (2018). social media and the politics of gender, race and identity: the case of serena williams. european journal for sport and society, 15(2), 15-170. litchfield, c. et al. (2021, december 10). virtual maltreatment: sexualization and social media abuse in sport, 9. retrieved from https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/24389/1/virtual%20maltreatment%20in%20sport%20powsr. pdf makosama, hukuzatusei ptds to shindan, kunaicho ga happyo. [the imperial household agency announces princess mako has complex ptsd]. (2021, october 1). the asahi shimbun. retrieved from https://www.asahi.com/articles/aspb15fxzpb1util02f.html makosamano gokekkon “shukuhukushitai” 38% hiteikaitou to kikkou seronchousa. [public onion survey on princess mako’s marriage, 38% for “wishing happiness”, neck and neck with negative responses]. (2021, september 18). the mainichi shimbun. retrieved from https://mainichi.jp/articles/20210918/k00/00m/040/207000c makosama totsugisaki no “gibo” ga kakaeru 400 manenchou shakkin traburu [the mother-in-law of princess mako’s future husband is facing a debt issue of over 4 million yen]. (2017, december 26). shukan jyosei, 23. matsumura, y. (1991). 90nenndai no tennousei to senzen tono renzokusei: kokumin tono renzokusei no mondaiten [continuity between the imperial system in the 1990s and the pre-war era: issues of continuity with the citizens]. shimbungakuhyouron, 40, 193-211. oecd library. (2023, august 5). table average annual wages. retrieved from https://stats.oecd.org/viewhtml.aspx?datasetcode=av_an_wage&lang=en prince akishino’s press conference on his birthday. (2021, november 29). jiji tshuusin euzou center. retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnoklp_wyy8 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 68 published by scholink inc. shikata, y. (2004). jenda to media kenkyuniokeru messeiji bunseki. [analyzing studies of gender and media relations]. mass communication kenkyu, 64, 87-102. shoji, y. (2021, october 26). makosama komuro keisan no houdou ha “jinkenshingai” reveru datta [the coverage of princess mako and kei komuro reached the level of human rights violation]. the huffpost japan. retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.jp/entry/princess-mako-and-kei-komuro-getting-married_jp_61751a6e e4b03072d6f7dbce tanako, t. (2023). naze sns deha reiseini taiwa dekinainoka [why we are not able to have rational conversations on sns]. in r. kayama (ed.), iine! botan wo osumaeni [before you press like!] (pp. 118-141). akishobo. undp. (2023, june 12). table a1 gender social norms index. retrieved from https://hdr.undp.org/system/files/documents/hdp-document/gsni202303pdf.pdf world economic forum. (2023, june 20). table 1.1 the global gender gap index 2023 rankings. in global gender gap report. retrieved from https://www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_gggr_2023.pdf notes note 1. as it is culturally uncommon in japan to address members of the imperial family by their first names alone, she is referred to as either “the princess” or “princess mako” in all instances in this article. note 2. on july 24, 2023, ceo elon musk officially rebranded twitter as “x”. however, for the sake of lexicographical clarity, the original name “twitter” will be used throughout this article. note 3. translations from japanese to english were carried out by the author of this work. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 227 original paper social media and emotions literature review how does social media affect emotional wellbeing? jialin tian 1* 1 yk pao school * jialin tian, yk pao school received: september 20, 2024 accepted: october 17, 2024 online published: november 6, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p227 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p227 abstract this paper discusses the research on the influence of social media on wellbeing revealing both costs and benefits. social media as a powerful new technology can promote connections between people, facilitate adolescents’ development of relationships, and improve people’s depressive symptoms. on the other hand, social media may also increase social comparison, which may lead to depression and anxiety; affect adolescents’ identity formation; and induce feelings of loneliness. this paper explores the mechanisms behind these influences, concluding that most harms social media have on wellbeing is due to the lack of an accurate understanding of social media. this paper first explores the benefits of social media, then discusses its negative effects on wellbeing, and finally provides some suggests on ways to use social media to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs. keywords social media, emotional wellbeing, social comparison, self-isolation, depressive symptoms as a newly developed technology, social media has become increasingly dominant in people’s lives. as of april 2024, 5.07 billion people, which is 62.6% of world’s population, are social media users. surveys show that 90% of teenagers have used social media, it is a prominent part among young generation’s lives, and it drastically changes the traditional way of communication, relationship maintenance, entertainment etc. people’s attitude toward social media usage has also gradually changed from being excited to more careful and concerned. it is important for us to understand its effects on people, especially the young generation, to help provide a safer and more positive growing environment. one of the benefits of social media is that it makes self-disclosure easier to achieve (walsh et al., 2020). self disclosure is the act of sharing personal information, and it can facilitate the development of social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 228 published by scholink inc. relationships (yang et al., 2019). on social media, people can self-disclose to their entire friend group by posting updates, which is more convenient and immediate compared to offline disclosures. these online self-disclosures provides unique benefits for the fulfilment of adolescents’ social needs (towner et al., 2022). koutamanis et al.’s 2013 study shows that adolescent’s social behaviors on social media affects their ability to initiate offline relationships (koutamanis et al., 2013). it is a longitudinal study based on 690 dutch adolescents between 10-17 years old. participants’ online self-disclosure is measured using a scale developed by schouten, asking participants to rate when they are using instant messaging how much they usually tell close friends about their personal feelings, secrets, and more. participants’ ability to initiate offline friendship is measured using a subscale of a social competence scale (asking participants to rank how difficult it was to start a conversation with someone who you did not know very well, introduce yourself for the first time to someone, and etc.) results show that online self-disclosure was positively linked with participant’s ability to initiate offline friendships. moreover, courtois and all’s 2012 study on 352 adolescents demonstrated that social networking services are valuable sources of information for offline relationships. for people who scored high on social anxiety scale, looking at profiles and interacting with peers on social networking services can alleviate social anxiety (courtois & all, 2012). browsing other's profile and posts online can help people with social anxiety to gain a better understanding of other people's interests and personality, making them more comfortable to initiate a conversation (dolan, 2024). in addition, social media’s effect on children should be examined more carefully as it is present throughout their developmental stages. according to vaingankar, youth mainly develop positive mental wellbeing through three features on social media: connecting with friends and global community, engaging with social media content, and expressing themselves on social media. in his 2022 study, he interviewed 25 teenagers shows that these three pathways mentioned before contributed to 5 positive mental health components: (1) positive relationships and social capital, (2) self-concept, (3) coping, (4) happiness, and (5) other relevant aspects of mental health (positivity, personal growth, and psychological well-being) (vaingankar et al., 2022) the enhanced interaction with friends and connecting with others promotes the development of close relationships with mutual trust, recognition, and a sense of belonging. the various features and virtual group functions of social media made it easier for them to seek a safe space to express their feelings and search for support. these interactions allow them to maintain and enhance positive relationship with people, develop self-concept, learn how to better cope with emotions, and just simply gain happiness. moreover, social media can also help improve depressive symptoms by creating online health communities (rayland & andrews, 2023). these groups give people the sense of community with others that share similar conditions and concerns. together they can support each other and create a shared faith that is believed to be achieved. the sense of community involves two major aspects: the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 229 published by scholink inc. sense of belonging and the sense of support. the sense of belonging is generated by shared identity, which allows people to categorize themselves into an in-group; and trust, which promotes their interaction with community members. ―the sense of support is the feeling that members' needs will be met by the resources received through their membership in the group.‖ according to studies of uses and gratification theory, people can yield three types of support from social media usage: informational, emotional, and socializing (lu et al., 2021). informational support refers to the knowledge and information that users can obtain easily on social media. knowing more about their disease or symptoms can help them alleviate some negative feelings of fear and anxiety, making them more confident, improving depressive symptoms. users can get emotional support through expressing their emotions with group members and receiving sympathy and encouragement from others. social media also offers socializing support as it gives people additional opportunities to make new friends. people experiencing depressive symptoms view social media as an important channel for interpersonal communication. having the opportunity to regularly connect with friends decreases people’s feeling of isolation and gives them social companionship, which leads to higher levels of psychological wellbeing. the effects discussed above are how social media may positively influence one’s mental wellbeing. but on the contrary, social media exposes people to a lot of peer shared content, which encourages them to compare themselves with the information they see, performing social comparison. social comparison is defined as people comparing themselves to others and evaluate their personal and social worth according to other’s opinions, achievements, and abilities. social comparison can be sorted into three main categories, upward (the target seeming superior), downward (the target being interpreted as inferior), and lateral (the target is perceived as equal to oneself) (samra et al., 2022). it can feel good when others on the internet fall short than you such as taking longer to learn an instrument. it can also be stressful to look up to the attractive pictures that have been photoshopped to fit into standards of beauty that is hardly achievable in real life. most social comparison that social media generates are upward as the information that people share are mostly idealized: people tend to share the positive part of their life, called positivity bias, and sometimes it is exaggerated or even faked (krause et al., 2020). influencers post edited pictures and fake information to make their life seem good and make viewers look up to them to gain likes and attention. this deliberately chosen information posted can mislead the viewers into believing that what they see online is a true reflection of others and thus perceive them as having a better and happier life than they are. upward social comparison is created during this comparison process and is likely to result in lower self-esteem and worsened mood (mccomb et al., 2023). continuous exposure to these negative emotions and opinions about oneself can possibly lead to depression. studies (lie et al., 2018) also show that there’s a bidirectional relationship between problematic social media use and depression, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 230 published by scholink inc. suggesting that people may become depressed through social comparison on social media and their depression symptoms drive more problematic social media use and social comparison behavior. social comparison from social media contents also plays a crucial role in adolescent’s self-development as it is a part in identity formation. this comparison process helps adolescents figure out where they stand in terms of beliefs, preferences, and attitudes (staff, 2023). in a traditional setting, social comparison among adolescents is between their peers of similar age, culture, and education level. compared to idealized self-presentations on social media, traditional adolescent community triggers more lateral comparison, which is considered less harmful than upwards comparison. this healthy social comparison can inspire and motivate adolescents. for example, comparison with classmates in a school environment can create motivation to work harder, engage in sport activities, and help them develop an appropriate work life balance. however, the modified information on social media is an unreachable target for viewers, and since adolescents sometimes lack the ability to recognize fake information, they are more susceptible to the negative effects of upward social comparison. they may develop depressive symptoms, lower self-esteem, and higher body dissatisfaction, all being indications of diminished well-being. nevertheless, problematic social media use can also lead to increase in loneliness and self-isolation. bonsaksen’s study shows that for people who use social media as a mean to maintain relationships, more time spent on social media is associated with higher levels of loneliness (bonsaksen et al., 2023). however, this relationship is weaker for people who use social media primarily for other reasons such as to avoid difficult feelings. for people who go online to escape burdensome feelings such as boredom and simply entertain themselves, time spent on social media doesn’t seem to affect their perception of loneliness and connection with other people. when people go online with the intention to maintain contact with friends, they anticipate meaningful and real interactions similar to those in real life. however, social media as a virtual platform often cannot meet those expectations, making it difficult for people to accomplish what they anticipated from a relationship. therefore, for people with intentions of maintaining contacts, more time spent on social media striving for meaningful relationships may result in a deeper sense of loneliness. so why is some social media beneficial and others are harmful? at the end of the day, social media is just a tool. the astonishing features and functions of social media brought by the development of internet technology creates many opportunities for people to utilize it for good. but at the same time, the lack of understanding on how to use this tool appropriately and manage our expectations can negatively affect one’s wellbeing. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 231 published by scholink inc. conclusion social media is a revolutionary technology. it revolutionizes the traditional way of communication by eliminating the physical constraints of distance. it is a great platform for people to connect with others around the globe and enhance the communication between groups of different culture and beliefs. ideas from different people clashes and reforms into something better (bharati et al., 2020). social media allows people to be linked to a greater population and can find more peers of the same interest. moreover, people have more opportunities look out for help in a wider range, they can find resources that they didn’t have access to before, receive care from a greater group, and perhaps find other people struggling on the same problem they are facing and support each other. a lot of harm people experience from social media usage is due to the lack of self-awareness of their social media habits and how social media is affecting them (kalinin & edguer, 2023). blindly believing information online creates unhealthy upward social comparison, and their self-satisfaction lowers every time they do that. believing that social media can substitute in-person communications also makes people’s expectations fall flat when they fail to maintain the same level of connection on social media as in real life. these negative effects can be avoided by acknowledging these features and develop a clear and adequate expectation of the use of social media. if one knows that the content on social media is biased and it only shows the best part of other’s life, they are less likely to compare themselves to those idealized images as they understand that this social comparison is unfair. also, if one understands that social media as a virtual platform is different from offline interactions as a lot of information such as eye contact and body language are not present, they will lower their expectation on the interactions on social media and therefore be less likely to be disappointed and avoid developing senses of loneliness. social media is still a relatively new tool. people are still in the stage of developing and exploring it. even though there are some concerns on how social media may negatively affects emotional wellbeing, there’re still a lot of potential and beneficiaries of utilizing it. to understand social media and understand how we can use it appropriately to avoid those damages is more important than simply staying away from it. references bharati, p., du, k., chaudhury, a., & agrawal, n. 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(2019). the channel matters: self-disclosure, reciprocity and social support in online cancer support groups. proceedings of the sigchi conference on human factors in computing systems. chi conference, 2019, 31. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300261 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 29 original paper gender wise distribution of income using l-moments method muhammad alam1, saeed ullah jan2* & alam zeb1 1 faculty of basic & applied sciences, department of statistics, international islamic university, islamabad, pakistan 2 department of computer science & it, university of malakand, chakdara, pakistan * saeed ullah jan, department of computer science & it, university of malakand, chakdara, pakistan received: january 31, 2018 accepted: february 9, 2019 online published: february 16, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n1p29 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n1p29 abstract the main purpose of this work is to explore the income distribution of both male and female in pakistan over the period of 2010-2011. for this purpose, the lognormal distribution with known parameters is used as a model and its unknown parameters are estimated by three methods that are likelihood, moments and l-moments. the results show that citizens of pakistan are not equal in income and the probability plot suggested that the income of the male is greater than that of a female in pakistan. moreover, for small sample size, the best method of parameters estimation is the l-moments, while, for large sample size the best method is a maximum likelihood. findings of the study suggest that suitable policy is required to maintain equality in income distribution in the country. it will consequently reduce the gap among rich and poor and will certainly improve social welfare. keywords distribution, lognormal, likelihood, l-moments, ratio, population 1. introduction the importance of income throughout the world is undeniable. it is a backbone for a country, especially in pakistan is important as breathing air, without air there is no hope for life. without having a reasonable source of earning there cannot be even a single ray of hope for survival. the lognormal distribution (note 1) is used in several fields of life for estimation of parameters, e.g., they are used in statistics, geology, medical science, environmental science, technology, ecology, social science, and income. incomes within countries generally adopt a skewed distribution with a long heavy tail. lognormal distribution has been found best fit on the average for income distribution. this can also prove through the goodness of fit test such as chi-square test, anderson darling test (albreht & klazinga, 2009). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 30 published by scholink inc. the lognormal distribution is a continuous probability distribution. the probability density function of the three parametric lognormal distributions is given as: (1) where 0 whereas parameters, scale, shape and location or threshold the l-moments (note 2) can be used for characterization and explanation of theoretical probability distributions, narration, explanation of experimental data samples, assessment of different parameters, assessing of probability distributions and hypothesis testing. the major benefit of l-moments over traditional moment is that the l-moments illustrate a broad range of distributions, suffered less from the effect of sampling variability and are more powerful than when there are outliers in the data by (bílková, 2008). it is used for extreme events such as rainfall, flood, earth quick, droughts, heat waves, snowfall, famine, and income distribution. the l-moments technique gives the correct result in the estimation of parameters as compared to the maximum likelihood, method of moments (bílková, 2011). let suppose is a vector of observations in a sample which can be described by the model , where is the parameter value. the given model , will give us the probabilities of the various values of . when we define the maximum likelihood then we have to define the likelihood function first (bílková, 2012). the likelihood function for a given value of is as a function of . the mle is a reasonable method of estimation because it locates that value of for which the observed data are most probable. the mle enjoys some good properties in large sample size such as normality, efficiency, consistency, and un-biasedness. suppose a random sample are drawn from a distribution with probability density function , where is parameter space (bílková, 2012). the likelihood function is: (2) let suppose we have random samples , from a distribution having probability density function is , and ), which are considered as unknown vector parameters. we then define the population moment at the origin “0” as, for continuous distribution: (3) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 31 published by scholink inc. the advantages of the moment’s method are that it is an old and simple technique used for the estimation of parameters and a very simple method for finding the estimators of parameters. its estimators are consistent and best method in case of point estimation parameters. it is an easy method to find an estimator and also in the case when the other methods fail to find. it is used in case of large sample size. its first moment equal to mean, second to variance, third to skewness and forth one is equal to kurtosis (arltová, 2013). the drawbacks of the moment’s method are that this method is not available for every distribution. moments method estimators are not necessary to be sufficient. the hosking et al. (2005) is used for the data of household income and expenditure survey (hies) and pakistan integrated household survey (pihs) w.e.f 1963 to 2002 for both rural, urban citizen and was decided that the main goal of economic growth is to improve the living standard of ordinary men, but only economic growth is not sufficient for the standard of living of a common men, the improvement in the income distribution is also playing a vital role in the betterment of a layman life. but unluckily the ratio of poverty becomes an increase in the 1990s and the economist focuses to find the ratio of the poor population instead of improving the measurement of the income distribution. in pakistan, the income inequalities have also been estimated for both methods, i.e., pakistan integrated household survey (pihs) and household income and expenditure survey (hies). the wage data of the czech republic from 2004-2005 apply different methods of parameters for the aforesaid estimation such as quantile method, moment method, and maximum likelihood method. by applying lognormal distribution one can easily decide the results of the lognormal distribution (kemal, 2009). rehman et al. (2008) analyzed that the distribution of income, growth and its development in pakistan is because of income inequality and create financial hurdles to all them respectively. in the early periods, several attempts were made to make a relation between income inequality and economic growth, but there is no proper mechanism was developed. rehman et al. (2008) concluded that there is a reverse correlation between income and economic growth. the data on household income per capita in the czech republic from 1992-2008 decided that the method of l-moments for estimation of parameters gives us the correct result as compared to other methodologies like maximum likelihood, moment subject to the condition that the data should be separate, for grouped data, these methods will give similar results of arltová (2013). the census data record from czech statistical office, income data from statistical surveys and wage data taken from czech’s official website shows that the l-moments technique gives the correct result in the estimation of parameters as compared to the maximum likelihood, method of moments and quantile method for individual data subject to the condition that data should not be in group because the in grouped data all the four methods give a similar result like that of bílková (2008). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 32 published by scholink inc. also, the income data of the czech republic discussed by steinführer et al. (2010) suggested that method of l-moments for estimation of parameters provides precise consequence as compared to the other methods of estimation, such as the method of moment, a method of maximum likelihood in case of ungrouped data; for grouped data, these methods give the same results. the household per capita of the czech republic proposed by kemal (2008) that for income and wage distribution the l-moments is the best method for estimation of parameters as compared with the method of moment, quantile method, and method of maximum likelihood. furthermore, the data of the czech republic’s household income from 1992-2008 has also been used for the lognormal distribution. also, apply four methods of parameters estimation, which includes l-moments, quantile, maximum likelihood, and moment method. they decided that the method of l-moments gives more accurate results than other methods by albreht (2008). there are two types of data; the first one is the czech republic per capita household income in years 1992, 1996 and 2002, and the second is the statistical survey micro-census of years 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. they used the three parameters of the lognormal distribution. and conclude that the accuracy of the method of l-moments is better than the other methods of estimation, that are maximum likelihood and the quantile method, a method of the moment for individual data. but for the grouped data the method of l-moments, a method of maximum likelihood, a method of moments, and the quantile method gives similar consequences by langhamrová and bílková (2008). 2. materials & methods the income data are taken from pakistan social and living standard measurement survey (pslsms) (note 3) of 2010-2011 of the pakistan bureau of statistics (pbs) islamabad. the calculation of a national income is important. from the national income, we can find the performance of a country during that year. from the national income, we can also find out whether the financial system is increasing or decreasing. the national income depends upon the wages, profits, rents, interest, and business. due to these factors, we can improve our national income and from national income, we improve the per capita income and also the standard of living. the income distribution also used to find the proportion of low, middle and high incomes workers in a country. the main goal of economic growth is to improve the standard of life, but only economic growth is not sufficient for the standard of living of peoples; the improvement in the income distribution is also playing an important role in the betterment of the human life. but unluckily the ratio of poverty becomes an increase in the 1990s and the economist focuses to find the ratio of the poor population instead of improving the measurement of the income distribution. income inequality is a main financial problem to all the word. in the early periods, several attempts have been made to make out a relation between the income inequality and the economic growth, but there is no conclusion find between the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 33 published by scholink inc. income inequality and the economic growth but conclude that there is a reverse correlation between income and economic growth. the conventional moments are used to estimate the parameters of a distribution but the conventional moments for small sample size are not always convenient, moreover, we can also specify a distribution by its l-moments even if its conventional moments do not exist. the sample convenient moments are used to summarize the mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis, similarly, the sample l-moments are used to summarize the location, scale, skewness, and kurtosis for a specified distribution. let be a random variable with cumulative distribution function and quantile function and let be the order statistics of a random sample of size “ ” taken from the distribution of . the l-moments of can be defined the general term can be written as now the expectation of an order statistic may be defined as (2) the unique specification of l-moments is that it specifying the distribution if some of its conventional moments do not exist. the l-moments ratios (note 4) can be defined as: , the l-cv is the probability weighted moments is defined as (3) the l-moments of a probability distribution are given as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 34 published by scholink inc. and for general (4) the sample l-moments may also be defined as and for the general term where (5) 3. results and discussion in table 1, is the mean of the data, the value of is 0.4047 that indicates that there is inequality in the male income data. is the l-skewness and its value is 0.4399 which is positive so the male income data distribution will be positively skewed, it indicates that most of the peoples income will be on the left side of the mean and the extreme income means the high income will be on the right side of the mean, , , are the three quartiles of the male income data as shown in the table given below. table 1. l-moments ratios and quartiles for male income in pakistan 131900 0.4047008 0.4399626 0.3190783 62400 96000 151200 79352.53 0.5651828 0.5235219 0.3122305 24000 36000 96000 table 2. parameters estimation by different methods of three parameters lognormal distribution for male income in pakistan methods of estimation l-moments 11.14 0.94 24366.17 moments 11 1 31449.8 maximum likelihood 11.5 0.7 -2001 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 35 published by scholink inc. figure 1. probability distribution plot of male income in pakistan from the above figure, we conclude that 25% of male income is less than 62000, 50% of peoples have income below than 96000. and 75% of the total population income is less 150000, and the last 25% of the population that have income above than 150000. table 3. l-moments ratios and quartiles for female income in pakistan 79352.53 0.5651828 0.5235219 0.3122305 24000 36000 96000 131900 0.4047008 0.4399626 0.3190783 62400 96000 151200 in table 2, the average income of female is less than the male income; the value of is 0.5652 that indicates that there is inequality in the female income data. as we compare the variation of male income with female income then there is a large variation in female income as compared with male income, the l-cv of male income is less than the female, and also the skewness of female income is greater than male income, is the l-skewness and its value is 0.5235 which is positive so the female income data distribution will be positively skewed. it indicates that most of the female income will be on the left side of the mean and the extreme income means the high income will be on the right side of the mean, , , are the three quartiles of the female income data. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 36 published by scholink inc. table 4. parameters estimation by different methods of three parameters lognormal distribution for female income in pakistan methods of estimation l-moments 10.58 1.15 2663.74 moments 11.4 0.8 -38872.5 maximum likelihood 10.7 1.1 605 from the below female income plot shown in figure 2, we see that the first 25% of the population has income below than 24000 and 50% of the population income less than 36000. and 75% of the total female population income is less than 96000 and the last 25% of the female population that have income greater than 96000. as we see that the male income is greater than female income in pakistan. figure 2. probability distribution plot of female income in pakistan www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 37 published by scholink inc. table 5. absolute bias and rmse for different methods of estimation of parameters for sample size n=20 methods of estimation rmse l-moments 11.59 0.76 -8390 35892 162128 moments 12.40 0.40 -127937 151951 231421 maximum likelihood 11.64 0.72 -11172 69622 211036 when n=20, small sample size the best method of estimation is l-moments because its absolute bias and rmse are less than the moments method and maximum likelihood method. in last we compare the parameters of lognormal distribution obtained by l-moments method, moments method, and maximum likelihood method, with respect to absolute bias and rmse. we take different sample sizes from the data and also take the random numbers of the same size that we selected from the real income data and then find the absolute bias and rmse, so the best method will be that whose absolute bias and rmse are small. so for a small sample size the best the l-moments method, and for large sample size the best method is the maximum likelihood. table 6. absolute bias and rmse for different methods of estimation of parameters for sample size n=30 methods of estimation rmse l-moments 11.2 5 1.1 0 15673 39066 233841 moments 12.0 6 0.7 3 -68074 74522 293810 maximum likelihood 11.2 2 1.1 8 17360 83800 479023 when n=30 then, in this case, the l-moments method for estimation of parameters is best because its absolute bias and rmse are less than the other methods. similarly, for n=50 the best method of parameters estimation is the maximum likelihood because its absolute bias and rmse are less than the l-moments method and moments method as shown in the below table. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 38 published by scholink inc. table 7. absolute bias and rmse for different methods of estimation of parameters for sample size n=50 methods of estimation rmse l-moments 11.5 9 0.71 -8310 44740 182374 moments 12.3 4 0.39 -116996 129186 192291 maximum likelihood 11.4 8 0.78 980 12203 152556 table 8. absolute bias and rmse for different methods of estimation of parameters for sample size n=100 methods of estimation rmse l-moments 11.51 0.70 380 13826 145428 moments 11.18 0.88 23264 27413 157953 maximum likelihood 11.62 0.63 -8860 3176 119216 but when n=100 means when sample size increases the best method of estimation of parameters is maximum likelihood method because its absolute bias and rmse are less than other methods that are l-moments and moments method. table 9. absolute bias and rmse for different methods of estimation of parameters for sample size n=250 methods of estimation rmse l-moments 11.11 0.91 20654 17299 233256 moments 11.10 0.98 14758 3962 199615 maximum likelihood 11.52 0.65 -6640 2095 158376 and when n=250 or above than 250 means by increases sample size the best method of estimation of parameters is maximum likelihood method than l-moments method and moments method because its absolute bias and rmse are less. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 39 published by scholink inc. 4. conclusion incomes within countries generally adopt a skewed distribution with a long heavy tail; lognormal distribution has been found best fit on the average for income distribution in pakistan. we estimate the parameters of lognormal distribution by different methods of estimation that are the l-moments method, moments method and maximum likelihood method. we find the parameters of these three methods for all male and female in the whole pakistan. we also find the probability distribution plot for male and female income data. the citizens of pakistan are not equal in income, a few groups of peoples are very rich and some are very poor. finally, we compare the parameters of lognormal distribution obtained by l-moments method, moments method, and maximum likelihood method, with respect to absolute bias and rmse for different sample size. so the best method of parameters estimation will be that whose absolute bias and rmse are less. so in the case of small sample size, the best method of parameters estimation is the l-moments, and for large sample size the maximum likelihood method. the moments method is also used in case of large sample size but its estimators are not efficient and not necessary to be sufficient. references albreht, t., & klazinga, n. (2009). privatisation of health care in slovenia in the period 1992-2008. health policy, 90(2-3), 262-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2008.10.007 arltová, m., langhamrová, j., & langhamrová, j. (2013). development of life expectancy in the czech republic in years 1920-2010 with an outlook to 2050. prague economic papers, 22(1), 125-143. https://doi.org/10.18267/j.pep.444 bílková, d. (2008). application of lognormal curves in the modeling of wage distributions. journal of applied mathematics, 1(2), 341-352. bílková, d. (2011). l-moments and their use in modeling the distribution of income and wage. isi held on, 21-26. bílková, d., & malá, i. (2012). application of the l-moment method when modeling the income distribution in the czech republic. austrian journal of statistics, 41(2), 125-132. https://doi.org/10.17713/ajs.v41i2.180 hosking, j. r. m., & wallis, j. r. (2005). regional frequency analysis: an approach based on l-moments. cambridge university press. kemal, a. r. (2006). income inequalities in pakistan and a strategy to reduce income inequalities. background paper for prsp-ii, prsp secretariat, government of pakistan. langhamrová, j., & bílková, d. (2011). analysis of the distribution of income in recent years in the czech republic by region. international days of statistics and economics at vše, prague, 2011-2023. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 40 published by scholink inc. rehman, h. u., khan, s., & ahmed, i. (2008). income distribution, growth, and financial development: a cross countries analysis. pakistan economic and social review, 1-16. steinführer, a., bierzynski, a., großmann, k., haase, a., kabisch, s., & klusácek, p. (2010). population decline in polish and czech cities during post-socialism? looking behind the official statistics. urban studies, 47(11), 2325-2346. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098009360224 notes note 1. the lognormal distribution is used to claim that the distribution is positively skewed or not. the distribution of income is also positively skewed. so we use the lognormal distribution for income data. note 2. l-moments are the outlook of statistics of the order of certain linear combinations and can be defined for every random variable whose mean exists. and can be used for characterization and explanation of theoretical probability distributions note 3. the data are taken from pakistan social and living standard measurement survey (pslsms) of 2010-2011. note 4. the l-moment ratio can be obtained by higher order l-moment divided by a measure of dispersion that as t_r=l_r/l_2 . the t_3 used for skewness and t_4 used for kurtosis, l_1 denoted for the mean of the data, t is for l-cv which is similar to the coefficient of variation and the value of t will 0≤t<1. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper the influence and fusion of online films with traditional cinema: a case study of the netflix platform anran liu1* 1 hong kong baptist university, kowloon, hong kong, china * anran liu, hong kong baptist university, kowloon, hong kong, china received: august 31, 2023 accepted: september 8, 2023 online published: september 15, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n4p1 abstract the emergence and popularization of streaming movies have witnessed the change in acceptance mode and acceptance psychology of traditional movie and television, and broke the confinement of time and space. taking netflix, a streaming online platform, as a case study, this research endeavors to explore the impact of streaming movies on traditional cinema movies and their convergence utilizing literature analysis, classification and comparative analysis, case study research method, and data collection and analysis method. keywords streaming movies, cinema movies, netflix, streaming media platforms 1. introduction 1.1 the rapid development of the internet: a new product of “internet + movie” since the advent of the booming development of the internet, the movie industry and the streaming media industry have been more closely integrated, establishing a unique movie viewing mode, i.e., streaming movies. the fast-paced societal development and the widespread popularity of internet culture have increasingly led to the dominance of “fragmented” time in people’s daily lives. the emergence of streaming movies, on the other hand, aligns perfectly with the current “fragmented” lifestyle. the profound development of digital technology and streaming media has drastically transformed the movie consumption habits of global audiences. the traditional movie viewing mode, constrained by time and space, is gradually being supplanted by online streaming platforms. moreover, the mobility of electronic devices has enriched the viewing experience in no small degree. with the advancement of video streaming technology and the 5g internet, the streaming movie viewing experience has become www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. notably clearer and smoother, amplifying the audience’s sense of enjoyment in watching movies. the evolution of the streaming movie industry showcases a profound convergence between digital media technology and the cinema sector, giving rise to a dissemination model and creative paradigm that distinctly diverges from traditional cinema movies. this transformation has ushered in structural changes across movie production, promotion, and financial aspects. the internet, as a communication medium, has provided a global platform for the expansion of streaming movies worldwide, allowing audiences to directly engage with a diverse range of global streaming movie works through various channels. streaming movies, as a result, wields an immediate and far-reaching clout on an international scale. in the long run, streaming movies are poised to become a direct and convenient presentation format, even transcending cultural and geographical boundaries. 1.2 video media platforms are “catalysts” for the growth of streaming movie industry taking netflix as a prime example, established in 1997, the platform began its journey as an online dvd disc rental service, later transitioned to online streaming, and eventually evolved into a hub for producing high-caliber original content. by continually refining user experiences through technological innovation and big data analysis, netflix has now risen to become the world’s foremost online video streaming service provider. high-quality streaming movies can reflect the brand identity of a certain video platform, nurturing a stronger sense of trust from the audience in the platform’s brand. in this way, it not only enhances user engagement but entices a considerable influx of new users, thereby solidifying the platform’s position as a stable and enduring competitive force. consequently, an innovative model for streaming movies has taken shape, wherein the platform takes charge of copyrights, development, investment, and production, and subsequently carries out the marketing and distribution efforts in-house. recent years have seen the seismic impact of the covid-19, which inflicted the widespread closure of cinemas and became a substantial blow to traditional cinema movies. the pandemic necessitated that numerous viewers remain confined to their homes, consequently transforming them into potential streaming customers. this unfolding situation has provided unprecedented growth prospects for streaming movies. 1.3 series of ip drives the development and rise of streaming movies the creative genesis of streaming movies primarily stems from the meticulous collection, investigation, integration, and iterative refinement of voluminous datasets sourced from the internet. alternatively, they may directly adapt premium ips from the online sphere. each strategic approach innately establishes a receptive audience base for streaming movies, which further ensures revenue stability. in the late 20th century, the hollywood movie industry embarked on a series of strategic commercial endeavors, notably involving high-profile science fiction ips such as star wars, star trek, and harry potter. these initiatives artfully leveraged the loyal fan communities associated with the iconic ips to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. make substantial financial gains. notably, of all the global movie releases of 2019, the top ten highest-grossing movies exclusively featured sequels from renowned movie series or adaptations of established ips. in comparison to traditional cinema releases, streaming movies possess a deeper alignment with the prevailing currents of mass culture. their inherent audience base, coupled with fervent fan loyalty, renders ip-based streaming movies particularly adept at reaping latent dividends. illustratively, following the collaboration with the celebrated writer stephen king, the prominent u.s.-based netflix platform has successfully ventured into the realm of streaming movie production, resulting in such critically acclaimed works as in the tall grass, gerald’s game, and 1922. these exemplary productions underscore netflix’s prowess in the effective utilization of ip-driven content. 2. the distribution mode and viewing of streaming movies streaming movie, as a novel cinematic art form, predominantly relies on the internet for distribution and presentation, exhibiting a heightened level of flexibility, diversity, and rapidity compared to its traditional cinema counterparts. this variance in medium profoundly shapes audience interaction and viewing patterns. the experience of conventional cinema movies is marked by constraints, passivity, and a one-way flow, whereas the viewing mode of streaming movies is characterized by autonomy, liberation, proactive involvement, and interactivity. the disparities between cinema movies and streaming movies, however, primarily reside in the realm of psychological perception rather than fundamental differences in content essence. 2.1 from passive consumption to proactive aesthetic engagement compared to the traditional cinema movies, streaming movies exhibit a distinct absence of social attributes, but leaning more towards individualism, and breaking free from the constraints of time and space in the meanwhile. the audience are free to select their preferred viewing times via any medium and is accompanied by the ability to exercise control over the pace and the viewing environment, thus granting them an unprecedented level of autonomy. firstly, in terms of time, the structural design of information in streaming movies takes a “non-linear” approach, diverging from the linear viewing experience inherent in traditional cinema movies. the intermittent operability of personal media empowers the audience to pause, play, accelerate, or revisit segments of their interest, while skipping over those less engaging ones. such an arrangement affords viewers the discretion to determine the sequence of viewing. consequently, streaming movies offer a remarkable degree of flexibility compared to their cinema counterparts, enabling viewers to seamlessly integrate movie-watching into their personal schedules. secondly, in the realm of “space”, despite the fact that the overall sensory impact of traditional cinematic experiences may surpass that of online streaming viewing, it remains a passive aesthetic process, as one must visit a physical cinema to partake in the movie-watching experience under the traditional movie paradigm. in contrast, streaming www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. movies exist within a controlled physical-audiovisual milieu. disruption of this nature of the traditional movie framework grants audiences the prerogative to choose their preferred viewing location, effectively transcending the limitations of time and space. moreover, the introduction of compact network terminals, such as laptops, ipads, and smartphones, has catalyzed a shift from collective appreciation to individualized engagement. while platforms like netflix exemplify such transformation, offering software compatibility across diverse hardware devices, so that seamless transitions among television, gaming consoles, set-top boxes, tablets, and smartphones are possible. finally, regarding the content, the extensive library available on streaming movie platforms significantly broadens the scope of viewer choice, deviating from the practice of cinemas dictating “what to watch”. instead, viewers exercise autonomous selection over the movies they wish to watch, free from the confines of cinema schedules. such empowerment allows them to revisit movies from any historical period, thus transitioning the viewing experience from passive consumption to proactive aesthetic engagement. 2.2 from recipients to creators: interactivity certain streaming movies exhibit the remarkable capacity for dynamic adjustments based on audience feedback, leading to potential alterations in plot trajectory and casting choices, thereby ensuring alignment with audience preferences. this transition from the conventional passive reception of information in traditional cinema to the egalitarian exchange of information on streaming movie platforms, facilitated by an open production process, affords audiences an unprecedented level of involvement in the creative process. interaction between these platforms and fan communities engenders the assimilation of superior creative concepts, adeptly catering to audience exigencies, thereby amplifying impact, elevating movie prominence, and strategically prepositioning for promotional endeavors during the production continuum. in real-time playback scenarios, the ability to produce and shoot subsequent plot nuances, responsive to the pulse of audience sentiment and anticipations, assumes paramount significance. consequently, throughout this entire process, the confluence of audience engagement, leveraged by the cost-effective and profoundly interactive nature of the internet, plays an unequivocally pivotal role. furthermore, some streaming movies introduce diverse plot trajectories, allowing audiences to exercise autonomy in determining the narrative course and ultimate denouement, effectively empowering them as co-authors of the storyline. an exemplar in this regard is the interactive movie black mirror: bandersnatch, a brainchild of netflix, which catalyzed extensive discourse among its viewers. this paradigm shift denotes the dissolution of the traditional unilateral dissemination model, replaced by a reciprocal selection mechanism, effectively reshaping the social dynamics between content producers and recipients. in this digital ecosystem, recipients also serve as disseminators, epitomizing the transformative influence of streaming movies on audiences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. 2.3 from unidirectional dissemination to bidirectional interaction in the traditional realm of cinematic experiences, audiences were subject to a communication model that followed a linear path of “creation-dissemination-appreciation”, characterized by its passivity and unidirectional flow. the emergence of big data, employed by streaming movie platforms, notwithstanding, has irrevocably reshaped the traditional unidirectional broadcast paradigm, but ushered in a new era featured by heightened information timeliness and increased audience engagement. as per user behaviors, these platforms now tailor content recommendations for each user, leading to a more dynamic human-machine interaction and transitioning the communication paradigm from a “unidirectional dissemination” model to a more interactive “bidirectional interaction”. taking netflix as an illustrative case, the high-performance cinematch system deployed on netflix empowers viewers to access precisely what aligns with their preferences, epitomizing this new bidirectional mode of communication. as a matter of fact, netflix processes an astounding daily data volume exceeding 10 petabytes, coupled with the analysis of over 40 billion new events, all with the objective of comprehending the nuanced viewing habits of its users. the data encompasses an array of meticulous attributes, including peak service usage times, currently watched movies, viewer ratings, and the diverse devices utilized to access netflix, among other granular categories. furthermore, netflix employs a row-based two-tiered ranking system in its homepage design, strategically positioning the most strongly recommended content on the far-left side of each row, with recommendations gradually tapering as one moves rightward. likewise, as one scrolls downward on the page, the recommendation intensity for each subsequent row diminishes, ensuring that the most prioritized content occupies the viewer’s central visual field, thus maximizing engagement. furthermore, on the netflix platform has established a specialized recommendation engine, complemented by the utilization of a “thumbs system” for user rating. through this system, users can express their evaluation of movies by giving a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”. netflix synergistically leverages both rating mechanisms to deliver customized content recommendations to its users. the copious data derived from these rating systems is harnessed by netflix’s sophisticated recommendation algorithm software to identify audiences with akin preferences. beyond this, netflix employs a granular classification of streaming movies, and a substantial workforce is dedicated to meticulously annotating movies, marking such elements as creative origins, temporal settings, viewing maturity levels, and other pertinent aspects. this meticulous process results in the creation of a diverse array of over ten thousand distinct tags. by seamlessly integrating these tags with the nuanced viewing habits of users, netflix meticulously tailors bespoke content, aligning with individual preferences. in the contemporary landscape of new media and the digital environment, the mode of information dissemination has transitioned from the conventional unidirectional broadcast of traditional cinema to a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. bidirectional paradigm, where audiences cease to be passive recipients of information. 3. the creative approach and artistic attributes of streaming movies the dissimilarities in the dissemination modes between streaming movies and traditional cinematic movies engender distinct cinematic artistry. drawing on the unique approaches of dissemination and reception inherent to streaming movies, a novel array of creative production strategies and artistic attributes emerge, setting it apart from conventional cinematic releases. in the realm of production, steaming movies capitalizes on significant real-time advantages, primarily attributable to their compressed production timelines, lower entry barriers, and reduced complexity during phases such as thematic selection and post-production. edges of this nature afford streaming movies a formidable immediacy, enabling swift responses to contemporaneous trending topics while facilitating nimble adaptations based on audience feedback concerning narrative trajectories, character ensembles, and other pivotal facets. in stark contrast, traditional cinema movies adhere to lengthier creative periods, thereby presenting challenges in modifying core elements like the script, cast, or even the set design and musical score once crystallized. moreover, the discerning use of internet-generated big data within steaming movie platform significantly shapes project determinations, narrative evolutions, casting decisions, audience profiling, and prognostications of box office potential, exerting profound influence over the formative stages of streaming movie production. admittedly, it is evident that certain streaming movies, in pursuit of entertainment value, may inadvertently compromise on overall quality. nevertheless, this should not misconstrue the broader context. consider netflix, a paragon in this domain, allocated an extensive budget of $17.3 billion (equivalent to approximately 118.9 billion rmb) in 2020 for the creation of movies and television content. such a substantial financial commitment underscores netflix’s unwavering dedication to content quality. as emphasized by marc randolp, the co-founder of netflix, their foundational mission persists—to create culturally resonant, high-caliber movie and television productions is an aspiration guiding them throughout their professional trajectory. irrespective of the cinematic domain—be it the conventional cinematic experience or the dynamic realm of streaming movies—content reigns as the preeminent factor. absent a robust content foundation, even the most astute marketing endeavors inevitably falter. the adulation of audiences is reserved for movies of elevated quality, engendering financial viability and fostering a self-sustaining cycle within the industry. 3.1 genre: diversity and youthful ip in the pursuit of optimized investment returns, both narrative themes and storytelling techniques in movie production are evolving toward diversification and rejuvenation. this evolution, marked by rebellious and innovative departures from traditional cinematic norms, reflects the distinct nature of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. streaming movies. the commercial dynamics of traditional cinematic movies inherently compel a focus on the popularity of individual works, operating within a framework of “singular consumption”. the success of a movie correlates directly with the extent of its audience engagement, thereby leading production studios to meticulously select established, high-grossing genres. these productions often boast star-studded casts and employ visually captivating effects, and hence, they generate anticipation even before their release. the costly traditional cinematic market typically aligns with the pareto principle, where a mere 20% of top-tier movies yield approximately 80% of the profits. in contrast, streaming movies operate under a subscription-based model, emancipating itself from the confines of time and space. this model caters to the broad user base while simultaneously targeting niche markets, a phenomenon akin to capturing the long-tail effect of audience preferences. netflix is an exemplary case in this regard. as a streaming media platform, its revenue solely derives from user subscription fees. when evaluating the investment prospects of a movie, netflix places paramount importance on its potential to attract new subscribers. this broader audience necessitates a more diversified content offering. harnessing intricate algorithms, netflix creates a myriad of content tailored to micro-audiences. the personalization extends beyond interactive services for each user to encompass a diverse portfolio of content. remarkably, netflix categorizes movies into 19 “umbrella genres”, further subcategorizing them into 400 “subgenres”, and an astonishing 76,897 “micro-genres”. these comprehensive classifications integrate seamlessly into the algorithm, enhancing the diversity and personalization of recommended content. 3.2 visual elements: primacy of content, relatively reduced visual demands compared to traditional cinematic movies, the narrative of streaming movies embraces influences from classical cinematic storytelling while simultaneously undergoing a shift away from grand narratives, manifesting a preference for fragmented storytelling with pronounced digital characteristics. streaming visuals distinguish themselves from their traditional counterparts by adopting a narrower aspect ratio and relatively lower pixel density. this results in finer details, distinctly visible on large cinema screens, appearing comparatively blurred or often overlooked in the streaming medium. constrained by the limitations of hardware, streaming movies tend to limit the usage of wide-angle and panoramic shots. from a lighting and color perspective, the absence of the ability to convey the rich spatial intricacies in streaming visuals necessitates a departure from the elaborate lighting effects and intricate color palettes commonly employed in the grand cinematic experience. instead, a preference emerges for a more expressive use of color and light schemes, striving to create a simplified yet aesthetically pure visual ambiance. additionally, within the confined frame of streaming movies, the perception of multi-layered depth becomes less discernible to the audience. consequently, the pursuit of extended takes and deep-focus www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. shots, often characteristic of traditional cinema, experiences a relative reduction in steaming cinematic practice. instead, a shift towards montage theory is evident, emphasizing that each individual frame must possess impact and convey a clear message, with the overall significance of the imagery realized through the meticulous editing process. 3.3 narration: “engagement” and relatively compact narrative rhythm given the unique distribution mode of streaming movies within the context of a fragmented consumption era, the audience’s attention spans are notably limited. in contrast to the more contained offline cinematic environments, attention in the online setting tends to be more susceptible to diversion, coupled with a significantly higher degree of viewer autonomy. consequently, streaming movies are compelled to consistently seize the audience’s interest through a taut narrative pace and strategic plot arrangements. this typically involves opting for concise storytelling durations, characterized by suspenseful plot developments engineered to maintain the viewers’ undivided attention. the distinctive viewing conditions and the mindset of the audience in streaming movies diverge from those of traditional movies, thereby giving rise to differential psychological rhythms in the editing process. the physical constraints prevalent in the traditional cinematic milieu curtail viewers’ ability to interrupt or regulate the pace of their viewing. moviemakers can therefore design the overall editing rhythm, using the duration of a movie as a fundamental unit for shaping the cinematic experience. in contrast, the online streaming viewing context empowers the audience with a considerably higher degree of freedom, enabling them to halt viewing at any juncture and frequently prone to distraction. consequently, the requirements imposed on streaming movies necessitate a concerted effort to consistently capture and maintain viewer “engagement”, an imperative aimed at sustaining a vigilant and absorbed audience. 4. industry characteristics and fundamental advantages of streaming movies streaming movies has not merely revolutionized the dissemination methods and artistic techniques of traditional cinematic movies; it has significantly reshaped the movie industry’s business model and operational procedures. the intrinsic nature of streaming movies embodies a revenue model hinged on the effective clicks of paying users, leading to a profit-sharing arrangement between distribution and production entities. this model is exemplified by prominent video platforms like iqiyi, youku, tencent, and others. in parallel, an alternate approach involves the provision of subscription-based services, with platforms such as netflix deriving profits from membership fees. a distinguishing feature of traditional cinematic movies is that the pivotal roles of distribution and screening are predominantly assumed by online video platforms. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. 4.1 industry traits of streaming movies contrasting with the industrial model of traditional cinematic movies, using netflix as a prime illustration, the industry model of streaming movies exhibits several noteworthy characteristics: 4.1.1 click-through rate: a dual-circulation industry model in the realm of streaming movie creation, as compared to traditional box office revenues, the click-through rate (ctr) and subscription memberships have emerged as pivotal revenue streams. however, what merits attention, ctr is not a perfect proxy for movie quality. for instance, a poorly-reviewed streaming movie might still achieve a substantial ctr. diverging from the one-to-one correlation between the box office and the number of viewers seen in traditional cinema, ctr possesses the ability to generate multiple repeated clicks. the distinctive attributes of online platforms afford streaming movies a unique space for survival. the sustained nature of ctr in streaming movies surpasses the limitations imposed by traditional box office metrics, thus opening novel avenues within the movie industry. artistic movies of high quality, albeit catering to a niche audience, find an extended life cycle on internet platforms and amplify their visibility. furthermore, the interactivity facilitated by online platforms has transformed the movie evaluation landscape from being solely channeled through official platforms to a broader array of movie enthusiasts. each viewer can articulate their viewpoints on movies, giving rise to an ecosystem of audience word-of-mouth effects. streaming movies can further establish a distinctive dual-circulation industry model, wherein a search for a specific star’s works, for instance, may lead to related movies, and an exploration of a particular movie genre may unveil other relevant movies. such a mode perpetuates the cycle of information and augments the ctr. movies within this dual-circulation paradigm can be viewed multiple times, signifying a departure from the linear constraints of the traditional movie industry model. 4.1.2 screening: disruption of the “theatrical window” the concept of the “theatrical window”, originating from hollywood, represents a distribution strategy designed to safeguard box office revenues for movies. traditionally, movies are initially released in cinemas, followed by subsequent showings on platforms like videotapes, dvds, cable television, and pay-per-view after the movie concludes its theatrical run. however, with netflix acquiring extensive distribution rights to a plethora of movies and tv shows, the platform has gained substantial control over international release strategies. consequently, netflix often sidesteps the conventional theatrical window, and frequently opts to premiere them exclusively on its own streaming platform to entice a broader subscriber base, rather than debut movies in cinemas. the traditional cinema industry expresses a desire for netflix to align with the established theatrical window, yet netflix’s position remains steadfast: its primary goal is to attract a robust user base to its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. streaming platform, as subscription fees form a significant portion of its revenue stream. in recent years, the u.s. theatrical window has undergone a gradual contraction. a pivotal industry conference between u.s. theaters and cinema chains in april 2017 in las vegas introduced a novel model, permitting movies to appear on video-on-demand platforms within a 17 to 45-day timeframe following their initial premiere. users are required to pay a single-viewing fee ranging from $30 to $50, with cinemas receiving a share of this fee. owing to this mode, the tensions between netflix and traditional cinemas have seen gradual alleviation. a case in point is marriage story, one of netflix’s original movies, premiered on its streaming platform a month after the theatrical window. 4.1.3 vertical integration: direct path from content production to consumption netflix, originating as a streaming platform, has evolved into a comprehensive industry player, shifting towards original content creation and securing distribution rights at prominent movie festivals. this evolution has enabled netflix to achieve full vertical integration, encompassing the entire industry value chain. nearly all of its original content is exclusively showcased on its proprietary streaming platform, negating the necessity for external distribution agreements. consequently, other distributors and exhibitors have not suffered due to any vertical monopoly bundling practices, as netflix’s vertical integration has already been executed directly in a manner that preserves the interests of the broader industry. vertical integration has provided netflix with a direct route from content creation to audience consumption. in the traditional cinema landscape, movies typically traverse various intermediary channels, such as cinemas, dvds, and television networks, before reaching the end viewers. conversely, netflix’s “self-produced and self-distributed” model empowers it to engage directly with audiences via its internet-based platform. this direct connection with consumers circumvents intermediary bottlenecks, allowing netflix to derive profitability from worldwide subscription revenues while concurrently sustaining the consistent delivery of high-quality content. 4.1.4 profit model: disrupting traditional revenue sharing in contrast to the revenue-sharing modes of traditional cinematic movies, streaming movies have introduced a paradigm shift. instead of adhering to the conventional model, a multifaceted approach has emerged, encompassing elements such as minimum guaranteed rights fees, user acquisition revenue sharing, viewing revenue sharing, and ad revenue sharing. this versatile revenue-sharing framework is projected to gain prominence within a specific timeframe, and it’s noteworthy that major streaming video platforms adopt distinct revenue-sharing mechanisms. illustratively, consider the case of netflix. the platform’s primary revenue source does not hinge on advertising. rather, it achieves profitability through the provision of subscription-based services, offering streaming access to a diverse range of movies, television series, and documentaries. following several iterations, netflix’s current subscription pricing structure is tiered based on device availability www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. and video quality, comprising three plans: $7.99/month, $9.99/month, and $11.99/month respectively. the bulk of netflix’s revenue, approximately 98%, emanates from subscription fees.5 this profit model underscores netflix’s relentless commitment to consistently delivering high-quality content. the allure of exclusive and superior content is pivotal in expanding its global subscriber base, thereby yielding augmented returns. the accrued profits are subsequently reinvested into content creation, fostering an ongoing cycle of user subscription growth, thus culminating in the establishment of a virtuous industry cycle. 4.2. the industrial advantages of streaming movies when juxtaposed with conventional cinematic movies, the streaming movie industry boasts a distinct value chain, manifesting potent industry advantages in several critical facets: the audience market, production, and distribution. 4.2.1 advantages in the production process compared with the traditional cinematic industrial chain, the production process in the steaming movie sector exhibits distinct advantages in terms of flexibility and cost-effectiveness. leveraging the inherent interactivity of online platforms, steaming movies engage in proactive interaction with the audience right from the inception of their creation. this real-time exchange of feedback allows moviemakers to swiftly capture market demands, ultimately maximizing market alignment. furthermore, the streaming movie industry benefits from lower production costs and shorter production cycles, thereby creating the potential for higher profits. streaming movies shed the burden of relying solely on box office revenue, affording creators the freedom to experiment with diverse genres and styles. the flexibility in duration also significantly broadens creative horizons. from this vantage point, streaming movies provide a more conducive environment for artistic creation, enabling the realization of themes and techniques that are less prevalent in the relatively conservative realm of traditional cinema. this openness also facilitates alignment with the requirements of advertisers. online video platforms prioritize the long-tail effect in non-linear dissemination, catering to movie types with strong long-term profitability potential, even if their short-term profit per unit of time may be moderate. this inclusiveness benefits genres like art movies and documentary movies, as they can find suitable audience segments online, extending the profitability timeline and unlocking greater financial support and profit opportunities. lastly, streaming movie production possesses robust resource integration capabilities, including investment, creative elements, and marketing strategies. this integrated approach ultimately maximizes the overall impact of streaming movies, serving as a novel model that fuels the rapid development of the online movie industry. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. 4.2.2 advantages in the distribution process streaming movies exhibit distinctive advantages in their distribution, characterized by their freedom from temporal, seasonal, and geographical constraints, not to mention its notably economical distribution costs. once a streaming movie is produced and released on the internet, it gains access to an extensive audience base, endowed with the capacity to amplify its reach. notably, high-quality online movies tend to stimulate spontaneous word-of-mouth propagation among viewers on online platforms, with each viewer potentially assuming the role of an enthusiastic promoter. concerning distribution channels, streaming movies offer a notably diverse array compared to their traditional cinematic counterparts. the conventional cinema industry relies heavily on box office returns as its primary revenue model. after the designated “theatrical window”, alternative distribution avenues might be considered, including television, online streaming, and dvd releases. in contrast, streaming movies operate on a markedly different paradigm, leveraging their unique digital characteristics to circumvent the linear sequence; instead, they manifest a fan-shaped trend, employing a variety of channels for distribution and dissemination to span the realms of the internet, mobile devices, and mobile tv platforms. this multifaceted approach facilitates continuous propagation, transcending temporal and spatial boundaries, thereby optimizing overall profitability. 4.3 taking netflix as an example to analyze the impact on the traditional movie and television industry in the united states from an industrial standpoint, streaming platforms, led by netflix, have exerted a substantial and far-reaching impact on the traditional movie industry, solidifying their position with formidable market competitiveness. as indicated by a report from the motion picture association of america, the global movie market has witnessed a more robust growth trajectory in digital distribution channels in comparison to conventional cinematic outlets since 2015. regarding content output, in 2018 alone, netflix released no fewer than 86 original movies, surpassing the aggregate number of movies planned for release by the four major traditional movie companies. by 2019, streaming platforms claimed a market share of 48% in the global digital distribution domain, whereas the share of the traditional cinematic market accounted for 42%. this disparity was even more pronounced in the united states, where streaming platforms commanded a 56% market share in digital distribution, while the cinematic market share lagged at a mere 31%. the north american box office experienced a noticeable year-on-year contraction of 4%, further compounded by a 5% decline in the number of cinema-goers. netflix, in terms of content creation, actively delves into diverse themes rooted in regional and cultural nuances. the platform’s ventures into international co-productions serve as a means to augment not only its content competitiveness but also its overarching dominance within the distribution channels, resulting in the global resonance of its original content themes and expressive methods. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. in the sphere of content dissemination, netflix collaborates extensively with prominent overseas operators, continually fine-tuning its content distribution and delivery capabilities to enhance the overall user experience on the platform. since the initiation of its international expansion in 2010, netflix has significantly accelerated its outreach to foreign markets, drawing audiences from every corner of the world, and leading to a robust upswing in user acquisition. furthermore, beyond its digital domain, netflix diligently engages in movie festivals as a strategic avenue. a notable example is the movie méxico '68, which clinched three oscars, thereby signifying the gradual and broader acceptance of streaming movies within the mainstream u.s. movie industry. 5. the integration path between the development of streaming movies and traditional cinematic movies following the initial theatrical run of a movie in traditional cinemas, the subsequent sale of rights to online streaming platforms for a second round of distribution is a common practice to augment the box office revenue of cinematic movies. given this, a cyclical mechanism between streaming movies and traditional cinematic ones, such as the advanced on-demands via streaming platforms, can be introduced, which would enable certain audiences to preview movies in advance, and allow production companies to gain real-time insights into audience reception and genuine word-of-mouth. consequently, this data-driven approach can facilitate more precise scheduling and promotional strategies for diverse movies. additionally, the allure of exclusive visual effects and pivotal plot elements reserved for the theatrical release can be retained, enticing a greater number of moviegoers to cinemas. furthermore, within the traditional cinema landscape, it is crucial to address the revenue disparities and screening allotments faced by niche movies. the current allocation of screening opportunities, particularly for high-quality but low-budget art movies, is often unjust. in the context of the streaming media era, streaming movies have introduced a novel distribution method, especially beneficial for quality low-budget art movies, substantially extending their life cycle through online platforms. moreover, leveraging the “viral-spreading” potential in the digital realm, online traffic can be harnessed for promoting offline cinematic releases, thereby benefiting both streaming and traditional cinema. in the traditional cinema market, there are ongoing efforts to enhance the cinematic experience, including the application of 3d, imax, screenx, 4dx, and innovative concepts like the “bullet comment theater”. such initiatives aim to integrate the advantages of the internet medium into traditional cinema, strengthening the experiential attributes of movie-going. as media convergence and technological advancements continue, the experiential gap between cinema viewing and non-cinema viewing is progressively narrowing from the audience’s perspective. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. 6. conclusion as the internet and streaming video platforms continue to evolve, streaming cinema has forged its distinct dissemination methodology and viewing dynamics. the paradigm of movie consumption has shifted from passive aesthetic appreciation to active engagement in aesthetics, while audiences have transitioned from mere recipients to active contributors, transforming the propagation model from unidirectional communication to interactive exchange. due to the divergence between the distribution models of streaming and traditional cinema, there are discernible differences in the artistic characteristics and creative approaches of the two. streaming movies places greater emphasis on diversified thematic content and the narrative's “appeal”. notably, in the realm of industry, exemplified by the netflix platform, it has disrupted the conventional concept of the “theatrical window”, overturning the traditional revenue-sharing model. the platform’s ability to reach audiences directly from content production highlights a departure from the conventional distribution model, inflicting significant repercussions within the traditional american movie industry. driven by technological advancements, in the era of media convergence, streaming movies are embracing interactivity and venturing into the realm of virtual reality (vr). this trend unveils a multitude of new possibilities for movie viewing experiences. the traditional movie industry and the steaming movie sector coexist in a dynamic interplay of competition and collaboration. the exploration and harmonization of the convergence of media within the movie dissemination process are essential to facilitate the transformation of movie propagation toward diversified modes. this strategic approach constitutes the genuine path toward mutual prosperity between streaming movies and traditional cinematic movies. references haibo, l. (2020). data-driven content sorting platform: development strategies of film and television new media platforms under the threshold of big data. journal of film literature. lei, d., & dachuan, x. (2018). the composition and characteristic presentation of online movie industry. journal of film literature. na, g. (2021). status and characteristics of international audiovisual media convergence development. journal of radio and tv. ruiqing, m. (2020). the rise and impact of streaming platforms and non-theatrical films in the united states. journal of film art. yu, c. (2009). china online movie research. paper presented at the forum on sixty years of new chinese cinema. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper the l word, the television series: analysis of its lesbian subjectivity zhang shuming1* 1 school of culture and creativity, beijing normal university•hong kong baptist university united international college, zhuhai, china * zhang shuming, e-mail: 1337124950@qq.com received: november 9, 2022 accepted: november 20, 2022 online published: january 13, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n1p1 abstract in january 2004, showtime, a pay cable network, launched the first-ever lesbian-themed serial drama, the l word, which boldly showed lesbians’ sex life and brought lesbian discourse into the narrative center of queer-themed series. this essay tries to analyze how the l word presented lesbian subjectivity through the image as well as body construction, and narrative and also discusses some arguments towards the lesbian body presentation in the l word. keywords the l word, lesbian, lesbian subjectivity, female subjectivity, television series, lesbian discourse, bodily writing, gaze 1. introduction since the 1990s, with gay liberation movements and the sitcom lead character ellen morgan coming out in 1997 (note 1), the atmosphere toward queer-themed shows became more and more embracing (note 2). from the first gay kiss in eastenders to a whole series about gay life, queer as folk (1999-2005), gay people have gradually become regular sightings in tv dramas. after the american version of queer as folk got successful in america, ilene chaiken, who later became the director, scriptwriter as well as executive producer of the l word, pitched her idea for a lesbian ensemble drama to a showtime executive and succeeded (ibid.), bringing the female queer community into the center of the narrative discourse in queer-themed television series. showtime’s television series the l word (2004-2009) is the first lesbian-themed drama series with immense popularity in the history of american television series (note 3). the lesbian community is constructed as the subject of narrative with female subjectivity in the l word, in which the life of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. lesbians in los angeles including but not limited to their sex, love, and careers are presented. while the l word was praised for its pioneering significance in presenting lesbian images and subjectivity in television drama and offering an enlightenment spirit to later queer-themed television series, the broadcasting of the show provoked intense discussions on the presentation of lesbian sex and their bodies (note 4). therefore, this essay aims to analyze how the l word showed lesbian subjectivity through rebellion in the narrative and the presentation of lesbian bodies, and discuss some criticism of it. 2. deconstruct and rebel against the patriarchy one of the obvious ways that the l word presented lesbian subjectivity and took lesbian discourse into the narrative center is to deconstruct the male image and rebelling the heterosexual or patriarchal norm in the story. 2.1 image construction queer theory seeks to construct a real sense of broad equality against the gendered politics and power system that oppress the queer community (note 5). as an important part of queer theory, post-feminism states that the traditional established relationship between male and female and the patriarchal family is the basis for the patriarchal society’s existence, which fundamentally excludes females from the power system and makes women subordinate to men as non-existent non-man (note 6). according to simone de beauvoir in the second sex, “he” is the “subject” and the “absolute”, while “she” exists as the “other” (note 7). thus, the core spirit of queer-themed television series is the rebellion against the patriarchal society with heterosexual norms (note 8). however, the dominant role of men in society still existed in queer-themed dramas, of which producers are mainly heterosexual and homosexual males. it was not until the lesbian producer ilene chaiken made the l word that lesbian discourse and subjectivity were at the center of the narrative (ibid.). before the l word appeared, lesbians as females were still constructed as the subordinate and passive “other”, being belittled to be laughed at. in the queer-themed sitcom will & grace, lesbian images were presented as clumsy and pot-bellied to accentuate the male gay image as a sophisticated and intelligent modern yuppie (ibid.). however, the l word constructed its lesbian characters variously as active and confident with independent and thoughtful minds. though not all of the lesbian characters in the l word are affluent superiors like bette porter and helena peabody, the former is the director of california arts center and the latter is a billionaire heiress, most lesbian characters advance their lives through their own abilities, not like the patriarchal narrative in which women are either service or punished for having successful careers. the life change of tina kennard also well showed lesbian independence and subjectivity in the story. before giving up her career to prepare for pregnancy with bette, tina was a successful film producer. after her relationships with bette and later with her ex-husband fell apart, tina www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. realized the importance of having her autonomy and started to assert herself instead of being controlled and determined by her romantic partners, and she rebuilt her successful career in hollywood eventually. as a female image, tina left subordinating to anyone, neither to the lesbian female nor to the heterosexual male, and became a true “person” who is equal to all males and females, heterosexuals and homosexuals, which rebelled against patriarchy’s limiting or destroying the label of “career women”. meanwhile, male characters in the l word are constructed as assistants and other inessential or downgraded roles, such as assistants of bette and helena. the main way of constructing the queer community into the absolute center of narrative discourse is to place hegemonic heterosexual patriarchal norms into subordination, absence, and even deconstruction (note 9). it is noticeable that the presentation of the “father” image in the l word is marginalized, which could be explained by judith butler’s theory of performativity that gender and sex are performative, non-natural, and socially constructed in parodic contexts (note 10). shane is a tomboy in the l word who had sex with numerous people but tended to avoid being in a relationship. due to the absence of her father in childhood, shane was afraid of failing others, falling in love with others, and being betrayed. shane tended to fall in love with mature married middle-aged women, who made up for the lack of shane’s feelings of parents in her childhood. when shane decided to get married to her girlfriend, she caught her father cheating, and then shane escaped from her own wedding because her father insisted that he and shane were alike and that they could never be faithful. when it comes to intimate relationships, shane chose to escape again and again, and those behaviors were more or less related to her father. the absence of patriarchy influences the parodic contexts of lesbian characters’ gender performance in certain fields. additionally, bette’s father was presented as a selfish and cold father who always refused to acknowledge and disrespected bette’s relationship with tina for over 8 years, and his daughter’s pursuit of freedom and happiness meant nothing to him. when lesbian characters gathered to choose a word to describe their fathers, such as invisible, dying and distant, those words directly expressed the l word’s notion of deconstructing the patriarchal norms in the family that the role of “father” is no longer the symbol of authority. the l word deconstructs the centrality of patriarchy in the family system through the absence of paternity and the degradation of father images. 2.2 lesbian discourse construction & conscious reflection lesbian subjectivity was also presented by showing lesbian characters’ reflections on certain events in the l word. when jenny listens to her straight male classmate reading his writing, in which he turns all the women into nameless, faceless, body part whores, jenny sharply points out that the reason why he belittles the sex act between women by turning it into pornography is that men can’t handle the fact that these women can have the amazing, beautiful and mind-blowing orgasm without a cock (note 11). lesbians’ accusation and exposure to the male gaze at lesbians is expressed through the characters’ mouths. as a writer, jenny always writes things reflecting tightly on her feelings and her experience www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. with self-awareness. according to hélène cixous, who promoted bodily writing, women must write themselves and let the body be heard (note 12). jenny’s writing about her pain, desire, and body feelings constructs a lesbian discourse, rebelling against the phallocentric discourse. after jenny finds her straight male roommate secretly recording their lesbian private lives through hidden cameras for weeks, which stimulates her childhood memory of being sexually violated by her stepfather, she started to look at her family photos, asking her grandma about how her jewish family members being tortured in the nazi concentration camp with very descriptive questions that full of specific feelings on bodies, which shows jenny’s inner feelings after being violated again, reflecting female subjectivity consciousness on their bodies. later, she goes to a strip club, showing her body completely nude on the stage, men below all yell at her with twisted faces and widely opened mouths, as if they would gobble up her. when shane asks why jenny did that, jenny says it’s important to herself because “it’s my fucking choice when i take off my top, my pants and show my breasts and pussy. i stop when i want to stop. it makes me feel good because i’m in charge.” (note 13) this reminds her of all the violating things that have happened to her and this time at least she can have autonomy. leaving jenny’s self-destructive tendencies aside, when jenny stands nudely in front of men and presents her body for the male gaze, she is never a woman being objectified because she’s exploring her experience or feelings about her body with her subjectivity consciousness. seems like the l word merely presented jenny as a toy being sexualized by males, which is one of the criticisms of the l word (note 14), while this essay wants to state that jenny is also scorning men who can only objectify and sexualize females’ bodies. when subjectivity is forced to be violated, constantly feeling and reflecting on one’s self that is objectified and sexualized is also a representation of subjectivity. when jenny’s straight male roommate mark seeks her forgiveness, jenny’s words have well shown female subjectivity even if females are forced to become the “other” in the story. from a lesbian’s perspective, shane forgives mark because she knows how rare it is to have a heterosexual male’s understanding of lesbians. while jenny stands from a women’s perspective, “it’s not a fucking woman’s job to be consumed and invaded and spat out so that some fucking man can evolve.” (note 15) these words also express the female or lesbian community’s predicament in that they hope for understanding and equality, but they know that is difficult to achieve in reality. later in the story, jenny’s script about lesbian life being changed to a heterosexual ending also reflects the lesbian community’s realistic predicament. 3. lesbian bodies in sex presentation there are lots of sex scenes in the l word, where lesbians’ bodies are not only the subject of desire but also the object of desire. at the beginning of the l word’s first season, jenny sees shane and his girlfriends naturally taking off their clothes and making love in the pool. their private parts are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. straightly exposed to the camera, to jenny, to the audience, and especially to the gaze of heterosexual audiences. the bold presentation of bodies in having sex challenges the social mainstream acceptance of sex acts on the screen, especially bodies presented in sexual minorities’ sex acts. however, some sex scenes are decried by some feminists as soft porn, deliberately titillating the heterosexual male audience (note 16). criticism argues that in the l word’s opening representation of lesbian sex which has been mentioned above, at that time jenny was a heterosexual woman, and the audience is forced to spy on jenny spying on lesbian sex, which is a reified heterosexual gaze for male audiences (note 17). while critics have argued that some sex scenes are presented through the male gaze for heterosexual audiences’ pleasure, this essay states that the l word’s presentation of lesbian bodies gratifies both heterosexual and queer audiences. it can’t be merely explained as falling into the trap of a heterosexual constructed perspective, because its way of presenting lesbian sex not only makes mainstream heterosexual audiences gradually understand “the other” in their eyes but also provides the opportunity for lesbian audiences to recognize themselves or the community they belong to through the fantasy of authenticity (note 18). therefore, the l word’s sex scenes can also be seen as bodies presented under the lesbian gaze for lesbian audiences’ pleasure. additionally, lesbians in the l word can freely talk about sex life and nicknames they give to the pussy at the breakfast table. moreover, to avoid the male-gaze way of consuming and objectifying lesbian bodies, the l word uses camera movement to interrupt the pleasure of gaze, deconstructing the power relationship of gaze. when jenny and mark chat behind the fence, mark takes a final peer through the fence at the naked girls playing in the pool, which is not shown from a male gaze, instead, audiences see jenny hit him: “don’t look”. mark as a heterosexual male gaze, initially voyeurs lesbian sex life through hidden cameras. but later in the story, when shane brings girls into her bedroom, the image mark zooms in on is not lesbians who are making love, instead, he is concerned about shane sitting in the corner. it’s presented through the behavior change of the heterosexual male to rebel against objectifying lesbians and concern about them as the real “human” instead of gazing at them as sexualized spectacles for pleasure. 4. conclusion as the first television series to revolve around a group of lesbian characters, the l word boldly presented lesbian subjectivity by rebelling against patriarchy and reflecting lesbians’ body consciousness. though it received some criticism, it is undoubted that it brought lesbian discourse into the narrative center of queer-themed series through lesbian subjectivity construction with great significance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. references beauvoir, s. d. (1986). le deuxième sexe, tome 1 (folio essais) (french edition). gallimard education, 1986. beirne, r. (2007). “dirty lesbian pictures: art and pornography in the l word.” critical studies in television: the international journal of television studies, 2(10), 90-101. https://doi.org/10.7227/cst.2.1.8 butler, j. (2011). gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity (routledge classics) (1st ed.). routledge, 2022. cheng, d. (2018). the queer in american opera and the american queer opera. hunan normal university, 22-31. fineman, m. a. (2009). feminist and queer legal theory (1st ed.). routledge. gibson, r. (2006). from zero to 24-27: images of sexual minorities on television. news and sexuality: media portraits of diversity (pp. 257-278). https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452233062.n13 kourany, j. j. s., & rosemarie, t. (1998). feminist philosophies: problems, theories, and applications (2nd ed.). pearson. “lacuna.” showtime. mgm television. (2003). retrieved from https://www.sho.com/the-l-word “loud & proud.” showtime. (2022). mgm television, may 1, 2005. retrieved from https://the-l-word.fandom.com/wiki/loud_%26_proud lu, l. (2009). subject consciousness female myth and body politics: a cultural analysis on the american female tv series. journal of nanjing agricultural university (social sciences edition), 9(02), (june 20, 2009), 112-117. moore, c. (2007). having it all ways: the tourist, the traveler, and the local in the l word. cinema journal, 46(4), 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2007.0045. moore, d. (2009). an irish audience negotiates lesbian visibility in the l word: ‘but it’s not a perfect world and not everyone looks like that.’ socheolas: limerick student journal of sociology, 1(1). “the l word season 2nd.” showtime. mgm television, 2005. retrieved from https://www.sho.com/search?q=the+l+word. wolfe, s. j., & lee, a. r. (2006). “feminine beauty and the male gaze in the l word.” mp: an international feminist online journal, 1(4), 1-7. zhang, m. m. (2008). “body／language: the reconstruction of female discourse by cixous and wittig.” foreign literature, 013(03), 77-83. https://doi.org/10.16430/j.cnki.fl.2008.03.013. notes note 1. rhonda gibson, “from zero to 24–7: images of sexual minorities on television,” news and sexuality: media portraits of diversity, 2006, 257–78, accessed december 25, 2022, https://www.sho.com/the-l-word www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452233062.n13. note 2. deirdre moore, “an irish audience negotiates lesbian visibility in the l word: ‘but it’s not a perfect world and not everyone looks like that,’” socheolas: limerick student journal of sociology 1, no. 1 (april 1, 2009). note 3. lu lu, “subject consciousness female myth and body politics: a cultural analysis on the american female tv series,” journal of nanjing agricultural university(social sciences edition) 9, no. 02 (june 20, 2009): 112–17. note 4. deirdre moore, “an irish audience negotiates lesbian visibility in the l word: ‘but it’s not a perfect world and not everyone looks like that,’” socheolas: limerick student journal of sociology 1, no. 1 (april 1, 2009). note 5. martha albertson fineman, feminist and queer legal theory, 1st ed. (routledge, 2009). note 6. janet kourany, james sterba, and rosemarie tong, feminist philosophies: problems, theories, and applications (2nd edition), 2nd ed. (pearson, 1998). note 7. simone de beauvoir, le deuxième sexe, tome 1 (folio essais) (french edition) (gallimard education, 1986). note 8. dan cheng, “the queer in american opera and the american queer opera,” hunan normal university, 2018, 28-31. note 9. dan cheng, “the queer in american opera and the american queer opera,” hunan normal university, 2018, 22. note 10. judith butler, gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity (routledge classics) 1st (first) edition, 1st edition (routledge, 2022). note 11. “the l word season 2nd,” showtime (mgm television, 2005), accessed december 25, 2022, https://www.sho.com/search?q=the+l+word. note 12. meimei zhang, “body／language: the reconstruction of female discourse by cixous and wittig,” foreign literature 013, no. 03 (2008): 77--83, https://doi.org/10.16430/j.cnki.fl.2008.03.013. note 13. “lacuna,” showtime (mgm television, 2003), accessed december 25, 2022, https://www.sho.com/the-l-word. note 14. rebecca beirne, “dirty lesbian pictures: art and pornography in the l word,” critical studies in television: the international journal of television studies 2, no. 1 (march 2007): 90–101, https://doi.org/10.7227/cst.2.1.8. note 15. “loud & proud,” showtime (mgm television, may 1, 2005), accessed december 25, 2022, https://the-l-word.fandom.com/wiki/loud_%26_proud. note 16. rebecca beirne, “dirty lesbian pictures: art and pornography in the l word,” critical studies in television: the international journal of television studies 2, no. 1 (march 2007): 90–101, https://doi.org/10.7227/cst.2.1.8. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. note 17. susan j wolfe and lee ann roripaugh, “feminine beauty and the male gaze in the l word,” mp: an international feminist online journal 1, no. 4 (2006): 1–7. 18. candace. moore, “having it all ways: the tourist, the traveler, and the local in the l word,” cinema journal 46, no. 4 (2007): 3–22, https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2007.0045. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 76 original paper stylistic analysis of a poem “ode on a grecian urn” written by john keats naeem abbas1, anas1* & komal nasir1 1 department of english, sargodha institute of language learning, sargodha, pakistan * anas, department of english, sargodha institute of language learning, sargodha, pakistan received: october 17, 2020 accepted: october 24, 2020 online published: november 21, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n4p76 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n4p76 abstract this research paper aims at investigating the text of the poem “ode on a grecian urn” written by john keats. we made a stylistic analysis of this poem at three levels: phonological level, graphological level/grammatical level and lexical level. this research paper provides an easy understanding of the poem. keywords style, stylistics and stylistics analysis introduction style is a latin word that is derived from “stilus” which means the way of expression/the way of doing something is known as style. swift defines style is “proper words in proper places”. according to leech (1969) style leads to the structure, patterns and arrangement of words to form sentences in spoken and written form. stylistics it is a branch of applied linguistics that concerns the study of style in a text. it also studies the formal features of a text. before the 20th century it deals with the literary text. but in the 20th century it also studies the non-literary text. stylistics is used to interpret the writer’s thoughts and tries to find out the hidden meanings of a text. the main focus of stylistics is to study the particular style of a text which differentiates one piece of text to another text. according to tariq (2018), “stylistics, therefore, attempts to study and analyze the deviation in a literary text, a text which does not subscribe to the norms and models of linguistic description”. the core aim of stylistics is to unfold a literary text to examine the deviation made by writers to get especial expressions. widdowson takes stylistics as “the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 77 published by scholink inc. study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation”. levels of stylistics analysis there are four levels of stylistics analysis which are given below. we analyze the text of a poem according to these levels. 1) phonological level: it deals with the study of the sound pattern of a given language and how words are pronounced in a text is understood through the study of phonological level. 2) graphological level: it analyzes the expression of a language which distinguish from other’s writings. it also focuses on the physical characteristics of a text. 3) grammatical level: in this level, we deal with the internal structure of a sentence and how words can be put together. 4) lexical level: in this level we study the individual word in a given text. introduction of a poem “ode on a grecian urn” is a romantic poem by john keats, an english poet. in this poem he describes the unfaded beauty of urn and its antiquity. he shows his love towards the beauty of an urn because the time does not affect the surface of the urn. so, it gives immortal sense to the beautiful urn. phonological level “ode on a grecian urn” poem consists of five stanzas. each stanza carries 10 lines and it is divided into two parts; quatrain and sestet. the poet uses iambic pentameter in his poem. table 1. no. quatrain sestet stanza-i a b a b c d e d c e stanza-ii a b a b c d e c e d stanza-iii a b a b c d e c d e stanza-iv a b a b c d e c d e stanza-v a b a b c d e d c e we find variation in sestet because they vary in their rhyme order. when we read this poem “ode on a grecian urn” we find some major poetic devices (alliteration, assonance, caesura, chiasmus, enjambment and personification). these devices are discussed below. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 78 published by scholink inc. alliteration it is a repetition of consonants sound at the beginning of words. example 1 of marble men and maidens overwrought in the second example we can find the repetition of a consonant sound /m/. as we can see in these words; marble, men, and maidens. example 2 beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all in the above example we can see the consonant sound /t/. for example /t/ sound is prominent in a given line. beauty, truth and that are showing alliteration on the above example. assonance repetition of a vowel sound in a line of verse. these similar sounds are combined to produce echo and resonance. example 1 thou foster-child of silence and slow time when we read this line of the verse we may find assonance and we can hear the vowel sound /o/ while reading. it shows the repetition of the same vowel sound in the same line. for example; thou foster-child of silence and slow time. example 2 ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed in the above example we can find the repetition of a vowel sound which is /i/and it is felt in the word happy /happi/. caesura it is a pause in a line of verse which is usually caused by punctuation in a short or medium line. it breaks the natural flow of verse in poetry and verse of poetry becomes more complex. semi-colon and commas are used to break the natural flow of poetry. example 1 heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; not the sensual ear, but more endear’d, pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: caesura is used to avoid the poem from monotonous because old english writers try to avoid the same tone of a poem. sometimes caesura is used to emphasize the line of a verse through using a pause. as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 79 published by scholink inc. we can see above that shows the importance and contrariness of a poem. here keats shows that unheard things are more attractive and sweet as compared to heard things. chiasmus it is a literary device in which clauses are combined in a reverse order to produce a literary effect in a line of poetry. example 1 beauty is truth, truth beauty here the above verse is the best example that shows the reverse order in a sentence and it produces a literary effect in the poem and it also captures the reader’s attention. this line describes that every beautiful thing is considered as truth because it is universal and it can never be changed in any circumstance. so that’s why beauty is equal to truth. enjambment when a line is not punctuated and runs on to the next line is known as enjambment. it is a thought or sense, phrase or clause which does not come to an end at the line breaks. it runs to the next line without any punctuation marks. example 1 ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu; there is no punctuation mark in the first line it runs to the next line because the first line thought is not completed and it is connected to the next line through the sense of same thought which is completed in the second line. personification personification is a literary device in which human attributes are given to inanimate objects. example 1 thou still unravished bride of quietness; thou foster-child of silence and slow time, sylvan historian, who canst thus express here we can see that the writer uses personification at different instances because he wants to immortalize the beauty of an urn. he compares unravished bride of quietness to the urn because it is as quiet as a ravished bride. it does not tell who they are (the men, gods and mortal)? he also compares that urn looks like a foster child because time is slow down in the moment of no shelter. sylvan historian knows history and urn portraits the best history of rural life that had happened in the past. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 80 published by scholink inc. all these expressions are used to show the immortal beauty of an urn which can never be faded. graphological level 1) this poem is divided into five stanzas. 2) we can easily see the usual capitalization in a poem. 3) we can also find different punctuation marks in the poem. “it deals with the study of the expression of the writer’s style: how the writer portraits his thought by using different choices of words. it describes the way of writing which particularly belongs to a writer’s personality. contraction it is a process in which some sounds/alphabets are omitted. contractions are used to maintain the amount of syllables in a line of poetry. example unravish’d endear’d enjoy’d cloy’d lead’st e’er say’st contractions are used in poetry to maintain/lower the number of syllables in a line. through this we can maintain the meter also. it helps us to make a proper rhythm in a poem. colons a colon is used to introduce the material that explains, amplifies and summarizes what has preceded it. keats uses colon three times in his poem. example 1 a flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: what leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape of deities or mortals, or of both, as we can analyze the colon is used in the first line and the second line describes what has already done in the previous line. here we can say that the writer describes the eternity of urn and it is a better mode of describing the rural life rather than poetry. through this beautiful urn we can get immense interpretation and it shows that urn becomes immortal and it works beyond the language because of language changes gradually. so the urn is free from any boundary and it shows a universal message to the rest of all world. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 81 published by scholink inc. semi-colon a semi-colon is used to combine or join two or more independent clauses with each other to make a sentence. it creates a connection between two ideas and thoughts in one sentence. example 1 thou still unravish’d bride of quietness; thou foster-child of silence and slow time, these two lines are connected through semi-colon. in which the writer gives the human characteristics to the urn. in these lines he tries to show the eternity of urn by giving human qualities. example 2 heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; these beautiful expressions are all about urn which describes the immortality of urn. in these lines, the writer uses a paradox which increases the beauty of an urn. heard melodies are sweet but unheard are sweeter. this music is ever new for us which we get from the surface of the urn. it is more attractive than real music which is produced by different musical instruments. because we never heard the music of urn so it is sweeter than anyone heard music. comma it is a punctuation mark that is used to make a pause in speech. example 1 that leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d, a burning forehead, and a parching tongue. in poetry most of the time comma is used to tell the reader where to pause. we also used a comma to maintain the rhythm of a poem. sometimes we use it to avoid the confusion about things. it clarifies the idea by separating words through commas. question mark it is used to indicate a question. we use it to express doubt or uncertainty about something. as we can see that keats poses some questions in his poem. example 1 in tempe or the dales of arcady? what men or gods are these? what maidens loth? what mad pursuit? what struggle to escape? what pipes and timbrels? what wild ecstasy? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 82 published by scholink inc. in the first stanza of the poem “ode on a grecian urn” poet raises some questions about the legends, deities, and mortals. he is not sure who they are and what the stories are related to them. sometimes questions are the source of mystery and it creates pleasure in the mind of a reader. it is a way of capturing attention from readers. exclamation it is used to express a sudden outcry, excitement, finality or just add emphasis. example 1 for ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! in this example we find permanence of emotion in which the writer describes that the lady will be loyal to you in every situation because the art on the surface of the urn will show that it will never fade and love remains the same among two lovers. example 2 ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed in this verse we can examine that a tree that is drawn at the side of the urn will show us that it is immortal because leaves will never shed down due to the permanent effect of sculpturing. so here we can say that urn is as beautiful as truth. quotation mark the primary function of the quotation mark is to represent the exact language that has come from somebody else. example 1 “beauty is truth, truth beauty” it is a conclusion line of a poem and it is considered as the last words of the urn which sum up the whole idea in five words. it is written by using a quotation mark to highlight the last message of the urn. table 2. lexical level nouns pronouns verb adjectives adverb bride quietness foster-child sylvan historian legend leaf-fringed thou who what thy those ye enjoyed cloyed drest (dress) built emptied will still slow flowery more loath mad thus sweetly therefore endeared never yet www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 83 published by scholink inc. deities mortal tempe arcady men gods maidens pursuit timbrels winning boughs spring melodist adieu heifer priest attic shape citadel garland seashore eternity pastoral beauty truth she that your us other whom ye(you) be tell desolate return trodden doth(does) waste shalt(shall) say’st(say) know need unravished canst(can) haunts escape leave hast(have) be shed grieve fade bare kiss wild sweet heard sweeter soft sensual fair bold happy unwearied piping new warm human high panting young sorrowful burning parching green mysterious silken little peaceful pious attic trodden forever evermore ever out of conclusion “ode on a grecian urn” shows the mastery of keats in using different kinds of poetic devices to create charming sound effect. it seems that he was fully aware of using different types of lexicons and has skill in constructing sentences according to the need of versification. indeed the poem is the masterpiece of linguistic expression. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 84 published by scholink inc. references leech, n. g. (1969). a linguistic guide to english poetry. london: paperback, english language series, print. tariq, m. (2018). style, stylistics and stylistic analysis: a re-evaluation of the modern-day rhetorics of literary discourse. international journal of english research, 4(2), 46-50. widdowson, h. g. (1977). stylistics and teaching of literature. london: longman, print. retrieved from http://googleweblight.com/i?uhttp://www.bathleby.com/344/67html&grgid=hiw 092aw&i=en in communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 review paper leading by example: the work of minister k. k. shailaja of kerala state, india in combating covid-19 amb. john o. kakonge, phd1* 1 president of the association of former international civil servants in kenya * john o. kakonge, president of the association of former international civil servants in kenya received: december 19, 2020 accepted: december 30, 2020 online published: january 13, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n1p1 1. introduction in recent months, much public attention has been given to the women leaders of developed countries who have done well in containing the coronavirus and ensuring a low rate of infection and death. such leaders include jacinda ardern, prime minister of new zealand; angela merkel, chancellor of germany; erna solberg, prime minister of norway; katrin jacobsdottir, prime minister of iceland; sanna marin, prime minister of finland; and tsai ing-wen, president of taiwan. in addition to their own expertise, these leaders have been fortunate in being able to rely on the support of well-trained public officials and scientists, adequate financial resources, and well-equipped health facilities. little has been written, however, about women leaders from developing countries who are trying hard to contain the pandemic. sadly, in africa, a continent with 54 states, only namibia and togo have women prime ministers, while the only african woman president hails from ethiopia. this paper briefly examines the work of k.k. shailaja, minister of health and social welfare of the state of kerala in india, and proposes how lessons from her work could be useful for other parts of the developing world, especially in africa. 2. kerala state kerala state has a population of 35 million people and is located in the southern part of india. it has a land area of 15,005 square miles and is the 21st largest indian state by area. it has 14 districts and has the tenth largest economy in india. kerala enjoys the highest life expectancy and lowest infant mortality of any state in india. it is also the country’s most literate state (lopez, 2020). every village has a health-care centre and there are hospitals at each level of its administration and 10 medical colleges. when the coronavirus disease pandemic broke out, each of the 14 districts was asked to set aside two hospitals for covid-19, while www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. each college set aside 500 beds, with separate entries and exits to each facility (spinney, 2020). the state has had approximately 546,000 positive cases of covid-19 with 475,000 recoveries and 1,976 deaths as of 20 november 2020. 3. minister k. k. shailaja minister shailaja was born in kerala in 1956. she graduated as a science teacher and taught until 2004 when she entered politics. shailaja’s childhood was influenced by her grandmother, who was involved in local movements against the persecution of the lowest castes in society, the untouchables (chandrashekhar, 2020). her grandmother, who was a member of the indian communist party, taught shailaja to be brave not only in politics but in all aspects of life. this has helped her to overcome the resentment aroused by her success as a woman, especially when she was featured in a film called virus to honour the work she did to contain the nipah virus outbreak in kerala state in 2018 (chandrashekhar, 2020). minister shailaja was elected as a member of the state parliament in 2016 and was appointed minister of health and social welfare. in 2018, when there was a deadly outbreak of the nipah virus, she was praised not only for her proactive response, but also for visiting the villages which were the centre of the outbreak (spinney, 2020). the residents of the villages were terrified and were ready to flee the area. however, minister shailaja rushed to the area with a team of doctors and organized a meeting with the village elders to calm things down (chandrasekhar, 2020). her success in establishing herself as a hands-on, proactive leader meant that, when the covid-19 pandemic began, her voice was heard and listened to. the following are some of the activities she has coordinated as part of her efforts to contain covid-19: 1) before the outbreak in kerala, minister shailaja learned that covid-19 was a highly contagious disease without treatment or vaccine. she met with her senior ministry officials and with their consent set up a rapid response team in the kerala state headquarters and in each of its 14 districts. by the time the first case appeared, kerala state had adopted the who protocol of testing, tracing, isolation, and support. affected people are placed in quarantine at the government’s expense. contact tracing is very important and the rapid response team uses various communication methods, including advertising on social media. 2) minister shailaja has also ensured that her ministry has relevant contingency plans and that there is a strategy in place to implement those plans. when kerala residents returned from the gulf states after the lockdown was lifted, the ministry of health www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. and social welfare had a well-established quarantine programme in place, with all expenses covered by the state. 3) the ministry ensures that the results of covid-19 tests are released within 48 hours. 4) where possible, home-care quarantine for people able to take responsibility for themselves is supported. owing to the above activities and others, minister shailaja was named among the world’s top thinkers for covid-19 by the british magazine prospect. in terms of leadership, she was ranked first, ahead of the prime minister of new zealand, jacinda ardern. a bangladeshi architect, marina tabassum, was ranked third. according to singh (2020), minister shailaja was first because, among other things, her public messages are consistent and she herself follows them to the letter, including social distancing. 4. lessons from the work done by minister shailaja there are a number of lessons for developing nation leaders that may be learned from the exemplary work of minister shailaja. 1) minister k. k. shailaja is an elected politician, and she has been empowered by the state government to do her work. other than in a few countries, most ministers in africa are appointed by the president or prime minister. as such, a minister’s powers are often limited, and their tenure is insecure. there is merit in having ministers appointed from among parliamentarians, as happens in the united kingdom. the indian parliamentary system makes it easier for minister shailaja to work with her fellow members and consequently, she has been able to achieve many things. 2) minister shailaja is highly regarded because she has a strong work ethic. as observed in her wikipedia entry (2020), she is a tough task master: “it does not matter if it’s midnight or if she is having any ailments, the minister is there to monitor every arrangement”. in short, the minister leads by example and convenes assessment meetings daily. 3) minister shailaja believes that proper planning and effective execution are essential in confronting any health crisis (lopez, 2020). under her leadership, the ministry has devised a very successful plan for testing, contact tracing and quarantine. she has developed another plan for returning kerala diaspora residents, including isolating then for two weeks at the government’s expenses. in addition, her ministry has developed a number of contingency plans in the event that the number of covid-19 cases continues to increase. accordingly, plan a involves isolating patients in public hospitals while ensuring that beds never reach full capacity at any hospital. plan c is for the worst-case scenario—including converting private hospitals, hotels and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. institutions into covid-19 hospitals (nalapat, 2020). consequently, kerala state has been more successful than the other states of india in containing the covid-19 pandemic. 4) developing a successful system of testing, contact tracing, and quarantine has been one of the challenges faced by many developing countries following the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. for example, in kenya, testing and contact tracing started well during the first three months of the outbreak. thereafter, contact tracing has become impossible for a number of reasons, including the relatively high cost and the lack of qualified people to carry out the exercise. further, in order to trace the people involved and isolate them, it is necessary to involve the collaboration of a number of different entities. these problems are not unique to kenya but apply across africa and beyond. in this connection, it is recommended that developing countries undertake a post-coronavirus benchmarking tour to kerala state to learn how minister shailaja and her team have contained covid-19, so as to prepare for future contagious viruses. 5) another success story of minister shailaja has been the dissemination of covid-19 messages (chandrashekhar, 2020; express news service, 2020). one of the problems of covid-19 is misinformation and disinformation. this has been the problem in the usa and brazil, where the covid-19 pandemic has been heavily politicized and many lives have been, and continue to be, lost, while millions of people have been infected. in the case of kerala state, minister shailaja has been credited with developing very clear and effective messages about covid-19 for her compatriots. as a former teacher, her strategy has been to use teachers and student volunteers to disseminate covid-19 messages to their citizens. 6) minister shailaja has handled her covid-19 work with a rare mix of clarity, foresight, rigidity, and compassion (bhalerao, 2020). she has ensured that the expenses of the people who are quarantined are covered by the state. moreover, in her messages to the citizens of kerala state, she has emphasized that covid-19 is a dangerous disease, and that people should follow the government protocols of maintaining social distancing, washing their hands with sanitizer or soap, and wearing masks. as with her approach to the nipah virus epidemic in kerala in 2018, minister shailaja has held meetings with local authorities and members of the community to assure them of the government’s support in addressing the problem. her emphatic approach is similar to that of the prime minister of new zealand, jacinda ardern, who has also acknowledged the inconvenience caused by the strict covid-19 restrictions and the daily sacrifices required during the pandemic (jeffrey, 2020). unfortunately, minister www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. shailaja and prime minister arden’s male counterparts from countries such as the usa and brazil have not been empathic; rather, they have downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic while the number of positive cases in their countries continues to increase. 5. conclusion minister shailaja’s excellent work demonstrates the vital function that women leaders can perform in times of crisis and emergency, whether at the grassroots or at the national level. women have been playing a central role in the fight against covid-19; and, as gupta and farrar (2020) recommend, governments should more forcefully equip women with the skills, training, and opportunities to rise to the top. minister shailaja’s attributes should be emulated by other leaders, both women and men, in developing countries, namely, being visible (she is present where action is needed), calm, hardworking, and courageous (rajiv, 2020; fernandez, 2020). it is these attributes of the minister of health and social welfare which are enabling kerala state to combat covid-19. minister shailaja operates at the state level, yet her work is known internationally. moreover, because of her exemplary work, she joins the higher echelon of women leaders of denmark, germany, iceland, new zealand, norway and taiwan, who have been acknowledged for demonstrating the leadership skills necessary to combat covid-19. minister shailaja understands how to handle a crisis and, as a woman leader, she understands the importance of compassion, communication, and reason (jose, 2020). unfortunately, these qualities seem less apparent in many of the male leaders currently handling the covid-19 pandemic. disclaimer the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and not necessarily associated with afics-kenya. references bhalerao, y. p. (2020). could the pandemic break leadership stereotypes once and for all? shethepeople, 25 may 2020. retrieved november 12, 2020, from https://www.shethepeople.tv/top-stories/opinion/women-leadership-coronavirus-female-superpow er/ chandrashekhar, v. (2020). how a communist physics teacher flattened the covid-19 curve in southern india. science, 9 november 2020. retrieved november 12, 2020, from https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/how-communist-physics-teacher-flattened-covid-19-cu rve-southern-india www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. express news service. (2020). health minister k. k. shailaja: the woman who helped kerala combat coronavirus. the new indian express, 20 may 2020. retrieved november 12, 2020, from https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2020/may/20/health-minister-kk-shailaja-the-wo man-who-helped-kerala-combat-coronavirus-2145489.html fernandez, l. (2020). why k. k. shailaja is a role model for leaders. business line on campus, 28 july 2020. retrieved november 12, 2020, from https://bloncampus.thehindubusinessline.com/columns/leaderspeak/why-kk-shailaja-is-a-role-mod el-for-leaders/article24521955.ece gupta, g. r., & farrar, j. (2020). opinion: why we need women’s leadership in the covid-19 response. thomson reuters foundation news, 1 april 2020. retrieved november 13, 2020, from https://news.trust.org/item/20200401090723-319sb/ jeffrey, c. (2020). why women leaders are excelling during the coronavirus pandemic. the conversation, 13 may 2020. retrieved november 12, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/why-women-leaders-are-excelling-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic138098 jose, s. (2020). communication, care, compassion, and women leadership: an expatriate watching her homeland (kerala, india). media rise. retrieved november 15, 2020, from https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/188223/sindhu%20jose%20%28qab% 20entry%20%2373%29.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed= lopez, b. (2020). kk shailaja tirelessly leads kerala’s fight against coronavirus. aliran, 1 july 2020. retrieved november 12, 2020, from https://aliran.com/thinking-allowed-online/kk-shailaja-tirelessly-leads-keralas-fight-against-coron avirus/ nalapat, s. (2020). un honours kk shailaja—how kerala’s covid-19 slayer cornered the virus. timesnownews, 24 june 2020. retrieved november 17, 2020, from https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/un-honours-kk-shailaja-how-keralas-covid-19-slayer -cornered-the-virus/611112 rajiv, g. (2020). k. k. shailaja, an inspiration for kerala’s fight against coronavirus. the times of india, 14 march 2020. retrieved november 19, 2020, from https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/kk-shailaja-an-inspiration-for-keralas-fight-againstcoronavirus/articleshow/74624567.cms singh, r. (2020). uk magazine names kerala health minister k. k. shailaja as world‘s “top thinker” for covid-19. retrieved november 14, 2020, from https://www.india.com/news/india/uk-magazine-names-kerala-health-minister-kk-shailaja-as-worl ds-top-thinker-for-covid-19-4130424/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. spinney, l. (2020). the coronavirus slayer: how kerala’s rock star health minister helped save it from covid-19. the guardian, 14 may 20. retrieved november 17, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/the-coronavirus-slayer-how-keralas-rock-star-h ealth-minister-helped-save-it-from-covid-19 wikipedia. (2020). k. k. shailaja. retrieved november 18, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/k._k._shailaja communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 41 original paper stress and burnout among preretirement employee in hospital at 10th of ramadan city eman s. abd allah1*, samia s. hassan hussein2, hanaa k. farag3 & mervat e. ibrahim3 1 community health nursing, zagazig university, egypt 2 family and community health, suez canal university, egypt 3 family and community health nursing, suez canal university, egypt * eman s. abd allah, community health nursing, zagazig university, egypt received: february 9, 2019 accepted: february 18, 2019 online published: february 22, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v2n1p41 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n1p41 abstract employees are at high risk for stress and burnout. the aim of this study was to assess job stressors and burnout among employees in hospital at tenth of ramadan city. design: cross-sectional descriptive design. setting: the national health insurance hospital at 10th of ramadan city. samples: convenience sample consisted of 100 employees. tools: a self-administered questionnaire including scales for job stress and strain, burnout, and coping strategies, in addition to socio-demographic data was used in data collection. results: the majority of the nurses were younger than 30 years (78%), with diploma degree (93%), and insufficient income (69%). more nurses had high exposure to stressors (49%), than strains (19%), and 20% had high burnout. conclusion: the coping strategy most commonly used was effective behavioral confrontation. nurses’ stress, strain, and burnout are strongly correlated and are influenced by personal factors such as age, qualification, experience, and residence, as well as job factors such as work hours, income, and the use of ineffective coping. recommendations: the hospital administration should deal with and periodic assess the job factors underlying nurses’ stress and burnout. further research is proposed to investigate the effectiveness of changing work environment factors and nursing care system on nurses’ burnout. keywords stress, stressors, burnout www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 42 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction employees in all countries are at high risk for burnout, low job satisfaction, and intention to leave (nantsupawat et al., 2011), all of which are regarded as important employees’ outcomes (aiken et al., 2014). these outcomes have received increasing attention because of the widespread shortage of nurses (hudspeth, 2013), and the hospital work environment has been regarded as an important factor related to employees’ outcomes (zhang et al., 2014). stress is a natural part of life, and occurs whenever there are significant changes in individuals’ lives, whether positive or negative. it is generally believed that some stress is acceptable, sometimes referred to as challenge or positive stress but when stress occurs in amounts that individuals cannot cope with both mental and physical changes may occur (canadian centre for occupational health and safety, 2011). evaluation of the workload of employees is of fundamental importance in the development of work optimization protocols for nursing professionals. to identify this variable, it is necessary to measure the time that nurses spend to provide both direct and indirect care to patients (garcia et al., 2010). the assessment of employee’s workload is also used in an attempt to predict the time and skill required to provide care (swan & griffin, 2015). however, measuring the time spent on nursing care in an outpatient clinic is a major challenge because of the unpredictability of the population served (cusack et al., 2014). stress and burnout are very serious problems in any organization. both affect productivity of the organization through increasing rate of absenteeism and turnover. about 2.3% of the work force is absent each day and 12% of absenteeism is attributed to stress (aamodt, 2012). in this regard, the health and safety executive (2013) estimated that about 12.8 million working days were lost due to stress, depression and anxiety. each new case of stress leads to an average of 31 days off work. work-related stress costs society about 3.7 billion every year. 1.1 significance of the study the health insurance hospital at the 10th of ramadan city, as in many other settings, suffers the problem of shortage of employee’s leading to high workload, stress, and burnout. hence, it is important for the organization to identify workplace stressors and the level of burnout and the relation between them in order to provide strategies for effective management, which would help in improving performance, care quality, and job satisfaction, and decreasing absenteeism and turnover 1.2 aim of the study the aim of this study was to assess job stressors and burnout among employees in the health insurance hospital at the 10th of ramadan city. to fulfill this aim the following research objectives were formulated: 1) to identify job stressors and levels of burnout among employee’s in the health insurance hospital at the 10th of ramadan city. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 43 published by scholink inc. 2) to examine the relationship between job stressors and level of burnout among employee’s in the health insurance hospital at the 10th of ramadan city. 3) to suggest strategies for stress and burnout management for employee’s and assistants in the health insurance hospital at the 10th of ramadan city. 2. method 2.1 technical design the technical design involves a description of the research design, study setting, subjects, and tools for data collection. 2.1.1 research design an analytic cross-sectional design was used where all the dependent and independent variables were measured at the same point in time. 2.1.2 setting the study was carried out in the health insurance hospital at 10th of ramadan city. it is a six-floor building hospital offering all specialties. the first floor hosts the general manager and administrative offices, security department, as well as the laboratory, x-ray, emergency and emergency surgery departments. the second floor is for icus, dialysis unit, and head nurse office. the third floor is for surgical department, the fourth for orthopedic department, and the fifth for labor department. 2.1.3 subjects a convince sample of all the available employees who agreed to participate in the study at time of data collection was included. their total number was 100 employee’s working in different clinics, 40 in the first floor, and 60 in the second floor. this sample size was large enough to demonstrate any correlation coefficient of 0.25 or higher with 80% power and at a 95% level of confidence between the score of stress and burnout with a non-response rate of approximately 15%, using the sample size equation for correlation (stanton & glantz, 2016). 2.1.4 tools for data collection the researcher prepared a self-administered questionnaire which included three different scales for assessment of job stress and strain, burnout, and coping strategies. it consisted of the following parts. part i: socio-demographic data: this was for collecting employee’s personal data such as age, qualification, experience years, monthly income, marital status, number of children, etc. it also collected some job-related data such as work shifts, daily and weekly hours, types of patients, etc. part ii: this consisted of the job stressors questionnaire developed by abd el-hady (2012), based on vroom and spielberger (2018). it involves 42 statements divided into two sections measuring stressors, and strain (the physiological response to stressors). stressors: this section involved four types of stressors: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 44 published by scholink inc. personal stressors: 9 items such as getting pregnant, parents’ care, etc. job stressors: 17 items covering: clinic related stressors: 4 items such as low salary, etc. work-overload related stressors: 4 items such as heavy work load affecting family needs, etc. psychological stressors: 8 items such as lack of cooperation among nurses, risks of dealing with patients, feeling insecure in job, etc. strains: these included: physical strains: 10 items such as fatigue, headache, etc. gastro-intestinal strains: 6 items such as loss of weight, increased appetite, etc. the items are on a 4-point likert scale: usually, sometimes, rarely, and never. these were scored from 3 to 0 respectively. for each area of stress/strain for the total scales, the scores of the items were summed-up and the total divided by the number of the items, giving a mean score for the part. these scores were converted into percent scores. the employee was considered to have a high stress/strain if the percent score was 60% or more and low if less than 60%. part iii: this consisted of the maslach burnout inventory educator survey (mbi-es) developed by maslach et al. (2015). it is used to measure burnout syndrome among employees. the scale has 15 items divided as follows: emotional exhaustion: 5 items such as “i feel exhausted at the start of my workday”. depersonalization: 3 items such as “i feel blame towards patients’ problems”, etc. personal achievement: 7 items such as “i feel very active”, etc. the items are on a 7-point likert scale: daily, sometimes weekly, once weekly, sometimes monthly, once monthly, sometimes yearly, and never. these were scored from 6 to 0 respectively. the scoring was reversed for positive items so that a higher score reflects more burnout. for each burnout dimension and for the total scale, the scores of the items were summed-up and the total divided by the number of the items, giving a mean score for the part. these scores were converted into percent scores. the nurse was considered to have a high burnout if the percent score was 60% or more and low if less than 60%. part iv: this part consisted of a questionnaire to assess different coping strategies for stress and burnout management. it was developed by lazarus and folkman (2014) and modified by the researcher. the scale has 38 statements categorized into the following coping strategies: effective emotional confrontation: 7 statements such as seeking help from god, accepting problem, sharing stressful feelings with family members, etc. effective behavioral confrontation: 11 statements such as doing double effort to make positive things, seeking advice from superiors to solve problem, etc. ineffective emotional perception: 4 statements such as keeping feeling to oneself, escaping from facing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 45 published by scholink inc. a stressful event, day dreaming, etc. ineffective emotional coping: 7 statements such as postponing thinking about the problem, getting oversleeping, etc. problem solving coping: 7 statements such as setting a plan to solve the problem, taking responsibility, etc. the items have yes/no responses. these were scored 1 and 0 respectively. for each coping strategy, the scores of the items were summed-up and the total divided by the number of the items, giving a mean score for the part. these scores were converted into percent scores. the employee was considered to have the specific coping strategy if the percent score was 60% or more and low if less than 60%. the nurse was also considered as having effective coping if she had any one of the effective strategies. 2.2 operational design this design involves a description of the preparatory phase, the pilot study, and the fieldwork. 2.2.1 preparatory phase during this phase, the researcher reviewed local and international literature using various resources including internet and manual search in scientific journals and textbooks. based on this, the preliminary form of the data tool was prepared. 2.2.2 validity of the tools this was presented to three experts in the field of community health nursing at suez canal university faculty of nursing. they face and content-validated the tool after assessing it for clarity, relevance, and comprehensiveness. 2.2.3 pilot study a pilot study was carried out 10% of the subjects in the study sample. the purpose was to test the applicability and clarity of the tool. no modifications were done according to the results of the pilot study. reliability of the scales used in the data collection tool. this was done through assessing their internal consistency and calculating their cronbach alpha coefficients. the reliability proved to be high as indicated by cronbach’s alpha (stress scale=0.944, strain scale=0.897, burnout scale=0.887, and coping scale=0.674). 2.2.4 fieldwork after obtaining all required official permissions, the researcher visited the study setting and met with the director to explain the aim and procedures of the study, and to seek cooperation in data collection. then, she met individually with the eligible nurses and invited them to participate after explaining the aim of the study. those who gave their consent were handed the data collection tool, with instructions on how to fill it. the completed form was collected by the researcher to verify its completeness. the fieldwork lasted for the fieldwork lasted for six months during the period from july to december 2017... www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 46 published by scholink inc. the researcher was present in the study setting daily, from 10: 00 am to 1: 00 pm. the tool filling took 25-30 minutes from each employee. 2.2.5 ethical considerations the study protocol was approved by the research and ethics committee at the faculty of nursing, suez canal university. an oral informed consent was obtained from each participant before collecting any data. the researcher explained the study aim in a simple and clear manner to each employee. participants were informed about their right to withdraw from the study at any time without giving any reason. data were considered confidential and not be used outside this study without participant’s approval. no harmful maneuvers were. 2.3 administrative design an official permission was secured from the director of the health insurance hospital at the 10th of ramadan city, using proper channels of communication to conduct the study. performed or used, and no foreseen hazards were anticipated from conducting the study. 2.4 statistical design data entry and statistical analysis were done using spss 20.0 statistical software package. data were presented using descriptive statistics in the form of frequencies and percentages for qualitative variables, and means and standard deviations and medians for quantitative variables. cronbach alpha coefficient was calculated to assess the reliability of the developed tools through their internal consistency. qualitative categorical variables were compared using chi-square test. whenever the expected values in one or more of the cells in a 2x2 tables was less than 5, fisher exact test was used instead. in larger than 2x2 cross-tables, no test could be applied whenever the expected value in 10% or more of the cells was less than 5. spearman rank correlation was used for assessment of the inter-relationships among quantitative variables and ranked ones. in order to identify the independent predictors of stress, strain, and burnout scores, multiple linear regression analysis was used after testing for normality, and homoscedasticity and analysis of variance for the full regression models were done. statistical significance was considered at p-value <0.05. 3. result table 1 demonstrates that more than three-fourth of the employees in the study sample was younger than 50 years old. the majority was married (70%) and had children. as regards qualification, only 7% had a bachelor degree, and slightly less than half of them (47%) had experience years ranging between 20 and 30 years. the monthly income was mostly 750 to 950 le (43%). as for the residence, three-fifth was from urban areas. according to table 2, only one-third of the employees s in the study sample worked shifts (33%), and slightly more than one-third of them worked <8 hours daily. the majority had all specialties in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 47 published by scholink inc. outpatient clinics (75%), worked 40 hours or more per week (83%), and in the morning (88%). the highest category of patients they were dealing with were chronic cases (45%) while the lowest was psychiatric cases (14%). the wo system was mostly employees’ job (71%). table 3 shows that slightly less than one-fourth of the employees in the study sample were exposed to high personal stressors (23%). meanwhile, more than half of them were exposed to job stressors, with the highest exposure being to work overload (76%). as for strains, 11% were exposed to physical strains and 29% to psychological strains. table 4 demonstrates statistically significant associations between employee’s exposure to stress and their total strains (p<0.001), total burnout (p<0.001), and use of effective emotional confrontation cooping (p=0.002). it is noticed that more nurses having high strain, high burnout, and low use of the effective emotional confrontation coping strategy were having high exposure to stress. as regards the relations between employees’ strain and their burnout and their use of various coping strategies, table 5 reveals a statistically significant association only between strain and burnout (p<0.001). as the table demonstrates, higher percentages of nurses having high burnout were having high strain. as regards the correlations between employees scores of stresses, strain, burnout, and coping and their personal and work characteristics, table 6 shows that employees’ age had statistically significant weak positive correlations with the scores of strains, effective emotional confrontation, and confronted problem-solving. employees’ qualification had a statistically significant weak positive correlation with the scores of effective emotional confrontations. employees’ experience had statistically significant weak positive correlations with the scores of stress, strain, and burnout. their income had weak negative correlations with stress and strain, and moderate negative correlation with burnout, whereas it had weak positive correlations with effective emotional and behavioral confrontation table 1. socio-demographic characteristics of employees in the study sample (n=100) socio-demographic characteristics frequency percent age: <50 78 78.0 50+ 22 22.0 current marital status: unmarried 30 30.0 married 70 70.0 number of children: 0 5 6.4 1-2 36 46.2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 48 published by scholink inc. 3+ 37 47.4 nursing qualification: diploma 93 93.0 bachelor 7 7.0 experience years: 20-<30 47 47.0 20-30 18 18.0 >20 35 35.0 monthly income (le): <750 21 21.0 750-950 43 43.0 >950 36 36.0 residence: urban 60 60.0 rural 40 40.0 table 2. job characteristics of employees in the study sample (n=100) job characteristics frequency percent work shifts: no 67 67.0 yes 33 33.0 all specialties in outpatient: no 25 25.0 yes 75 75.0 work hours/day: <8 39 39.0 8+ 61 61.0 work hours/week: <36 17 17.0 36-40 83 83.0 working time: morning 88 88.0 2 shifts 4 4.0 both 8 8.0 dealing with: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 49 published by scholink inc. chronic cases 45 45.0 acute cases 23 23.0 infectious cases 18 18.0 psychiatric cases 14 14.0 nursing care system: nurse job 71 71.0 team work 29 29.0 table 3. exposure to stressors and strains among employees in the study sample (n=100) stressors and strains frequency percent stressors personal: high (60%+) 23 23.0 low (<60%) 77 77.0 job stressors clinic-related: high (60%+) 62 62.0 low (<60%) 38 38.0 work overload: high (60%+) 76 76.0 low (<60%) 24 24.0 psychological: high (60%+) 57 57.0 low (<60%) 43 43.0 strains: physical: high (60%+) 11 11.0 low (<60%) 89 89.0 psychological: high (60%+) 29 29.0 low (<60%) 71 71.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 50 published by scholink inc. table 4. relation between employee’s exposure to stress and their strain, burnout and coping stress and their strain, burnout, and coping stress x2 test p-value high low no. % no. % total strains: high (60%+) 17 89.5 2 10.5 low (<60%) 32 39.5 49 60.5 15.38 <0.001* total burnout: high (60%+) 20 100.0 0 0.0 low (<60%) 29 36.3 51 63.8 26.02 <0.001* effective emotional confrontation: high (60%+) 26 38.2 42 61.8 low (<60%) 23 71.9 9 28.1 9.85 0.002* effective behavioral confrontation: high (60%+) 37 49.3 38 50.7 low (<60%) 12 48.0 13 52.0 0.01 0.91 ineffective emotional perception: high (60%+) 11 55.0 9 45.0 low (<60%) 38 47.5 42 52.5 0.36 0.55 ineffective emotional coping: high (60%+) 7 77.8 2 22.2 low (<60%) 42 46.2 49 53.8 fisher 0.09 confrontive problem solving: high (60%+) 16 64.0 9 36.0 low (<60%) 33 44.0 42 56.0 3.00 0.08 total effective coping: no 6 85.7 1 14.3 yes 43 46.2 50 53.8 fisher 0.06 (*) statistically significant at p<0.05. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 51 published by scholink inc. table 5. correlation matrix of employee’s exposure to stress and their strain, burnout and coping scores of spearman’s rank correlation coefficient 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1stress 2strain . 640** 3burnout . 722** . 630** coping: 4effective emotional confrontation -. 138 -. 064 -. 159 5effective behavioral confrontation . 090 . 282** -. 029 . 394** 6ineffective emotional perception . 000 -. 082 . 094 . 094 -. 145 7ineffective emotional coping . 187 . 076 . 310** -. 095 -. 153 . 394** 8confrontive problem solving . 162 . 057 . 199* . 130 . 024 . 035 . 207* (*) statistically significant at p<0.05. (**) statistically significant at p<0.01. table 6. correlation between employee’s exposure to stress and their strain, burnout and coping and their personal characteristics personal characteristics spearman’s rank correlation coefficient stress strain burnout effective emotional confrontation effective behavioral confrontation ineffective emotional perception ineffective emotional coping confrontive problem solving age . 116 . 223* . 101 . 250* . 107 -. 022 . 104 . 200* qualification . 110 . 194 . 023 . 242* . 180 -. 158 . 092 . 178 experience . 305** . 284** . 346** -. 101 -. 101 . 081 . 161 . 190 income -. 286** -. 209* -. 442** . 230* . 259** . 097 . 031 -. 026 hours/day . 149 . 317** . 207* -. 223* . 068 -. 059 . 167 -. 142 hours/week . 340** . 410** . 208* -. 057 . 215* -. 050 . 087 . 012 (*) statistically significant at p<0.05. (**) statistically significant at p<0.01. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 52 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion the aim of this study was to assess job stressors and burnout among employees in the outpatient clinics at tenth of ramadan city. according to the present study findings, almost a half of the employees had high exposure to stressors. the sources of these stressors were mainly related to job rather than to personal factors. as the results indicated, only less than one-fourth of these employees experienced high exposure to personal stressors. the finding indicates that the family-related variables and commitments did not have a major contribution to nurses’ stress. this may be explained by that employees have arranged their personal and family life so that no or minimal conflicts would happen that may put them under stress. in agreement with this, a study in italy revealed that nurses’ personal factors such as age, experience, time to commute to work, and number of children were not correlated to higher stress scores (romano et al., 2015). meanwhile, family-related stress was high among nurses in taiwan (fang et al., 2014). meanwhile, the stressors facing the nurses in the present study were more frequently related to work, the highest being attributed to work overload. the reason for this overload could be the shortage of nurses and the high numbers of patients, which would lead to very high patient-to-nurse ratios. this is in fact a major cause of job stress in any work setting, particularly in the nursing profession. in this job, a work overload may increase the chances of errors, which might have serious consequences on patients’ health and wellbeing. therefore, this would constitute a major source of stress among nurses. in agreement with these present study findings, romano et al. (2015), in a study assessing occupational stress among nurses in italy, reported workload as the source of job stress with the highest score among them. the findings are also in line with previous studies, which identified high workload as a source of stress among nurses (kyriako, 2012; lee & wang, 2013). moreover, brown (2011) emphasized that performing too many tasks in too little time is the most frequent complaint among employees. actually, the nurse must teach, counsel students, and work on committees, as well as engage in clinical practice with students. this could also be due to managerial lack of efficiency in work distribution and assignments, which could be an important stressor for employees as demonstrated by mohamed (2012) in a study carried out at el-famous outpatient clinics. the current study has also assessed employee’s response to stress, i.e., their strains. the findings identified lower levels of strain among these employees especially the physical strains. this could be attributed to the nature of work in the outpatient clinics, which does not necessitate due physical efforts from the employees when compared with their peers in wards where patients’ assistance may be strenuous. thus, the physical strains could be just in the form of fatigue, headache, and backache due to prolonged standing. similar physical symptoms were reported by wong et al. (2011) who reported that stress-related physical illnesses included migraine, headache, muscle, back, and joint pains. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 53 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion the employees in the study settings are exposed to high stressors in their work environment. however, a smaller percentage of them do have strain and burnout mainly related to depersonalization. their use of various coping strategies is variable, with high use of effective behavioral confrontation. nurses’ scores of stress, strain, and burnout are strongly correlated. employees stress is increased with longer experience, more work hours, and lower income. employees strain is increased by age, higher qualification, more work hours, and higher stress score, while the confrontive problem-solving coping lessens it. as for burnout, it is increased by work hours, urban residence, lower income, and higher stress and strain, the use of ineffective emotional coping, and the failure to use effective emotional confrontation coping. therefore, employee’s burnout, stress, and strain are inter-correlated. they are influenced by nurses as well as work setting factors. the use of effective coping strategies can help relieve. 6. recommendation in the light of the study findings, the following recommendations are proposed.  employees need training in the use and application of effective coping strategies to help them overcome the negative consequences of job stress and burnout. this could be done through on-the-job training as well as seminars and workshops.  employees at higher risk for stress and burnout such as those of older age, long experience, rural residence, and low income should be more targeted with such training.  the hospital administration should deal with the job factors underlying employees stress and burnout such as the long working hours, workload, and the nursing care system.  periodic assessment of employees’ levels of stress, strain, and burnout needs to be done regularly to help in early detection of those affected before they suffer strains. references aamodt, m. g. (2012). industrial/organizational psychology: an applied approach (5th ed.) (p. 513). usa: thomson wads worth. abd el-hady, m. (2012). job stressors and coping strategies among nurse educators at secondary technical schools of nursing in alexandria (unpublished master thesis). faculty of nursing alexandria university, egypt. aiken, l. h., clarke, s. p., sloane, d. m., lake, e. t., & cheney, t. (2014). effects of hospital care environment on patient mortality and nurse outcomes. the journal of nursing administration, 38, 223-229. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.nna.0000312773.42352.d7 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 54 published by scholink inc. brown, m. k. (2011). role strain: nurse, researcher, educator, counselor. the canadian nurse. retrieved april 5, 2014, from http: //www. acofps. com/vb/showthread. php. html canadian centre for occupational health and safety. (2011). workplace stress-general. retrieved june 5, 2015, from http: //www. ccohs. ca/oshanswers/psychosocial /stress. html cusack, g., jones-wells, a., & chisholm, l. (2014). patient intensity in an ambulatory oncology research center: a step forward for the field of ambulatory care. nurs econ., 22(2), 58-63. fang, l., fang, s. h., chung, y. h., & fang, c. l. (2014). the predictors of the job stress among female married hospital nurses. ind health. garcia et al., (2010). mental health foundation. in a. moustaka, & c. theodors, (eds.), sources and affects work-related stress in nursing. thrace university, health science journal, 4(4), 212-214. health and safety executive. (2013). management standards on work-related stress. retrieved may 16, 2015, from http://www. gov. uk/stresson 21 hudspeth, r. (2013). staffing healthy workplaces: some global nursing shortage issues. nursing administration quarterly, 4, 374-376. https://doi.org/10.1097/naq.0b013e3182a2fa65 kyriako, c. (2012). teacher stress: directions for future research. educational review, 53(1), 27-35. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131910120033628 lazarus, & folkman. (2014). stress, appraisal, and coping. new york, and related factors in community nurses. journal of nursing research, 10(4), 235-260. maslach, c., schaufeli, w. b., & leiter, m. p. (2015). job burnout. in s. t. fiske, d. l. schechter, c. zahn-waxer (eds.). annual review of psychology, 53, 397-422. mohamed, h. a. (2012). identify job stressors among teachers at elfayoum (published master thesis). saudi arabia. retrieved october 5, 2015, from http: //www. acofps. com/vb/ showthread moustaka, a., & theors, c. (2010). sources and effects work-related stress in nursing, thrace university. health science journal, 4(4), 212-214. nantsupawat, a., srisuphan, w., kunaviktikul, w., wichaikhum, o. a., aungsuroch, y., & aiken, l. h. (2011). impact of nurse work environment and staffing on hospital nurse and quality of care in thailand. journal of nursing scholarship, 43, 426-433. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1547-5069.2011.01419.x romano, m., festini, f., & bronner, l. (2015). cross-sectional study on the determinants of work stress for nurses and intention of leaving the profession. prof inferm, 68(4), 203-210. stanton, & glantz. (2016). primer of biostatistics: the program. mcgraw-hill, version 3.01. swan, b. a., & griffin, k. f. (2015). measuring nursing workload in ambulatory care. nurs econ., 23(5), 253-260. torres, r., lambert, m., & lawver, r. (2009). job stress among secondary ag teachers: an explanatory study in american association for agricultural education research conference www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 55 published by scholink inc. proceedings, louisville, ky (p. 587). vroom, p. r., & spielberger, c. d. (2018). occupational stress: measuring job pressure and organizational support in the workplace. journal of occupational health psychology, 3(4), 294-305. wong, d., leung, s., so, c., & lam, d. (2011). mental health of chinese nurses in hong kong: the roles of nursing stress and coping strategies. online journal of issues in nursing, 5(2). zhang, l. f., you, l. m., liu, k., zheng, j., fang, j. b., lu, m. m., & bu, x. q. (2014). the association of chinese hospital work environment with nurse burnout, job satisfaction, and intention to leave. nurs outlook, 62(2), 128-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2013.10.010 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 20 review paper what has changed? a critical analysis of the law of sedition and the press in nigeria since 1914 chinedu c. odoemelam1*, uche v. ebeze2, okorom e. morgan3 & daniel n. okwudiogor3 1 department of mass communication, igbinedion university, okada, nigeria 2 department of mass communication, nnamdi azikiwe university, awaka, nigeria 3 department of mass communication university of nigeria, nsukka, nigeria * chinedu c. odoemelam, department of mass communication, igbinedion university, okada, nigeria received: september 24, 2020 accepted: october 7, 2020 online published: april 30, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n2p20 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n2p20 abstract this study is situated within the normative theoretical framework, which focuses on the press in nations where the press is expected to assume the coloration of the political milieu within which it finds itself. the british colonial masters discovered the power of the press in the early 16th century and devised numerous schemes to restrict publication. such policies were extended to her majesty’s colonies; for instance, the law of sedition in nigeria. freedom of the press is a right but it is a right that has been won only through many hard-fought legal battles like the one fought by john peter zenger in the seditious trial of 1735. there were several such trials for sedition in the colonies, and despite the acquittal of john peter zenger, the british colonial government went ahead to adopt such laws in her colonial territories. this was exemplified in the seditious offence ordinance that was in force in 1909 in southern nigeria. this study adopts the historical, legal research and critical paradigm technique to examine how the law of sedition has fared in inhibiting press freedom in nigeria since 1914. the study provides an understanding of how colonial influence may affect laws regulating how the media function in independent states. keywords changed, sedition, press, freedom, publication 1. introduction the task of this paper is to examine the law of sedition and how it has influenced the notion of press freedom and other laws regulating the press in nigeria. to do this, the study undertakes a critical and historical approach and observes that, though freedom of the press has been part of the english legal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 21 published by scholink inc. tradition, it is a right that has been won only through many hard-fought legal battles. this observation underpins the hostile relationship that has been the hallmark of government (and her agencies)—press relationship in nigeria. on the other hand, aliede (2020) suggests that the press perform multiple roles towards the growth and development of politics, governance and democracy. further, the study traces the origin of repressive press laws in nigeria to colonial instruments and enactments and infer that the cat and dog relationship that exists between the press and government agency borrow from experiences gained from colonial styled governance. finally, the study shows empirical evidences to prove that such attitudes are harmful orientations that nigerian leaders have refused to unlearn even after over one hundred years since the law of sedition emerged and despite clear indications that contemporary dynamics do not support the use of seditious laws in gagging the press. justice olatawura’s statement captures this vividly “we are no longer the illiterates or the mob society our colonial masters had in mind when the law (of sedition) was promulgated” (justice olatawura’s judgment in nwankwo vs the state, 1985, cited in akinola, 2014 daily sun). having outlined the focus of this paper, we now revert to the full discussion of the issues. in human society, law is a necessary ingredient for ensuring correct conduct. law concerns itself with issues about rights, duties/obligations, values and justice (noun, undated). however, due to vested interests, contradictions arise in the enactment and use of law. ibhawoh (2002) has examined the tensions and contradictions in the use of law as an instrument of coercion to consolidate british control in nigeria and the legitimizing rhetoric of human rights and social justice employed within the context of the operation of the law. his study explored the effects of laws introduced mainly to foster british colonial hegemony against the background of the aspiration to guarantee social justice and forge a “modern” regime of rights and liberties for native subjects in the colony. he probed the circumstances that made the rhetoric of rights and liberty imperative for both the colonial regime that employed it to legitimize the empire and the african elites who appropriated it to strengthen their demands for representation and self-rule. one of the legal instruments that the african elites (most of them journalists), used to draw attention to their demands for representation and self rule, were laws pertaining to freedom of the press-a freedom that confers on the press the responsibility to monitor the polity. the importance of the watch-dog (surveillance) function of the press in the development of a society can never be over-emphasized. iwokwagh and akurega (2012, p. 249) assent and note that, “journalists play crucial roles in society as purveyors of information. they act as watchdogs of society by calling attention to issues that portend danger…and to issues that are germane to development and social transformation”. the performance of this role makes the press to monitor government and public servants’ activities to ensure that they live up to acceptable standards for which they hold governance in trust for the people (odoemelam, 2018; odoemelam et al., 2020). to continue to perform this role, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. there must be freedom to operate. part of this freedom has constitutional support: section 3(1) of 1979 of the nigerian constitution states that, “every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart idea and information without interference”. however, this watch-dog role has variously come under government intimidation especially from hostile administrations and those who hold public offices and who shy away from criticism. historical evidence shows that prior to the constitutional provisions of section 3(1) of 1979, the british colonial masters set in motion a machinery that marked the beginning of the contestation of this freedom. omu (1968) provides an insight into why the colonial government took such step: “their newspapers were almost unavoidably highly critical, and colonial administrators sought to control them”. but justice alatuwara advises: “those in public office should not be intolerant of criticism. where a writer exceeds the bounds, there should be a resort to the law of libel where the plaintiff must of necessity, put his character and reputation in issue. criticism is indispensable in a free society” (justice alatuwara, in nwankwo vs the state, 1985, cited in akinola, 2014). 2. method to fully understand the phenomenon which this article discusses, the paper was situated within the qualitative method. according to reinard (2001, pp. 1-9), qualitative studies try to describe the human condition by using general views of social action. three techniques were involved in the study: the legal research method, the critical paradigm and the historical techniques. the legal method involves examining specific court cases (tang, 2016). for this article, it was sedition related court cases from 1914 to 2014. the critical paradigm, according to wimmer and dominick (2011) draws from models used in the humanities. the authors further observe that, critical researchers are interested in such concepts as the distribution of power in society and political ideology. in adopting this technique, the paper observed patterns of power relations and compared them with colonial governance on the one hand, and the notion of communication power, including the motivation to control the press. it also examines the ideological framework in normative press laws especially the authoritarian media paradigm within which repressive media legislations incubate and thrive. the historical method on the other hand, comprised the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidences to research and then to write histories in the form of accounts of the past (wikipedia, 2014). in this regard, we systematically examine documents, case laws and judicial precedence with the aim of tracing historical patterns in the use of repressive press laws by government agencies. we further compare these patterns with extant or contemporary developments in government-press relations. to gather data for these techniques, internet searches and data base searches were conducted using key words for each of the concepts. to analyse the data from these two techniques, the constant comparative technique was adopted (glazer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 23 published by scholink inc. & strauss, 1967, cited in wimmer & dominick, 2011). 3. justification the year 2009 marked one hundred years since the seditious offence ordinance was introduced in southern nigeria. meanwhile, the year 2014, marked one hundred years since the amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates as a single unit. this suggests that the seditious offence law is a press law that has its origin from british colonial documents and was one of the instruments which the colonial masters used to consolidate their hold on the colonies’ affairs and press. that singular event as studies show has opened the gate for repressive enthusiasm against the press in nigeria. this is reflected in such media laws as: public officers (protection against false accusation) decree no 4 of 1984, the nigerian media decree no 59 of 1998, or even the nigerian press council act no 85 of 1999, which omole (2000) and iwokwagh and akurega (2012) have argued, is totalitarian in structure and responsibility. several years after these incidences, it has not been made clear how the law of sedition still influence media law, and how this influence manifests in government-press relations. despite the importance of examining the patterns that have emerged within these periods (1909-2009, for seditious offence ordinance, and 1914-2014 for amalgamation), and the necessity to compare them with current press laws in nigeria, very few studies have examined these perspectives. consequently, knowledge on this subject-matter remains scanty. it is against this backdrop that this paper adopts a mixed qualitative approach to examine the seditious offence ordinance and to analyze its influence on extant communication laws in nigeria. as a result, the study raises the following questions: what has been the pattern of legislative instruments on the nigerian press since 1909 when seditious offence ordinance was enacted? how has the seditious offence ordinance influenced media law in nigeria? how has this influence manifested in government-press relations? in other words, have subsequent governments and their agents, used seditious offence laws as cover for executive arbitrariness. 4. theoretical framework in this segment, we examine theories that explain the phenomenon of repressive media laws and the political milieu that support such structures. in this regard, there is the theory of power relations and the authoritarian media theory. 4.1 theory of power relations the theory of power relations as espoused by manuel castells (2009) is very relevant to this discourse. geoff mulgan, according to castells theorized the capacity of the state to assume and exercise power through the articulation of three sources of power: violence, money, and trust. the three sources of power together underpin political power, the sovereign power to impose laws, issue commands and hold together a people and a territory... it concentrates force through its armies, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 24 published by scholink inc. concentrates resources through exchequers, and concentrates the power to shape minds, most recently through big systems of education and communication that are the twin glues of modern nation states... of the three sources of power the most important for sovereignty is the power over the thoughts that give rise to trust. violence can only be used negatively; money can only be used in two dimensions, giving and taking away. but knowledge and thoughts can transform things, move mountains and make ephemeral power appear permanent. (mulgan, 2007, p. 27). according to this theory, communication is the vehicle via which thoughts could be transformed and therefore is a portent threat especially when such communication power is in the hands of the “enemy”. 4.2 authoritarian media theory the authoritarian media theory is part of the normative theories of the press. the original understanding of the normative theories of the press, which is found in the seminal works of siebert et al. (1956), focused on the political milieu of nation-states, where the press is expected to assume the coloration of the political milieu within which it finds itself (okoro, ukonu, & odoemelam, 2014). the authoritarian media theory is operationalised as strict control of content by the state and a general lack of freedom for the press to criticize state policies (ostini, undated cited in okoro, ukonu, & odoemelam, 2014). the authoritarian media existed to serve the government in power and were forbidden to criticize the government or its functionaries (folarin, 2002). in the main, the theory helps to explain the ways in which societal communication rules impinge on mass media structure and performance and highlights the consequences of non-convergence between societal principles and mass communication principles (folarin, 2002 cited in kidafa et al., 2011; cited in okoro, ukonu, & odoemelam, 2014). in this scenario, the press is controlled by mostly repressive governments and those segments of the press not directly controlled by government are apparently expected by the ruling elite to at least maintain neutrality, even in the face of bad governance (folarin, 2002). according to folarin, the instruments of authoritarian control of the media are many and varied. they are employed in various combinations by different authoritarian governments. they include repressive legislations (including decrees), heavy taxation, direct or subtle state control of staffing and of essential reproduction inputs such as newsprint, even more obviously repressive and objectionable measures such as prior censorship and suspension of publications (2002, pp. 27-28). these theories (power relations and authoritarian media) are quite axiomatic to the discourse on sedition law and its influence on press laws and press freedom in nigeria. the power relations theory provides an explanation to why states may decide to control the press since the press is perceived as instrument of power. as castells argues, to control the press (communication) is to control and consolidate power (castells, 2009). on the other hand, the authoritarian media theory gives insight into an understanding of political and social structures that support the control of the media. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 25 published by scholink inc. 5. review of literature 5.1 communication and power relations to understand why states use repressive laws to gag the press and invariably inhibit freedom of the press, it is important to, in brief; examine the theory of power relations that may inform the promulgation of the seditious offence ordinance in southern nigeria. to do this, we make recourse to the works of manuel castells titled: communication power. according to castells (2009, p. 1) “power is based on the control of communication and information, be it the macro-power of the state and media corporations or the micro-power of organizations of all sorts”. we note that the theory of power relations is axiomatic to the powerful media effect paradigm which underlined popular press ideological stance within the 19th and 20th century. this was manifested in colonial state policies and decisions that point to the fear of the press as subsequent analysis show. the british discovered the power of the press in the early 16th century and devised numerous schemes to restrict publication. criticism of the government, called seditious libel, was outlawed. licensing or prior censorship was also common. in addition, the crown for many years used an elaborate system of patents and monopolies to control printing in england (no name, n.d.). this was also extended to her colonies like nigeria where the crown was consolidating power and communication was seen as a veritable instrument of power-obviously a reflection of castells’ ideology of communication power: power relies on the control of communication, as counter power depends on breaking through such control. and mass communication, the communication that potentially reaches society at large, is shaped and managed by power relationships, rooted in the business of media and the politics of the state. communication power is at the heart of the structure and dynamics of society (castells, 2009, p. 3). even though press freedom, as okoro and agbo (2003) had posited, is a basic principle of human freedom and libertarianism, studies (aturu, 2010; odii, 2013) have shown that governments do not feel secure when the media seek to express that freedom. two assumption may explain this phenomenon: the first could be gleaned from the arguments of pool (1973 cited in okoro & agbo, 2003; okoro & odoemelam, 2013; odoemelam, 2018) that, “no nation will indefinitely tolerate a freedom of the press that serves to divide the country and to open the floodgates of criticism against the freely chosen government that it leads”. okoro and odoemelam on their part, argue that, controls like laws and regulations are designed to streamline media practice within the ambit of what is lawfully permissible (2013). this perhaps informs the strained inter-course with the press which most governments in nigeria borrowed from colonial precedence. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 26 published by scholink inc. a jaundiced understanding of the second assumption could be found in the works of castells (2009, 2010, 2010, 2010) in which he argued that power lies in the control of communication, in which case, those who wish to consolidate power, must control communication. however, the control of communication within the context of press freedom, government relations and repressive laws as is found in nigeria, is in sharp contrast with the ideology of consolidation of communication power as espoused by the works of castells. again, we argue that, the history of press laws like seditious offence ordinance is the history of colonialism in british west africa and particularly in nigeria. a brief chronological account in the next paragraph, of the emergence of seditious offence law in nigeria, may be helpful in understanding its emergence. 5.2 the seditious offence ordinance: a historical perspective shortly before the amalgamation of the northern and southern british protectorates as a unit called nigeria, in the year 1914, by her majesty’s representative, lord frederick lugard, (an occurrence which many people either politically motivated or scholastically informed have called a marriage of strange bed-fellows) the foundation for the future repressive experiences of the press in the hands of the government, was laid by her majesty’s colonial government. the period referred to here, was the year 1909. in september that year, the seditious offence ordinance came to be part of the ordinances that anyone who had the ambition to monitor and criticize the government or those holding such power, may have to think through adequately before delving into such lofty enterprise. according to ogbondah and onyedike (1991) the ordinance was published in september 1909 in the official gazette and reprinted in an extraordinary issue of the government gazette dated october 1, 1909. the seditious offences ordinance under sections 3 and 5 provided that: whoever by words, either spoken or written... brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt... the government established by law in southern nigeria, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to two years or with a fine or with both imprisonment and fine. whoever makes, publishes or circulates any statement, rumour or report, with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause any officer of the government of southern nigeria or any person otherwise in the service of his majesty to disregard or fail in his duty as such officer or servant of his majesty... shall be punished (gazette,1909; cited in ogbondah & onydike, 1991, p. 63). according to akinola (2014) and ogbondah and onyedike (1991), the law of sedition is a by-product of colonialism. as ogbondah and onyedike (1991) note, the event that precipitated the 1909 newspaper law was herbert macaulay’s publication of a pamphlet titled, “governor egerton and the railway”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. the pamphlet leveled charges of maladministration against the governor and drew attention to allegations of corrupt practices in the egerton administration. concern about the effects of unrestricted press criticism led to the drafting of a law based on the indian penal code which read inter-alia: which would allow reasonable freedom of discussion of government policy but which would give the government power to punish publications... designed to influence an excitable and ignorant populace the bulk of whom are absolutely under the control of headman [sic] and chiefs who themselves have only recently emerge from barbarism and are still actuated by the old traditions of race (omu, 1968). according to ogbondah and onyedike (1991), an examination of colonial documents and statutory provisions regulating the nigerian press reveals that the roots of this press law are clearly found in the colonial period of nigerian journalism history. fragments of the law can be found in the early newspaper laws of nigeria. one of such laws was the seditious offences ordinance of 1909 which, like decree no. 4 of 1984, criminalized the publication of false reports or statements that exposed a government official or the government itself to ridicule or contempt. ogbondah and onydike (1991), in their paper, origins and interpretation of nigerian press laws, observed that public officers (protection against false accusation) decree no. 4 of 1984 was modeled after earlier libel and sedition laws and the newspaper amendment act, all of which criminalize free speech and opinion directed against those in authority. the study found similarities in the motivations behind the promulgation of decree no. 4 and those behind the earlier libel and sedition laws, i.e., fear of those in authority of criticism. this obviously was a direct cultivation and learning from their british lords. the above provisions clearly show that section 1, sub-section (i) of the 1984 press law was modelled after the 1909 newspaper law. section 6 of the seditious offences ordinance empowered police, magistrates and district commissioners to check seditious publications in their areas of authority by requiring suspected offenders to execute a bond, to be of good conduct for one year or for such a period as the police, magistrate or district commissioner would be satisfied with the alleged offender’s behaviour and conduct. 5.3 empirical views on press freedom and the laws of communication it seems that even though nigeria claims to be independent of colonial rule, it is yet to wean itself of the harsh orientation against the press. may be it is a case of the proverbial old hen that has refused to learn new dancing steps due to years of dancing the old steps. aturu (2010) avers that, “these laws were enacted to repress the press and prevent criticism of the government in power. that is the connecting thread… it must never be forgotten that the repressive laws are still being used by the state to harass and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 28 published by scholink inc. intimidate journalists. present events no doubt continue to point to the fact that laws regarding the press are still off-shoot of the colonial styled ruler ship”. this was presumed by ogbondah and onyedike (1968): the 1984 press law merely differed slightly from its colonial primogenitor. apart from this difference, decree no. 4 of 1984 provided for the exact terms of punishment as the 1909 colonial seditious offences ordinance. therefore, it could be argued that the public officers (protection against false accusation) decree no. 4 of 1984 was a rebirth of the premier colonial press law. gunilla faringa has argued in his paper, press freedom in africa, that, african journalism first emerged in british west africa. in his words: “the british are generally regarded as having pursued rather libertarian ideas of the press” (p. 2). but he was quick to agree with popular opinion among media history scholars that, why this was so, was because the early vitality and independence enjoyed by these newspapers was because the british had no intention to settle down in their colonies. and even their first attempts at publications were gazettes which were elitist in nature. this was in stark contrast to the policy of their french counterparts who ruled in accordance to their domestic organizational traditions. in their seminal work, festus eribo and william jong-ebot, press freedom and communication in africa, two factors were identified to impinge on press freedom in africa: internal and external factors. when they narrowed their analyses to nigeria, they noted that, for the internal factors, ethnicity and corruption were culprit; and that for the external factors, colonial influence and laws, according to the authors, were conspicuously implicated (eribo & jong-ebot, 1997). the external factors as pointed out by these scholars are of significance to this paper, especially as literatures which have examined government-press relations vis-à-vis press laws seem to contend (aturu, 2010; omu, 1968). the views of omu (1968 cited in the online version 2009) on the origin of press control in nigeria is quite instructive in this regard: “one of the most striking features of the african nationalist movement is the great effort that was made to safeguard the freedom of the press. as british subjects, most of whom were trained in britain; educated africans assumed that they were entitled to enjoy a free press, which was an essential ingredient in the british political tradition”. a variety of factors contained official repressive enthusiasm, and these provide the key to the relatively small number of press prosecutions and the seeming reluctance to enforce press legislation. the situation is illustrated from the history of the early nationalist newspaper press in former british west africa. aturu (2010) has argued that all the laws, whether it was the colonial seditious offences ordinance of 1909, the precursor of the notorious public officers (protection against false accusation) decree no 4 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 29 published by scholink inc. of 1984 or even the nigerian press council act recently nullified by the federal high court, were enacted to repress the press and prevent criticism of the government in power. 6. results 6.1 the relationship between the seditious offence ordinance and other repressive press laws in successive governments in nigeria perhaps the best way to describe this relationship is captured in the words of akinola who noted inter-alia: the sedition law has been a common tool in the hands of successive governments in nigeria to harass the nigerian press. any scurrilous or scathing criticism of the government is termed seditious by the security agents. a thin line of distinction has therefore been drawn between fair criticisms and seditious comments. this has led to the arraignment of a number of journalists for sedition. the language and provisions of section 8, sub-section (i) of decree no. 4 of 1984 are similar to those of section 3 of the 1909 colonial newspaper law. that section of the 1984 newspaper law provided for a prison term of up to two years for convicted offenders of the law the same provisions found in the colonial law (ogbondah & onyedike, 1991). ogbondah and onyedike (1991) have argued that, the 1984 press law merely differed slightly from its colonial primogenitor and apart from this difference, decree no. 4 of 1984 provided for the exact terms of punishment as the 1909 colonial seditious offences ordinance. they contend further that the public officers (protection against false accusation) decree no. 4 of 1984 was a rebirth of the premier colonial press law. fragments of the roots of decree no. 4 can also be found in other colonial statutory provisions. one of those statutes was the 1916 criminal code which removed the option of fine found in the 1909 law for the publication of false reports. in the 1916 criminal code, false publication was defined as any “statement, rumour or report likely to bring any public officer to disrepute...” (gazette, 1916). the same phrase appeared in section 1, sub-sections (i) and (ii) of the 1984 law enacted to control freedom of the press in nigeria. in addition to this similarity, the draftsmanship of section 6, sub-section (i) of decree no. 4 of 1984 was exactly the same as that of the 1916 colonial criminal code in the sense that it provided no option of fine for anyone convicted of disseminating false rumour, report or statement in this sense, it can be logically concluded that the origins of section 9, sub-section (i) of the 1984 press law are found in the 1916 criminal code of nigeria (ogbondah & onyedike 1991, pp. 61-69). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 30 published by scholink inc. 7. discussion 7.1 trend since 1914 in this segment of the paper, we review court cases dealing with seditious offence and other communication laws as well as the judicial judgments that implicate the law of sedition as unconstitutional. we also show that, from the comments and decisions of the presiding justices, the state and some of its agents use the seditious law arbitrarily against the press. as akinola (2014), ogbondah and onyedikeo (1991) and okoro and okolie (2004) observed, in the case of the state v the ivory trumpet publishing co, ltd and 3 ors (1993) 5 nclr at 736, decided by justice emmanuel araka (then chief judge of former anambra state) on january 31, 1983, a newspaper called weekly trumpet with a bias for the defunct national party of nigeria (npn) published in one of its editions between august 24 and september 7, 1980 an article entitled. “just before the battle” where former anambra state governor, chief jim nwobodo, was referred to as follows: he has been keeping and spending party money without account and has in the past three months paid out staff salaries direct through the secretary and has refused to pay the chairman. we have called him to give account of election expenses, more particularly the foundation membership certificates signed by dr. g.c. mbanugo, himself as the gubernatorial candidate, myself as the chairman and mr t.c. chigbo as the secretary. the state executive settled the election dispute in njikoka on march 5, 1980. and the governor supports the dissident minority. he does same in the women’s wing through this financial emissary. nearly n2 million had been paid to him from party sales of premier beer. he has not paid the money with party account nor rendered statement to the executive (akinola, 2014). the presiding justice dismissed the charge. in dismissing the charge, justice araka held: “sedition law does not punish someone who makes a publication that merely embarrasses the government or the governor”. according to him the law merely prohibits a publication “that has a tendency to create disorder or disturbance of law and order or causes or has tendency to cause incitement to violence, having due regard to the right of free speech guaranteed the citizen under section 36 (1) of the constitution” (akinola, 2014). in another case, the often-quoted cases of dpp v chike obi, (1961) iall nlr 186, obi was charged with sedition in 1960 for distributing a pamphlet entitled: “the people: facts that you must know” wherein he stated inter alia, “down with the enemies of the people, the exploiters of the weak and oppressors of the poor. the day of those who have enriched themselves at the expense of the poor are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 31 published by scholink inc. numbered. the common man in nigeria can today no longer be fooled by sweet talk at election time, only to be exploited and treated like dirt after the booty of office has been shared among the politicians”. dr. chike obi was found guilty of sedition by the high court, but the lagos state chief judge that tried him referred the case to the supreme court for the proper interpretation of section 50 and 51 of the criminal code, vis-à-vis section 24 of the 1960 independence constitution of nigeria (akinola, 2014). chief rotimi williams, counsel to chike obi, argued that sections 50 and 51 of the criminal code were inconsistent with the provisions of section 24 of the constitution. according to him, “any law, which punishes a person for making a statemenzxt, which brings a government into discredit or ridicule or creates disaffection against the government irrespective of whether the statement is true of false and irrespective of any repercussion of public order or security, is not a law which is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society” (akinola, 2014). in the case of arthur nwankwo v state, (1985) 6nclr 228, greater light was shed on the sedition law. chief nwankwo, a publisher had written a book in 1982 titled “how jim nowobodo rules anambra state”, a book that seriously attacked chief nwobodo, accusing him of corruption and tyranny. chief nwankwo was charged with sedition before justice f.o nwokedi, then of onitsha high court and was found guilty and jailed 12 months. at the court of appeal, enugu to which he appealed, the court made up of justices alfa belgore (later of the supreme court justice) and aikawa, made a landmark jurisprudential decision that overturned the verdict of the high court ruled that sedition law. section 50 and 51 of the criminal code is inconsistent with section 36 of the 1979 constitution and thereof void (akinola, 2014; ogbondah & onyedikeo, 1991; okoro & okolie, 2004). in his ruling, justice olatawura said: “it is my view that the law of sedition, which has derogated from the freedom of speech guaranteed under this constitution is inconsistent with the 1979, constitution, more so when this cannot lead to a public disorder, as envisaged under section 41(a) of the 1979 constitution we are no longer the illiterates or the mob society our colonial masters had in mind when the law was promulgated. the safeguard provided under section 50(2) is inadequate, more so where the truth of what is published is no defense” (akinola, 2014). he commented further that, to retain section 51 of the criminal code in its present form, that is even if not inconsistent with the freedom of expression guaranteed by the constitution, will be a deadly weapon and to be used at will by a corrupt government or tyrant... let us not diminish from the freedom gained from our colonial masters by resorting to laws enacted by them to suit their purpose. the decision of the founding fathers of this present constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech must include freedom to criticize, should be praised and any attempt to derogate from it except as provided by the constitution must be resisted (akinola, 2014). akinola notes that this was also in agreement with the view of justice brandeis in whitney v california, 274 us 357 where he espoused: those who won our independence believed that public discussion is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 32 published by scholink inc. political duty and this should be fundamental principle of american government. they recognized the risks to which all human constitutions are subject. but they know that order cannot be secured merely through, fear of punishment for its infraction, that is hazardous to discourage thoughts, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate, that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely and propose remedies and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones (akinola, 2014). in a more recent history, precisely on tuesday april 1, 2014, these headlines emerged on page 47 of the sun newspaper (a daily national newspaper in nigeria) “t.a. orji, ebere wabara and sedition”. there was also another headline on page 46 which read: “police slam 10-count charge on hospitalized, the sun editor… court issues bench warrant against him, surety… lawyer writes cp”. in the incidence reported above, the abia state police command (nigeria), purportedly on the instructions of the governor, t. a. orji (governor of abia state), went to lagos (nigeria) and arrested the the sun editor and drove him back under handcuffs to abia state where he was arraigned the next day on a 10 court charge of sedition against governor t. a. orji (alarape, 2014). in order not to be prejudicial this paper will not comment on the outcome of the case. however, we will keenly watch to see how the case will go down in the annals of the fight for the freedom of the press vis-a-vis the law of sedition. the opinion of aturu (2010) that, all the laws, whether it was the colonial seditious offences ordinance of 1909, the precursor of the notorious public officers (protection against false accusation) decree no 4 of 1984 or even the nigerian press council act recently nullified by the federal high court, were enacted to repress the press and prevent criticism of the government in power seems to be true. these repressive laws are still being used by the state to harass and intimidate journalists. we are reminded by him aturu (2010) that, under the so called democracy in the fourth republic, journalists were charged with criminal sedition for publishing stories indicating that presidential jets were not new but refurbished. media houses have been shut down by the nigerian “democratic” governments because of publishing news that embarrassed the state. the closure of channels television and insider magazine in nigeria recently, demonstrated the fact that qualitatively there is little difference between the so called democratic governments and the undemocratic regimes (aturu, 2010). the case mentioned above of the abia state governor, t. a orji, the abia state police command and the sun editor, is just one of the examples of executive-press clash that borders on media law, specifically the law of sedition. 8. conclusion other press laws have emerged since the 1909 sedition offence ordinance and these laws seem to be replications of the repressive stance of the law of sedition. it is obvious that government and her agencies continue to use sedition law to intimidate journalist. but one thing seems to be recurrent: the judiciary has consistently ruled against the unconstitutionality of the law of sedition. given these www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 33 published by scholink inc. circumstances, there is need to review the nigerian constitution and expunge the semblances of repressive press laws. in addition, agencies like media law centre should file suits against government agencies and agents who use the law of sedition as an umbrella for intimidation of journalists. it has been shown that, press freedom is a basic principle of human freedom and libertarianism; yet, governments do not feel secure when the media seek to express that freedom. it arguably true that no nation will indefinitely tolerate a freedom of the press that serves to divide the country and to open the floodgates of criticism against the freely chosen government that it leads, yet, seditious offence law was deliberately intended to silence the press. while measures in such as laws and regulations are designed to moderate media practice within the ambit of what is lawfully permissible, there are circumstances in which the press abuse such freedom. we had expressed the view elsewhere in this paper that, such indiscretion by the press may result in a strained relationship between political power holders and the press. at such times, majority of the governments in nigeria will resort to borrowing a leave from colonial precedence. acknowledgement we acknowledge the contributions of ternenge endy-a lecturer at the department of mass communication, ibrahim badamosi babangida university, lapai niger state, nigeria, who made inputs to the first draft/manuscript of this paper at the conference on amalgamation on may 4-7, 2014, at ibb, university, lapai. references akinola, r. (2014, april 14). t.a orji, ebere wabara and sedition. the sun newspaper. retrieved june 6, 2014, from http://www.sunonline.com alarape, a. (2014, april 14). police slam 10-count charge on hospitalized the sun editor… court issues bench warrant against him, surety… lawyer writes cp. the sun newspaper. retrieved june 6, 2014, from http://www.sunonline.com aliede, j. e. (2020). mass media and nigerian political class: partners in progress or strange-bed fellows. idia journal of mass communication, 5, 2020. aturu, b. (2010, september 3). freedom of the press in nigeria: some fundamental issues. retrieved october 5, 2014, from http://www.vanguardngr.com castell, m. (2009). communication power. new york: oxford university press. castells, m. (2010). the power of identity. united kingdom: wiley-blackwell. castells, m. (2010). the rise of the network society. united kingdom: wiley-blackwell. castells, m. (2010). the information age: economy, society, and culture. united kingdom: wiley-blackwell. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 34 published by scholink inc. ibhawoh, b. (2002). stronger than the maxim: gun law, human rights and british colonial hegemony in nigeria. africa. international african institute, 2(1), 55-83. https://doi.org/10.3366/afr.2002.72.1.55 iwokwagh, n., & akurega, m. (2012). assessment of nigerian press council in regulating journalism practice. african communication research, 5(2), 249-260. odoemelam, c. c. (2018). public perception of media performance during coverage of the 2014 national conference in nigeria. acspn book series. odoemelam, c. c., uchegbu, k., airen, m., & odoemelam, q. (2020). influence of broadcast media campaigns of political candidates on voters’ behaviour in the 2018 gubernatorial elections in ekiti and osun state. in iwokwagh n. et al. (2020), journalism: practice, teaching and research in nigeria. a festschrift in honour of prof tonnie iredia. ahmadu bello university press. ogbondah, c., & onyedike, e. (1991). origins and interpretation of nigerian press laws. africa media review, 5(2). okoro, n., & agbo, b. (2003). writing for the media society. nsukka: prize publishers. omu, f. i. (2009). the dilemma of press freedom in colonial africa: the west african example. the journal of african history, 9(2), 279-298 (original work published 1968). https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021853700008872 okoro, n. m., & odoemelam, c. c. (2013). mass communication ethics: concepts, theories and principles. in okoro (ed.), contemporary readings in media and communication studies. lagos: st. benedette publishers. olatawura, o. (1985). appeal court enugu. authur nwankwo vs the state. enugu state gazzeted. okoro, n., & okolie, m. (2004). mass media, law and politics. nsukka: rhyncex. okoro, n., ukonu, m., & odoemelam, c. c. (2014). mass communication theories and their applications. accepted for publication in the book of reading: theories in the social sciences. faculty of the social sciences, university of nigeria, nsukka. omole, g. (2000). the nigerian press council, 1992-1998. in akinfeleye et al. (eds.), history of nigerian press council. abuja: nigerian press council. ostini, j. (n.d). the authoritarian theory. retrieved november 6, 2013, from http://epiclawyers.wordpress.com/introduction-to-four-theories-of-the-press kidafa, i., odoemelam, c., & elechi, o. (2011). social media and the challenges of regulation: an analytical approach. paper at the acce conference, covenant university, ota. 22 september, 2011. folarin, b. (2002). theories of mass communication. nsukka: afri-link books. reinard, a. (2001). trends in mass communication research. new york: mcgraw hill. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 35 published by scholink inc. tang, y. (2016). laws are a big bell…it will never ring itself! journalistic role in china’s first freedom of information law. ub journal of media law & ethics, 5(3/4) (summer/fall, 2016). wimmer. r., & dominick, j. (2011). mass media research: an introduction (9th ed.). usa: wadsworth cengage learning. non-print internet materials http://books.google.com.ng/books?hl=en&lr=&id=amm2qku9bvuc&oi=fnd&pg=pa51&dq=the+law+o f+sedition+and+the+press+in+nigeria&ots=fckf6wzfij&sig=mqghss_81kz_xksfiaxoooxyljw&redi r_esc=y#v=twopage&q=the%20law%20of%20sedition%20and%20the%20press%20in%20nigeri a&f=true www.wikipedia.com historical method communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 17 original paper women in stem interview analysis: encouraging young female learners in stem pathways kimberly k. arcand1*, sara r. price1, lisa f. smith2, & brian hsu1 1 nasa’s chandra x-ray observatory, center for astrophysics | harvard & smithsonian, cambridge, ma, united states 2 school of social sciences, university of otago, dunedin, otago, new zealand * kimberly k. arcand, nasa’s chandra x-ray observatory, center for astrophysics | harvard & smithsonian, cambridge, ma, united states received: september 9, 2022 accepted: september 28, 2022 online published: november 2, 2022 doi:10.22158/csm.v5n3p17 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v5n3p17 abstract this study used a qualitative approach to examine potential obstacles to and challenges in working in a stem field for females from underrepresented groups. unstructured interviews with 11 adult females representing diverse groups and various stem careers yielded important historical perspectives, along with recommendations for building stem careers for young females today. the findings indicated the critical role of having a strong mentor, role model, or support system in place along the stem pathway; the need to work with and engage females in stem activities and subjects when they are as young as possible, preferably while in primary/elementary school; and the importance of developing a sense of stem self-efficacy in young females. recommendations are given to inform studies in science communication and informal education. keywords women in stem, role models, biases, self-efficacy, qualitative interviews, career trajectories, underrepresented learners, elementary stem education 1. introduction the history of women’s contributions to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) is long and varied, but it often has been overlooked, and women remain statistically underrepresented. today, although women work in every type of job within all stem disciplines and represent the broadest range of backgrounds and experiences, there is not yet parity in representation numbers, pay, or rank. in the united states of america (u.s.) alone, women make up about 47% of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 18 published by scholink inc. overall workforce. however, that nearly gender-equal percentage does not necessarily translate into stem fields (bureau of labor statistics, 2018). it is critical to keep in mind that true gender parity cannot be measured by percentages alone (noll, 2020), as it also involves belonging and inclusion. women are most significantly underrepresented in physical science fields, including astronomy. computer science is the only stem career path that consistently showed a decrease in the number of u.s. women obtaining undergraduate degrees since 2002 (larson, 2014; national academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine, 2020). the american astronomical society committee on the status of women in astronomy reported that as of 2013, there were only 95 female full professors in astronomy in the u.s. versus 548 male full professors of astronomy (schmelz et al., 2014). in 2013, women made up about 14% of physics professors in the u.s. (pollack, 2013). for minority women, however, the statistics tended to be much lower. in 2015, only 83 black american women held ph.d.s in physics or a physics-related area of study (pitney, 2017). overall, only 1 in 10 women of color filled the position of scientist or engineer (national girls collaborative project, 2016). 2. overview 2.1 why more women are needed in stem the benefits of increasing representation of women from diverse backgrounds in stem research and career paths range from higher job security (langdon et al., 2011) and pay rates for women (funk & parker, 2018) to other pragmatic and perhaps life-saving gains. women, for example, can experience more side effects from many medications than men do and with more variation (u.s. government accountability office, 2001), and initial research studies for medicines have often been biased towards male subjects (beery & zucker, 2011). in addition, automobile airbags have been more dangerous for women of smaller stature because engineers initially designed and tested them around the male body (bloch, 1998). to design studies that avoid these omissions, women must contribute equitably to planning the relevant research frameworks. studies have shown that when heterogeneous parties are included in problem-solving tasks, more comprehensive results can arise than if the parties were homogenous (phillips et al., 2008; shinchi, 2014). therefore, it could be beneficial to include a higher diversity of researchers in fields such as biomedical engineering, where the female-to-male ratio is approximately 1:6 for workers in the u.s. as of 2016 (bureau of labor statistics, 2018). beyond representation issues, and even beyond stem jobs and outputs, lie more broad-reaching reasons for improving girls’ interest in and potential prospects in stem fields. topics in the stem domain are central to choices at the core of society, from political issues and government policies to business strategies. from boosting critical thinking abilities (duran & sendag, 2012) to shaping well-informed voters (marincola, 2006), these issues affect people on election ballots, in finance, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. the media in other words, within the world. people from all sectors of society need to engage in framing and tackling problems through scientific and technological initiatives to find solutions incorporating diverse voices from the communities impacted. 2.2 intersectionality kimberlé crenshaw (1991), an expert and authority in civil rights, black feminist legal theory, and race, racism, and the law, created the term “intersectionality” to define the intersection where race and gender bias occur. she noted that women of color could not choose to be female one day and a minority the next. in stem fields specifically, biases being encoded into applications and products created with artificial intelligence (ai) or machine learning algorithms can negatively affect people with darker skin. for example, one massachusetts institute of technology study found that facial recognition software has unusually high error rates among darker-skinned females (buolamwini & gebru, 2018). an improved skin tone dataset and better gender-distributed dataset for ai training purposes were recommended, one that more closely represents the population as a solution to a highly problematic paradigm that has far-reaching implications in search applications and police databases (lohr, 2018). similar issues have been found in physical products, from automatic soap dispensers that use infrared technology that does not “see” or recognize darker skin to more impactful products such as personal wearable health trackers and heart monitors (fussell, 2017). such technological errors and issues could have been avoided or, at the minimum, decreased by paying greater attention to diversity and therefore having a wider range of people in technology and engineering fields that do not prioritize the perspective of a white male body. looking at product design from the embodiment perspective is also helpful for comprehending the need to make these stem products accessible to populations with different physical abilities, who may need to use a previously unexplored set of senses or modalities to perceive and analyze scientific data. 2.3 stem and disabled learners: blind and visually impaired there are many different groups of learners. one category represented by an interview participant is audiences that are blind or visually impaired (bvi). finding ways to increase participation for all learners in science and engineering can be a universally heightened challenge for students with disabilities, as they are underrepresented in these disciplines (villanueva & di stefano, 2017). approximately one in nine employed scientists or engineers under the age of 75 reports a disability (national center for science and engineering statistics, 2017). when considering the needs of bvi audiences, especially students, it is crucial to note that each individual’s development drastically correlates with the specific support or interventions that person has received in critical skills (raisamo et al., 2006). many stem subjects rely heavily on visual resources that can be inaccessible to blind or low-vision students unless the material is presented in an alternative format (cryer, 2013). finding ways to help facilitate both the presentation and analysis of information in accessible ways and through www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. multiple senses can enhance the quality of knowledge obtained from interpreting results for the scientific community, bvi, and sighted members alike (díaz-merced, 2014). enabling equitable access to scientific information (arcand et al., 2019) will also help a broader portion of the population realize that stem subjects and careers could be a good match for their interests while teaching them the skills necessary to solve problems in these fields. 2.4 biases, role models, and identities: additional sociocultural issues in stem multiple studies have shown that stem skills are learned (hill et al., 2010), and gender bias still negatively impacts girls’ noted interest in stem fields from a very early age. for example, work from spencer et al. (1999) demonstrated the strength of stereotype threat for girls in mathematics testing among top math performers, where even the mention of gender bias in a test led to reduced performance for female participants. group stereotypes (whether based on gender or race) “can threaten how students evaluate themselves, which then alters academic identity and intellectual performance” and can affect “members of any group about whom negative stereotypes exist” (american psychological association, 2006, p. 1). not only does gender bias support the perception that science and mathematics are “for boys,” but, more importantly, it illustrates that stereotypical threats can lead to girls’ performance anxiety and low expectations on academic tests (doyle, 2016). furthermore, personal judgments on the suitability of stem fields can be based on known stereotypes of people considered like themselves (deiglymayr et al., 2019; richardson & genderscilab, 2020), which can solidify underrepresented groups’ perception that the culture of stem disciplines is not a right fit. a growing body of research illustrates significant sociocultural roadblocks for women in computer science and engineering fields. such barriers can significantly hinder the determination of stem discipline selection and study (cheryan et al., 2015; ceci et al., 2009). a meta-analysis conducted by cheryan et al. (2017) of 1,200 papers on gender gaps in computer science, engineering, and physics, pointed to three primary issues. these included a masculine culture with stereotypes and a lack of role models, leading to women feeling less welcome, less early exposure or work within those fields, and reduced self-efficacy. this research noted that stem programs could benefit by addressing problematic cultural issues and building awareness in girls and boys that both are equally capable of succeeding in stem careers. for example, intentionally designing equitable learning sites such as makerspaces can ensure that women feel comfortable and engaged moving around (melo, 2020) and therefore increases their sense of ownership within these educational spaces. 2.4.1 stem identity a personal stem identity is a belief that one can do well and succeed in stem subjects (ayoub, 2017). the social aspect of this stem identity explains how participants can visualize themselves as “accepted as a member of a stem discipline or field” (kim et al., 2018, p. 3). several factors related to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. stem identities may make it challenging, particularly for underserved groups like young women of color, to adopt such an identity for themselves (steinke, 2017). self-efficacy is often lower in females than males generally (gnilka & novakovic, 2017), and issues of belonging and confidence related to self-efficacy (settles, 2014) can be challenging to navigate in formulating the stem identity. importantly, however, recent research has demonstrated that through interventions, stem identity challenges can be positively influenced (kim et al., 2018). self-efficacy relates to the importance of mentorship regarding influence from others and identity. self-efficacy can influence an individual’s choices and efforts to reach given goals and if the individual will persist through difficulties and challenges to obtain those goals (bandura, 1997; rittmayer & beier, 2008). bandura’s work further states that individuals with higher states of expectation towards self-efficacy, or the belief that they will be able to achieve their goal or goals, tend to be more successful compared to individuals with lower expectations towards their self-efficacy (sobieraj & krämer, 2019). this is a pertinent topic, as success in stem subjects requires a strong sense of one’s ability to succeed in such topics, and females can have lower senses of self-efficacy toward stem than males (williams & george-jackson, 2014). individual perceptions of self-efficacy during the process of learning scientific subjects can be impacted by the presence of harmful biases in the environments of students, employees, and other people exposed to stem subject matter. 2.4.2 explicit and implicit gender bias a university of wisconsin-milwaukee and national science foundation report in 2011 based on over 5,500 female participants stated that the primary reasons for women leaving the field of engineering were sexist behaviors in their workplaces and feeling undermined by their managers or peers, as compared to those who remained (fouad & singh, 2011). women who left the field were also not as likely to report educational or advancement opportunities on the job, nor general support for a work-life balance, compared to those who stayed (fouad & singh, 2011). therefore, women tended to leave not because they lacked skills or knowledge but because of work environments that were less civil or supportive of women (doyle, 2016). this may point to an explicit bias—a bias that is more consciously held and therefore shapes how behavior toward certain groups of people is evaluated (handelsman & sakraney, 2015)—that could affect perceived notions about stem careers for those deciding on which fields of study to pursue (girl scout research institute, 2012; girlguiding, 2016). according to an american association of university women (aauw) report, “women and men are exposed to the same stereotypes about women in math and science in u.s. culture and, on average, acquire the same implicit or unconscious ‘science/math=male’ biases by age 7 or 8” (hill et al., 2010, p. 56). this is an implicit bias—or an unconscious assumption—that influences our judgment and perceptions of others (handelsman & sakarney, 2015) versus the aforementioned explicit bias. such unconscious biases can affect how adults talk to children, how family members select toys for them, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. and even how educators address them in environments for learning (hill et al., 2010). implicit biases, if they are not identified and consciously examined, can even negatively impact the hiring of elite female academic stem researchers (régner et al., 2019). one potential method of countering these biases is exposing elementary school-aged students from underserved groups to people like them demographically who currently work in stem disciplines. 2.4.3 role models the lack of visible role models in stem fields in which women are currently underrepresented can be problematic. this dearth of female role models has been shown to exist mainly in the media, with even less representation than in reality (smith et al., 2012). lockwood (2006) stated that women specifically require female role models for success to feel attainable. furthermore, exposure to role models is likely closely connected to formulating a stronger sense of stem identity (rosenthal et al., 2013; young et al., 2013). recent reports have shown that role models positively affected the development of interest in careers for 1,600 girls and young women aged 7 to 21. in contrast, the lack of such role models negatively affected the development of interest (girlguiding, 2016). exploring the educational and career pathways of diverse women involved in stem disciplines and discussing them in detail helps present various role models who can be compared to contemporary stem students. 3. method 3.1 women in science, technology, engineering, & math investigating obstacles, biases, & perceptions this study was undertaken to gain insights into the types of obstacles and challenges that underrepresented groups of females potentially face specific to stem learning. the first author collected data in a series of individual interviews with women who represented a variety of underrepresented groups and who were currently working in a stem-related career. 3.2 participants participants in the study were 11 women currently active in stem fields, aged 30-70, identified through the principal investigator’s professional networks. the 11 participants (representing one asian american, one black, one indian american, one latina/black, and seven white participants) included astronomers, a cosmologist, a planetary geologist, an astronaut, a biologist, an engineer, a technologist, and a mathematician. in addition, nine were prominent in their fields, and five identified publicly within lgbtqia+. we refer to the participants in this study by their occupations. the researchers had no supervisory role over any of the participants or other coercive professional or personal relationships with them that might have made them feel obligated to agree to take part in this research. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. 3.3 materials questions were developed to guide the sessions based on the reviewed literature, along with the knowledge and experience of the first author as a woman in stem. the interviews followed a semi-structured format, but all included the following questions: 1) please tell me about your educational background and work experience. 2) what was your career path? 3) what were the attitudes towards women in stem fields when you started your career? 4) what made you decide on a stem career? what sorts of things led you to believe that you wanted to be a scientist? 5) next, i’d like to know whether you hesitated to pursue your stem field. if so, why? did anyone encourage you? discourage you? if so, how? (note the gender of the encourager) 6) how many other women were pursuing or had active careers in your field when you started? 7) what might have prevented you from being successful in your chosen field? what hurdles did you need to overcome? 8) how has the climate toward women changed in your field since you started? 9) what suggestions do you have for engaging young women in stem fields? 10) what suggestions do you have for retaining young women in stem fields? 3.4 procedure an email invitation to participate in the study was sent to 12 women in stem careers, along with an information sheet and consent form. out of all those asked to participate, one did not respond. in the email invitation, the principal investigator offered to call the potential interviewees to discuss the project and respond to any questions before the interviewee gave consent. ten participants noted satisfaction with email discussions and did not find it necessary for the principal investigator to call; one participant requested a short call to clarify the purpose of the interviews and how they would be analyzed. once the 11 women who responded to the original email agreed to participate, arrangements were made for a mutually agreeable time for the interviews. each interview was conducted over the phone and lasted from 60 to 90 minutes. due to the varied geographic locations of the participants, the interviews were conducted over an iphone with a recording application installed. at the start of each interview, each participant was provided with a refresher on the study’s purpose and an opportunity to ask questions. each participant then orally confirmed her permission to have the interview recorded. all interviews were transcribed by a secure digital service and reviewed by the researchers to correct for inaccuracies in the transcription process (e.g., names misspelled or garbled sounds). participants were provided the transcriptions to edit or delete any sensitive or undesirable information and make other corrections as needed. two participants provided edits to the transcripts; one removed a small www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. amount of sensitive information (specific names and dates that had been discussed), and another added a few minor notes for clarity (such as a url). the interviews took place from march 2018 through september 2019, with the majority of the interviews occurring from march 2018 to mid-2018. review, coding, and analysis of the transcripts occurred throughout the remainder of 2018 and through september 2019. no compensation was offered or requested. ethics forms were completed, submitted, and approved. 4. analysis transcripts were analyzed following straus and corbin’s (1998) grounded theory with an iterative approach. data were reviewed through five iterations, with repeated readings of the data lensed through sifting, sorting, coding, abstracting, and checking (ryan & bernard, 2003). as this was new research for the field, the authors used inductive themes derived from the data (o’reilly, 2009) instead of deductive themes that otherwise might have come from existing research. representative quotes were selected and categorized by the interviewee’s occupation (e.g., “mathematician”). an excerpt from the coding for one participant is shown in table 1 as an example. table 1. interviews—sample of quote selection for one participant (“astronomer”) category quote influencers “...how do i deal with a professor who doesn’t support me, who doesn’t want to write me recommendation [sic] like there’s no class that teaches you how to do that...if you don’t have good mentors around you to help buffer those negative things you’re just going to wash out.” hurdles “and i think sometimes when people hear that you’re coming from an hbcu [historically black college and university], they kind of immediately assume that you have gaps in your education or maybe you’re not as smart, like it’s not anything in what they’re saying, but it’s kind of an attitude – like you’re here, but you’re only here because you’re part of this special program because you needed it and that’s, it – it’s all these little microaggressions that begin to add up.” attitude changes “i think there are some good changes that have happening [sic] i know statistics, statistics-wise, the number of women in stem field has increased since my time. but one thing that hasn’t changed much since kind of going into the stem field is the number of minorities who are getting their master’s, or they’re getting their ph.d. and that hasn’t changed. so it’s a little discouraging.” recommendations “but i want to be able to explain this to other people, that real-world like i think there’s just so many studies that i’m sure you’ve read, and i’ve read that’s one of the connections www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. to get our young women into stem, is the ‘why,’ why is this important?” it can be seen in table 2 that in addition to being female and working in a stem field, all but three of the participants fit within a minority group of either ethnicity, physical ability, or sexual orientation. of the eleven women interviewed, each attended their undergraduate programs as a young person, with two having obtained a maximum of a bachelor of science degree (one of whom is currently enrolled in a post-baccalaureate program towards the goal of enrolling in medical school), four holding master’s degrees, and five having studied at the ph.d. level. one of the five reported being a ph.d. candidate/abd (all but dissertation), and four held ph.d.s. each participant proceeded into a career path after completing their current level of schooling. at least nine participants are considered prominent in their fields either through direct research outputs or by reputation or recognition in their fields. if the participant’s status as a mother or as a non-native speaker of english was raised or previously mentioned publicly, that data was also included in table 2. 5. results five themes emerged from the data and were defined to facilitate accuracy in identification: influencers, educational experiences, hurdles, attitude changes, and recommendations. table 3 shows the total number of responses by theme, as determined through the iterative process previously described. all participants commented at least once on each of the five themes. the first theme, containing the most responses (101 responses), addressed the participants’ influencers that had positive or negative impacts, from role models and mentors to detractors. the second theme that emerged was an educational experience, which concerned the participants’ educational background or range of educational experiences. hurdles were the third theme that emerged from the data, pertaining to issues that needed to be overcome by the participants pursuing their careers. the fourth theme reflected attitudes perceived over the years toward women in stem. lastly, the fifth theme related to participants’ recommendations for engaging and retaining females in stem fields. table 2. description of interview participants id occupation education ethnicity sexual orientationa nseb stated disability career mother 1 astronaut ph.d. white cishet yes no late, prominent yes 2 engineer b.s. white cishet yes no mid/late yes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. 3 software developer m.s. white lgbtqia+ yes no late, prominent yes 4 technologist/ pre-med b.s./ post-baccc indian american lgbtqia+ no no early unknown 5 mathematician ph.d. asian american cishet unkn own no mid, prominent yes 6 radio astronomer ph.d. candidate white unknown yes no mid, prominent unknown 7 science writer m.a. white lgbtqia+ yes no mid, prominent yes 8 astronomer m.s. black unknown yes no mid, prominent yes 9 cosmologist ph.d. white lgbtqia+ yes no mid, prominent unknown 10 geologist m.s. white lgbtqia+ yes no mid, prominent yes 11 computer scientist ph.d. hispanic/ black unknown no yes mid, prominent unknown a lgbtqia+ is an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual as well as other non-binary identifiers; cishet is the combination of cisgender (identifying with gender as assigned at birth) and heterosexual (attracted to people of the opposite sex). b nse is the abbreviation of “native speaker of english,” used to identify participants in our sample who speak english as their first language. c post-bacc is a post-baccalaureate program offered in the u.s. to prepare for additional programs such as medical school. 5.1 influencers/role models (positive and negative): 101 responses in their interviews, all participants discussed influencers, which could take the form of mentors, role models, or detractors. although the mentors were, as expected, from more senior positions than the participants, some peer-to-peer or community support and influence were also discussed. five participants related information about male mentors and five concerning female mentors, while two did not mention the genders of their mentors. two participants noted that the availability of female mentors was low or non-existent. finally, seven participants referred to specific role models, all of whom were female, e.g.: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 27 published by scholink inc. and . . ., you tend to look for role models. you tend to look for people who somehow are similar to you. that you, so you can put yourself in their shoes and imagine what you might be like or how you might succeed in the future. (mathematician) in my own judgment, i’m not performing at the top of my capacity. but other, other blind folks, they tell me we want to do science at the level you do the science. and then i think, oh, this is not good, this is not good at all! (computer scientist) peer-to-peer mentorships were also mentioned as part of community building (8), e.g., table 3. number of responses for each of the five themes from the qualitative data theme total collated responses* influencers/role models 101 educational experiences 65 hurdles 56 attitude changes 44 recommendations 41 note. all participants responded at least once to each theme. i think, the group of friends that i had at the time, a lot of us were like-minded. we were all interested in, you know, biology or some sort of an engineering field...i think that helped keep me on-path as well because i had good friends that, we could all study together and work together and encouraged each other throughout the process. (engineer) but an incredible thing that [female researcher] did, is she intentionally hired women. like that was part of her agenda was to have a club-like lab that was very female positive and certainly like men that worked in the lab also…. (technologist/pre-medical student) about half of the participants (6) mentioned detractors or negativity in general, with two participants reflecting on specific persons or instances and the remaining four participants reflecting more broadly, e.g., have you heard of the phrase ‘racism without racists?’ it’s not like there were people who were being violent or verbally abusive or offensive or anything, more just like a general sense that there were opportunities and ways of being that other people had access to that i maybe had to work a little harder for. (technologist/pre-medical student) . . . the disabled woman is by herself. i find that is true. i find myself very self-reliant, and i like life. but that has, that has a huge effect...on your performance in daily life. because if i would be, if i would be an abled woman, i would have a way right to do my work…and to be [seen as capable]. (computer scientist) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 28 published by scholink inc. i feel like around the observatory, the people that work i work mostly...tend [to view me] at a lower status level [with a master’s degree] than the ph.d.s. there’s not much question about that, except among the younger people, and mostly they’ve used my software *laughter*. (software developer) community is critically essential to underserved audiences, whether it comprises mentor-mentee relationships or peer-to-peer networks. positive instances of community, and particularly mentors or role models, were prioritized by most interviewees as having a substantial effect on their determination, success, or contentment with career or work circumstances. conversely, negative influences in the community, or detractors, were either accumulated into larger conglomerations of negativity experienced over time or were singled out in specific detailed stories that seemed to have a lasting impact on the interviewees. additionally, such negative influences did not always come from outside the underrepresented community. however, they were occasionally insiders who would have presumably also experienced the biases and stereotypes of the participants during their careers or education. 5.2 educational experiences: 65 responses all participants mentioned having been interested in science since they were very young. they expressed how their interests in stem stretched back to early childhood days (e.g., “i always loved animals and trying to figure out how things worked” (engineer); “[i was] always looking at the sky” (radio astronomer); “[i enjoyed] watching nova” (mathematician); “i did a lot of reading on my own about science and physics” (cosmologist); “i played with lego’s and i took apart my transformers” (geologist); and “i had always had this interest in geology, and it went on and on” (software developer)). the participants mentioned a range of educational experiences, both formal and informal, as well as diverse educational backgrounds. formal education backgrounds included private schools and universities, public schools (including two public schools that specialized in stem), and universities, specifically historically black colleges and universities (hbcus). they also took advantage of informal learning such as museums, books, television series, special programs, and science fairs, all of which were part of their pathways into stem. encouragement seemed an essential aspect within this theme and connects with the prior theme concerning role models. most participants recalled encouragement from someone in their very young years, mostly from teachers (4) or parents (3). for example, three participants mentioned looking up at the night sky with their families. three other participants mentioned wanting to be something specific when they were little (an astronaut, doctor, or teacher), and three mentioned having parents that encouraged science and math activities at home or after school from an early age: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. i do feel again lucky to have had parents who, from day one, just never questioned my ability to do anything. i mean, they were certainly very explicitly encouraging of my ability to be good in math and science. but it was, but they were just very supportive and encouraging in general. (technologist/pre-medical student). three participants also mentioned having family members who were scientists, ph.d. researchers, or engineers that helped give them an insider’s perspective and additional educational opportunities or insights. one participant recalled that she felt as if she belonged in stem even though she did not mention specific educational experiences or encouragement from someone at a young age (“no one seemed to ever question me being there when i was growing up,” and [science and math] “that was my spot” (science writer)). many of these responses reflected on the role of positive influences in education at home or school, e.g., so, from an early age, i had a predisposition to stem activities. i mean, there was an emphasis on it at home. of course: math is important, science is important. (mathematician) i had a really great teacher in high school for biology, which helped to cement my college major choice as biology. (engineer) eight participants discussed the demographics or changing representation within their classes in either high school or college, with the majority of responses focused on the lack of equal representation in the student body, as well as a lack of equal representation in their educators, and how that had affected the culture of their classes. however, some mentions also stood out for positive or negative feelings, e.g.: i noticed the [high school] classmates around me started to dwindle down, and i’ll never forget...i looked around the room, and i was the only black woman. (astronomer) the library is where i used to do my problem sets. and the math library, not the general library, because i used to want, you know, look up stuff in books that were only in the math library, and i would be there pretty late and it wasn’t, it didn’t take me so long to realize that the women’s bathroom closed at 5 o’clock because the only women in the building were the secretaries and they locked up the bathroom before they left . . .and the first time i realized this, i had to walk in the snow to go to the bathroom and then come back to the library. (mathematician) only one of the 11 participants, the geologist, had a markedly positive experience in this area of representation across her educational program: and you know, just there were a lot of other cool women [in my grad school program], so it was a good mix of students pretty much 50/50, and so it was, i don’t know if i’ve been, if i have particularly good judgment which is, or if i had good luck, i’m sure it’s a mixture of a little bit of both. but i, i always have managed to land in environments that are not toxic. (geologist) these quotes highlighted the importance of formal and informal educational experiences and how they affected the participants’ career development. they also reinforced the significance of encouragement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. for young women towards education in stem from trusted sources in their lives that have a say in education, such as parents, teachers, or caregivers, given the positive influence they can exert starting from an early age. this impact can help to counter any hurdles encountered. 5.3 hurdles: 56 responses in their interviews, all participants discussed hurdles they faced in their careers. these focused mainly on personal issues of motherhood (3), policy issues (4), or biases against gender, disability, sexuality, race, or educational level (10). all of the women provided examples of discrimination in some form in either education (5) or career-related situations (4). most examples seemingly fell between microaggressions (3) and unconscious biases (5). four of the participants mentioned they did not recognize biases until later: my advisor challenged me a lot to reflect on my own experiences and to come to terms with it frankly because...when i was in elementary school [and] high school, i think i was just oblivious to the way i was being treated. (mathematician) one of the participants mentioned that they did not yet, at the time, have the vocabulary to process their experiences in reference to broader frameworks they would later understand: i’m sure there were microaggressions that i experienced all the time as a kid, and i definitely have some memories of these. but what really made it difficult for me to understand is that it wasn’t really until college that i had the, like, the liberal arts vocabulary to talk about maybe what was happening. (technologist/pre-medical student). participants’ reflections indicated a range of hurdles experienced, e.g., for a lot of women, myself included, after getting married and starting a job, it’s hard to go back and get a graduate degree. i think that’s probably the main hurdle, and then if you start a family, that could be an additional hurdle, just your time that you are available to invest. (engineer)...like what about pay scale? it’s one thing to have like 50 percent of their staff being women, but if they all make like 75 percent of the pay that a man at that same level would make, that’s certainly not equity. (technologist/pre-medical student) i’m hispanic, afro, afro puerto rican proudly...i have a physical disability, and i’m a woman...and i think...if i would be a sighted woman in a room, how will it be? i would have lots more chances because when people talk to me, they don’t see the scientist. once i lost my sight...the biggest shock was to notice that i didn’t have access to the same amount and quality of information that i had when i was sighted. i couldn’t understand the professors...they were just pointing at things on the blackboard. (computer scientist) additionally, there were four specific incidences concerning a participant experiencing the burden of having to explain or over-compensate for differences in ethnicity, sexuality, ability, or educational level. the following quotes exemplify this additional pressure mentioned: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 31 published by scholink inc. i think the burden comes from having to compensate. yeah, that sometimes you get...cognitively tired. right. right. for having to compensate so much. you know, most of the time i do not...most of the time, i think—why do i have to interrupt this person to explain? sometimes i just stay at the back of the room. (computer scientist) it’s just, it’s this constant feeling of you’re constantly having to prove yourself, that you deserve to sit at the table. (astronomer) this theme of hurdles helps demonstrate the types of issues underrepresented groups in stem face, particularly as related to intersectionality, and how those issues can be compounded when women identify with multiple groups. in addition, it is possible that attitudinal shifts among stem practitioners over time can help to remove hurdles, biases, and other obstacles to success in their fields that these women might otherwise face. 5.4 attitude changes: 44 responses all participants discussed attitude changes, and nine expressly agreed that attitudes toward women in stem had improved in most fields. however, five participants spoke on how not enough change has occurred to support women (as well as people who are non-binary, which is not a focus of this paper) in stem, e.g.: growing up in the 80s and 90s, there was a general understanding that getting more women into sciences is a good thing. there needed to be opportunities made and sexism was real...then somewhere in the early 2000s, i started to perceive that people thought women were getting an unfair advantage. so, there was starting to be this kind of backlash where people would say, “oh you know you’ll definitely get a job. everybody’s trying to hire women” (cosmologist). you know you ask the question have we seen progress over the time at least in my professional lifetime. we have, but there is still the underlying culture that i don’t think will change until that generation moves on. (mathematician) expanding upon that concept, another grouping of five women mentioned that although representation had improved somewhat for women, there was not nearly enough change in specific subsets of underrepresented people, e.g., i think there are some good changes that have [sic] happening. i know statistics, statistics-wise was the number of women in stem field has increased since my time. but one thing that hasn’t changed much since kind of going into the stem field is the number of minorities who are getting their masters, or they’re getting their ph.d. and that hasn’t changed. so, it’s a little discouraging. (astronomer) even though, even though [all] the people that i know, all of the people that i know in the field that have jobs, that have permanent jobs, and have severe disabilities...the most i’m just talking about two, no not even three right. (computer scientist) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 32 published by scholink inc. though participants remarked upon positive attitude changes, the lack of enough substantial change was made clear. underrepresentation in stem for women remains a serious issue, compounded by additional marginalized identities. the emphasis on the impacts of negative stereotypes and potential backlash by perceived unfair advantages is also essential to consider in developing interventions with such groups, for which interviewees had a range of ideas. 5.5 recommendations: 41 responses in giving recommendations for engaging or retaining young women in stem fields, the participants commented on the need for positivity. they stressed the importance of not focusing solely on discouraging stories and challenging aspects, with the understanding that such negativity might dissuade even greater numbers of talented individuals from entering stem fields. “i want them not to be scared as we are not scared, right?” (computer scientist) ten participants commented on the importance of changing policies or cultures to help retain more underrepresented groups in stem, e.g.: i think that in all of these areas of bias and privilege and stuff, it is really, it’s the responsibility of the people who are in a position of greater privilege or power to work on making that change. you know, so i think that men need to speak up more against sexism. you know, white people need to speak up more against racism. people who are able-bodied need to speak up more against ableism...(cosmologist) all of the advice is being given to women to tell them how to change, but it’s equally important to get existing culture to change to be more welcoming to women and other underrepresented groups. (geologist) other recommendations included mentorship and community (3) (relating to the first theme of influencers), as well as the potential for creating new communities in younger stem fields (1): so, finding mentors and then finding community. so, and hopefully if you’re lucky, you can find community in your own department. but if you can’t, there are other places to find community. there’s social media, there are you know, make sure that you are not isolated. (geologist) planetary science: my theory about women in science is that when there’s a new field, that’s when there’s not as much of an ‘old boy network’ maybe, or that’s the way it’s been, and women can get into it. (software developer) being cognizant of representation was also a strong message throughout many of the interviews, and in particular for women of color and people who are disabled: when i’m doing outreach events sometimes, a young african american is like, “oh, your hair is so beautiful!” others comment on what i’m wearing. i asked a colleague, “i don’t know why they do that...it always catches me off guard. i want to talk about this cool infrared www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 33 published by scholink inc. demonstration i’m doing. thank you for complimenting me, but let’s focus on this.” but she said, “it’s because they see themselves in you.”(astronomer) now...people with disabilities, we are different among each other, as abled people are different among themselves. we are completely different. (computer scientist) from focusing on life-long learning to helping to enact positive change for others, to ensuring that negative stories and situations are not the sole focus of any single issue of working on under-representations in stem, setting a positive stage for further work, and further change, in stem fields was strongly encouraged. 6. discussion and potential impacts of the findings from the five overall themes mentioned in the previous sections, multiple takeaways could be applied to further studies, such as the importance of access to role models and mentors. one additional point was an expression of concern that girls must be engaged with and encouraged in stem fields before entering middle school. all participants but two recalled their movement towards stem pathways starting at very young ages (as early as kindergarten). furthermore, a few participants (3) specifically mentioned they had seen, experienced, or heard of girls “opting out” of stem topics or feeling discouraged from stem topics while still in elementary school. additionally, it was clear from these interviewees that the broader stem community needs to understand the importance of equity in information accessibility to help ensure that stem materials and outputs are usable for disabled learners. just over half of the interviewees (6) commented on the importance of discussing personal stories of failure, resilience, and creativity when communicating about stem careers to help dispel the “genius” stigma often associated with such fields. an emphasis on “brilliance” as a primary criterion for success in stem can create uncertainty for women, especially in more math-heavy fields. (deiglmayr et al., 2019). for example, the astronomer noted, “it was a huge misconception that i had, [stem] was just these geniuses. they were really smart, things just came to them quickly, and that wasn’t the case with me.” closely related to that was the need to help dispel the idea of perfection in stem, a particular concern for interviewees and, importantly, for those who identified with other underrepresented subgroups. for instance: the [positive] fact that you see other people potentially talking about both successes and failures, because that’s the other half of that, seeing that, is that you know things that they’re not good at or not doing perfect, they’re not on the one true path...which is going to affect women and minorities. (radio astronomer) the literature found to date did not contain qualitative research that investigated personal recollections of diverse women in stem regarding how those recollections could be applied to understanding the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 34 published by scholink inc. needs of underrepresented young female learners. this study helps to address that void. although the demographics of the women interviewed represented various age groups and career stages, most participants were in a mid-career stage, with most participants in their 30s or 40s. the memories seemed still relatively fresh for the participants. therefore, it is reasonable to posit that the time elapsed for many interviewees since the experiences they discussed either helped or harmed them in their stem career paths was short enough to make the information helpful for analyzing current situations. three primary findings from the study may directly impact work with young people focused on stem. the first addressed the critical role of having a good mentor, role model, or support system along the girls’ pathways (whether in school, at home, or during activities). the second stressed the need to work with and engage females in stem activities and subjects when they are as young as possible, preferably while in primary or elementary school. finally, the third emphasized the importance of young girls believing in themselves. overall, the interviewees’ responses could be interpreted as a call for developing a sense of stem self-efficacy in young females. 6.1 the critical role of mentors, role models, and support systems the first main finding of the study is the importance of positive influencers in the capacity of mentors, role models, and similar peer or community systems of support for women in stem. as the most discussed topic by the interviewees overall, it stood out in significance, with every participant mentioning it multiple times (just over 100 coded responses in total). this issue is a critical component that relates to the research question regarding how to moderate the obstacles and challenges that female-identifying underrepresented groups face. the underlying meanings of american astronaut sally ride’s often-quoted statement, “you can’t be what you can’t see” (harvard business review, 2012, para. 2), can be applied directly to opinions expressed by the participants of the study. multiple participants remarked that being the only woman in the room, or among dwindling numbers of women and other underrepresented minorities in stem, could have feelings of belonging, awareness of biases, and a lack of the network or community support in stem. the interviewees emphasized the need for role models and mentors, as well as peer support, in their career paths and stressed the importance of having these from as early an age as possible. this point from the study supported the extant literature that has demonstrated the positive impact of mentorship and role models, specifically for women in stem (dennehy & dasgupta, 2017; marx & roman, 2002; national academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine, 2020; stout et al., 2011). this finding also clarifies the need to continue the numerous stem initiatives that involve aspects of mentorship or role modeling for students, particularly for underrepresented students such as females and people of color, in initiatives based at various universities. programs in the u.s. that include mentorship are currently being run by organizations such as million women mentors, us2020, and americorps (kupersmidt et al., 2018). however, the finding suggests that by the time most current www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 35 published by scholink inc. programs impact their audiences, it could be too late to accomplish all that might be done for younger female learners. therefore, this point extends the literature as it currently exists to underscore the importance of the early timing for these mentorship programs. 6.2 engagement in stem at a young age the need for engagement in stem at ages younger than middle school is the second main finding of this study. this point supports the literature to date (see, e.g., bystydzienski et al., 2015; hirsch et al., 2011; milgram, 2011; sadler et al., 2012; shapiro & williams, 2012), clarifying that girls need to be encouraged toward stem areas, which includes assistance in working against any perceived discouragement they might face, through actions of unconscious bias or more explicit stereotyping, well before they enter postsecondary education. in a large study by microsoft (2017), 11,500 girls across 12 european countries reported that young female learners lose interest in stem by age 15. a recent meta-analysis (miller et al., 2018) examined studies of children in the u.s. who were asked to draw scientists. this analysis indicated that kindergarten girls often drew women scientists (70%). however, after that age, more highly stereotyped white and male “lone genius” images appeared progressively with each year, with drawings in the high school years showing women scientists only 25% of the time (miller et al., 2018). additional literature has also demonstrated that intrinsic motivation in academics—or the desire to participate in an activity for the sake of the journey or challenge versus for an external reward or credit (dhami, 2019)—decreases between grades three and eight (lepper et al., 2005). therefore, earlier ages, before middle grades and high school, might indeed be critical times to reach young female learners. this timing allows programs to positively impact girls before motivation levels change before biases are heavily entrenched, and before the further reinforcement of negative stereotypes, affecting these girls’ interest levels, self-efficacy, and engagement related to formulating stem identities. in addition, there is the potential to engage young girls during early childhood in informal science centers (mcguire et al., 2020) and through activities in engineering and coding (sullivan & bers, 2019). this study expands on what parents, educators, museum communities, and other professionals might consider when developing interest, confidence, or self-efficacy in stem topics for young female learners, particularly those who might be part of other historically disadvantaged groups. 6.3 the importance of young girls believing in themselves the study’s third primary finding was the importance of self-efficacy or believing in oneself and one’s abilities, for young female learners in stem. numerous discussions with the interviewees related to self-efficacy ranged from confidence building and coping mechanisms to dispelling the myths of genius and perfection as necessary steps for building a stem identity. these issues are grouped under one all-encompassing giant umbrella of self-efficacy. undergraduate women who highly identified with a virtual reality simulation portraying a successful future in stem demonstrated a significant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 36 published by scholink inc. improvement in factors such as motivation and perceived stereotype threat (starr et al., 2019), indicating that technology can be a potential source of interventions, particularly in areas with a lack of in-person female mentors. believing in oneself is also a key component that relates to the research question regarding the obstacles and challenges that female-identifying underrepresented groups can face, specifically concerning combatting sociocultural biases towards women in stem. for example, dare (2015) reported that unequal gender balances in stem fields such as physics are not due to differences in intrinsic aptitudes but instead seem to draw partially from girls’ increasingly negative self-assessments, among other issues such as cultural conditioning and stereotypes. correspondingly, although there is literature showing the judgments associated with the perception of stem fields as not always a good fit with many middle school girls’ identities, there is also research suggesting that such judgments can potentially be overcome (kager, 2015). it is, therefore, vital to study the factors that can positively affect these perceptions, particularly at developmentally critical periods, to create more impactful interventions. 6.4 additional findings a key finding from the study related to the ideas of inherent stem genius is the importance of emphasizing to young female learners that “scientists are made, not born” (burke & mattis, 2007, p. 4). this issue, as stressed by the interviewees, supports findings from the literature. for example, the scientista foundation, a large collective of u.s. women pursuing stem degrees at various higher education institutions, links the concepts outlined by gladwell (2008) that cleverly synthesized this distinction in a popular piece comparing experts and non-experts in sports, music, and other fields, with the expert being differentiated not by innate ability but by thousands of hours of practice (mathews, 2013). further literature by ericsson et al. (2007) goes into greater detail, studying and elucidating the concept of genius being made, not born, providing evidence through case studies. interestingly, one example involved upsetting the notion that females had subpar spatial thinking through a case study demonstrating that three sisters became top-ranking female chess players through a regimented education program. similar training programs can help women to gain and strengthen skills in stem. numerous stem-based interventions for middle school girls, spanning a variety of models and disciplines, have demonstrated some effects on issues of self-efficacy in stem, seeing oneself in stem, or at least understanding the potential career options in stem. efforts connecting concrete skills and strategies to topics related to participants’ everyday lives have been shown to improve self-efficacy in stem by helping to overcome the negative perceptions of stem fields that may emerge during early adolescence (ogle et al., 2017). hands-on activities across stem fields have demonstrated the practical applications of science and how they relate to ordinary pursuits while also increasing girls’ interest in school subjects and careers in stem (levine et al., 2015). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 37 published by scholink inc. engineering-based camps have been shown to boost engagement with stem topics while also increasing interest in attending college by including interactive lab activities to build confidence along with female role models such as teachers, local stem professionals, and high school girls serving as peer mentors who had previously participated in the camp (frye et al., 2018). therefore, the study supports this literature by stressing the importance of teaching self-efficacy and providing a realistic portrayal of life and work as a scientist (starr et al., 2019) while extending this body of research by shifting the age range downward to include younger females. finally, the importance of talking about imperfection was raised by several interviewees in the study, often intertwined with the problem of the genius stereotype mentioned previously. integrating “growth” messaging into the language and culture of stem can encourage students, especially women, to seek help (covarrubias et al., 2019). dispelling the genius myth was seen as a possible way to combat the culturally prevalent idea that one must be a mental giant to flourish in stem fields, something they noted could be holding back young female learners, particularly those who also belong to other underrepresented groups. perfectionism was referenced in the interviews, along with the issue of having to show up and constantly be “the best” to best represent your group. the struggle of constantly acting as the ideal representation of a specific group was a strong concern for those who identified with other underserved populations and aligned with higher stress levels they experienced, as previously noted in rice et al. (2015). learners with disabilities were another underrepresented group that faced barriers mentioned by the interview participants. interviewees strongly recommended that stem materials and outputs or formats be created with accessibility to work with all learners and not simply create special materials for a particular event with disabled learners. this suggestion and approach align with the research on universal design (ud)—a set of principles for designing materials that everyone can use, regardless of abilities (luna, n.d.). furthermore, another secondary finding from the study concerned the intersectional experiences of women who identified with additional underserved communities besides gender, implying a hierarchy of burden. this was expressed such that race, ethnicity, or disability, for example, could outweigh gender in terms of the number of biases and stereotypes that must be fought in their stem fields. this study does not claim to show that there is a hierarchy of oppression, but rather that the participants of this study specifically noted how certain identities could cost more for them in terms of needing to overcome cultural biases and stereotypes while handling additional pressures related to their workloads. this is an important cultural challenge to consider for female-identifying groups in stem overall, and awareness of such an obstacle could perhaps have implications as to how interventions are designed and conducted with such underrepresented female learners in the future. related to this finding is the cognitive load some participants mentioned as a result of being considered www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 38 published by scholink inc. as “other” (in other terms, an “outsider within” (rios & stewart, 2014, p. 295) in their fields, workplaces, or careers. they were often expected to help inform, educate, or sway others who are not marginalized, so they felt pressure to be the absolute best models of their underrepresented groups and, therefore, could not fail (relating to the perfectionism discussed in the previous section). in addition, they were often placed in positions of having to do more or work harder to represent their underserved communities because of expectations being placed upon them, such as being asked to serve on more committees, provide diversity talks, or serve more often as mentors. these types of “performance pressures” (settles, 2014, para. 3) and burdens have been noted for women in stem more broadly, so it is understood that this pressure and burden could significantly increase if the person identifies with another marginalized group. it is helpful to consider such issues when working with underrepresented communities in stem to increase potential career retention. 7. summary and significance this study was primarily developed to help fill a void around a lack of research on how personal recollections of diverse women in stem could be applied to developing interventions with underrepresented young female learners to encourage engagement with stem disciplines. the fact that these diverse women in stem with successful careers across a range of life stages considered it important to reach beyond high school and middle school-aged girls to elementary school-age girls sends an important message that extends the literature found to date. it perhaps also holds the key to helping change the current culture for these young learners to ensure that opportunities in stem fields remain in their sights. the main findings from this study are significant for several reasons. first, as the interviewees noted, there is work to be done to help negate cultural and other biases and encourage young female learners to continue to move towards and within stem-related pathways while helping them thrive in and throughout those pathways. providing role models and mentorship is of critical importance. reaching out to girls when they are young, in middle school but also younger, could be an important way to broaden many current interventions, help set young females on a stem pathway, and give them tools for potential success. working to combat stereotypes and biases for such underserved groups in stem, which could include discussing the genius and the perfectionist fallacies, recognizing the burdens and pressures on additionally underrepresented groups, and providing materials that are universally accessible, also helps to build confidence, self-efficacy, and stem identity in young girls. finally, it is critical to note that this study is not about “fixing” young females but instead should be viewed as helping to identify how the stem community can assist underserved populations in overcoming negative implicit or explicit biases and discouragements, building confidence and self-envisioning in stem, and further developing or acquiring the skills needed for stem topics that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 39 published by scholink inc. might be overlooked or delayed due to cultural conditioning and stereotyping. 7.1 limitations as with any research, there were limitations to this study. these limitations were the small sample size (n = 11) and the fact that the distribution of participants came from a convenience sample who agreed to volunteer to participate from within the researcher’s more extensive professional network in the united states. consequently, the sample comprises space-related scientists and researchers in their 30s and 40s, with many in a mid-career stage. any researcher biases resulting from being in a similar demographic might have been overlooked in the analysis of the interviewees’ responses. also, the method of individual interviews might have been a limitation in terms of what might have been discussed or emphasized had the interviews been conducted in a focus group. 7.2 practical considerations and recommendations to improve the potential results in future studies, the researchers recommend repeating the interviews with different, larger sample sizes, spread geographically in locations beyond the united states, and spread further across the career trajectory with a better balance of early career and advanced career women. in addition, adding more participants would benefit from gaining more information, viewpoints, and perspectives that could be analyzed and further applied to stem interventions. future researchers might also consider conducting in-person focus groups in which the participants could compare and contrast their thoughts in a dynamic and responsive environment. such settings, where participants can listen to others and expand their responses based on feedback and inputs, might uncover additional experiences, perspectives, and potential approaches for future studies. additionally, expanding such studies to obtain the viewpoints of participants who are non-binary, as well as males in stem, either in single-sex groups and/or in mixed groups, would be ideal for improving this research. this study focused on women in stem, but it is important to consider and include perspectives and concerns from other marginalized groups—particularly people who are non-binary, for whom there is not much research in this area to date, but who can report higher levels of discomfort as well as harassing behavior aimed at them in their stem jobs (gibney, 2019). adding a cohort of male professionals in stem to future studies who might be working through unconscious biases or stereotypes and who might also be potential allies to help support issues facing young women in stem could help further inform future work. male stem researchers who are in a majority racial or ethnic group may contribute insight from what can be thought of as a position of privilege (etchells et al., 2017) and, as such, could help leverage strategically potential advantages as allies (o’donnell, 2019) for issues outside of their own experiences. it is also important to capture future data on males of color in stem who are in marginalized groups themselves. for example, black or hispanic males in stem in the united states are underrepresented and report facing discrimination in the workforce (funk & parker, 2018). recent reports have shown that the representation of african www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. americans in topics like physics and astronomy can be improved through culturally and financially supportive environments (american institute of physics, 2020). further developments of this research could consider other similarly underrepresented populations. in summary, although this was a small-scale and exploratory qualitative study, the results were academically important and could potentially be built upon, including for applications to other underrepresented groups, through future research and expanded qualitative 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(2013). the influence of female role models on women’s implicit science cognitions. psychology of women quarterly, 37(3), 283-292. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684313482109 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 30 original paper exploring the high-quality development path of academic libraries in the perspective of digital literacy min ye 1* & peiming guo 1 1 library, university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai 200093, china * min ye, library, university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai 200093, china received: december 22, 2024 accepted: december 31, 2024 online published: january 18, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n1p30 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n1p30 abstract in the new era, academic libraries are shouldering new missions and responsibilities for the progress of science and technology. exploring the issues related to the high-quality development of academic libraries will play a crucial role in fully implementing the strategic planning to develop future academic libraries and to enhance their value and influence. in the digital intelligence era, digital literacy education has become a new growth point of the library’s social education function. this paper explains the connotation of digital literacy and the components of high-quality development of libraries. on basis of the problems and solution strategies of college libraries existing in the construction of talent teams and resources, the path of high-quality development of college libraries is rationally designed in the current paper. it is believed that digital literacy would empower the high-quality development of college libraries and significantly promote the construction of smart libraries. keywords digital literacy, academic library, digital resources, high-quality development 1. introduction driven by the digital education strategy, modern information technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence are increasingly emerging as new engines for the development of scientific and technological innovation in universities. as a crucial support for academic research in universities, libraries are facing new opportunities and challenges. they are transitioning from traditional service-oriented libraries to more efficient and intelligent smart libraries, aiming to achieve high-quality development. the intelligent transformation of university library inevitably puts forward higher requirements for professional librarians’ digital literacy skills, digital resources and the configuration of modern intelligent infrastructure. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 31 published by scholink inc. 2. literature review 2.1 digital literacy the concept of literacy has evolved alongside technological advancements, resulting in a proliferation of related concepts in the literature. but it still faces the problems of ambiguous concepts, unclear definitions, and easily being misunderstood (feerrar, 2019). additionally, a wide variety of synonyms and the related concepts exist, including technology literacy, computer literacy, it literacy, media literacy, academic literacy, information literacy, critical literacy, and communications literacy. these complexity and ambiguity severely hinder precise measurement and operationalization, thereby impeding the scientific research (gong & ribiere, 2021). the original definition of digital literacy was formally proposed by gilster (1997), who defined it as “the ability to understand and use information from computers in various formats”. in 2018, the united nations educational, scientific, and cultural organization released the digital literacy global framework (dlgf). the dlgf clearly defines digital literacy as the ability to securely and appropriately acquire, manage, understand, integrate, present, evaluate and create information using digital technology, aiming for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship. this encompasses computer literacy, ict literacy, information literacy and media literacy. in 2021, the “action plan for improving digital literacy and skills for all” issued by the cyberspace administration of china further clarified the concept of digital literacy, which refers to a collection of a series of qualities and abilities. specifically, the digital society citizens should possess in their learning, working and living, including digital acquisition, production, use, evaluation, interaction, sharing, innovation, security, ethics and morality. in practice, wang (2023) compiled and analyzed the development of four versions of the european union (eu) digital literacy framework. the digcom 2.2 model contains a comprehensive update of the knowledge and skills related to digital literacy in five areas: information and data literacy, communication and cooperation, digital content creation, security and problem-solving. weninger (2023) argued that the predominant focus on digital literacy skills overlooks its broader implications, advocating for digital literacy to be developed as a social practice. furthermore, digital literacy is characterized by its evolving nature, and closely tied to the technological advancements. the development and introduction of new artificial intelligence tools have introduced new demands on digital literacy as well as the corresponding digital skills and competencies (vasilescu et al., 2020). in summary, with the rapid advancements in the internet, cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence, the concept of digital literacy has gradually expanded and been refined, evolving from a basic understanding to a deeper comprehension. it exhibits notable characteristics of dynamism, comprehensiveness and openness. as new technologies emerge, the related content will be continuously enriched, significantly deepening the essence of digital literacy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 32 published by scholink inc. 2.2 digital literacy education nowadays, digital literacy has a big impact on people’s lives, careers and social standing. digital literacy is essential for those people who want to take advantage of educational opportunities, find work, and succeed in their careers. in the united states, the national skills alliance reports that 92% of jobs require digital skills. besides, researches indicate that the enhancement of digital literacy skills can significantly improve china’s rural economy and bridge the wealth gap (zhang et al., 2024). most recently, liu (2024) and others declared that, with digital literacy education emerging as a new focal point of the library’s social education function, the social education function of libraries has evolved from primarily focusing on education to literacy education. evidently, in the digital intelligence era, academic libraries are clearly responsible to develop digital talent with a creative mindset and useful skills for the country, thereby offering strong talent support for the growth of china’s digital economy. 3. the constituent elements of high-quality development in university libraries 3.1 problems of building digital service teams in college libraries with the development of artificial intelligence and big data technology, traditional libraries are gradually evolving into smart libraries, while the construction of a professional digital service librarian team has not received adequate attention. first, the demand for digital librarians in chinese universities significantly outstrips the supply, and this imbalance has become a crucial factor limiting the high-quality development of smart libraries in universities. second, the allocation and selection of librarians lack scientific rigor. finally, there is a lack of foresight in the training and capacity building of digital librarians. the government, educational administrative departments and library associations all lack relevant framework guidelines for digital literacy education and training. as a result, most university libraries stick to the traditional thinking of information literacy education, do bear unclear positioning of digital literacy education, and imperfect practice mechanism, and lack the corresponding resources and equipment. 3.2 solution strategies for the construction of digital librarian team (1) enhancing the high-level planning. in order to recruit librarians with digital knowledge, experience, and skills and to play a leading role, the library’s decision-making group formulates strategic plans for development. meanwhile, the library should implement training programs and incentive mechanisms that encourage librarians to advance their digital literacy and build a team of digital librarians with a high level of professional identity and subjective initiative. the development of librarians’ digital literacy skills can benefit teaching and learning as a digital literacy lecturer and student information tutor. as a consequence, it can support scientific research as a scientific research partner and also help the university decision-making think-tank formulate the strategic planning of library development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 33 published by scholink inc. (2) optimizing the digital infrastructure. true knowledge can only be produced by practice, and librarians cannot cook without rice. modern and intelligent equipments can better support and facilitate the growth of teachers and students. moreover, librarians should foster and train the development and implementation of new systems and procedures. in turn, system development and equipment procurement practically need a certain amount of funding and technical supports much beyond the library, and the human and material resources should be allocated for effective performance. (3) recruiting the high-level specialized personnel, cultivating comprehensive compound talents, and strengthening the construction of professional talent team. the iron triangle model should be constructed with professional data librarians acting as supervisors for the data and visualization services. diversified training should be employed to enhance the data literacy of librarians, with faculty, students, database vendors and other subjects also being included in this initiative. graded openings for data literacy training courses should be established for librarians, with diversified training models being utilized to enhance the digital literacy of librarians. training in common database retrieval and common data processing should also be provided to librarians. additionally, training in crawlers and visualization tools should be made available. at the same time, it is aimed at the temporary service assistants of teachers and students in the whole school, guided by user needs, and further improves the ability of digital services. the construction of digital librarians in colleges and universities requires a compound cross-knowledge structure. they should not only master the basic application and equipment skills of digital technology, but also maintain their sensitivity to new technologies, keep abreast of industry trends, and constantly update their knowledge and skills training. 3.3 the construction of digital resources in university libraries from the perspective of digital literacy academic libraries have rich information resources, and are important places for cultural dissemination. their collections can be categorized into two types: print resources and digital resources. in the 21st century, the global economy is struggling, which has led to shrinking budgets for college libraries. meanwhile, the demand for digital resources among contemporary readers is rapidly increasing. this has created a noticeable conflict between print and digital resources in libraries. currently, academic libraries allocate more than 60% of their acquisition budgets for documentary resources to electronic formats. to align with this trend, college libraries need to focus on developing their digital resources. however, they face significant challenges in this endeavor. (1) the slow progress of digital construction of self-built database: as each university library evolves alongside the institution itself, it generates unique resources that reflect its characteristics. common resources include dissertations and library publications. for example, the east china university of science and technology library features a special collection of chemical literature, while the shanghai normal university library houses periodicals from the republican era. similarly, the shanghai www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 34 published by scholink inc. university of traditional chinese medicine library offers a special collection of traditional chinese medicine literature. limited by human, material and financial resources, it is difficult for university libraries to build their own characteristic resource library digitalization. in today’s world, where digital technology is highly developed, there is a rare chance for these self-built collections to be digitized and made more accessible. (2) outdated digital resource management system, poor user experience: when resources are fully digitised, the resource management system is particularly important in order to make them smoothly open for use by users. the resources cannot achieve one-stop search, and users need to log in different interfaces to find them. (3) the awareness of digital resource sharing requires enhancement, and the formats of literature resources lack uniform standards. digital resource sharing transcends time and space limitations, allowing anyone to access library information resources, which helps avoid duplication in college libraries and saves manpower, materials, and finances. however, many college administrators still resist common sharing practices. additionally, the absence of standardized processing for documentary resources leads to varied formats across universities, hindering effective co-construction and sharing. simultaneously, the challenge of sharing digital information resources extends beyond library management responsibilities; staff must also possess technical skills and be familiar with digital tools. only librarians with strong digital literacy can promptly address error messages during co-construction and resolve issues that arise in subsequent work. (4) the gap between the rapid advancement of technology and the slow digital transformation of libraries presents a challenge. with the advent of the digital age, the development of artificial intelligence is a new issue that libraries have to face. it is essential to move beyond merely utilizing digital resources; instead, libraries should employ appropriate tools that enable real-time computing based on user needs. this approach aims to maximize resource usage while balancing resource collection and utilization, thereby enhancing their value. additionally, deeper data exploration is necessary to improve data storage and management effectiveness. 4. the high-quality development path of university libraries 4.1 the development path of digital literacy ability of university librarians under the environment of artificial intelligence, the emerging information technology has created the continuous change of the library. the library has moved from the traditional library, the digital library and the library form to the intelligent library. the professional ability of the library has gradually evolved from participating in edge projects to design into the development process of ai application core. the professional ability of university librarians has advanced from simple data collection and preservation to mastering the professional knowledge of copyright and data security, training users to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 35 published by scholink inc. use software tools and acquire content to data science and coding ability development. librarians’ digital literacy ability is the decisive factor for the development of university libraries, which requires university libraries to explore its development path. (1) establishing a long-term training mechanism: enhancing librarians’ digital literacy requires a sustainable training framework. library associations should create theoretical standards for digital literacy training to guide library development. additionally, specialized teaching materials must be developed to improve librarians’ knowledge and theoretical understanding. decision-makers in universities and libraries should focus on top-level planning by defining clear training pathways, establishing tiered courses, and creating diverse models for digital literacy training that cover both foundational theory and practical skills. (2) establishing a robust incentive mechanism: digital librarians have significant responsibilities and workloads. libraries need to implement various incentive strategies tailored for these professionals to foster enthusiasm and creativity while aligning their actions with the library’s goals. a well-designed incentive framework can enhance digital librarians’ sense of identity within the organization, strengthening cohesion and encouraging self-driven value creation—ultimately supporting the library’s digital transformation efforts. (3) establishing and improving the assessment mechanism: a scientific assessment mechanism helps to carry out high-quality services. the library should formulate a detailed assessment framework, formulate a targeted assessment index system that meets the development needs, including performance indicators such as job output quantification and service evaluation, and clarify the weight and scoring criteria of each indicator. through employee self-assessment, colleague evaluation, superior evaluation, customer feedback and other ways to collect assessment data, reduce subjective impact, and help digital librarians understand their own advantages and disadvantages. through the implementation of scientific, fair and effective assessment mechanism to form a good working and competitive atmosphere, enhance the loyalty of digital librarians to the post, so as to more actively participate in scientific research services. 4.2 pathways for constructing digital resources in university libraries (1) prominent characteristics and specialization: accelerating the digitalization of collection resources. maximizing the enabling potential of information technology and artificial intelligence to address technical challenges in constructing digital resources. this will facilitate the digitization of library collections, allowing readers to access online retrieval and borrowing services easily. by leveraging internet technologies, libraries can develop unique resource offerings that are distinct from others—ensuring comprehensive availability, highlighting resource characteristics, enhancing service quality, and nurturing exceptional talent—and even small university libraries can cultivate their areas of expertise. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 36 published by scholink inc. (2) strengthening the construction of standards and norms for digital resource libraries to achieve collaborative development and sharing. establishing standardized specifications is crucial for building a robust digital resource library. unified standards ensure interoperability and sustainability throughout the service lifecycle, forming a foundational element for collaborative development and sharing initiatives. resource sharing significantly enriches libraries’ digital assets while addressing diverse reader needs effectively. however, china’s current system for co-construction and sharing faces challenges such as loose organizational structures, inadequate funding, insufficient infrastructure, and limited personnel capacity—all hindering its ability to meet contemporary demands for digital resource development. given these issues, china should strengthen collaboration in constructing and sharing digital resources. (3) strengthen the construction of a unified platform for digital resources and enhance access to literature resources: in response to the economic downturn, tighter university budgets, and rising database costs, many universities are working to ease financial pressures by reducing reliance on commercial databases. they are integrating various knowledge sources within existing legal frameworks, including freely available online resources, open-access materials, specialized content aligned with institutional development, regional cultural assets, and master’s and doctoral dissertations from their own institutions. currently, china’s literature information resource-sharing service platform has limited literature included. each platform operates independently without a cohesive national retrieval system that meets users’ real-time needs; this results in low utilization rates of collaborative literature resource platforms. therefore, it is recommended that national investment focus on establishing a unified digital resource platform led by the ministry of education in partnership with major university libraries. this initiative aims for centralized management and coordinated development of shared literature resources through a national digital service platform that enhances strategic access to literary materials at the national level. 5. conclusion in summary, college libraries are the foundation of campus informatization. they are becoming a composite space integrating a literature information center, an independent learning center, a research and communication center, a cultural education center, and a knowledge innovation center. with the advent of big data, massive data make the informationization work of academic libraries severely challenging in all aspects. the high-quality development path of academic libraries should closely surround the two core tasks of talent team and resource construction. on the one hand, libraries should create a comprehensive composite librarian team with good digital literacy. on the other hand, libraries should vigorously strengthen the construction of digital resources, the transformation and development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 37 published by scholink inc. of libraries to digital intelligence, and the transition from a physical venue to an all-encompassing space that rationally combines a composite library, digital library, and virtual library. references feerrar, j. (2019). development of a framework for digital literacy. reference services review, 47(2), 91-105. gilsterp. (1997). digital literacy. newyork: wiley. gong, c., & ribiere, v. (2021). developing a unified definition of digital transformation. technovation, 102, 1-17. liu, x. y., & jiang, y. f. (2024). from cultivation education to literacy education: the formation and evolution of the social education function of libraries. library journal, 43(11), 4-10. vasilescu, m. d., serban, a. c., dimian, g. c., aceleanu, m. i., & picatoste, x. (2020). digital divide, skills and perceptions on digitalisation in the european union—towards a smart labour market. plos one, 15(4), article e0232032. wang, q. y. (2023). a study of the improvement of digital literacy from the perspective of digcomp 2.2: the digital competence framework for citizens. library journal, 42(03), 97-106. weninger, c. (2023). digital literacy as ideological practice. elt journal, 77(2), 197-206. zhang, j., wang, d. q., ji , m., yu, k., qi, m. s., & wang, h. (2024). digital literacy, relative poverty, and common prosperity for rural households. international review of financial analysis, 96, part b. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 37 original paper covid-19 communication and lockdown strategies of selected countries—brazil, india, south africa and vietnam amb. dr. john o. kakonge1* 1 president, the association of former international civil servants in kenya (afics-kenya) * amb. dr. john o. kakonge, president, the association of former international civil servants in kenya (afics-kenya) received: june 6, 2020 accepted: june 13, 2020 online published: june 19, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n3p37 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n3p37 abstract this paper focuses on case studies of four countries—brazil, india, south africa and vietnam—to determine whether communication strategies and lockdown policies have been effective in reducing the numbers of positive cases of covid-19. given the data limitations, it is not clear whether the communication strategies each country used have helped to enforce the lockdown. regardless, there is no question that lockdown, whether national or selective, has helped to reduce increases of positive cases in three countries-india, south africa and vietnam; brazil has not had a lockdown, and numbers have escalated. lockdown, in turn, has helped the former countries to plan ahead to cope with covid-19. moreover, from these case studies reviewed, it is demonstrated that the success of lockdowns depends on the understanding and support of all stakeholders. keywords covid-19, lockdowns, communication strategies, business as usual, case studies 1. introduction there have been several arguments as to whether lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic have been useful in saving lives (nocera, 2020). some argue that some lockdown policies have been draconian, while others comment that lockdowns have not been fair to the disadvantaged groups of society across many countries (banaji, 2020). before lockdowns commenced, national leaders used a range of communication strategies to prepare their people, with varying degrees of success. all in all, both the directives for lockdown and the communication strategies employed to support the lockdown have been uneven. this brief paper examines a few selected countries and the strategies they have used to contain the novel coronavirus and save lives. in particular, the paper looks at both the role the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 38 published by scholink inc. communication strategies have played and the impact that lockdown has had, especially in terms of reducing the number of positive cases of covid-19. 2. methodology the paper is based on a desk review, supported by some discussions with a few experts in the field of public health. the four countries (brazil, india, south africa and vietnam) were randomly selected to some extent, but also were chosen on the basis of media coverage and available data. in the case of brazil, the country has been continuously in the news for all the wrong reasons. brazil was chosen because it did not carry out a national lockdown strategy but continued with ‘business as usual.’ south africa and india both had national lockdowns for an initial three weeks with subsequent extensions. vietnam was included because instead of a national lockdown, it decided to target the hotspots and lock down only those areas. 3. communications strategies the first part of the paper looks at the communication strategies adopted by the selected countries, notably the role the governments have played in informing their citizens about the coronavirus and the consequences of infection. some governments did well in terms of communicating with their citizens. the efforts of others have been disappointing, causing confusion and anxiety (see table 1). a typical example of the latter is the usa, where the president has sent different signals to the american people from time to time during his regular coronavirus briefings. in brazil, according to ricard and medeiros (2020), president bolsonaro has adopted a strategy of misinformation and disinformation. specifically, he has de-emphasized preventive and control measures and delegitimized those supporting social isolation measures and quarantine. he continues to praise those who publicly support a return to normalcy. this has led the president to disregard the advice of his health experts and who. there has been no lockdown and president bolsonaro has continued with his business-as-usual policy (table 1). he has continued to stand against scientific and evidence-based recommendations. the situation has been chaotic, and the states which are currently the hardest hit have been trying to impose a lockdown. even then, the president has continued to contradict the state leaders and has even urged the citizens to demonstrate against lockdown and self-quarantine. with the lack of a clear communications strategy on the status of the virus in the country, fake news has been thriving, especially on social media. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 39 published by scholink inc. table 1. types of communication strategies adopted by different countries strategy country daily briefings south africa, vietnam no communication strategy, but the prime minister gave a speech before the lockdown india no strategy; president has been providing misinformation and disinformation brazil with regard to india, prime minister narendra modi initially adopted a lockdown for three weeks, with a subsequent extension. according to mondkar (2020), prime minister modi’s statement before the lockdown stressed that social distancing and lockdown were the only tools that would enable the country to win the battle against covid-19. he emphasized several things people should do during the lockdown, namely, taking special care of the elderly; strictly adhering to the lockdown and observing social distancing; respecting and following the protocols issued by the ministry of health; being compassionate to employees by not sacking them or cutting their wages; helping the poor and the needy as they were the ones to be most affected by the lockdown measures; and respecting the efforts of the coronavirus warriors—doctors, nurses, sanitation workers and the police force. there have been no further briefings since his initial speech. shelar (2020) argues that the information from the indian prime minister took people by surprise and many people, especially the poor, were left stranded without transport to take them to their home states and villages. shelar ( 2020) further notes that a lot of people did not understand the concept of social distancing and quarantine. because of anxiety and poverty, most people, especially casual labourers, are interested in daily survival as opposed to public health and the safety of society at large. as a result of the lack of clarity, some people perceived the lockdown as a form of punishment. according to harding (2020), president cyril ramaphosa of south africa acted quickly in imposing a lockdown. he appealed to his compatriots to be understanding and supportive. the lockdown was to save lives, and it was in the best interests of the country and everyone. the minister of health provides focused daily briefings to demystify some of online fake news. harding (2020) confirms that the no-nonsense minister of health seems sober and knowledgeable in his briefings. also, the president has been able to galvanize the crucial support of the private sector, especially in terms of making both financial and in-kind contributions to assist the poor and underprivileged during the lockdown period. civil society has also been sharing the messages relating to social distancing and effective hygiene in south africa’s poorest, most crowded neighbourhoods, where the virus might cause tremendous havoc. despite other challenges, it is fair to say that the government has been somewhat effective in winning the trust of the people and educating the masses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 40 published by scholink inc. vietnam’s communications policy has focused on strategic issues. the prime minister reminded people that covid-19 was an enemy which must be fought, and the battle won. therefore, the government was willing to sacrifice economic benefits in the short-term for the health of its people. second, according to ha et al. (2020), the government has continued to provide updated information and clear messages on covid-19 through official and social media in a transparent manner. as a communist country and one-party state, minh and bich (2020) suggest that people spying on their neighbours and reporting them to the authorities, have in turn, changed community behavior towards wearing masks, hand-washing and social distancing. moreover, national celebrities have joined the government in sharing the key messages with their compatriots, such as the importance of social distancing, washing hands, and others practices. according to minh and bich (2020), a survey in 45 countries of positive public opinion on government response to the pandemic, showed that vietnam scored 62 percent, which was better than singapore and south korea. this is confirmed by the survey conducted by statista (5-13 may, 2020), showing that 89 per cent of vietnamese trusted the media when it came to covid-19. overall, it very difficult to determine whether the communication strategy used by each of the four countries has been effective. india, south africa and vietnam sensitized their people before the lockdown. however, india did not continue with daily briefings. the three governments have used various techniques to share the key messages of covid-19. the south africa and vietnam governments have used television, radio, drama, art and other formats to impart information on covid-19. for example, in vietnam, it has become a matter of patriotism to wash hands and stay home—a message that had been successfully communicated through various forms of popular art and propaganda about covid-19 (asia unbound, 2020). clearly, from the foregoing, the communication and information strategies adopted by the governments of south africa and vietnam must continue to be accurate and timely to help their citizens prevent, or reduce, the spread of the disease and must also guide those affected towards services and treatment. this is what the governments of brazil and india have lacked so far. 4. the impact of lockdown as indicated earlier, the four countries have adopted different lockdown measures, namely, national lockdowns, targeted selective lockdown, and one country, brazil, has no formal government lockdown policy (see table 2). the impact of these different strategies is examined below. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 41 published by scholink inc. table 2. response strategies strategy countries total lockdown south africa and india selective lockdown vietnam business as usual brazil in the case of south africa, arndt, gabriel and robinson (2020) note that the lockdown policy of the government has been stringent. specifically, the government banned the sale of alcohol, tobacco, and cooked hot food (hirsch, 2020). hirsch (2020) argues that one of the reasons for the tough conditions was basically that the government did not have confidence in the national public health capacity to contain covid-19 and other diseases. in other words, by imposing a stringent lockdown policy, the government was attempting to avoid overburdening the health services with covid-19 while at the same time continuing to attend to other on-going diseases. the lockdown has enabled the country to strengthen its health system capacity and put in place upgraded systems to better manage other infectious diseases. the capacity in question includes 25,000 additional beds for quarantine, substantial quantities of personal protective equipment for health workers, and needed medical supplies. india has a population of about 1.4 billion people and a federal system comprising 28 states. india has not done too badly taking into account its huge population. it is among the few countries to have completed testing of 1 million people at a rate of 75,000 tests a day (zeeshan, 2020). as a percentage of its population, however, this is far less than south korea or germany, which have done more testing on a per capita basis. in a bid to ease the lockdown, india has been split into three zones, namely, red zone—high number of infections, orange zone—relatively low number of cases, and the green zone—no cases of the virus. this is all well and good. perhaps india should also examine what kerala, one of its 28 states, has done to contain the coronavirus. kerala state, in south-western india, has been successful in flattening the curve (tharoor, 2020). currently, it has 1326 reported cases, 608 recoveries and 10 deaths (2 june 2020). kerala started a lockdown after public health officials identified a positive case in a student who had returned from china. this was before the national lockdown, and it could serve as a model within india for handling public health emergencies. kerala’s success hinges on regular communication with the public about health risks, broadcasting precautionary messages through official channels to dispel fake news, localizing messages into immigrants’ languages, the participation of grassroots organizations, citizens cooperating with the authorities, and governmental accountability (tharoor, 2020). obviously, other states and central government in delhi should emulate kerala’s model to continue containing covid-19 in the entire country. in brazil from the outset, president bolsonaro dismissed covid-19 as a “small flu” and stated that brazilians had acquired immunity to the disease (nunes, ventura, & spanghero lotta, 2020). instead of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 42 published by scholink inc. instituting a lockdown, he followed a business-as-usual policy. his focus has been on the economy and not the public health threat. the president has ignored and openly criticized the advice of health experts, resulting in the firing of the former health minister. the replacement health minister resigned after less than one month. the president has been totally against self-isolation and quarantine. on 4 april he called for a day of god in relation to covid-19 and on 20 april 2020 he knelt before an evangelical pastor who declared that brazil was free of the coronavirus. currently, brazil is second in terms of the number of covid-19 infections, with over 529,000 positive cases and more than 30,000 deaths (worldometer, 2 june, 2020). vietnam did not apply a nationwide lockdown, in part due to financial constraints. instead, it adopted national isolation by closing its borders, and banned gatherings, encouraged staying at home, and implemented a quarantine policy, among others. this low-cost proactive preventative approach was selective and included contact tracing, ramping-up production of medical supplies and installing checkpoints at airports. further, the government empowered provincial authorities to implement large-scale or targeted area lockdown, including strict checkpoints in and out of the localities for testing and treatment. currently, vietnam has only reported 328 cases of covid-19 and has had no deaths from the disease. 5. discussion the total number of positive cases of covid-19 in each of the four countries, as at 2 june 2020, is summarized in table 3. it is clear that vietnam has done better than the other countries in terms of containing the coronavirus. it has had only 328 positive cases and zero fatalities. vietnam has also opened up its economy. the country enjoyed maximum support of the control measures by its people since the virus was perceived as an enemy. its lockdown strategy had the support of everyone and the country’s communication strategy was very effective. the national population of vietnam is just less than half that of brazil, yet brazil, which did not institute a lockdown, is currently second globally in terms of total positive cases with over half a million people, or 0.25 percentage of its total population, infected by the coronavirus as at 2 june 2020. the results in table 3 thus indicate that lockdowns, whether nationwide (india and south africa), or partial (vietnam), have been effective in containing the pandemic. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 43 published by scholink inc. table 3. number of covid-19 cases as a percentage of the total population, 2 june 2020 country positive cases population fatalities positive cases as a % of national population brazil 529,405 212,559,470 30,046 0.2490 india 199,613 1,400,000,000 5,610 0.0142 south africa 34,357 59,308,690 705 0.0579 vietnam 328 97,338,578 0 0.0003 figure 1. total positive covid-19 cases as a percentage of the national population (at 2 june 2020) in both india and south africa, the lockdown had initial challenges because of the huge socio-economic disparities within the population. the poorest segments of the countries’ societies were caught unaware. for example, in india, the cancelling of the transport system resulted in people, especially casual labourers, taking days to get back to their villages across the country. the people who live in big urban slums or crowded townships continue to have problems to maintain social distancing. regardless of the difficulties caused, it would appear that india and south africa have managed to reduce their number of cases because of the lockdowns that have been imposed. brazil is now ranked second globally in terms of countries with the highest number of positive cases of covid-19 after the united states. the president is very obstinate and does not appear to consider the opinions of his scientists and public health experts. without a well-focused containment strategy accompanied by good public health science, brazil is heading for a major disaster. as nunes, ventura and spanghero lotta (2020) note, brazil’s health professionals, scientists and public servants are committed and dedicated to supporting the country. what is currently needed is strong leadership and cooperation between the central government and the states to contain this coronavirus pandemic which has already claimed over 30,000 deaths country-wide. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 44 published by scholink inc. other countries could learn important lessons from the four countries’ examples as they move forwards to contain this pandemic. the experience of brazil should be avoided at any cost. interestingly, we have other countries whose leaders share similar attitude to those of brazil’s president, for example, burundi and tanzania. these two countries have encouraged their people to continue working and socialising. in fact, burundi went ahead with its general election on 20 may 2020. sadly, the first lady of burundi has just tested positive for the coronavirus and was evacuated on 28 may to kenya for treatment. on the positive side, vietnam and south africa, and to some extent india, have had positive results from their lockdown experiences, which could be replicated as countries continue in their efforts to contain covid-19. in the case of india, the kerala state approach stands out, which the federal government in delhi should consider replicating in the rest of the country (tharoor, 2020). in both india and brazil, the governments have been politicising the current pandemic. this needs to stop. for example, even though the kerala state government comes from a different party to that of prime minister narendra modi, his government should examine the strategies kerala has used to flatten the pandemic curve and determine which ones could be used or replicated to benefit the rest of the country. likewise, the brazilian infection rate is now one of the highest in the world, second only to the united states. president bolsonaro should offer strong leadership and work closely with states and major cities (including sað paulo and rio de janeiro) to contain the crisis before it gets out of hand. from the experiences of other countries reviewed, no country can contain the coronavirus unless the incumbent government works closely with the opposition parties, acting as one country, fighting one common enemy. this has been the case in south africa. 6. conclusion it has not been easy to get the necessary data to clearly demonstrate whether the communication strategies each country used have helped to enforce the lockdowns imposed. however, the example from vietnam demonstrates that the communication briefings organized by the government were effective as all citizens supported the government’s targeted selective lockdown and stay-at-home directive. further, the low positive case numbers and zero deaths is a demonstration that vietnam’s coronavirus containment strategies are working. in the case of india, even though it has a huge population, the government has not conducted daily briefings after the initial speech of the prime minister. in addition, many millions of people were stranded following the announcement of the lockdown, and the number of covid-19 cases continues to rise as highly vulnerable people, particularly those living in urban areas and slums, cannot observe social distancing and basic hygiene of washing hands. by and large, however, the lockdown has saved lives, as is evident by the small percentage of the total population that is infected. the south african situation in terms of lockdown has been somewhat effective. there is no question that the lockdown the government of south africa www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 45 published by scholink inc. imposed has reduced the number of infections, and its daily media briefings have raised the level of awareness of the general population regarding the coronavirus. when comparing infection rates of the total population, however, south africa’s approach has not been as effective as india’s. brazil’s case stands in stark contrast to the rest. the president of brazil is against lockdown and his messages have contradicted who and his own public health experts. unfortunately, the country has been living on misinformation and disinformation. the end result is that brazil is the second highest country in the world in terms of positive cases. in a nutshell, national lockdowns or selective targeted lockdowns are necessary, but they must be well planned and implemented in a humane way taking into account the socio-economic disparities within each country. from the cases reviewed, the successes of the lockdowns depend on the understanding and support of all stakeholders. above all, governments play the key role in ensuring that pandemic preventive measures put in place are well coordinated between central government and states or provinces, and that those measures are clearly articulated, explained and adopted by the national populace. acknowledgement i want to thank mr. nobert maina, my research assistant, for his support. the views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to afics-kenya. references arndt, c., gabriel, s., & robinson, s. (2020). assessing the toll of covid-19 lockdown measures on the south africa economy. international food policy research institute, 6 may. retrieved may 17, 2020, from https://www.ifpri.org/blog/assessing-toll-covid-19-lockdown-measures-south-african-economy asia unbound. (2020). vietnam’s successful battle against covid-19. council on foreign relations, 30 april. retrieved may 15, 2020, from https://www.cfr.org/blog/vietnams-successful-battle-against-covid-19 banaji, m. (2020). what effects has the lockdown had on the evolution of covid-19 in india? scroll.in, 27 may. retrieved may 27, 2020, from https://scroll.in/article/962992/what-effects-has-the-lockdown-had-on-the-evolution-of-covid-19 -in-india ha, b. t. t., quang, l. c., mirzoev, t., tai, n. t., thai, p. q., & dinh, p. c. 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(2020). covid-19, india and crisis communication. observer research foundation, 4 april. retrieved may 10, 2020, from https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/covid-19-india-and-crisis-communication-64102/ nocera, j. (2020). lockdown critics may have some valid points. bloomberg opinion, 29 april. retrieved may 18, 2020, from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lockdown-critics-may-valid-points-152936053.html nunes, j., ventura, d., & spanghero lotta, g. (2020). brazil: jair bolsonaro’s strategy of chaos hinders coronavirus response. the conversation, 23 april. retrieved may 16, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/brazil-jair-bolsonaros-strategy-of-chaos-hinders-coronavirus-response -136590 ricard, j., & medeiros, j, (2020). using misinformation as a political weapon: covid-19 and bolsonaro in brazil. harvard kennedy school, misinformation review. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-013 shelar, j. (2020). covid-19: communication key to cope with the challenges of isolation. the hindu, 16 march. retrieved may 14, 2020, from https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/covid-19-communication-key-to-cope-w ith-challenges-of-isolation/article31077693.ece tharoor, s. (2020). the kerala model: the state’s handling of covid-19 admirable. the star, kenya, 15 may. retrieved may 15, 2020, from https://www.the-star.co.ke/opinion/columnists/2020-05-15-the-kerala-model/ worldometer. (2020). coronavirus update. retrieved may 28, 2020, from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ zeeshan, m. (2020). in looking beyond its lockdown, india can look to its past public health successes: india needs exit strategy to break out of its lockdown. the diplomat, 5 may. retrieved may 11, 2020, from https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/in-looking-beyond-its-lockdown-india-can-look-to-its-past-publi c-health-successes/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 review paper public prejudicial discourse as a global socio-ethnic phenomenon: using digital media to limit detrimental language flows emmanuel k. ngwainmbi1* 1 university of north carolina, charlotte, department of communication studies, charlotte, nc, usa * emmanuel k. ngwainmbi, university of north carolina, charlotte, department of communication studies, charlotte, nc, usa received: july 8, 2021 accepted: july 28, 2021 online published: august 29, 2021 doi:10.22158/csm.v4n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v4n3p1 abstract studies continuously seek answers to how harmful speech delivered by any group or individual to three or more people affects their wellbeing. specifically, deliverers target specific individuals or groups with their speech often unjustifiably or incorrectly based solely on the individual’s association with a group. various avenues have been used to disseminate prejudicial data, creating different reactions. whether verbal antagonism—casual racial slurs or disparaging race-sensitive comments or non-verbal expressions—explicit and implicit images published to denigrate an individual or group, prejudicial narratives have massive socio-economic and cultural consequences. nevertheless, prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on their membership in a particular social group (allport, 1954); it is common against an unfamiliar cultural group and behaviors associated with prejudice such as discrimination, racism, sexism, homophobia, and ageism are now rife in communities worldwide and digital media networks. this paper analyzes some behavioral theories and uses the matrix of self-awareness and its ability to unlock our understanding of communication between groups and enhance group cultures. referencing the use of prejudicial language in america and the united nations human rights commission’s efforts to track prejudicial discourse, it suggests steps to limit anti-other behaviors. keywords prejudice, discrimination, discourse, digital media, racism www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction discourse is written or spoken communication, a debate, information authoritatively shared about a topic, the ability to express thoughts and feelings by articulating sounds and words. paraphrasing the cambridge dictionary, prejudicial discourse is a public speech that encourages violence towards a person or group based on race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. prejudicial speech is anything verbalized or written to induce resentment in another person or directed at a group. verbal or nonverbal communication expresses prejudice against an identified individual or group based on race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, veteran status, gender identity, or sexual orientation. prejudicial speech aims to incite intense dislike based on specific attributes. scholars have identified concepts responsible for two primary outcomes of prejudicial speech: (a) speech aimed at intentionally and explicitly showing discrimination (b) speech delivered to stereotype. gordon allport, an early leader in comprehensive social science, articulated the sequential steps by which an individual behaves negatively toward members of another racial group. for allport (1954), negative behavior includes verbal antagonism, avoidance, segregation, physical attack, and extermination. verbal antagonists consciously and unwittingly use disparaging race-laced remarks against persons and groups outside their ethnic or racial category. together with nonverbal expressions of antagonism, they can create a hostile environment in public places, including schools, workplaces, communities, social gatherings, business locations, and sporting arenas. prejudice persists in society through social learning and conformity to social norms. o’keeffe & clarke-pearson (2011) have observed that children learn prejudiced attitudes and beliefs from society, while this author believes that their peers, parents, teachers, friends, the media, and other socialization channels. cognitive behaviorists hold that normative pressures to conform and share prejudiced beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors occur when a society accepts certain types of prejudice and discriminative practices. no wonder prejudicial speech users seem satisfied because they believe they are in the right mind when using such language, no matter how destructive, to the intended receiver. such thinkers are widely considered to have the characteristics of a racist. the seasoned hate monger uses reverse psychology, a technique involving the assertion of a belief or behavior opposite to the one desired, with the expectation that this approach would encourage the subject of the persuasion to do what is expected. this technique, coined by the world-renowned german-born sociologists theodor adorno and max horkheimer, relies on the psychological phenomenon of reactance. writing about “psychology in reverse,” also known as belief or behavior that is opposite to the one desired, adorno and horkheimer advanced the notion that common prejudices could inadvertently or deliberately damage the esteem of persons in marginalized groups, i.e., blacks, lgbtq+, international students, immigrants, women. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. 2. method method 1: this paper is loosely guided by a combination of behavioral theories and archetypes propounded by sigmund freud, carl jung, and peter ludwig berger, which largely explain that conscious and unconscious factors in our personality and behavior identify us and highlight our beliefs. it is also based on berger & luckmann’s (1967) psychoanalysis perspective that irrational, unconscious drives and motives, often originating in childhood, underlie human behavior. to refresh our memory, jung (1981) theorizes that people are motivated by a more general “psychological energy” that pushes them to achieve self-realization, “psychic wholeness,” and harmony. for jung, a person’s purpose in life is to have their conscious and unconscious selves become fully integrated to become their ‘true self.’ jung’s psychology reportedly lacks the necessary scientific basis, making it mystical and based on foundational truth (cattoi, ordorisio, & david, 2018, p. 72). jung’s analytical psychology is the premise upon which a clear explanation of manifestations of prejudicial speech should be offered because we are not mind-readers, so we cannot succinctly determine the true intentions of a hate language user. for example, an individual or group can use hateful speech if they have limited knowledge of those being targeted by it or do not care about the psychological, emotional, physical, and economic damages such speech may have on the other. method 2: analysis of the human self per the johari approach to understand the mindset of prejudicial speech users, the contexts, conditions, or circumstances for the interactions, and the environment that nurtures and fosters prejudicial speech, i refer to an exercise that explains how people can identify their strengths, weaknesses and blind spots. the johari window (luft & ingham, 1955; luft, 1969), a communication model used for self-disclosure and understanding how people communicate in a group and convey and accept feedback, shall provide a context to analyze the psyche of prejudicial speech users. for reference, the johari window model is based on two principles: that (1) trust can be acquired by revealing information about you to others, and (2) you can learn about yourself from their feedbacks. it is a standard window with four panes; two represent the (known) self, and the other representing what is unknown to self but known to others. it is important to note that information transfers from one pane to the other based on mutual trust achievable through socializing with others and the feedback from members of that group. factors unknown to others within the context of prejudicial speech delivery include: • a natural skill that a person does not realize they possess • a fear or aversion that a person does not know they are nurturing • repressed or subconscious feeling • conditioned behavior or attitudes developed since childhood • values taught during a child’s formative years, especially about their race and other races • negative opinions a person has received about another person from the same race without the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. latter’s knowledge • unverified and untested expertise a person has acquired about another person or persons from another race (see details in figure 1 below) figure 1: explanation of the johari model • open/free area: the open space is that part of our conscious self—our attitudes, behavior, motivation, values, way of life—we are aware of, also known to others. we move within this area with freedom. we are “open books.” • hidden: our hidden area cannot be known to others unless we disclose it. there is that which we freely keep within ourselves and that we retain out of fear. the degree to which we share ourselves with others (disclosure) is the degree to which we can be known. • blind: there are things about ourselves we do not know, but that others can see more clearly, or things we imagine to be true of ourselves for a variety of reasons, but also those others do not see at all. when others say what they see in a supportive, responsible way, and we hear it, we can test the reality of who we are and can improve. • unknown: we are more productive and sophisticated than the things we and others know, but often something happens—is felt, read, heard, dreamed —something from our unconscious is revealed. then we “know” what we have never “known.” source: ttps://primarygoals.com/teams/models/johari-window/ the model is further explained in this form: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. figure 1. johari window model source: https://www.selfawareness.org.uk/news/understanding-the-johari-window-model through the johari window matrix, i identify other behaviors that explain how hateful people think, verbalize, and expected outcomes. that analysis, which is the epicenter of inter-personal, intra-personal communication, and to some extent, public discourse, offers us valuable insights into the mindset of prejudicial speech users and their intended target(s). more importantly, it illuminates our vision of an actual scene in which the user and receiver are together and what transpires during the entire process of communicating hate messaging. 3. conclusions prejudicial speech is rising globally as networked communities interact and share data among themselves and with external groups. the coziness of interacting with like-minded people has created a new linguistic repertoire and a breathing ground for manifestations of hateful expressions against cultural other (s). members within a cyber-group invent and share xenophobic words and phrases that ultimately mobilize them to express hate-related thoughts or take evil actions against individuals and socio-cultural-ethnic groups whose lifestyles they do not understand or like. these communities exist within the national territory and online, making it difficult for law enforcement authorities to properly track their operations or diminish their power. while the concern over prejudicial speech has moved www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. away from separate national anxieties and become a global issue, the preferred way of handling prejudicial speech has gravitated toward restricting it by regulation rather than isolating it by more logical reasoning. lastly, prejudicial speech is incompatible with democracy itself; therefore, advocacy groups can canvas their governments and persuade their people to curb prejudicial speech. the fact that dominant group members know how their behaviors affect vulnerable groups advises us that racial harmony can be achieved if proper measures are taken. clinical psychologists have recently established that dominant group members feel more guilt, anger, and sadness after observing severe ostracism of a disadvantaged instead of dominant group members (petsnik & varauer, 2020). although there were no direct effects on behavioral outcomes, their exploratory analyses suggest that observing ostracism of disadvantaged versus dominant group members indirectly impacted behavior proven by increased feelings of anger. these results indicate that ostracism is probably being a relatable experience. when it occurs across group boundaries, it awakens individuals’ sensitivity to injustice and discrimination. 4. discussions 4.1 interpretations of prejudicial discourse prejudicial speech is understood as verbal and nonverbal language or terms or phrases used directly or indirectly to induce an adverse reaction; it is the language directed to intimidate an out-group or influence the behavior of in-group members. victims of prejudicial speech may be individuals, businesses, financial institutions, government entities, religious organizations, or society. characteristics of prejudicial speech include harsh terms and derogatory language—peaking, writing, singing, acting, yelling on street corners, advertising, threats, slander, burning flags, etc., to express one’s disdain for another person’s ethnic group. the inferred meaning makes prejudicial speech more potent; in other words, the prejudicial speech user aims to undermine the integrity of the intended receiver. prejudicial speech does not necessarily involve a threat or a desire to incite a crime; in open societies, it is generally understood as speech that advocates genocide or incites hatred against an identifiable out-group. speech demeans based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or similar ground. another context is that understanding or misunderstanding of another culture can and does influence racist language. to clarify this position, we propose that each culture sees language differently. a word in one cultural group may have a different meaning in another culture; the speaker’s familiarity with the listener and exposure to the specific language and amount of education determines how they communicate. other emotional or psychological factors beyond bias and fear can influence one’s expression. hence, before deciding why a person has used prejudicial speech, we must consider the speaker’s socio-ethnic circumstances. their use of inflammatory speech and violent acts could have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. come from their limited diction and forms of expression in that particular language. 4.2 sociology of prejudicial speech in general terms, discourse is the crucial qualifier for the economic, social, diplomatic, and cultural advancement of individuals, non-profit organizations, businesses, nations, and relationships simply because words evoke mixed feelings, perspectives, and reactions. we cannot fully understand the sociopolitical impact of prejudicial speech on us if we do not know the characteristics of democratic self-governance and the qualities of a tolerant society. for example, the address is dangerous when it causes physical harm, as exemplified in the us racial discrimination act 1975 § 18c. the berkman klein center for internet and society at harvard university defines prejudicial speech as vocal communication that demeans or attacks a person or people as members of a group with shared characteristics such as race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. with this framework, language users can create their semantic meanings from the sounds and lexicon (words) and use them as weapons against a perceived enemy. culture and language are not analogous; they complement each other in that they include thinking. we think in the language we use, hence thinking and expressing language direct our values/our way of dealing with people and situations. during communication, offense takes place when three scenarios are present: the receiver is offended when (1) they experience a dislike, and (2) they attribute that state to the wrongful conduct of another source (speaker, spoken or written information delivered), and (3) they resent the other source for their role in causing them to be in that state (feinberg (1983). here, decoding speech harm rests in the individual’s interpretation of the language used. any internalized attributes to that language or affective factors such as the user’s skin color, education level, social class, or gender are best determined by the receiver’s ability to decode the message’s message. meta-ethical questions arise from this context. a salient one being the type of conduct a nation or society should identify to make prejudicial speech criminal without violating citizens’ freedom (rights). other philosophers and sociologists have attempted to answer that question by proposing liberty-reduction principles based on some aspect of the law. amdur (1985) agrees that more thinkers believe the society (nation) can impose legal penalties to prevent others from speech harm. prejudicial speech and free speech have existed concomitantly since homo sapiens occupied the earth and have since been practiced in all countries worldwide. why? because, fundamentally, we (humans) are not born prisoners of conscience; instead, we are born free, as ancient greek philosopher and polymath aristotle posits, expected to express ourselves freely. free will is a necessary spice in human life; otherwise, no one in any society or nation would be able to communicate a thought or feeling. to reiterate the words of british philosopher thomas hobbes, “a free agent is he that can do as he will, and forbear as he will, and that liberty is the absence of external impediments” (https://iep.utm.edu/freewill). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 8 published by scholink inc. the widely cited german philosopher, immanuel kant, brings out the moral angle of one is free will in what he calls the “categorical imperative,”–an unconditional moral obligation that is binding in all circumstances, rather than being dependent on our inclination or purpose. connecting kantian ethics with free will, we arrive at a crossroads where our imperative morality clashes with free expression. suppose an ‘imperative’ is a proposition that declares an action as absolute or unconditional, such as the verbal and non-verbal language used to meet a particular need. in that case, it means that such expressions can and should be defended and recommended within the framework of right and wrong behavior. free will has always clashed with social order created by regimes and imposed by law enforcement entities (police, gendarmes, military, supervisors, etc.) to bring social justice, peace, and the common good. each regime creates and practices its social order within its territory, tapping into indigenous customs and values from external forces (more powerful nations). thus, free expression can be (and is often) directed by ethnic, religious, institutional, racial, or colonial socio-cultural biases. it follows that prejudicial speech is ingrained in the people’s psyche, no matter their geographical location, ethnicity, religion, gender, social standing, or time in history. however, persons willing to learn the dangers of being neutral in a place where prejudicial speech exists may be hard-pressed to know that staying neutral when (one is) in a position to relay information can be chaotic. we are responsible for speaking publicly about political, social, and ethical issues. as harris, j. (2013), a professor at the university of manchester, england, has found out, there may be conflicts speaking up for what is right. nevertheless, continuously staying neutral can cause problems with our morale. 4.3 prejudicial speech as a human phenomenon incitement to hatred may permissibly be regulated if we can show that it can harm others by contributing to a climate of hostility leading to discrimination, violence, and injustice against members of certain social groups (brown, 2008). prejudicial speech is a form of expression through which speakers or writers strive to humiliate or incite hatred against individuals, a social class, group, or race. as asante (2003) puts it, prejudicial speech or offensive language is a characteristic of hierarchical language, a self-perpetuating rite de passage. the creator of offensive speech operates from a perceived hierarchy, which gives them the pedestal from which to offend. the right to freedom of expression implies that it can be openly debated, scrutinized, and criticized as long as it does not advocate hatred that incites hostility, discrimination, or violence against individuals. further, the united nations has weighed in on hate discourse. the united nations strategy and plan of action on hate speech states that prejudicial speech is in itself an attack on tolerance, inclusion, diversity, and the very essence of our human rights norms and principles. more broadly, it undermines social cohesion, erodes shared values, and can lay the foundation for violence, setting back the cause of peace, stability, sustainable development, and the fulfillment of human rights for all. (source: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 9 published by scholink inc. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/hate-speech-strategy.shtml retrieved, august 16, 2021) lastly, cultures articulate prejudicial speech differently; for some, it is a way to engaging or motivating people to respect local laws; for others, it creates harm, and it is prosecuted through the national laws that govern the freedom of expression. 4.4 discourse versus use of derogatory language by ethnic groups the media in america can be identified as an essential perpetrator of prejudicial speech among ethnic groups because it provides continued coverage of the activities of known racist and terrorist groups, extending conflicts among them and maintaining the issue on the discussion list of more people. as earlier stated, prejudicial speech takes different forms depending on ethnic orientation, linguistic capability, and social standing. the figure below describes the language used in public settings in america and their intended meaning. while the list is not exhaustive, it offers the caveat that ethnic groups use prejudicial speech to express their feelings. table 1 shows verbal diction used by the ethnic groups against each other; specifically, it describes what members of an ethnic group think about the other group. table 1. prejudicial speech diction and intended meanings in american neighborhoods ethnic group interaction common expressions used in casual conversations connotation american blacks among themselves nigga derogatory africans about american blacks akata igbo term for “confused person.” american blacks to africans “what part of africa are you from?” “you are not part of us.” caucasians to africans “when are you going back to africa?” “you do not belong here/among us.” this is common during the preliminary stages of interaction blacks regularly use derogatory language to describe whites in their absence, and hispanics behave the same way towards blacks. blacks, hispanics, africans vs. whites— “white nationalist” is used synonymously with “white supremacist” and “racist,” the latter term delineates an intense hatred of other races by whites. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 10 published by scholink inc. also, in american communities, there is controversy over the delineation of terms to describe races. for example, the majority of the american population invariably describes people of african descent as “blacks,” “people of color,” “african americans,” or “negroes.” greg carr, chair of howard university’s department of afro-american studies program, highlights the controversy when he states that no term describes people taken from africa and forced into slavery (brown, 2008). people born in africa call themselves “african,” not black. equally, people from the same heritage born in other regions in the northern hemisphere like the uk, canada, caribbean islands are faced with a similar challenge identifying the appropriate terminology. the most controversial classification of humanity, which is the locus for racial tensions and is responsible for the profuse use of prejudicial speech against other ethnic groups in the world, may have been advanced by carl linnaeus (1707-1778), the father of taxonomy, in his book, systema natura (1735; 1758, 2008). according to encyclopedia.com, linnaeus used continental geography and a color scheme that divided man into white european, dark asiatic, red american, and black negro. johann blumenbach, writing on the classification of human races, describes europeans as “hopeful,” asiatic as “sad and rigid,” american natives as “irascible,” africans as “calm and lazy” without offering any scientific or logical process to classify the races. that most researchers may have seen those adjectives used by the german anthropologist since 1752 lends credence to the alarmingly destructive perception of asians, a race with 2.7 billion people—(59.54%) of the world’s population, and africans carrying 1.3 billion people—(17.2%) living on the mainland and abroad, it is no wonder that the social science community, heads of state, international corporations, students of history and people in general marginalize and undermine the values and achievements of asians and africans. nevertheless, the politicization of those terms does not define anyone’s true identity. instead, it advances a false sense of race and class structure in society. to view anyone in terms of their skin color (“black,” “white”) is something that members of a social group construct—no human being looks white. since people associate ‘white’ with light, brightness, purity, etc., and black with darkness, blurred vision, and uncertainty, those who describe descendants of those ethnic compositions in terms of color have essentially constructed their perceptions of such people. therefore, such a description is faulty and fundamentally designed to sow seeds of discord and racial tensions between the groups. prejudicial speech is associated with violence, nationalism, and terrorism. history continues to teach us that, in every society, prejudicial speech has devastating socio-economic and political consequences on its user, its target (the vulnerable), and the community itself. neurologists and psychiatrists have established that modifiable social and psychological factors contribute to the genesis of a terrorist and violence-prone mood. on a limited scale, prejudicial speech can lower one’s self-esteem when someone else uses derogatory terms to describe one’s body parts, intellect, religion, community, or race, as stated earlier in this article. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. iii. prejudicial discourse and how it influences our perception of others speech, by default, is a form of expression; it is an act, a behavior developed and sustained through the perpetrator’s prior knowledge of the individual. prejudicial speech operates as racist speech; it manifests through public paraphernalia displays in audio-visual contexts such as music or physical appearance. non-verbal aspects of speech include the user’s intentions for selecting words and the desired effect of using a particular tone when delivering the words. when creating or conveying the message, the conscious sender considers the intended receiver’s linguistic levels and socio-cultural and economic conditions. in short, a wink, nod, any unwarranted verbal or non-verbal communication to another person or party constitutes prejudicial speech. we miss the point when we see prejudicial speech only as the spoken word or written expression. in a way, prejudicial speech is a new form of racism, primarily when a group uses referential or direct means to index identity. prejudicial speech has been described as young people’s disease, especially in open societies in the global north, where established laws allow people to express themselves freely without fear of reprisal. furthermore, online media platforms in the west (global north) have not only been relatively efficient in covering the effects of prejudicial speech on identity, but they are responsible for shaping our negative perception of certain groups. in the washington post (2018), we learn that white-supremacist groups use social media as a tool to distribute their message, where they can incubate their hate online and allow it to spread. however, when their rhetoric reaches certain people, online messages turn into real-life violence. indeed, several recent years have shown that it can be deadly when online hate goes offline. the washington post staff writer rachel hatzipanagos in 2018 demonstrates a connection between the spread of hate messages online and violence. in a report published november 30, 2018, hatzipanagos narrates, “white supremacist wade michael page posted in online forums tied to hate before he went on to murder six people at a sikh temple in wisconsin in 2012.” the anti-defamation league, in 2017, published findings that showed most extremist-related killings in the united states were connected to hate messages. indeed, social media sites have become the epicenter for disseminating white supremacist propaganda. experts say individuals inclined toward racism, homophobia, and misogyny have found outlets that reinforce their views and guide them to violence. social media offer people a platform to publicize their disdain for others. countries with the vaguest policies on xenophobia, bigotry, and other forms of offensive communication against minorities exploit social media on a large scale. in a pew research center study in 2015, commissioned by the us council on foreign relations that polled people in latin america, europe, africa, asia-pacific, the middle east, united states, and in the rest of the world, almost two-thirds of persons polled said the united states (67%) felt people should make offensive statements to minority groups in public, while the middle east least approved the verbal denigration of minority groups. see figure 2 showing percentages of people per continent who support the use of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 12 published by scholink inc. offensive language against minorities. looking at the figure above, we learn that the regions with relaxed rules on press freedom and nations whose governments believe in a representative democracy and principles of classical liberalism are prone to allowing people to make offensive statements against underrepresented groups in public. it also shows that a sizeable part of the population appears insensitive to abusive language against minorities. still, we affirm that prejudicial speech is a risky component in the exercise of human rights. it is challenging to implement a global policy against prejudicial speech rhetoric because policymaking requires population input. iv. prejudicial speech, human rights, and the united nations position prejudicial speech is an acceptable form of expression—the bulwark of democracies. prejudicial speech does not have a legal definition under us law because there is no standard definition for bad ideas, rudeness, sexist language, foul language, unpatriotic speech, or any other kind of speech that everyone might condemn. we also examine speech within a physical and psychological framework. when physical harm or psychological offense is inflicted upon others, four considerations are pertinent: (1) the content of the speech. (2) how the speech is expressed, (3) the intentions and the motives of the speaker, (4) the circumstances in which the speech takes place (cohen-almagor, 2001, p. 4). to understand how prejudicial speech functions across national borders, we must consider the role of mobility factors such as human migration and indigenous values in human rights in a foreign land. each language group assigns its meaning to words so much that a term used in a particular context in a given language necessarily bears the same meaning in another language or ethnic group. free speech is the lifeblood of every democratic society because it is a right that allows individuals to argue freely for other rights such as fair trials, free elections, or decent living conditions. understanding prejudicial speech in international space and how it affects the rights of individuals requires a review of the post-cold war world rhetoric masterminded by russia and the united states. the changes in world politics following the dismantling of the berlin wall in 1989 led to revolutionary changes sweeping east and central europe ending over 40 years of dictatorial communist rule that precipitated efforts to promote american legal models to regimes in transition throughout the world. following the second world war and hitler’s rhetoric that led to the holocaust, germany, poland, hungary, austria have instituted hate legislation. in the early 21st century, canada and mexico also have laws prohibiting prejudicial speech against targeted, identifiable groups. in 2008, the european union passed a treaty requiring european countries to sanction prejudicial speech and deliver punitive measures against individuals or groups engaged in prejudicial speech. the euphoria associated with communism throughout the former soviet bloc ushered in many socio-politico-anthropological scholarships aimed at positioning speech and meaning within the cultural framework, not on individual beliefs. as soviet and american diplomats and governments www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. fought to gain international support for their governing system in what is commonly called the cold war, their social scientists aggressively conducted scientific studies to promote thought processes germane to their political system. american scholars turned to social science laboratories, analyzing human interactions to demonstrate links between the brain and how we express our feelings and thoughts and defend liberal democracy propounded by its ideologues, namely thomas hobbs, john locke, and victorian philosopher john stuart mill who strongly endorses free speech. in his famous chapter titled liberty of thought and discussion (pp. 31-98) from his book, on liberty, first published in 1859 with a second edition in 1960, john stuart mill explained. if all humankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person was of the contrary opinion, humankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than if he had the power, would be justified in silencing humankind (mill, 1960, chapter 2). indeed, in open societies, also known as liberal democracies, especially in the global north, free speech proponents believe that all speech, no matter how offensive or immoral, should be protected from any regulation or persecution. to foster that philosophy, democratic citizenship anthropologist clifford geertz of princeton university’s school of social sciences, institute for advanced study in the 1960s, argued that ideology and other forms of expression are cultural systems (geertz, 1966a, 1973, 1976). geertz’s vision of cultures as systems—associated practices—suggested the existence of some form of uniformity across cultures, languages, and accompanying documents of expression, a trend that raises questions around connotative meaning, social differentiation, social conflict, and associated negotiations and contestations over language itself. geertz’s stance dangerously persuades us to believe that any member of a language group can manipulate speech or negotiate meaning to suit their circumstances without caring about consequences. nevertheless, we must be reminded that free speech, of which prejudicial speech is a component, is not an independent value; it has to be limited, for no human society throughout history has existed without imposing limits to its lifestyle. this is why most liberal democracies, whether they operate as a constitutional monarchy or republic, have limitations on free speech. moreover, the united nations (un), the central intergovernmental organization responsible for maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, and harmonizing actions among countries, also recognizes that speech, if not controlled, can cause havoc between nations. since its creation in 1945, the united nations has monitored xenophobia, racism and intolerance, violent misogyny, anti-semitism and anti-islam, and anti-christianity hatred worldwide. the un office on genocide prevention strives to protect and prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. prejudicial speech has been a precursor to state atrocity crimes, including the genocide in rwanda, bosnia, cambodia. cameroon used metaphors to turn people against their neighbors and describe minority groups as less human than the media and political leaders. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 14 published by scholink inc. political analysts and media experts believe that trends in hate crimes around the world echo changes in the national and global political climate and that social media tend to magnify the discord so much that rumors and invective disseminated on different online platforms have contributed to violence ranging from lynching and killings to ethnic cleansing. further, many attacks on immigrants and other minorities have raised new concerns about the connection between inflammatory speech online and violent acts and how corporations and states police speech. zachary laub (2018), chief editor of the us-based council on foreign relations online newsletter, properly pens this, “the response (to violence-prone prejudicial speech) has been uneven, and the task of deciding what to censor, and how, has largely fallen to the handful of corporations that control the platforms on which much of the world now communicates (laub, 2018)”. social scientists go further, exposing how widespread the problem of addressing prejudicial speech has become by describing social media posts in germany versus postings in america. they find a correlation between anti-refugee facebook posts by the far-right alternative for germany party and its attacks on refugees. other social scientists have observed that upticks in attacks, such as arson and assault, followed by spikes in hate-mongering posts, had intensified hatred towards refugees and immigrants. in america, we recall how dylan roof, the perpetrator of white supremacist attacks, circulated his vitriol against blacks among racist communities online and relied on social media to publicize his acts. while dylan was constitutionally protected to express his beliefs, he had no right to take away anyone else’s right to live, so killing people based on his thoughts was/is a violation of universal human rights. v. mass media and communication tools as prejudicial speech enablers a team of george washington university researchers has developed a mapping model to track how online hate clusters thrive and offered solutions to help social media platforms and law enforcement fight against hate online. according to george washington university’s media relations office, the researchers have seen clusters creating new adaptation strategies to regroup on other platforms and reenter a podium after being banned. for example, groups can migrate and reconstitute on other platforms or use different languages to avoid detection. this allows the cluster to quickly bring back thousands of supporters to a platform on which they have been banned and highlights the need for cross-platform cooperation to limit online hate groups (press release, august 19, 2019). indeed, mediatized rhetoric on prejudicial speech, especially news coverage on the ease in creating and sharing content on online platforms, fosters extremist beliefs and terrorist activities in islamic communities against the free world (ngwainmbi, 2017). subsequently, the rise of islamophobia has spread insidiously through communities, creating suspicion, distrust, and even unprovoked physical attacks on innocent muslims. yet, the first amendment in the us constitution, which guarantees freedom to worship, enunciated by us president franklin d. roosevelt during the speech, january 6, 1941, to americans, has not been repealed. one reason for the spread of prejudicial speech across www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. online media is that individuals seeking attention or influencing the masses to follow their beliefs use media platforms. however, their choice of the media to transmit their objectives should not come as a surprise. mass communication pioneers paul f. lazarsfeld, harold lasswell, and wilbur schramm in the 1960s presented the likelihood that the media, particularly television, influence our thoughts and feelings, subsequent research suggesting that more exposure to violent narratives increases violent behavior. since then, the media has become the most conspicuous enabler of prejudicial speech because it is accessible to many information creators and news consumers. social media has given every user a platform to spew prejudicial speech and radical beliefs to disaffected people, amplifying otherwise weak opinions and making such views viral. it should be noted that the users’ experiences are mediated by algorithms designed to maximize their engagement, inadvertently promoting extreme content. take the example of youtube, the most famous tool used by terrorist groups. youtube is the new global television, with more than 2 billion users, with 80 % of internet users having their own youtube account and 95% of the worldwide internet population watching youtube. internet watchdog groups say youtube’s auto-play function, in which the player, at the end of one video, tees up a related one, can be especially pernicious (laub, 2018). jack nica’s investigative report published in the wall street journal in february 2018 reveals that the algorithm brings people to videos that promote conspiracy theories or are divisive, false, and misleading. no wonder media platforms, especially sites sponsored by advertisers and companies and teenage forums, are filled with discussions and messages about public policies to address violence and prejudicial speech. for their part, newspapers, cable news networks, television, and radio talk shows are reputed to promote prejudicial speech globally by focusing on outrageous statements made by world-renowned public figures. as suggested in this chapter, statesmen have used their status and derogatory speeches (as public figures) to get news organizations’ attention and, consequently, ‘infect’ viewers/listeners with their modus operandi. this author has previously stated that international news broadcasters construct their coverage of terrorist operations to instill fear and usher in the sense of urgency among audiences (ngwainmbi, 2017, pp. 203-204). he has found a link between global terrorism and prejudicial speech. he further explains how religious extremists use online media platforms to persuade passive audiences, recruit extremists and promote their political beliefs, causing the media and general public to pay attention to their raison d’etre (ngwainmbi, 2016, 2019b). the media is also an enabler within countries. further studies show media role in fostering hatred and genocidal behavior. some regimes in fragile democracies have repeatedly used far-reaching carriers like radio to spread propaganda and anti-semitism. in germany in the 1920s and 1930s, the weimar government introduced www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 16 published by scholink inc. pro-government political news over radio airwaves, increasing nazi popularity. adena et al. (2015) have observed that nazi radio was most effective in places where anti-semitism was historically high and negatively affected places with low anti-semitism. we should be reminded that such radio-enabled propaganda set the tone for the rise of nazism and galvanized the german army to launch the second world war. published documents show how italian prime minister benito mussolini’s fascist regime in the 1930s installed the ente italiano edizioni radiophoniche (italian radiophonic auditions) in public places to obtain people’s support. the public service broadcaster served as the government’s voice spreading fascist ideologies. radio was the cheapest form of entertainment and the most popular medium during world war ii. it reached many citizens, so accessibility and availability to this medium fueled propaganda during the war and helped extend the fighting between the allied forces and germany’s allies. as social scientists and world-class economists contend, one wonders if the radio’s inventor, italian guglielmo marconi, had envisaged its dubious but critical role in changing global politics, economy, and culture. 5. conclusions we consciously or unconsciously utilize prejudicial expressions around strangers and familiar people, no matter the nature of our religious beliefs and cultural values. the derogatory remarks pose various risks; they hurt people’s feelings and cause individuals to embrace false ideas or undertake destructive actions. if not monitored, this communication pattern can potentially damage trade agreements and inter-group, inter-ethnic, and diplomatic relations between countries. it is alarming that most countries and provinces have constitutional laws that protect free speech, not prejudicial speech, allowing marginalized persons, including women, children, poor and older people, minorities, lgbtqs, youth, and the unemployed, at the mercy of harmful language that injures their self-esteem. there is a lack of will to impose heavy penalties against business entities and individuals who use digital platforms to spread prejudicial discourse. even the united nations human rights commission continues to play a lame-duck role even though it was mandated to promote and protect human rights worldwide. established in 1946 “to examine, monitor and publicly report either on human rights situations in specific countries or territories” and weave the international legal fabric that protects fundamental rights and freedoms” (united nations humans rights council, https://www.ohchr.org), the world governing body has ignored public discourse on the prejudicial treatment of ethnic minorities in cameroon, for example. since war broke out in that country’s south and northwest regions in 2017 when denizens publicly complained about under-representation in and cultural marginalization by the central government, the council has not taken any meaningful steps to solve the problem. instead, more social media platforms are cropping up, and sympathizers and pro-government groups continue to spread prejudicial messages online, leading to more killings, the burning of villages, and the massive https://www.ohchr.org/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. exodus of the marginalized population in that region. 6. suggestions for curbing prejudicial speech and promoting racial harmony if we agree that most prejudicial speech users have limited education and exposure to other cultures, they should be schooled on humanity to improve racial relations. we must change racist ideologies such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and inferiority complexes to an inclusive culture. to do so, we must first master self-awareness. human beings are, by nature, mentally vulnerable, and social contact helps us cope with stress and significant life changes. 6.1 i propose that we collectively suffer the effects of prejudicial speech as a human family, but we do not deserve it. instead, we need to make collective efforts to limit it in our communities. just as jung (1981) explains that we have the ‘psychological energy’ that pushes us to achieve self-realization, we can consciously utilize this energy to bring common good for everyone. 6.2 lawmakers and law enforcement teams adopt and implement strategies globally and simultaneously across all platforms without sharing the sensitive information of individual users or commercial secrets. the united nations assembly, which meets annually to promote peace initiatives among nations, can significantly promote racial harmony. every country hosts people with different racial backgrounds. 6.3 if the organization has a comprehensive policy signed by member states, they would likely implement it properly. 6.4 the un human rights commission should review national customs and study prejudicial speech patterns in each country before producing a comprehensive strategic plan to enable nations that impose restrictions on free expressions with laws tied to national culture and religion. however, clinical studies show that prejudicial speech can be prohibited without international policies. although such prohibitions mean a permissive approach would undermine free speech, complicating a society’s ability to progress on peace terms. 6.5 what makes abolishing prejudicial speech more complicated is that doing so would curtail civil liberties—deny people their fundamental right to express themselves. however, prejudicial speech can be censored at an institutional or corporate level because those entities have their own rules of engagement. for example, speech would be more limited in the military. the underlying values are hierarchy and authority than at a university where the central importance is expressing ideas. 6.6 it is necessary to enhance the individual’s perceptions per the american psychologists' joseph luft and harry ingham in 1955—the johari model. they identify four quadrants in each individual’s personality, namely personal information, feelings, and motivations about the person, and show whether the information is known or not known by the person and other people. viii. a. institutions’ responsibilities www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. 6.7 both the hate speaker and victim need to be educated in the early stages of life. to that end, we make the following propositions: i. lessons on cultural understanding should be taught from kindergarten to college level ii. people aged three (cognitive period) should be trained to be critical thinkers, to understand the characteristics of advertisements, government policies, and extremist values stressing factors that have a long term negative impact on the group, community, and nation iii. companies should require cultural training for candidates and periodic socio-cultural training for their employees iv. intercultural communication courses should be mandatory for middle, high school, and university students. v. federal state governments funds should include profit and non-profit businesses requesting funding should show proof of comprehensive cultural awareness programs vi. the state governments should work with language experts to create a standard, neutral daily national language that binds all ethnic communities vii. universities and colleges should use virtual learning tools such as documentaries to teach anti-racist speech to students. it should be a required course for all undergraduate students. viii. persons with a unique intersection of cultural identities are best placed to serve as instructors and advisers to combat prejudicial speech and racism. b. limiting global social media communication george washington university researchers, in 2019, published a study that showed how prejudicial speech evolves online and how clusters interconnect to spread their narratives and attract and recruit people. us news also published information on this topic produced by social media researchers. using insights from its online prejudicial speech mapping model, the team developed intervention strategies that social media platforms could implement. according to the researchers, social media companies would need to: 1) reduce the power and number of large online hate clusters by banning the smaller groups that feed into them. 2) dismantle online hate groups by randomly banning a small group of individual users so that the global cluster network could fall apart. 3) set large clusters against one another by supporting anti-hate collections in identifying and directly engaging with hate clusters. 4) establish large intermediary groups to engage with hate groups to help bring out the differences in ideologies and make them question their stance. source:https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-08-28/researchers-suggest-new-way s-countries-can-fight-against-online-hate-speech 07/3/21 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. since anyone, including racist groups, can post data on the internet, recruit and motivate vulnerable and like-minded people to block websites with content designed to foster racist discourses and activities. countries should consider ways of countering prejudicial speech in the media through ethics and self-regulation. a quick way to achieve this is by educating journalists to understand prejudicial speech in their respective languages of expression and raise awareness at all levels. unesco blog writer poni alice jamekolok (2019) offers five ways to counter prejudicial speech, including the need for the media to raise awareness of individuals and groups’ political, social, and cultural rights. if established electronic and non-electronic media reflect the freedoms and roles of journalists in creating and promoting peaceful societies and educate the masses about prejudicial speech accordingly, the volume of prejudicial speech would decrease worldwide. however, i recommend the following preliminary steps: 1) an appointed un agency should study the causes, spread, and impact of prejudicial speech worldwide and (a.) work with country representatives. it should prepare a feasible global strategy to combat prejudicial speech. (b.) based on the international plan, it should establish pragmatic universal policies to handle transnational prejudicial speech practices. 2) countries should shape prejudicial speech laws based on their own cultures and the universal plan and take action on legally defined cases allowed by international law. they should impose fines on violators and use the funds to train at-risk groups and individuals. 3) in conjunction with it companies, researchers should develop software that could help regulators and enforcement agencies implement new interventions 4) other countries should replicate best practices and share them on social media platforms. here are a few examples of best practices in some countries that countries can replicate: • the indian government has new social media rules, including ordering platforms to remove posts within twenty-four hours based on offenses and obtain the user’s identity. • in 2018, germany, in a bid to end the nazi legacy, made a law requiring large social media platforms to remove posts considered “manifestly illegal” within twenty-four hours. however, as laub (2019) states, human rights watch raised concerns that the threat of hefty fines would encourage social media platforms to be “overzealous censors. it might be challenging to block websites, particularly in the us, where free expression is a human right. at the level of professional information and news management, this chapter recommends the following actions: • regulating social media flows by enhancing press freedom: press freedom can be improved through media laws and ethics education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 20 published by scholink inc. • having the newsroom serves as a prejudicial speech police office. the newsroom should have a program to monitor, compile, and evaluate incidents and trends in crimes engendered by prejudicial speech and bring them to the attention of state authorities. • encourage conflict-sensitive reporting and multi-cultural awareness campaigns: conflict-sensitive reporting would help dispel the “us” against “them” fallacy. journalists should be taught conflict-sensitive reporting skills. multi-cultural awareness campaigns should emphasize knowledge about and respect for the diversity of cultures and traditions. journalists must exercise professional standards, write articles, air programs, and even speak with people without taking sides (jamekolok, 2019). • responsible reporting of prejudicial speech—victims and witnesses should be encouraged to report crimes related to prejudicial speech. most people do not recognize prejudicial speech or take it seriously because most victims do not know where to report the cases. some victims do not realize that they are victims of prejudicial speech. thus, each country should have a hotline connected to the police department that victims of prejudicial speech can dial. • public institutions, particularly those operating with available funds, should create stringent rules against racial harassment and copiously implement them. local and state governments should withhold funding for institutions that break the rules. the institutions should be paying fines for breaking the law. • non-academic avenues should be encouraged, such as creating opportunities for demonstration projects and discourse and mediation and counseling provisions for all students. • minority student organizations should also be strongly supported, multi-cultural events and forums, and workshops to discuss controversial subjects (bellacossa, 1993). • the actions in the next segment should be undertaken to end prejudicial speech among caucasian-hispanic, based on the findings of a previous study conducted by this author: i. cultural groups from both communities in the us—caucasian and hispanic—should organize events and training where knowledge on the socio-cultural values of each group can be shared. ii. hispanic and american cultural groups should organize more conferences on myths and stereotypes to allow scholars, program managers, and experts on foreign relations and multi-cultural communication to exchange ideas and develop cultural awareness activities in american suburban communities (ngwainmbi, 2013, p. 376) where knowledge on hispanic and american culture is scarce. c. responsibilities of social media ceos social media ceos should collaborate with their respective national governments to monitor www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 21 published by scholink inc. prejudicial messages and remove content that threatens to disrupt the lives of vulnerable people in the country and destabilize the political systems of emerging nations. they should work with lawmakers to craft and implement policies using platforms they have created, such as instagram, twitter, and facebook. facebook owners in america have been able to weed out threats. we understand that online platform business models depend on maximizing, reading, or viewing times. facebook and similar platforms generate financial profit by enabling advertisers to target audiences with extreme precision (laub, 2019). thus, it is in their best interest to attract people to online communities to spend the most time. social media ceos should use their moral compass to create a policy manual for hate language and post it online to address this. violators should have their accounts blocked, and perpetrators were given a fine. repeat offenders should be arrested, tried in court, and pay a hefty fine or serve time in jail. references adena, m. et al. (2015). radio and the rise of the nazis in prewar germany. the quarterly journal of economics, 130(4), 1885-1939. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv030 allport, g. w. (1954). the nature of prejudice. ny: addison-wesley. anti-defamation league (2017). murder and extremism in the united states in 2017. https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/murder-and-extremism-in-the-united-states-in-2017. berger, p., & luckmann, t. (1967). the social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge. new york, ny. anchor brown university press. book review. the harvard law review, 98(8m), 1946-1959. asante, k. m. (3002). afrocentricity: a theory of change. new jersey: africa world press. brown-sica, m., & beall, j. (2008). library 2.0 and the problem of hate speech. electronic journal of academic and special librarianship, 9(2). cattoi, t., & odorisio, d. m. (2018). depth psychology and mysticism. new york: palgrave macmillan. cohen-almagor, r. (2001). harm principle, offence principle, and hate speech: the limits of free expression. london, uk: springer. feinberg, j. (1984), harm to others: the moral limits of the criminal law. oxford: oxford university press. geertz, c. (1966a). person, time, and conduct in bali: an essay in cultural analysis. cultural report series no 14. new haven, ct: yale university southeast asia program. geertz, c. (1973). the interpretation of cultures: selected essays. new york: basic books, inc., publishers geertz, c. (1976). art as a cultural system. modern language notes, 91, pp. 1473-1499. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. harris, j. (2013). life in the cloud and freedom of speech. journal of medical ethics, 39(5), 307-311. https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2012-10086 hatzipanagos, r. (nov.30, 2018) how online hate turns into real-life violence. the washington post jamekolok, a. p. (2019). five ways to counter hate speech in the media through ethics and self-regulation. unesco in brief. jung, c. g. (1981). the archetypes and the collective unconscious, collected works, vol. 9 (2 ed.), princeton, nj: bollinger laub, c. (june 7, 2019). hate speech on social media: global comparisons. council on foreign relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons linnaeus, c. (1735, 158, 2008) systema naturae. 10th edition. sweden: uppsala universitet luft, j. (1969). of human interaction. palo alto (ca): national press books. luft, j., & ingham, h. (1955). the johari window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness. proceedings of the western training laboratory in group development. los angeles: university of california, los angeles. mill, s. j. (1860). on liberty. london, united kingdom. john w. parker & son. ngwainmbi, e. k. (2020) the mystification and demystification of shared information on covid-19 across cyber mediated news networks: a sociological approach to solutions for vulnerable populations. journal of communication, society, and media, vol 3(3), pp. 47-68. ngwainmbi, e. k. (ed.). (2019b). media in the global context: applications and interventions. london, uk: palgrave ngwainmbi, e. k. (2017). the mediatization of violence: a model for utilizing public discourse and networking to counter global terrorism. in e. k. ngwainmbi (eds.), citizenship, democracy & media engagement among emerging economies and marginalized communities (pp. 203-226). ny, new york: palgrave macmillan. ngwainmbi, e. k. (2016). the mediatization of violence: a model for utilizing public discourse and networking to counter global terrorism. journal of mass communication & journalism, 6(3), 1-9. ngwainmbi, e. k. (2013). recognizing the latino immigrant’s space in the american neighborhood and creating a community for peaceful coexistence. in journal of development and communication studies, vol. 2 no. 2-3. 359-379. o’keeffe, g. s., & clarke-pearson, k. (2011). the impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. pediatrics, 127, 800-804. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-0054 petsnik, c., & vorauer, d. j. (2020). do dominant group members have different emotional responses to observing dominant-on-dominant versus dominant-on-disadvantaged ostracism? some evidence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 23 published by scholink inc. for heightened reactivity to potentially discriminatory in-group behavior. plos one 15(6): e0234540. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234540 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 90 original paper what is the reaper singing? spatial writing of ―the solitary reaper‖ and the construction of britain’s identity guo qian 1 1 jilin international studies university, jilin, china received: june 11, 2025 accepted: july 31, 2025 online published: august 27, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p90 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p90 abstract this essay explores the song of the wheat-cutting woman in wordsworth’s “the solitary reaper” through the lens of literary geography. through the interpretation of the poem, it reveals the relationship between england and scotland and historical reflection contained in it. through the analysis of real space, imaginary space and dominant space, we explore how the song of the wheat-cutting girl in poetry can become the carrier of historical and cultural memory. research shows that the geographical and cultural characteristics of scotland are shown in delicate brushstrokes in the poem, and the complex historical relationship between england and scotland is also conveyed secretly and deeply through the song of the wheat-cutting girl. keywords literary geography, romanticism, wordsworth 1. introduction 1.1 biography of william wordsworth william wordsworth (1770-1850) was born in cockermouth in the lake district. his growing environment was deeply influenced by natural scenery. wordsworth was educated at cambridge university in his early years, and then traveled to france, during which period he was influenced by the ideas of the french revolution. after returning to england, he focused on poetry writing and co-published lyric ballads with samuel taylor coleridge, marking the embarking of british romanticism. his masterpiece overture is a long poem based on autobiography, exploring the relationship between human beings and nature. in 1843, he was appointed as a british laureate poet, which had a profound influence on british literature. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 91 published by scholink inc. 1.2 the development of literary geography and the solitary reaper as an interdisciplinary discipline, human geography has gradually received wide attention. it integrates the research methods of literature and geography, takes humanistic phenomena as the main body, focuses on revealing the spatial structure of human activities and the regularity of their geographical distribution, and provides a new perspective for the interpretation of literary works. william wordsworth, as an outstanding representative of british romantic poetry, advocated that poetry must have strong emotions and be written in ordinary and vivid language. his poetic style is natural and fresh, and the theme is mostly simple rural natural life. one of the outstanding features of his poetry lies in the full of emotion charged into the spot scene. his masterpiece ―the solitary reaper‖ depicts a wheat-cutting woman working and singing alone in the field. the poet is deeply attracted by her song, but she can’t know exactly what she sings, and can only feel her emotions from the song. and the speculation about the content sung by the wheat-cutting girl has become the key to interpreting poetry. the author aims to study this poem from the perspective of human geography, which is conducive to the deep exploration of the spatial meaning, national emotion and historical connotation hidden in the poem. this study can not only deeply understand the artistic value of wordsworth’s poetry, but also show how literary works reflect the complex emotional bonds and historical memories between regions and ethnic groups from the perspective of the relationship between england and scotland and english and french history. the author will further reveal the deep cultural and historical structure behind poetry from the three dimensions of real space, imagination space and explicit space. 2. wordsworth and literary geography 2.1 exploring on literary geography in wordsworth’s works william wordsworth, a trailblazer of british romantic poetry and a master of nature-inspired verse, holds a central place in the study of literary geography. he is famous for his profound understanding and description of nature. he advocates the use of everyday language for poetry writing, opposes over-carved poetry words and algae, and emphasizes that poetry is the natural expression of strong emotions, which has had a profound impact on the language style and emotional expression of modern poetry. wordsworth once served as a poet laureate. the preface to his lyrical ballads is regarded as a declaration of british romanticism, while his long poem overture is a masterpiece of autobiography and is regarded as an important work in the history of british literature. wordsworth’s poetry and ideas left an enduring influence on subsequent generations, securing his prominent place in literary history. wordsworth’s works widely reflect the profound perception of nature and geography, which forms the basis for his writing of literary geography. in his poetry, mountains, fields, and villages are never mere static backdrops for events. they mix with the very soul of characters like living entities, cradling memories and stirring emotions, while their natural grace and human warmth shape characters’ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 92 published by scholink inc. perceptions and thoughts—weaving their spiritual worlds into an inseparable bond with the places they dwell in. take ―the solitary reaper‖ as an example, the geographical elements in the poem are closely related to the emotions and national identity of the wheat girl, showing wordsworth’s unique understanding of the relationship between geography and human beings. 2.2 the geographical elements in “the solitary reaper” and the writing of the british national identity in ―the solitary reaper‖, geographical elements can be seen everywhere. scotland’s natural landscapes such as fields, mountains and rivers have become an important part of poetry, and as the representative image of scotland, her singing voice carries scottish culture and emotions. from the perspective of the english, scotland has a unique sense of strangeness in this poem, but also has a subtle connection with england through the song of the wheat-cutting woman. this interplay of connection and division reflects wordsworth’s reflections on british national identity, highlighting the intricate ethnic and geographical ties between england and scotland beneath the facade of a unified nation. 3. poetry interpretation: the relationship between england and scotland reflected in the song 3.1 realistic space 3.1.1 the geography and culture of scotland in william wordsworth’s ―the solitary reaper‖, the geographical environment of scotland has a profound impact on the image of the reaper and the characteristics of her singing. at the beginning the poet depicts that ―behold her, single in the field, yon solitary highland lass! reaping and singing by herself‖ and thus the vast and undulating fields of scotland come into view. the reaper is tiny in contrast to the vast fields. she works alone ―alone she cuts and binds the grain, and sings a melancholy strain‖), and the openness of the fields not only highlights her loneliness but also sets off her perseverance. her simplicity blends into the land, and the fields witness her diligence. the openness of the fields also allows her singing to spread freely, and the melancholy tune echoes in the fields, as if whispering to the wheat and telling the story of life. ―a voice so thrilling ne’er was heard in spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, breaking the silence of the seas among the farthest hebrides‖, the mountains of scotland are crucial in shaping the image and singing of the reaper. the hebrides islands have a unique mountain-sea landscape with rolling mountains. when the reaper sings in the valley, the surrounding mountains act like a natural resonance box, making her originally simple singing rich and layered. the depth of the valley adds a mysterious flavor to the singing, lingering in people’s hearts. the climate in scotland is changeable. although it is not directly described in the poem, it can be felt from the overall atmosphere. under such a climate, people’s lives are full of uncertainties and hardships. the reaper’s singing naturally reveals her feelings about life ―perhaps the plaintive numbers www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 93 published by scholink inc. flow for old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago: or is it some more humble lay, familiar matter of to-day? some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, that has been, and may be again?‖. her singing is a memory of past sufferings and a narration of the current difficult life, a true portrayal of the hard life under the unique climate of scotland. the geographical environment of scotland shapes the image and singing characteristics of the reaper in many ways. geographical elements such as fields, mountains, and climate are closely connected with the reaper, jointly composing this charming poem, allowing readers to deeply understand the profound influence of the geographical environment on literary creation. 3.1.2 guess the realistic theme from the song the song of the wheat-cutting woman may contain a description of the native life in scotland, such as the hardships of field labor, the joy of harvest or the attachment to the hometown. she may be singing the stories of the scottish people passed down from generation to generation in this land, which are intertwined with the geography of scotland and form part of the scottish national memory. at the same time, it can be inferred from her lonely work that the song may also contain the loneliness and tenacity experienced by the scottish people in the course of history, and the persistence in the face of external pressures, such as the influence of england. 3.2 imaginary space 3.2.1 scottish imagination from the perspective of england scotland is often a mysterious and strange place in english view. in wordsworth imagines, scotland has become a space that triggers infinite reverie through the song of the wheat-cutting girl. this imagination may be influenced by england’s own culture and history, and contains established perceptions and misunderstandings of scottish national character and cultural traditions. the english may regard scotland as a backward area with ancient traditions, and the song of the wheat-cutting woman became the force to break this stereotype in this imagination, triggering the poet to think deeper about scotland: the unique song of the wheat cutter carries the life, emotions, history and tradition of the scottish people. even in hard work, the song is still full of vitality, which makes the poet realize that scottish culture is not backward, but has a fresh and unique charm, which is the expression of the spiritual world of the scottish people. 3.2.2 imaginary elements and integrated national emotion in poetry in the imaginary space of poetry, the song of the wheat-cutting woman may transcend the boundaries of reality and integrate the emotional projection of the english people towards scotland. this emotion includes not only the appreciation of the beauty of scotland’s nature, but also the curiosity and confusion about the scottish national identity. the solitary reaper portrayed in the poem serves as a symbol of the scottish working class (cui dan, 2025, p. 85). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 94 published by scholink inc. wordsworth depicted the scene of her working in the field and singing alone, such as ―she harvested alone and sang alone‖, ―behold her, single in the field, yon solitary highland lass! reaping and singing by herself‖, and ―she cut a bundle alone‖, ―alone she cuts and binds the grain, and sings a melancholy strain‖. this detailed description of the individual labor scene showed his concern for ordinary workers in scotland. this implies that he believes that the working life of the scottish people deserves to be seen and recorded, which reflects his respect and recognition for the people in this region of scotland. by guessing the content of the song, the poet tries to build an emotional bridge between england and scotland in his imagination. this bridge not only respects the uniqueness of scotland, but also reflects the complex mentality of england in the process of national integration. 3.3 explicit space: the reflection of colonial and ethnic relation 3.3.1 colonial-era england-scotland relations although scotland and england share a political union, historical traces of england’s colonial dominance over scotland remain evident. the ancestors of scotland were the celts, who were a widely distributed ethnic group in the ancient history of europe. at first, the celts were active in many places in europe, but they clashed with the rising and expanding rome, and once plundered the city of rome. in the 1st century bc, caesar conquered most of the celtic tribes in gaul, which made the place romanized and formed a unique cultural landscape. in 43 a.d., claudius i invaded and conquered most of its southern areas. the northern celts resisted by their terrain. in 122 a.d., the great wall of hadrian divided the region to consolidate its rule. after the western roman empire declined and gradually withdrew from the island of britain (around the 5th century ad), the anglo-saxons from the european continent began to migrate into the southern part of britain on a large scale. they gradually drove away and integrated the celts who originally lived there by force, established many small kingdoms, formed the ―age of the seven kingdoms‖ and laid the foundation of england later, so the anglo-saxons played a key foundational role in the formation of the english nation. the anglo-saxons played a key foundational role in the formation of the english nation. ―the history of the anglo-saxons’ invasion of britain lasted for at least 150 years.‖ starting from the end of the 8th century, the vikings continued to invade the coastal area of the island of britain, and later went deep inland, establishing ruling areas such as the ―danish zone‖ in parts of england, which lasted for a long time. the vikings communicated, integrated and intermarried with local anglo-saxons and other groups, which also integrated new elements into the bloodline and culture of the english. after the norman conquest in 1066, the normans from northern france entered england and ruled here. the normans brought their own language (norman french), culture, political system, etc., which reshaped the society, culture and other aspects of england, and further enriched the ethnic origin and cultural composition of the english. the union act of 1707 marked the official conclusion of england and scotland as the united kingdom of great britain, but behind it was a strong www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 95 published by scholink inc. combination of scottish economic fragility and english political power. scotland’s land reform, the puritan movement and the suppression of highland culture have all led to profound changes in local society and culture. will no one tell me what she sings?— perhaps the plaintive numbers flow for old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago: (wordsworth, 1805) 3.3.2 interpreting national emotions under the influence of colonialism from the song the song of the wheat-cutting woman may contain rebellion against colonial history, although this rebellion is obscure. she may sing about the dignity and yearning for freedom of the scottish nation. even in the reality of being colonized, the scottish people still maintain their own culture and national spirit. at the same time, singing may also reflect the cultural integration of england and scotland in the process of colonization and being colonized. this blending is not only the erosion of scotland by english culture, but also the influence of scottish culture on english culture in difficulties. the two have formed a unique ethnic relationship in the complex historical process. 4. discussion through the analysis of the content sung by the wheat-cutting woman in the lonely wheat-cutting woman from the three perspectives of the reality, imagination and dominant space of literary geography, we can clearly see the complex and profound relationship between england and scotland. this poem is not merely wordsworth’s portrayal of scotland’s natural and cultural landscape but also a deep meditation on the historical and national relations between england and scotland. the song of the wheat-cutting girl has become the key to opening this complex historical and cultural treasure trove. it allows us to peek into the intertwining and collision of geography, ethnicity and history in poetry from literary works, further enriching our understanding of british literature and history. acknowledgement this thesis marks the end of a long, tough journey made possible by the wholehearted support of many. i’m deeply grateful to my supervisor, prof. cui dan. her continuous, invaluable guidance has been a privilege. thanks for her patience, support, empathy, and humor. i’m lucky to benefit from her knowledge and character. i also thank teachers and classmates at jilin international studies university’s school of english, dear friends for their encouragement and support, and my parents for their love and care. without them, i couldn’t have finished this thesis. finally, gratitude to all who directly or indirectly helped. best wishes for your smooth and pleasant days. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 96 published by scholink inc. references cui, d. (2025). william wordsworth’s british writing and the construction of british national identity. journal of guangdong university of foreign studies, 36(2), 80-90. darby, w. j. (2018). landscape and identity: geographies of the british nation and class (translated by zhang jianfei and zhao hongying). yilin press. gill, s. (2020). william wordsworth: a life (translated by zhu yu). guangxi normal university press. qian, c. d., & xu, j. m. (2020). a general history of britain. the history of the anglo–saxons’ invasion of britain lasted for at least 150 years. shanghai academy of social sciences press. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 126 original paper the challenges confronting countries in the tropics affected by covid-19 amb. dr. john o. kakonge 1* 1 president, the association of former international civ il servants in kenya (afics -kenya) * amb. dr. john o. kakonge, president, the association of former international civil servants in kenya (afics-kenya) received: april 22, 2020 accepted: april 28, 2020 online published: may 1, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v 3n2p126 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n2p126 abstract compared with other regions of the world, countries in the tropics appear to have less covid -19 cases and lower death rates. warmer temperatures and higher humidity have been proposed as an explanation. an alternative interpretation is that the figures result from a lack of aggressive testing. regardless of the cause, this paper suggests that the way in which governments respond to the pandemic has a significant impact on containing the pandemic. additionally, pressing challenges for countries in the tropics are a lack of water and sanitation, insufficient personal protective equipment, and inadequate training of clinical staff. suggestions for moving forward are proposed. keywords covid-19, tropical nations, government responses, challenges to containment 1. introduction the new coronavirus disease, which took the world like a bush fire , o rig inated in china in late 2019. it was transmitted to the rest of the world by air, sea, and road. this paper looks at the challenges of infection within the countries of the tropics and suggests ways to address some of these challenges. the countries in question fall between the tropic of capricorn, 23 0 south of the equator, and the tropic of cancer, 23 0 north of the equator. th is area includes countries in latin america and the caribbean, africa, and asia. tropical countries have generally had a slower rate of covid -19 spread than other countries. a possible explanation for this is the high humidity and temperatures of the tropics. however, this exp lanation has been questioned by several scholars. for example, dapcevich (2020) argues that there is litt le relationship between weather and coronavirus , although he does add that the influenza and cold viruses www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 127 published by scholink inc. tend to peak in the colder months and slow down during summer. other studies also confirm that coronavirus infections tend to be associated with winter because of how they spread (aubrey, 2020). this is the case with influenza which thrives during the colder months, helping the virus to spread more easily from person to person. drawing on empirical data, dapcevich (2020) argues that warmer and more humid environments , such as those of argentina, brazil, and australia, appear to support virus spread, as these countries have all had a considerable number of confirmed cases. moreover, quoting experts’ views, he stipulates that rather than climate, what actually will determine the decline in the rate of transmission of coronavirus will depend on government responses, the quality of medical care, population density and other factors. however, dapcevich (2020), quoting professor marc lipsitch, emphasizes that “even seasonal infectious can happen ‘out of reason’ when they are new” due to “their temporary but important advantage: few or no individuals are immune to them”. regardless, this virus is novel and the influence of climatic conditions on the spread of this disease is yet to be scientifically established. 2. current figures according to data from the worldometer, dated 12 april 2020, most tropical countries have not only low numbers of positive cases, but also low death rates. as of that date, the only tropical country with more than 10,000 positive cases was brazil with over 20,000 cases, which is low relative to its population of approximately 210 million. similarly, although india had over 8,000 positive cases, that number represents a small percentage relative to its population of more than one billion people. table 1 documents the number of cases and death rates of selected tropical nations. in the caribbean, the domin ican republic had more than 2,700 positive cases and over 130 deaths. this is worry ing relative to the total population of about 11 million. jamaica and barbados appeared to have few positive cases and their death rates were low. it should be remembered, however, that low numbers of positive cases might be ascribed to a lack o f aggressive testing. of the eight tropical african countries sampled, côte d’ivoire, democratic republic of congo, ghana, kenya, malawi, nigeria, rwanda and senegal, each had less than 1,000 positive cases, although their numbers seemed to be growing. as of april 12 2020, côte d’ivoire and ghana had more cases than the other african countries . in asia, the number of cases in indonesia, the philippines, malaysia and thailand were g rowing, with indonesia having the most positive cases at 3,800, with deaths totalling over 300. in general, all the figures from the tropical countries may not be realistic owing to a lack of testing facilit ies. after the end of april, the situation may become clearer. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 128 published by scholink inc. table 1. covid-19 in selected tropical countries as of 12 th april 2020 country positive cases no. of deaths testing capacity barbados 68 4 y bolivia 300 24 y brazil 20,964 1,141 y colombia 2,709 100 y costa rica 577 3 y côte d’ivoire 553 4 y cuba 669 18 y democratic republic of the congo 234 20 y dominican republic 2,759 135 y ecuador 7,466 333 ghana 408 8 y indonesia 3,842 327 y india 8,504 289 y jamaica 72 4 y kenya 191 7 y malawi 12 2 y malaysia 4,830 73 y mexico 4,219 273 y nigeria 318 10 y peru 6,848 181 y philippines 4,648 220 y rwanda 120 0 y senegal 278 2 thailand 2,551 38 y trinidad & tobago 113 8 y venezuela 175 9 y 3. government res ponses as of april 12 2020, tropical countries’ government responses to the pandemic were uneven, confusing and wanting, unlike china, where the government declared a total lockdown for over two months and achieved fairly positive results overall with only 3,300 people dying in hospital. the common guidelines endorsed by who include social distancing, limit ing gatherings to a small number, staying www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 129 published by scholink inc. at home and self-quarantine. however, each country has interpreted the guidelines differently. for example, in bolivia the government prohibited large-scale gatherings of more than 1,000 people. in brazil, the government decided to fo llow a policy of business-as-usual. given that the number of positive cases is increasing, this seems not to have been successful. of the other latin american countries sampled, as demonstrated in table 2, only colombia and peru imposed national lockdown and mexico declared a nationwide emergency. others have declared a partial close down. in the caribbean, barbados imposed lockdown, jamaica declared a national disaster and trinidad and tobago introduced partial restrictions. in africa, rwanda imposed a total lockdown, senegal a curfew, and nigeria a lockdown for lagos, abuja and ogun states. in the case of kenya, the government introduced an all-n ight curfew and restricted movement into and out of nairobi and mombasa and their surrounding counties. in ghana, a major lockdown was declared for greater accra, tema and kumasi. in asia, thailand and indonesia both declared a state of emergency, while india has been on a nationwide lockdown. in the philippines, the government declared a state of calamity and a partial lockdown. table 2. governments’ responses to covid-19 outbreaks response measures countries no. of cases no. of deaths total lockdown barbados, colombia, india, malaysia, peru, rwanda, venezuela 23,254 656 partial lockdown bolivia, costa rica, côte d’ivoire, cuba, democratic republic of the congo, dominican republic, ghana, indonesia, kenya, malawi, mexico, nigeria, philippines, senegal, thailand, trinidad and tobago 21,672 1,099 no significant measures brazil, ecuador, jamaica 28,502 1,478 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 130 published by scholink inc. figure 1. proportional representation of the number of countries according to government response to the covid-19 outbreak while figure 1 proportionally represents the different government responses, figure 2 depicts the total number of positive covid-19 cases according to government response. figure 2. proportional representation of the number of cases according to government response to the covid-19 outbreak analysis of the data in table 2 and figures 1 and 2, reveals varied results. for example, under total lockdown there were 23,254 positive cases and 656 deaths in a population of 1,825 million (including 1,380 million in india), while under partial lockdown there were 21,672 positive cases with 1,099 deaths in a population of 1,065 million. the countries that took no significant measures had 28,502 cases and 1,478 deaths in a population of 233 million (including 213 million in brazil) . one observation is that the countries under total lockdown had fewer deaths than the countries that took no significant measures. however, as a proportion of the total populations sampled, countries that imposed no significant measures had considerably less infections than those that imposed either form of lockdown. these figures represent an initial observation, as confounding factors such as who gets 7 16 3 total lockdown partial lockdown no significant measures 23,254 21,672 28,502 total lockdown partial lockdown no significant measures www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 131 published by scholink inc. tested, for example only people exh ib iting symptoms of the disease or larger swathes of the population, will factor into the significance of these findings. 4. challenges in containing the virus given the viciousness of coronavirus, governments have had to make difficu lt but essential decisions that have had a huge socioeconomic impact. the challenges in implementing the measures are particularly difficult in those countries with huge slums and high unemplo yment. two challenges that are common to many tropical countries are a lack of adequate water and sanitation, and a lack of personal protective equipment (ppe) fo r, and training of, medical personnel. 4.1 lack of water and sanitation one of the main messages in the global campaign for combating the coronavirus is the importance of washing hands with soap and running water. during world water day on 20 march 2020, water aid uk noted that lowand middle-income countries face a dual challenge: they do not have any way to wash hands, and knowledge on how and why to wash hands properly is not widespread (rstmh, 2020). according to rstmh (2020), nearly 75 per cent of households in sub-saharan africa lack basic hygiene facilit ies to wash their hands with soap and water in their homes. globally, only 19 per cent of people wash their hands with soap after using the toilet despite hands being the principal cause of transmission of disease-causing germs (rstmh, 2020). according to the guardian, most lowand middle-income countries are at greatest risk in the coronavirus crisis (harvey, 2020). the article suggests that low investment in water and sanitation has occurred because the services are perceived as social and environmental rather than economical. rural areas across the tropics , as well as the slums of major cit ies , continue to be very vulnerable to the spread of covid-19. governments, such as those in latin america, are currently setting up emergency provision 是 of water supply to the poor and vulnerable groups, including water tanker distributions in colombia, costa rica, domin ican republic, mexico, and el salvador (serrano & torres, 2020). moreover, priority is being given to hospitals and institutions serving the most vulnerable communities , as for example, in jamaica. in many countries in latin america, disconnection of services due to lack of payment has been suspended (sorreno &torres, 2020). in sao paulo, brazil, water tariffs for low-income people have been put on hold and debts of individuals and companies have been deferred for 90 days. in comparison, the urban poor in both tropical asian and african countries are more vulnerable to this pandemic because of the inequalit ies that characterize the provision of water services, and the often lack of means to wash their hands (amankwaa, 2020). however, some governments are providing water tanks and jerrycans for the urban poor and in open markets of major cit ies. 4.2 insufficient personal protective equipment and lack of training of clinical staff since the onset of the new coronavirus outbreak, most countries, both developed and developing, have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 132 published by scholink inc. found themselves with insufficient or without personal protective equipment (ppe). this has been the case in italy, spain, the united kingdom, the united states, and of course, most of the developing world. across the tropics, most of the countries are ill equipped with ppe, have inadequate numbers of doctors and nurses and inadequate hospital facilities. those nurses and doctors that are available, have had to undergo rapid training regarding how to handle coronavirus infected patients. most of the countries have no ventilators to treat patients and lack ppe clothes, boots and masks , even for medical personnel. in kenya, the informal sector is flourishing as local tailo rs make masks of all types for local distribution. in the light of the cancellation of flights and thus export opportunities, the few text ile companies in the country have been encouraged to make ppe. it is hoped that locally produced ppe will meet the required standards to support the work of the committed and determined health care staff. there is no doubt that other countries are also equipping themselves against this virus. 5. the way forward the countries in the tropics should not be complacent about the low figures of positive cases and deaths. they should continue forward with the following: 5.1 learn from best practice the available examples are china, singapore, south korea, and taiwan. for example, south korea has emphasised tracing contacts, testing and isolating (noor & sundaram, 2020). in the case of taiwan, tu (2020) states that containment has been due to effective government-led public-private collaboration; integration of the media in efforts to regularly broadcast basic preventive informat ion, such as washing hands, wearing masks, and social distancing; the provision of clear and decisive guidelines , and ensuring the strong support of cit izens . in the case of singapore, heijmans (2020) concludes that its current success is based on its top-notch health care system and draconian tracing and containment measures. based on the above, countries in the tropics should embrace the best practices and avoid examples from brazil and sweden where the governments are continuing with business as usual. 5.2 ensure transparent and aggressive testing it is arguable whether the figures from the countries of the tropics are really low in the absence of aggressive testing. from the examples of singapore, south korea, and taiwan, tropical country governments should strengthen their early warn ing systems, increase the transparency of informat ion, and carry out accurate diagnosis. for instance, south korea has 185 testing stations operating in different parts of the country as of march 2020. interestingly, at most of these stations, one can drive in, get tested and obtain the results instantly (undp seoul policy centre, 2020). what is needed in most of the countries in the tropics is investment in high-quality health care systems, like those of singapore and cuba, so that their leaders do not have to use their meagre foreign exchange to travel abroad for medical attention. ironically, even developed countries like italy, spain, the united kingdom, and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 133 published by scholink inc. united states are all infested with the new coronavirus: this has put leaders of developing countries on notice. 5.3 enforce social distancing and self-quarantining to win the war on the new coronavirus, social d istancing and self-quarantine are two crit ical factors. however, this is going to be a challenge fo r all countries in the tropics. many of the countries with densely populated urban centres , like dar es salaam, delhi, dhaka, jakarta, lagos, manila, mumbai, nairobi, rio de janeiro, sao pao lo, and others, have huge slums, where many people or families are squeezed into small rooms. additionally, congested public transport and teaming markets mean that social distancing will continue to be a big challenge. hence, these will be hotspots of increasing positive cases of coronavirus. 5.4 collaborate internationally covid-9 is a new and virulent disease and as such, there is urgent need for collaboration among countries, especially in the medical fields. fortunately, the existing south-south cooperation framework can facilitate this. for example, cuba has been helping many countries in latin america, the caribbean, and in africa, with their doctors and clin ical staff. more recently they sent their doctors to assist in italy. india has very good facilities and many people from africa go there for medical treatment. there should be collaboration among medical scientists in these countries, working together through south-south cooperation, to come up with drugs against the new coronavirus or any other viruses. for example, a public university in kenya recently reported that its faculties of engineering and medicine have manufactured a prototype ventilator that, once approved, could be used to treat covid-19 patients. there should be collaboration in producing ppe within this reg ion for local consumption and for any eventuality. 6. conclusion the new coronavirus pandemic exposed the poor state of preparedness of the world at large to deal with such an event. even countries who had experienced previous pandemics were not prepared. as macky sall, the president of senegal, noted, “the level of unpreparedness due to the sudden onset of the pandemic, its rapid evolution and the enormous needs to be addressed, is a clear indication that national measures remain inadequate” (sall, 2020). therefore, for countries located in the tropics, the message is clear, they must priorit ize public health. neighbouring countries need to cooperate and enforce similar measures, such as lockdown, along their borders. this global pandemic has shown us that in the face of cross-cutting threats, big or s mall, rich or poor, we are all vulnerable. given that this virus covers the entire world, there is a call for strong collaboration and partnership between the developing world and developed countries in research, innovation and international solidarity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 134 published by scholink inc. references amankwaa, g. (2020). covid-19 and “chasing for water”: water access in poor urban spaces. international water association. retrieved april 12, 2020, from https://iwa-network.org/covid-19-and-chasing-for-water-water-access-in-poor-urban-spaces/ aubrey, a. (2020). can coronavirus be crushed by warmer weather? npr, 12 feb. 2020. retrieved april 15, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/12/805256402/can-coronavirus-be-crushed-by -warmer-weather dapcevich, m. (2020). will warmer weather curb the spread of coronavirus? eco watch, 2 march 2020. retrieved april 12, 2020, from https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-warm-weather-2645546364.html harvey, f. (2020). poor water infrastructure puts world at greater risk from coronavirus. the guardian, 22 march 2020. retrieved april 12, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/22/water-saving-an-important-but-ignored-w eapon-in-solving-climate-crisis-says-un heijmans, p. j. 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(2020). latin america moving fast to ensure water services during covid-19. world bank blogs, 8 april 2020. ret rieved april 13, 2020, from https://blogs.worldbank.org/water/latin-america-moving-fast-ensure-water-services-during-covid19 tu, c.-c. ( 2020). lessons from taiwan’s experience with covid-19. new atlanticist newsletter, atlantic council, april 2020. retrieved april 13, 2020, from https://www.at lanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/lessons-from-taiwans-experience-with-covid www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 135 published by scholink inc. -19/ undp seoul policy centre. (2020). rapid innovations in response to covid-19: examples from the republic of korea. retrieved april 15, 2020, from https://www.undp.org/content/seoul_policy_center/en/home/library/ rapid-innovations-in-response-to-covid-19--examples-from-the-rep.html communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 10 original paper exploration of the relationship between college youth’s willingness to use large models and their behavior: based on the mediating effect of human-computer trust fangxin huang 1* 1 media college of guizhou university, postgraduate student of the school of media, guizhou, guiyang 550025, china * fangxin huang, media college of guizhou university, postgraduate student of the school of media, guizhou, guiyang 550025, china received: june 3, 2025 accepted: june 20, 2025 online published: july 10, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p10 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p10 abstract as technology advances quickly, large language models are growing fast. college students, who are used to digital tools, use these models more and more, but there are still trust problems. this study used both surveys and interviews. it built a research model based on human-computer trust theory and the siram model to find out what affects college students’ willingness to use these models, and how trust plays a middle role. using spss 26.0 and amos 26.0 to analyze survey data, we found that cognitive and emotional trust greatly influence usage intention. factors like usefulness, enjoyment, sociability, and adaptability also affect intention through trust. interviews looked at how students use the models, trust issues, and ways to build trust, helping improve human-computer relationships. keywords large models, human-computer trust, siram model, trust crisis 1. introduction: human-computer trust in the era of large models amid rapid technological advancement, large language models (llms) like chatgpt and wenxin yiyan have surged, with open-source models from deepseek driving innovation. these text-pre-trained deep learning models propel ai from perception to creation, profoundly impacting society and economy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 11 published by scholink inc. as digital-era pioneers, college youth widely use llms, altering their learning and life while facing higher digital literacy demands. china regulates such applications via policies like the interim measures for the administration of generative artificial intelligence services, focusing on ideology and academic fairness in universities. yet llms bring both opportunities and challenges, with prominent human-machine trust crises: questionable information accuracy, value coordination complexities, and technical stability concerns, threatening youth’s cognition and development. studying trust mechanisms from a journalism and communication perspective holds significant theoretical and practical value, forming the research background. against this backdrop, this study proposes the following research questions to guide in-depth exploration: research question 1 does the dimension of human-machine trust exhibit a mediating or moderating effect in the decision-making process of youth groups regarding llm technology use? research question 2 what is the current status of university youth’s llm usage? what trends are presented by the current human-machine trust crisis? research question 3 what implications can the factor of trust bring to the design and development of future ai products? in what direction will future human-machine trust relationships evolve in the llm era? 2. literature review and theoretical origin 2.1 the intertwined context of large models and human-computer trust large models, as key ai technologies, have drawn wide attention. with growing autonomy, they’ve shifted from ―imitating human thinking‖ to ―human-like thinking‖ (zhang & ren, 2023), but this has also brought a trust crisis. scholars note ai trust is often analyzed through cognitive (perceptions of reliability, ability) and emotional (from interaction resonance) trust (johnson & grayson, 2005; cai & law, 2022). existing studies on llm trustworthiness mainly focus on the models themselves (sun, huang, wang et al., 2024; alghamdi, masoud, alnahit et al., 2024; hong, duan, zhang et al., 2024; wu & sun, 2023), while fewer explore college youth’s acceptance of large models from human-machine communication and trust perspectives, making such exploration valuable. 2.2 siram model traditional models like tam and utaut, though widely used to study user behavioral intention, are less suitable for new ai acceptance research due to ai’s human-like thinking (lu, cai, & gursoy, 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 12 published by scholink inc. the socially interactive robots acceptance model (siram), built by integrating utaut and tam (shin & choo, 2011), focuses on factors influencing the acceptance of socially interactive robots, including perceived usefulness, enjoyment, sociability, adaptivity, and social presence. it’s more fitting for ai acceptance research as it incorporates traits of socially interactive robots. given modern large language models have human-like attributes and rich ―human-oriented‖ value (chen, 2024), this study adopts the siram model, taking perceived usefulness, enjoyment, sociability, and adaptivity as independent variables, cognitive and emotional trust as mediators, and usage intention as the dependent variable. figure 1. the siram model 3. research design 3.1 research hypotheses drawing on literature and theories, this study develops a model with the following hypotheses: h1: college youth’s cognitive trust in large models positively impacts usage intention. h2: their emotional trust in large models positively impacts usage intention. (shi et al. (shi, gong, & gursoy, 2021) found cognitive and emotional trust significantly influence ai adoption willingness) h3: perceived usefulness positively affects usage intention. h4: perceived usefulness positively affects cognitive trust. h5: perceived usefulness positively affects emotional trust. (yoon et al. (yoon & rolland, 2015) confirmed perceived usefulness impacts usage intention; zhou (zhou, tang, & xiao, 2021) and geng (2021) linked it to cognitive/emotional trust) h6: perceived enjoyment positively affects usage intention. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 13 published by scholink inc. h7: perceived enjoyment positively affects cognitive trust. h8: perceived enjoyment positively affects emotional trust. (cheng and le (2018) and lawson (lawson, mayer, adamo-villani et al., 2021) showed perceived enjoyment influences trust) h9: perceived sociability positively affects usage intention. h10: perceived sociability positively affects cognitive trust. h11: perceived sociability positively affects emotional trust. (junglas et al. (junglas, goel, abraham et al., 2013) noted perceived sociability boosts usage intention; chen et al. (chen & zhang, 2023) linked human-like interaction to trust) h12: perceived adaptability positively affects usage intention. h13: perceived adaptability positively affects cognitive trust. h14: perceived adaptability positively affects emotional trust. (young et al. (young, hawkins, sharlin, & igarashi, 2009) highlighted user expectations for adaptability; schneider (schneider & kummert, 2021) found adaptability enhances trust) h15a-d: cognitive trust mediates the relationships between (a) perceived usefulness, (b) enjoyment, (c) sociability, (d) adaptability and usage intention. h16a-d: emotional trust mediates the relationships between (a) perceived usefulness, (b) enjoyment, (c) sociability, (d) adaptability and usage intention. (xu and liu (2021) identified trust as a key mediator in new technology acceptance) these hypotheses form the theoretical model of college youth’s willingness to use large models. figure 2. theoretical model of university youth groups’ intention to use large language models www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 14 published by scholink inc. 3.2 questionnaire design and data collection the scales used in this study are all derived from mature scales. combined with the research scenario of large models, each variable is operationally defined, and a 5-point likert scale is adopted for scoring. there are 447 valid questionnaires in the end, with an effective rate of 86.3%.spss 26.0 is used to process and analyze the data to verify the model and hypotheses of this study. after analyzing the questionnaire data, some respondents are selected for in-depth interviews to supplement and explain the questionnaire results. 4. research findings and conclusions 4.1 reliability and validity test of the scale this study first used spss 26.0 for reliability and validity tests. reliability was assessed via latent variables’ cronbach’s α and composite reliability. all cronbach’s α values (0.873-0.928) exceeded 0.7,indicating high questionnaire consistency and good internal structure, suitable for analysis and empirical tests. table 3. results of cronbach’s α reliability analysis for the overall sample cronbach’s alpha number of items 0.878 23 table 4. reliability statistics of the scale variable item corrected item-total correlation cronbach’s alpha if item deleted cronbach’s α perceived usefulness pu1 0.766 0.852 0.886 pu2 0.687 0.871 pu3 0.69 0.87 pu4 0.774 0.852 pu5 0.727 0.864 perceived enjoyment pe1 0.757 0.793 0.863 pe2 0.734 0.814 pe3 0.731 0.818 perceived sociality ps1 0.716 0.738 0.83 ps2 0.751 0.702 ps3 0.605 0.844 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 15 published by scholink inc. perceived adaptability pa1 0.78 0.839 0.887 pa2 0.762 0.854 pa3 0.796 0.824 intention to use it1 0.694 0.791 0.841 it2 0.706 0.778 it3 0.717 0.769 cognitive trust ct1 0.755 0.773 0.856 ct2 0.717 0.81 ct3 0.716 0.81 emotional trust et1 0.798 0.835 0.891 et2 0.759 0.869 et3 0.804 0.83 additionally, kmo and bartlett’s sphericity tests were performed on scale items to determine suitability for factor analysis (kmo>0.7 and p<0.05). this study yielded a kmo value of 0.914 and bartlett’s test p-value of 0.001,confirming good validity and suitability for factor analysis. table 5. kmo and bartlett’s test table kmo 0.914 bartlett’s test of sphericity approximate chi-square 4679.589 df 247 p-value 0.000 4.2 correlation analysis of research variables this study first used spss 26.0 for reliability and validity tests. reliability was assessed via latent variables’ cronbach’s α and composite reliability. all cronbach’s α values (0.873-0.928) exceeded 0.7,indicating high questionnaire consistency and good internal structure, suitable for analysis and empirical tests. table 6. pearson correlation analysis results among various dimensions dimension pu pe ps pa et ct it pu 1 pe .465** 1 ps .245** .439** 1 pa .486** .441** .368** 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 16 published by scholink inc. et .319** .456** .436** .413** 1 ct .487** .367** .315** .465** .427** 1 it .473** .478** .416** .519** .574** .526** 1 **significant correlation at the 0.01 level(two-tailed). data in table 6 shows all seven variables had significance levels below 0.01, indicating significant positive correlations, preliminarily validating the hypotheses. 4.3 structural equation model test aiming at the research hypotheses put forward above, this study uses amos 26.0 software for hypothesis testing. the structural equation model diagram is shown in the figure: most of the fit indices of the structural equation of this study are ideally fitted, and the model hypothesis test can be further carried out. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 17 published by scholink inc. table 7. parameter estimation table of the confirmatory factor analysis model for the research model statistical test index evaluation indicators adapted standards or critical values test result data absolute fit index cmin/df value between 1-3 1.82 square(x²)value p>0.05(not reaching a significant level) 0 rmr value <0.08 0.05 rmsea value <0.08 0.05 incremental fit index ifi >0.90 0.95 tli >0.90 0.94 nfi >0.90 0.9 parsimonious fit index pgfi >0.50 0.71 pnfi >0.50 0.77 4.4 model analysis and hypothesis testing hypothesis verification results: table 8. summary table of model path hypothesis test results path relationship standardized estimate s.e. c.r. p hypothesis supported or not cognitive trust→usage intention 0.224 0.061 3.647 *** h1 supported affective trust→usage intention 0.2 0.059 3.392 *** h2 supported perceived usefulness→usage intention 0.145 0.057 2.55 0.011 h3 supported perceived usefulness→cognitive trust 0.339 0.064 5.009 *** h4 supported perceived usefulness→affective trust 0.078 0.061 1.284 0.199 h5 not supported perceived enjoyment→usage intention 0.124 0.06 2.061 0.039 h6 supported perceived enjoyment→cognitive trust 0.114 0.069 1.652 0.099 h7 not supported perceived enjoyment→affective trust 0.246 0.068 3.635 *** h8 supported www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 18 published by scholink inc. perceived sociality→usage intention 0.163 0.081 2.028 0.043 h9 supported perceived sociality→cognitive trust 0.175 0.091 1.918 0.055 h10 not supported perceived sociality→affective trust 0.368 0.091 4.031 *** h11 supported perceived adaptability→usage intention 0.119 0.057 2.105 0.035 h12 supported perceived adaptability→cognitive trust 0.231 0.065 3.535 *** h13 supported perceived adaptability→affective trust 0.165 0.063 2.63 0.009 h14 supported 4.5 mediating effect analysis this study used amos 26.0’s bootstrap method to test cognitive and emotional trust as mediators between perceived factors (usefulness, enjoyment, sociability, adaptability) and behavioral intention: cognitive trust mediated perceived usefulness (95%ci [0.022,0.134], p<0.05) and adaptability (95%ci [0.010,0.109], p<0.05)→h15a, h15d supported; it did not mediate enjoyment (ci[-0.014,0.083]) or sociability (ci[-0.008,0.105])→h15b, h15c not supported; emotional trust mediated enjoyment (ci[0.010,0.106]), sociability (ci[0.018,0.152]), and adaptability (ci[0.001,0.081], all p<0.05)→h16b, h16c, h16d supported; it did not mediate usefulness (ci[-0.013,0.050])→h16a not supported. table 9. results of standardized bootstrapping mediation effect tests hypothesis hypothesized path estimate se lower upper p test result h15a perceived usefulness→cognitive trust→usage intention 0.072 0.028 0.022 0.134 0.003 supported h15b perceived enjoyment→cognitive trust→usage intention 0.026 0.024 -0.014 0.083 0.216 not supported h15c perceived sociality→cognitive trust→usage intention 0.039 0.029 -0.008 0.105 0.096 not supported h15d perceived adaptability→cognitive trust→usage intention 0.052 0.025 0.01 0.109 0.006 supported h16a perceived 0.016 0.016 -0.013 0.05 0.272 not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 19 published by scholink inc. usefulness→affective trust→usage intention supported h16b perceived enjoyment→affective trust→usage intention 0.049 0.025 0.01 0.106 0.009 supported h16c perceived sociality→affective trust→usage intention 0.074 0.035 0.018 0.152 0.006 supported h16d perceived adaptability→affective trust→usage intention 0.033 0.021 0.001 0.081 0.039 supported empirical results: cognitive and emotional trust directly impact college youth’s usage intention. perceived usefulness affects usage intention and cognitive trust (not emotional trust); enjoyment and sociability affect usage intention and emotional trust (not cognitive trust); adaptability impacts all three. cognitive trust mediates usefulness, adaptability and usage intention (not enjoyment, sociability); emotional trust mediates enjoyment, sociability, adaptability and usage intention (not usefulness). interviews supplemented quantitative findings. 4.6 analysis of the current situation of college youth using large models trained on massive text, large models aid college students across fields. most use them to boost learning efficiency, with trust in capabilities correlating to usage willingness.f2 cited their comprehensive functions; f4 noted faster material organization for economics assignments; m8 called them a ―knowledge treasure trove‖ for interdisciplinary insights. f1 found combined use of models like deepseek and wenxin yiyan enhances reliability and trust. human-like interaction fosters emotional trust, boosting usage intent.m9 tried chatgpt out of curiosity, impressed by its speed and accuracy. f3 felt its warmth: ―it comforted me when i was down‖. f5 said, ―it feels like chatting with a real person—i get emotionally invested‖. yet trust crises exist: m9 encountered historical timeline errors (hallucinations); m10 criticized utilitarian ethical views (value bias); f3 faced crashes (technical instability). privacy concerns also erode trust. to build long-term trust, students need better digital literacy; developers must reduce errors, calibrate values, and ensure security. large models are tools—harmonious human-machine coexistence requires collaboration. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 20 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion this study adopts a combined qualitative and quantitative research method, constructing an empirical model based on the human-computer trust theory and the siram model to explore the driving factors influencing college youth’s willingness and behavior to use large models, as well as the mediating effect of trust dimensions. data were collected through questionnaires and analyzed using spss 26.0 and amos 26.0.it was found that cognitive trust and emotional trust significantly affect college youth’s intention to use large models, while factors such as perceived usefulness, enjoyment, sociability, and adaptability indirectly influence usage intention by acting on trust. additionally, through in-depth interviews, this study analyzed the current situation of college youth’s use of large models, providing theoretical and practical references for optimizing the application of large models and building harmonious human-computer trust relationships. large models, as tools to assist humans in exploring the world and creating value, cannot replace human thinking and creativity. as the backbone of future social development, college youth should maintain a rational attitude when using large models, give full play to their subjective initiative, carefully identify and reasonably use the content generated by the models. only by achieving collaborative cooperation with large models—utilizing their powerful computing and generation capabilities to expand cognitive boundaries while relying on one’s own wisdom to ensure the accuracy of information and the correctness of value orientation—can a good human-computer relationship be gradually established, moving towards a harmonious future of human-machine coexistence. references alghamdi, e. a., masoud, r. i., alnahit, d. et al. 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(2021). antecedents of trust and adoption intention toward artificially intelligent recommendation systems in travel planning: a heuristic–systematic model. journal of travel research, 60(8), 1714-1734. shin, d. h., & choo, h. (2011). modeling the acceptance of socially interactive robotics: social presence in human–robot interaction. interaction studies, 12(3), 430-460. sun, l., huang, y., wang, h. et al. (2024). trust llm: trustworthiness in large language models. arxiv preprint arxiv: 2401.05561. wu, d., & sun, g. y. (2023). research on the credibility of generative intelligent search results. journal of library science in china, 49(6), 51-67. xu, y., & liu, y. x. (2021). the impact of technology trust and leadership trust on employees’ acceptance of new technologies. advances in psychological science, 29(10), 1711-1723. yoon, c., & rolland, e. (2015). understanding continuance use in social networking services. journal of computer information systems, 55(2), 1-8. young, j., hawkins, r., sharlin, e., & igarashi, t. (2009). toward acceptable domestic robots: applying insights from social psychology. international journal of social robotics, 1, 95-108. zhang, h. z., & ren, w. j. (2023). the impact of large models on the internet ecosystem and their development trends. china cyberspace, (6), 37-41. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 22 published by scholink inc. zhou, y. s., tang, s. h., & xiao, j. (2021). research on consumers’purchase intention in live e-commerce platforms: from the perspective of social presence. contemporary economic management, 43(1), 40-47. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper educators’ impression construction: considering perceived social media missteps adrie a. koehler1* & erin d. besser2 1 curriculum & instruction, purdue university, west lafayette, in, usa 2 california state university, fullerton, ca, usa * adrie a. koehler, curriculum & instruction, purdue university, west lafayette, in, usa received: march 9, 2020 accepted: march 23, 2020 online published: april 3, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n2p1 abstract social media (sm) provide exciting instructional opportunities for educators. however, a simple internet search reveals professional implications that have resulted from educators’ sm usage perceived as missteps. in this research, using an impression construction lens, we considered cases of educators’ sm missteps as perceived by stakeholders and as presented in the news media. from this analysis, a description of what is perceived as inappropriate teacher sm use is provided, explanations of the highlighted sm usage are considered, and a discussion of findings from an impression construction perspective is included. results suggest impression construction in sm settings is a complex endeavor for educators that prompts varying opinions from stakeholder groups. suggestions for professional sm use are included. keywords educators, social media, impression construction, societal standards, news media 1. introduction social media use for enhancing teaching and learning purposes (kimmons, 2014; naghdipour & eldridge, 2016) and promoting professional identity (veletsianos, 2012) continues to be explored. while social media offer educators exciting options for connecting teachers with students, peers, experts, and content, these interactions also present the need for additional considerations. for instance, the inherent openness of social media (clark & roberts, 2010) paired with the realities of the teaching profession (e.g., educators viewed as role models) sometimes leaves the social media impression created by educators at-risk for being scrutinized. this analysis considers educators’ social media missteps as perceived by stakeholders and presented in the news media in order to understand how www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. educators can successfully manage the impression they are constructing in social media spaces. depending on specific interests and goals, individuals can choose among several social media (sm) applications (e.g., facebook with over 2 billion monthly users, twitter with 335 million users, instagram with almost 1 billion active users), and while sm are often an extension of face-to-face relationships or developed from an “offline connection” (boyd & ellison, 2007), computer-mediated communication differs considerably from face-to-face interactions. for instance, physical appearances and nonverbal cues are often not readily available in computer-mediated communication as in face-to-face communication (walther, 2007). additionally, sm bring new levels of potential mass-public openness and electronic preservation (clark & roberts, 2010). specifically, sm afford the opportunity for conversations to be available to other, sometimes unintended, site users (marwick & ellison, 2012) and at the same time, to be preserved in an electronic format long after the conversation has taken place. therefore, the advent and continued usage of sm provide communication implications for users and new opportunities to communicate in evolving and diverse ways. 1.1 educators, social media, and impression management at a very basic level, impression management or self-presentation theory contends that “when an individual appears before others he will have many motives for trying to control the impression they receive of the situation” (goffman, 1959, p. 15) or more directly stated it is “the process by which individuals attempt to control the impressions others form of them” (leary & kowalski, 1990, p. 34). educators’ impression management behaviors have been considered in both traditional educational settings (davis, 2011; freeburg & workman, 2010) and electronic environments (carter, foulger, & ewbank, 2008; foulger, ewbank, kay, popp, & carter, 2009; russo, squelch, & varnham, 2010). specifically, noting the rise of disciplinary action against in-service educators’ sm use, many researchers have focused on pre-service teachers’ sm usage (foulger, et al., 2009; olson, clough, & penning, 2009; steinbrecher & hart, 2012). steinbrecher and hart (2012) analyzed pre-service teachers’ sm profiles and found that over half had questionable materials posted (e.g., photos of drinking, discussing students from field experiences). perhaps, one of the most striking evolutions of impression management from an original conceptualization to the current realities created by sm use, is the idea of an interaction. originally, an interaction was defined as “all the interaction which occurs throughout any one occasion when a given set of individuals are in one another’s continuous presence” (goffman, 1959, p. 15). while sm allow users to communicate in synchronous ways (e.g., chat), a majority of communication in sm is done through asynchronous methods (e.g., discussion threads, shared images). users create electronic profiles through sm that are available for many to view. if individuals do not utilize privacy settings on their sm account, they cannot be sure who is viewing their information. at the same time, even individuals taking advantage of sm privacy settings cannot be totally sure who is viewing their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. electronic information, as individuals with whom they have granted access could share this “protected” information with others. therefore, while an interaction may generally occur when someone is in the electronic presence of someone else, people with sm profiles can never be totally sure with whom they are actually interacting. as a result of more complex interactions in sm, segmentation of audience-appropriate behavior also becomes more challenging with sm. in face-to-face interactions, individuals operate in more clearly bounded “regions” (e.g., contexts of different formality and/or audiences) (goffman, 1959). while various sm accounts could be representative of a region or context that is at the very least bounded by membership to the site, other sub-regions likely exist within this larger dimension composed of the various social and professional contacts that have been granted access to the sm profile. specifically, goffman (1959) discusses two distinct regions: a “front” region (e.g., a specific appearance is presented to a particular audience) and a “back” region (e.g., “suppressed facts make an appearance” that possibly contradict the appearance given in the front region, p. 112). in sm settings, these front and back regions can exist in multiple ways, and situations can potentially exist when an individual is accessing both regions simultaneously (e.g., an individual may have both close friends and professional colleagues as connections on her sm account). in face-to-face interactions, an individual is often dealing with one audience at a time, and as previously discussed, in sm settings the challenge of “context collapse” emerges. while a need for adjusting self-presentation exists when interacting with diverse audiences, dealing with different audiences in sm settings is challenging as it collapses “multiple contexts” and brings “together commonly distinct audiences” (markwick & boyd, 2011, p. 2). overall, while individuals from any profession should likely consider how sm membership and activity can impact their job and career, educators using sm, perhaps, run an even greater risk of sm behavior affecting their career because of the unique attributes of their profession. 1.2 impression management and the teaching profession after an extensive literature review, leary and kowalski (1990) suggested that impression management comprises a two-component model: impression motivation (“under certain circumstances, people become motivated to control how others see them.” p. 35) and impression construction (“once motivated to create certain impressions, people may alter their behaviors to affect others’ impressions of them.” p.35). 1.2.1 impression motivation arguably, educators are motivated to effectively manage the impression they create for several reasons. first, leary and kowalski (1990) argue that people are motivated to manage their impression when it relates to specific goals and to meet desired outcomes. for instance, individuals are more concerned with behaviors that afford more publicity and when “a person is dependent on others for valued www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. outcomes” (p. 38). the very nature of educators’ work involves an openness to the public and charges many stakeholders with the direction and decision-making of the profession: students, parents, community, and society as a whole. from these groups, many opinions are formed about acceptable educator behavior (weber & mitchell, 1995). possibly unlike other professions, educators must be equally concerned with managing impressions with superiors and subordinates. historically to present, educators have been charged with serving as role models for young people (lumpkin, 2008). in general, fair or not, this societal expectation holds educators to a much different, much higher standard than other professions (carter et al., 2008). this reality suggests that teachers may be motivated to impression manage not only as a result of personal goals but also by goals set by societal standards. finally, leary and kowalski (1990) suggest that individuals are motivated to change current perceived impressions to match how they desire to be perceived following an embarrassing incident, or to preemptively shape their image to prevent an embarrassing situation from occurring. overall, the specific realities of the education profession appear to create inherent motivators for professionals working in this field to effectively impression manage. at the same time, these impression management motivational factors still seem relevant in sm settings, as educators are often interacting with key stakeholders. 1.2.2 impression construction leary and kowalski (1990) suggest that five factors influence how individuals construct a specific impression: self-concept, desired and undesired identity images, role constraints, target values, and current or potential social image (see table 1). while many intrapersonal and interpersonal factors can impact how educators construct a specific impression, the specific affordances of sm (e.g., preservation of conversations and media, networking with others, treem & leonardi, 2013) potentially interact with these features to impact how educators are constructing a specific professional image. at the same time, unlike some of the impression motivators inherent to the education profession, how educators construct a specific impression is less clear, especially in sm settings. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. table 1. overview of leary & kowalski’s (1990) impression construction framework impression construction factor description self-concept individuals share aspects of themselves they value, aspects they believe will help create a specific impression, and aspects they believe are consistent with who they are desired and undesired identity images individuals impression-manage based on “how they would like to be and not be” role constraints specific social and professional roles come with expectations that influence the behavior of individuals assuming these roles target values individuals construct a specific self-image based on "perceived values and preferences of significant others” current or potential social image individuals construct impressions based on "how they think they are currently regarded by others and by how they think others may perceive them in the future” 2. purpose although educator sm usage continues to be viewed less critically and more pedagogically acceptable, over the years, many cases of educator missteps on sm have surfaced in news media coverage. fair or not, given the realities of their profession (e.g., being held to a higher standard than other professions; carter, foulger, & ewbank, 2008), educators must consider how social media conversations and interactions with friends, family, and colleagues can potentially have lasting professional consequences. therefore, the purpose of this research is to analyze cases of educators’ sm missteps as perceived by stakeholders and as presented in the news media. by focusing on the cases in the news media, we were able to identify sm behavior perceived as controversial and examine educators’ explanation of the sm activity being questioned. at this point, we feel compelled to note that the judgments made in the news media articles considered in this study do not reflect our own beliefs, and rather, our hope was to capture and analyze these cases so that a description of what is perceived as inappropriate teacher sm use could be constructed in order to consider impression construction. specifically, we used the following research questions to guide our investigation: • what types of educators’ social media usage related to impression construction are presented in news media as perceived missteps? • in cases of perceived educator social media missteps presented in news media, how did educators explain their social media usage? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. 3. method 3.1 research design we used an explanatory multiple-case study approach (baxter & jack, 2008; denzin & lincoln, 2011; yin, 2014). when locating examples of educators’ sm missteps, searches were conducted in multiple databases looking for news articles. these searches used the following key terms: 1) educator and synonymous terms (e.g., teacher), 2) social media and variations (e.g., social networking site, facebook, twitter), and 3) misconduct and related words (e.g., discipline). to locate additional cases, we also completed internet searches using the same search terms. cases were taken from multiple organizational websites, including news broadcasting, education associations, and newspaper sites. using cases from news sources provided an interesting way to consider the phenomenon of questionable sm usage by educators, as news media serve as a means for individuals to make sense of world events (entman, 1993) and offer a way for individuals to stay abreast on current topics (brossoie, roberto, & barrow, 2012). while news media present a perspective controlled by the individual or organization reporting the event and may or may not represent the educators’ full perspective, examining this viewpoint offers the opportunity to see how information is being presented to the public and impacting perceptions. 3.2 cases from the searches, 103 cases concerning educators’ sm missteps were identified, spanning 2006 to 2018. of the identified cases, 63 involved female educators; 36 involved male educators; in 3 cases, gender information was not provided in the story; and in 1 instance, the story focused on a group of male and female teachers. in cases where age information was available (n=26), educators ranged from 21 to 56 years old. perceived controversial behavior was present in several different sm applications: myspace (n=9), youtube (n=3), facebook (n=64), instagram (n=1), twitter (n=20), and snapchat (n=5) (one case was counted in both youtube and facebook, as both applications were involved). additionally, two cases involved the use of blogging and one involved a podcast. finally, the educators were employed in various professional roles, including teachers at various levels (e.g., preschool, elementary, middle school, high school), teaching aides, substitute teachers, school administrators, college professors, and administrative support. from our searches, there were three types of cases that surfaced that were not included in this investigation: 1) sm use that illuminated criminal behavior (e.g., an educational worker encouraged students to fight, videoed the incident, and posted the results on snapchat), 2) sm use that shared information about personal sexual orientation (e.g., a female teacher posted photos on facebook of marrying her wife and was fired), and 3) sm use involving an educator created by someone else (e.g., a friend posted photos on facebook of a teacher at a bachelorette party, a student videoed a teacher and shared the results on sm). while related in some aspects, these cases represent a type of sm use that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. did not fit our investigation. 3.3 data analysis once a case was located, key aspects of the incidence were recorded. first, if available, basic demographics of the educator were identified (e.g., job title, gender, location of incidence, age at the time of the incidence). second, rationale for the news media coverage action was captured, including specific quotes taken from the sm site (e.g., teacher posted racy pictures on facebook). third, when provided in the news account, the response or defense of the educator was also gathered (e.g., “i wasn’t doing anything illegal.”). fourth, if provided, the action that instigated the investigation into the educator’s sm profile was documented (e.g., administrators received a complaint from a student). finally, the specific disciplinary action taken by school administration was recorded (e.g., teacher was dismissed). themes were established based on quotes from each news story of the alleged behavior and used to frame the questionable behavior being featured in the media. after both research questions were considered, leary and kowalski’s (1990) five factors for impression construction were matched against identified themes in order to gain a deeper understanding of the events and frame a discussion on the topic. overall, in this research, two aspects needed consideration in order to gain a full understanding for how educators experienced news media coverage as a result of their perceived-questionable sm behavior: 1) types of behaviors leading to publicity or discipline and 2) explanations of events enabling these behaviors. 4. results in over a third of the cases (n=39), data were available as to how administrators uncovered the questionable sm activity. sm behavior was observed and/or reported by parents, students, colleagues, community members, and law enforcement. based on the reported behaviors, educators faced a range of actions following the perceived questionable event: investigation, administrative leave or suspension, termination, resignation, and reassignment. in some cases, even though the news media reported the case of the questionable sm usage, the educator received no formal disciplinary action. in addition to these basic findings, several themes and sub-themes were identified. 4.1 what types of educators’ social media usage related to impression construction are presented in news media as perceived missteps? using key quotations from the news stories, four themes emerged as to how educators’ sm usage was being presented as impression construction missteps in the news media: 1) sm behavior sharing personal or social interests or activities, 2) sm discourse about key stakeholder groups, 3) sm discourse with key stakeholder groups, and 4) sm usage sharing personal beliefs. while many of the cases contained only one of these themes, in eighteen cases, educators’ sm usage crossed into two or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. three of these areas. table 2 provides an overview of the themes mapped to specific sources. 4.1.1 sm behavior sharing personal or social interests or activities the publicized cases (n=31) documenting sm behavior sharing personal or social interests or activities highlighted a range of behaviors: sharing comments or pictures (e.g., oneself, a friend, or memes) that were sexual in nature or considered offensive; using profanity or language viewed as inappropriate (e.g., referring to women as whores see lehmert, 2007); and discussing or using alcohol or marijuana. for instance, in one case, a high school teacher resigned after being confronted about a picture on her facebook page showing her holding alcohol (melancon, 2009). in another case, a middle school teacher was placed on administrative leave after posting a picture of herself on facebook looking down the barrel of a gun (associated press, 2009). in other instances, educators sharing their personal hobbies received media attention (e.g., writing sexual poetry, simpson, 2013; naked artistic photos, may, 2006; painting with buttocks, calos, 2008; pole dancing, norwood, 2018). finally, in one instance, a teacher shared details about her thanksgiving vacation after she had called in sick the day before and after the holiday (edelman, 2012a). unlike the other cases in this theme, which seem to indicate behaviors not meeting a specific societal standard, this individual’s sm usage was perceived as dishonest in nature. 4.1.2 sm discourse about key stakeholder groups in some cases (n=42), educators’ sm usage focused on stakeholder groups. in several instances, news media shared stories of educators expressing dislike of students (e.g., “i hate my students.” helms, 2008), referring to their students using unflattering terms (e.g., “dumb” special ed teacher’s “dumb” comments spark outrage, 2011; “devil’s spawn” newman, 2013; “rude” rourke, 2011), sharing students’ work and feelings about student work and choices (e.g., dreading listening to specific students’ presentations, edelman, 2012b; failed students for not standing during the pledge of allegiance, dowdy, 2017), and posting pictures of their students with commentary (e.g., mocking a student’s hairstyle, teacher mocked student’s "jolly rancher" hairdo on facebook, 2011; sharing a video of a crying student, wichita teacher accused of cyber-bullying child no longer in classroom, 2018). in florida, in a facebook post, an elementary music teacher described one of her students as being “the evolutionary link between orangutans and humans,” while revealing the initials of the boy (duerson, 2012). in another case, a middle school math teacher shared that she had found a way to keep her students quiet along with a picture of her students with tape on their mouths (lopez, 2013). additionally, the cases in news media focused on other stakeholder groups: parents (e.g., a high school science teacher made fun of a parent, menno, 2012), community members (e.g., a high school science and math coordinator referred to community residents as “snobby and arrogant,” heussner & fahmy, 2010; a high school art teacher created caricatures of community members, hines-dochterman, 2009), and school officials (e.g., a student teacher discussed challenges with her host teacher, judge sides with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. university against student-teacher with “drunken pirate” photo, 2008; a middle school teacher shared concerns about administrators handling a threat of violence, gray, 2018). 4.1.3 sm discourse with key stakeholder groups in six cases, news media focused on education personnel’s communication with students, describing the interactions as “inappropriate” (lindner, 2011) and “overly familiar” (neurburger, 2008). in one case, a professor and student argued about a quiz question in a facebook discussion (ohm, 2017), and in another case, an educator was reported as awarding students bonus points for friending him on facebook (chiaramonte & gonen, 2010). finally, a school social media manager was terminated after correcting a student’s misspelled word in a tweet (e.g., …but then how would you learn how to spell “tomorrow”?, cerullo, 2017). 4.1.4 sm usage sharing personal beliefs the type of educator sm usage most often covered by news media focused on cases where educators shared their personal beliefs (n=42). the sharing of these beliefs often focused on heated topics (e.g., lgbt rights, gun legislation, election results, immigration) and typically came following a specific political, news, or school event. for instance, during brett kavanaugh’s hearing to become a supreme court justice, news stories covered educators’ sm usage on both sides of the controversy. on one side of the issue, a middle school teacher tweeted against kavanaugh’s confirmation: “so whose [sic] gonna take one for the team and kill kavanaugh?” (correll, 2018). on the other side of the issue, a university dean created a tweet doubting one of kavanaugh’s accusers (anderson, 2018). in response to the ongoing immigration issue in the u.s., a group of elementary teachers dressed up as mexicans and a border wall for halloween (vagianos, 2018). in other cases, educators created sm posts following a school event. for example, responding to a school display featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender topics, a high school special education teacher posted that “homosexuality is a perverted spirit that has existed from the beginning of creation” (hu, 2011). in indiana, in a facebook post, a middle school teacher shared a standardized test question she believed to be politically motivated (associated press, 2009). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. table 2. research question 1 themes theme examples mapped cases sm behavior sharing personal or social interests or activities • using profanity or alcohol • discussing sexually-related content • sharing revealing pictures • making jokes deemed inappropriate • posting about personal hobbies that were considered unacceptable associated press, 2009; calos, 2008; edelman, 2012a; fitzroy, 2007; helms, 2008b; hines-dochterman, 2009; horvath & bushouse, 2008; judge sides with university against student-teacher with “drunken pirate” photo, 2008; kent, 2017; kim, 2012; klein, 2013; lehmert, 2007; leibowitz, 2013; may, 2006; melancon, 2009; menno, 2012; neuburger, 2008; norwood, 2018; shapira, 2008; simpson, 2013 sm discourse about key stakeholder groups • posting pictures of stakeholders • using language that was critical of stakeholders • sharing examples of students’ work • documenting classroom events associated press, 2008; de bruijn, 2017; dowdy, 2017; duerson, 2012; edelman, 2012a; edelman, 2012b; fahmy, 2010; gray, 2018; helms, 2008; heussner & fahmy, 2010; hines-dochterman, 2009; hoover, 2017; horvath & bushouse, 2008; ingersoll, 2017; is it legal?, 2010; judge sides with university against student-teacher with “drunken pirate” photo, 2008; kent, 2017; kim, 2012; livingston, 2014; lopez, 2013; mason, 2017; memrick, 2012; menno, 2012; mitchell, 2018; montoya, 2018; newman, 2013; romain, 2017; rourke, 2011; school employee posts video disparaging students with autism, 2018; shapira, 2008; shreve, 2017; simpson, 2013; special ed teacher’s “dumb” comments spark outrage, 2011; suskin, 2012; taft, 2016; teacher mocked student’s “jolly rancher” hairdo on facebook, 2011; teacher suspended for fb comments www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. about kindergartners, 2012; townes, 2011; verges, 2016; waller, 2017; wichita teacher accused of cyber-bullying child no longer in classroom, 2018 sm discourse with key stakeholder groups • offering extra credit to students who connected via social media • communicating with students in ways that were considered inappropriate • disagreeing with students over classroom experiences • correcting a student’s misspelled word cerullo, 2017; chiaramonte & gonen, 2008; edelman, 2012a; hines-dochterman, 2009; lindner, 2011; neuburger, 2008; ohm, 2017 sm usage sharing personal beliefs • sharing remarks about religious or politic beliefs in ways viewed as inappropriate • posting a standardized test question with a political interpretation • discussing specific groups of people in ways viewed as unacceptable • sharing memes with political messages anderson, 2018; bishop, 2012; chiquillo, 2018; correll, 2018; dowdy, 2017; edelman, 2012b; ford, 2015; fowler, 2017; gallman, 2014; gill, 2018; grand prairie counselor fired after facebook comment; gray, 2017; hall, 2016; hayes, 2008; hernandez, 2018; hoover, 2017; hu, 2011; ingersoll, 2017; is it legal?, 2010; koppel, 2011; light, 2018; light, 2018; mangan, 2018; mcneill, 2017; mettler, 2016; miles, 2017; mitchell, 2018; morrison, 2016; nash, 2017; ohio teacher’s post-election facebook rant calls out jay-z fans, communists, muslims for obama reelection; ortega, 2018; parke, 2018; romain, 2017; schmidt, 2017; slodysko, 2017; suskin, 2012; taft, 2016; vagianos, 2018; wootson & svrluga, 2018; zhao, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. 4.1.5 interaction of themes in eighteen cases, multiple themes were present in the news media story. for instance, in one case, an art teacher’s facebook use was viewed as including inappropriate communications with students and posts about recognizable community members (hines-dochterman, 2009). however, in some instances themes were present in a single post. a middle school teacher upset with president obama’s reelection shared the following message integrating personal beliefs with discourse about a key stakeholder group: “congrats obama. as one of my students sang down the hallway, ‘we get to keep our fooood stamps’...which i pay for because they can't budget their money...and really, neither can you” (suskin, 2012). 4.2 in cases of perceived educator social media missteps presented in news media, how did educators explain their social media usage? in a little over half of the cases (n=56), the educators’ perspective on the sm usage covered in news media was available. using significant statements from the educators or an individual representing the educators (e.g., lawyer), six themes emerged from the reasons that educators gave for the highlighted sm usage: 1) staying within legal boundaries, 2) viewing sm as a personal social space, 3) experiencing privacy and security issues with sm, 4) misjudging the impact of a sm post, 5) taking a stand on a topic perceived as important, and 6) responding to being victimized. in some instances, educators used a combination of these responses to explain their sm activity. table 3 provides an overview of themes mapped to specific sources. 4.2.1 staying within legal boundaries some educators explained the sm usage captured by news media was within their legal rights or a case of freedom of expression or religion (n=12) and defended their sm activity by sharing they “had not broken the law” (judge sides with university against student-teacher with “drunken pirate” photo, 2008; melancon, 2009). also, some explained that they were expressing themselves for many reasons: personal beliefs and ideology, truth, and personal passions. for instance, a florida history teacher posted his personal reaction on facebook after watching a news report on the legalization of same-sex marriage in new york. he was very open about his religious beliefs and defended his facebook posts by saying, “there's a thing in this country called the first amendment. i firmly believe in the right to express my opinions passionately” (koppel, 2011). in a different case involving facebook, a north carolina teacher described her school in the following way: “i am teaching in the most ghetto school in charlotte” (helms, 2008). after facing disciplinary action, her legal representative explained that based on statistics of the student population, the statement was an accurate representation of the school (associated press, 2008). in other instances, educators felt very passionate on a subject (e.g., heated topic, hobby, art form) and wanted to share their interest with others. in response to receiving media attention for concern over a pole dancing video, an elementary teacher shared, “i can’t change www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. everyone’s perception of pole dancing or me, but i do like that it is getting the attention it deserves” (norwood, 2018). table 3. research question 2 themes theme description mapped cases staying within legal boundaries educators felt that their sm activity did not break the law (e.g., 1st amendment rights) associated press, 2008; calos, 2008; fitzroy, 2007; ford, 2015; hu, 2011; judge sides with university against student-teacher with “drunken pirate” photo, 2008; mangan, 2018; may, 2006; melancon, 2009; neuburger, 2008; norwood, 2018; wootson & svrluga, 2018 viewing sm as a personal social space educators viewed their sm activity as an extension of their personal life, not their professional life melancon, 2009; kim, 2012; heussner & fahmy, 2010; fahmy, 2010; hu, 2011; edelman, 2012b; menno, 2012; edelman, 2012a; lopez, 2013; klein, 2013; ford, 2015; gray, 2017; montoya, 2018; shapira, 2008 experiencing privacy and security issues with sm educators 1) were unaware that their sm activity was open to the public, 2) thought that using sm privacy settings was enough to control access, or 3) suggested that their sm account had been hacked melancon, 2009; is it legal?, 2010; heussner & fahmy, 2010; fahmy, 2010; memrick, 2012; menno, 2012; lopez, 2013; fowler, 2017; horvath & bushouse, 2008; shapira, 2008; grand prairie counselor fired after facebook comment, 2013; chiquillo, 2018; shapira, 2008 misjudging the impact of a sm post educators expressed regret for their sm activity bishop, 2012; newman, 2013; suskin, 2012; edelman, 2012b; menno, 2012; associated press, 2009; lopez, 2013; horvath & bushouse, 2008; gallman, 2014; wichita teacher accused of cyber-bullying child no longer in classroom, 2018; shapira, 2008 taking a stand on a topic perceived as important educators felt compelled to share their opinion on a topic they believed needed rodriguez & comas, 2011; rourke, 2011; dowdy, 2017; schmidt, 2017; romain, 2017; ingersoll, 2017; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. consideration gray, 2018; verges, 2016; cerullo, 2017 responding to being victimized educators reacted to feeling harmed by others is it legal?, 2010; townes, 2011; neuburger, 2008; gallman, 2014 4.2.2 viewing sm as a personal social space educators also suggested that they viewed their sm postings as a personal or social space, not related to their professional life (n=19). for instance, educators explained that their highlighted usage was intended as a joke or had been misinterpreted. an early-childhood educator in california shared that she was only trying to “get laughs” from a snapchat video she shared of a student (montoya, 2018). in several instances, the sm postings in question were the result of venting following a frustrating event at school (e.g., a way for “blowing off steam”, edelman, 2012a). one elementary principal’s response covers this sentiment: “that's my personal stuff and i don't think i need to explain it” (klein, 2013). 4.2.3 experiencing privacy and security issues with sm some educators stated that they were either unaware that the general public had access to their sm activity or had used privacy settings to limit access to their sm profiles to specific individuals (n=18). in a couple of instances, educators also shared that they were hacked and claimed someone else posted from their account (fowler, 2017; grand prairie counselor fired after facebook comment, 2013). finally, in one instance, a teacher claimed that a tweet in question was generated from a website: “evidently, when i clicked a link to read a post, somehow a tweet got reposted as me” (chiquillo, 2018). 4.2.4 misjudging the impact of a sm post in some cases, educators believed that they made a mistake in the publicized sm post (n=13). in these cases, they shared that they used poor judgment. one remorseful high school math teacher shared the following statement after her sm activity was captured in news media: “i made some remarks that were against my better judgement (sic) and sensibilities. i now wish i hadn't. anyone who has known me for any time should know that the last thing i want to do is to hurt anyone. i apologize for what i said and sincerely wish to avoid this in the future.” (zhao, 2018). 4.2.5 taking a stand on a topic perceived as important in some instances (n=9), educators felt moved to share their perspective on a topic. for instance, after a controversial tweet about barbara bush’s death, a professor in california, shared that she “felt compelled to speak up because i want people to remember history” (wootson, & svrluga, 2018). similarly, the same florida history teacher mentioned in the “staying within legal boundaries” theme also shared the following sentiment about his controversial sm activity: “if i did not stand up for my www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. rights after telling my students to stand up for their rights then i would be a hypocrite” (rodriguez & comas, 2011). in another case, a middle school teacher posted about rumored threats of violence on facebook after feeling concerned that school administrators “chose not to notify parents of a threat that was being investigated” (gray, 2018). in other cases, educators described societal problems (rourke, 2011; verges, 2016), expressed a desire to stay true to individual beliefs (schmidt, 2017), stood up for a student (romain, 2017), and wanted to teach students a lesson (dowdy, 2017). 4.2.6 responding to being victimized in a few cases, teachers explained that their questionable sm usage was a result of unjust treatment (n=4). a north carolina middle school science teacher believed that she was the victim of a hate crime after students left a bible and jesus postcard on her desk (is it legal?, 2010). in another case, a high school teacher in connecticut felt the consequences of his myspace use were a result of being “treated differently than his colleagues in violation of the u.s. constitution's equal protection clause” (neuburger, 2008). finally, in two instances, teachers shared that their perceived questionable sm activity was a reaction to specific events (e.g., constant disruptions from her students and being hit by one, townes, 2011; “a series of threatening and racist attacks,” gallman, 2014). 5. discussion and implications the purpose of this research was to analyze the dynamics of impression construction for educators in documented sm cases perceived as controversial. from these cases, we were able to create a description of educators’ sm impression construction missteps in order to understand these situations more deeply. findings reveal that stakeholders questioned sm usage related to sharing personal or social interests and activities, discourse about key stakeholder groups, discourse with key stakeholder groups, and sharing personal beliefs. at the same time, educators saw sm use as a way to communicate freedom of expression, interact in a personal social space, to share opinions and mistreatments, and as a space where privacy was not totally considered, and misjudgments are sometimes made. in general, impression construction is complex as there are several influential factors impacting individuals’ decisions and behaviors, and sm create conflicting motivations when dealing with these impression construction factors. in short, in an online environment, impression construction becomes much more complex for several reasons. first, sm capture, emphasize, and preserve inconsistencies between personal and societal professional standards and private, sometimes emotional, moments. second, sm create a medium where sometimes public and private audiences are constantly colliding, creating interactions with stakeholders with differing values. third, lack of sm technical knowledge and desires to be perceived in specific ways can impact techniques used to segment behavior, which leaves individuals at greater risk of misrepresentation of self. finally, as a result of complex sm interactions, individuals’ ability to present themselves in a way that meets audience expectations likely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. impacts other aspects of their lives. 5.1 self-concept colliander (2019) defined self-concept as “an individual's collection of beliefs about him or herself, generally answering the question of ‘who am i’?” (p. 203). in the cases highlighted in this study, the sm environment produced a complex environment for educators to create an effective digital self-concept. on one hand, educators expressed specific beliefs and then defended their posts by emphasizing self-expression rights or a need to share their perspective. these cases suggest that individuals are sharing aspects of themselves they feel are consistent with who they are and emphasize beliefs they value. on the other hand, some educators suggested that their posts were a result of a misjudgment or were seen by an unintended audience. while this finding remains consistent with sm creating overlap among distinct “regions” (goffman, 1959; marwick & boyd, 2011), possibly, this also suggests that, in these cases, the digital self-concept educators constructed was not equivalent to the face-to-face self-concept that they had previously constructed. in either case, sm amplified the educators’ actions, beliefs, and behaviors. although research is mixed on the relationship between educators’ sm use and students’ perceptions of their credibility (see coffelt, strayhorn, & tilson, 2014; mazer, murphy, & simonds, 2009), self-disclosure (e.g., sharing personal information that would likely remain unknown, coffelt et al., 2014) on sm becomes an important aspect in creating a digital self-concept, and this self-concept impacts the impression created with stakeholders. at the same time, research indicates that many factors influence how individuals choose to disclose on sm: personal attributes (e.g., self-esteem, openness, intent of sm use, hollenbaugh & ferris, 2015), the affordances of a specific sm application (e.g., twitter versus facebook, choi & bazarova, 2015), and the structure of the sm network that has been created (e.g., “people who have greater need for emotional expression may develop denser networks, and those who have greater need for impression management may construct larger networks,” p. 347, lin, tov, & qiu, 2014). findings in this study suggest that how educators decided to share information (e.g., perceived tone, language choice) and what information educators chose to share (e.g., personal beliefs, personal hobbies) were key to the self-concept being created and influencing stakeholders’ perceptions of these self-concepts. whether the educators in the highlighted cases had reflected on their self-concept and how this compares across face-to-face settings and digital settings is unclear. while self-disclosures might be more easily managed in face-to-face interactions, dedicating effort towards being intentional with disclosures in online settings and attempting to maintain consistency with one’s self-concept could potentially lead to stronger impression construction. unlike face-to-face settings, sm afford users, if they so choose, the opportunity to thoughtfully create messages in line with their self-concept (archer, christofides, nosko, & wood, 2015; walther, 2011). the key then, is to take advantage of sm www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. affordances to create a desired digital self-concept when interacting with stakeholders versus becoming victim to other sm affordances that amplify a lack of intentionality. 5.2 desired and undesired identity images although leary and kowalski (1990) argued that how individuals construct an impression can be influenced by “how they would like to be and not be” perceived (p. 40), whether educators were always fully considering how their sm usage could be perceived is unclear. for instance, in the cases considered in this analysis, many educators were using sm with a false or an unreal sense of privacy, as they never could truly be certain who is actually viewing their information—basically creating a loss of control of a desired or undesired identity and resulting in creating an image that does not necessarily align with all interacting audiences. a middle school social studies teacher’s twitter use highlights the challenges of controlling sm interactions: the teacher’s account was private, and news media “obtained screenshots of the tweets” (gill, 2018). in other words, although the teacher had limited access to his sm activity, this did not guarantee privacy or protection. privacy in a digital age creates an interesting challenge for users, as many express “a strong desire for privacy”, while failing to use “mechanisms to protect personal information” (archer et al., 2015, p. 301). “privacy has been thought of primarily as either a process of regulating interpersonal boundaries (altman, 1975) or as the management of one’s information (westin, 1967)” (archer et al., 2015, p. 305). changes in applications’ privacy settings and policy (smith, 2019), security glitches within a sm application (tsukayama, 2018), and fake news regarding privacy (mikkelson, 2012) further complicate an individual’s ability to manage his or her information. at the same time, research indicates users’ decisions related to sm privacy are influenced by several factors (e.g., trust in a sm provider, perceived social benefits, perceived impression management affordances, perceived trustworthiness of sm peers, proudfoot, wilson, valacich, & byrd, 2018). finally, archer et al. (2015) suggests that “many of the decisions people make in regards to their privacy are largely impulsive or unplanned” (p. 305). taking into consideration the results of this investigation in light of previous research provides educators guidance as to how to manage their sm in a way that aligns with effective impression construction. while sm privacy settings can certainly improve control over impression construction, one lesson learned from this research is that taking advantage of sm privacy settings is not sufficient with impression construction, as educators can never be sure who is viewing their profiles and communications. with awareness of sm settings and using privacy settings, educators can gain some control over how others post information to their personal pages and how others share any content that they create. at the same time, treating sm sites as public places, where interactions with any key stakeholder group are possible can help reduce a false sense of privacy. additionally, to potentially mitigate future problems, when crafting a post, educators should consider “the information to be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. revealed, the relationship within which the disclosure is to take place, the context, and the potential risks and benefits” (archer et al., 2015, p. 305). finally, educators should be careful with posting during emotionally vulnerable times, when discussing stakeholders, and when communicating with stakeholders. considering other outlets for venting or reacting to heated topics can be useful. 5.3 role constraints as discussed previously, society places specific behavioral expectations on educators. in the cases considered in this investigation, at least three different situations related to role constraints led to the sm usage covered by news media. in the first two situations, educators viewed the impression they created on sm separate from the impression they created in professional and face-to-face settings. on one hand, in some cases, individuals expressed that their sm activity being questioned was a mistake, not an accurate representation of their true identity, and did not align with their professional persona. on the other hand, some educators believed that their sm use being questioned did not need an explanation and should be viewed separately from any professional expectations. in the third instance, by using sm, society was given insight into educator behaviors that would not otherwise be possible and could magnify educators’ images that already existed. overall, some educators in these cases seemed to overlook, disregard, or challenge the high standard to which society holds them, leaving them at risk for self-presentation that was inconsistent with societal standards. evolving from their original purpose, sm are continually being used for educational purposes, creating a space that generates discourse between learners and educators (meabon bartow, 2014). at the same time, while educators have commonly been held to a higher standard and almost forced into being role models, using sm for educational purposes creates a new dynamic for educator roles: challenging “prevailing constructions of school, of teachers and students, and of teaching and learning” (meabon bartow, 2014, p. 37). for instance, in addition to the many expectations placed on educators, some are looking to them to fulfill additional roles. farrow and moe (2019) suggest that through the use of tools like sm that come with inherent openness, educators can address post-truth narratives and prepare students to effectively evaluate the validity of claims being made. undoubtedly, with these evolving educator roles, many considerations are necessary when using sm for educational purposes (nathan, macgougan, & shaffer, 2014). perhaps, in some of the highlighted cases, educators simplified sm’s role in society, its role in their professional life, and the interaction between these roles; failed to take into account the changing realities of teaching in the age of sm; or were reluctant to embrace an additional responsibility to an already demanding profession. although educators may have established skills when interacting with key stakeholder groups in face-to-face settings, sm complicate these interactions, and utilizing sm requires a different skillset, as educators are potentially interacting with key stakeholder groups, close friends, family members, and strangers simultaneously and in a medium that is in some aspects www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 19 published by scholink inc. unforgiving. analyzing the cases reveals that the educators being disciplined or publicized could strengthen the impression they are constructing with sm and refine skills for effectively managing interactions with diverse simultaneous audiences. at the same time, as sm continue to be used for educational purposes, educators should consider how sm change these established roles. these are important findings as they can inform policy for acceptable use, guide the education of users, and build awareness among educators. 5.4 target values in sm environments, educators build networks of people, including individuals whose beliefs often align with their personal beliefs and individuals whose opinions they value. at the same time, posts educators craft on sm are likely influenced, both positively and negatively, by these individuals within their network—that is, potentially, educators post to gain compassion or attention from others in their network, as they believe others share similar beliefs or might offer support after an upsetting experience. however, as a public figure working with stakeholders with diverse beliefs, sharing similar values as everyone with which they interact is unlikely, and sm bring to light these differences. additionally, seeking support via sm is likely not the best strategy for educators feeling victimized. shakya and christakis (2017) compared facebook users’ responses to perceived well-being with specific use measures (e.g., “the number of times in their history of facebook use that they had clicked ‘like’ on someone else’s content,” “the number of links they had clicked in the past 30 days, the number of times they had updated their status in the past 30 days”). they found that with increased facebook use, individuals’ well-being decreased, suggesting that viewing others’ posts impacted how they perceived themselves. colliander (2019) explored how individuals’ handled fake news on facebook and found that “the comments and actions of other users in social media can indeed affect the reactions to, and spread of, fake news online” (p. 205). in a similar vein, chakraborty, vishik, and rao (2013) found that what “older adults” disclosed on facebook was influenced by sharing habits of online friends. in short, how an individual interacts with others and information within an sm environment can influence how they share information and possibly how they decide to share their own beliefs. perhaps, some of the perceived questionable sm behaviors in this study were a result of these influences, and possibly, educators are not aware of how these interactions influence their values and the sharing of these values in a public space like sm. dedicating some time reflecting on personal motivations behind sm activity could generate increased awareness and lead to stronger impression construction decisions. also, seeking support after a harmful event in ways other than sm would be more effective. 5.5 current or potential social image leary and kowalski (1990) contend that “people are reluctant to present themselves in ways that are inconsistent with the information others have about them” (p. 42) and that “being perceived in certain www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 20 published by scholink inc. ways also entitles people to claim certain images” (p. 42). yet, in some instances, the educators in the cases considered in this study seemed to do just that—that is, they presented themselves in a way that was inconsistent with how others were perceiving them. at the same time, perhaps being an educator entitled these individuals to an image that they may not have personally claimed, rather society decided for them. educators’ professional identity has been defined as an ever-changing “process of negotiating the teacher-self in relation to personal and emotional experiences” (zembylas & chubbuck, 2015, p. 174). this process is quite complex without involving sm, and with the inclusion of sm, personal and professional identities can become further entangled (carpenter, kimmons, short, clement, & staples, 2019). while there have been calls for careful, ethical use of sm by professionals in many fields (see o'regan, smithson, & spain, 2018), perhaps these analyses do not embrace the complexity involved. for instance, after analyzing educator twitter profiles and activity, carpenter et al. (2019) found that while educators’ accounts did “reflect non-professional identities” related to family, politics, and religion, overall use maintained a “professional focus.” while educators’ reluctance to discuss hot topics might suggest effective management of audience interaction, possibly, this overprotectiveness stifles the sharing of one’s identity. at the same time, by “openly disclosing their personal views on controversial issues in ways that model appropriate civic dispositions,” educators could possibly serve in a role they are often expected to (carpenter et al., 2019). as professional identity relates to educators’ success (carpenter et al., 2019), teacher educators should facilitate pre-service teachers’ reflection on the professional identity they are creating and the role sm play in this process. at the same time, facilitating discussions on respectfully and effectively discussing beliefs connected to identity could help pre-service teachers develop strategies for sharing personal truths. practicing educators can complete a self-evaluation of their sm use to see how it aligns with their professional identity. 6. conclusion the findings from this investigation capture the complexity involved with impression construction in an ever-digital world. several influential factors impact individuals’ decisions and behaviors, and sm use creates conflicting motivations when dealing with these impression construction factors: 1) societal expectations placed on educators and professional norms generated for educators, 2) sm affordances that prompt disclosure and an amplification of private life, without mechanisms capable of protecting privacy, and 3) the negotiation of teacher roles given contemporary realities. with so much content generated on sm applications, dismissing much of what is said may be an easy option for consideration. however, research indicates content generated and shared via sm matters and can influence societal understanding (gruzd, jacobsen, wellman, & mai, 2017). the cases considered in this investigation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 21 published by scholink inc. highlighted a diverse set of sm interactions, behaviors, content, and decisions. perhaps, this diversity indicates that all sm use is not equal, yet gets measured by the same mechanisms, suggesting a reevaluation of the societal norms placed on educators may be in order. simultaneously, fair or not, what educators say has the power to be more impactful than other sm users in some instances. while some educators’ sm usage has been sensationalized in news media as controversial, arguably, these cases are not the norm. in the u.s., in k-12 education, there are over 3 million teachers and 90,000 administrators (riser-kositsky, 2019). while in post-secondary education, there are more than a million teachers or professors and 180,000 administrators (bureau of labor statistics, 2019a, 2019b). at the same time, approximately 70% of american adults are sm users (pew research center, 2019). the cases considered in this investigation represent a small percentage of total educator sm use. many educators successfully use sm without generating negative perceptions from stakeholders or at least not at a level that is brought to the attention of news media. the message from this research then is not that there is an epidemic of poor impression construction among educators. rather, the point is that consideration should be given when creating an intentional digital impression in a field where stakeholder perspectives are diverse, influential, and pervasive. references *anderson, n. 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(2018, sep 11). louisiana teacher claims black people “act like animals” in misspelled facebook post about kaepernick. newsweek. retrieved from https://www.newsweek.com/school-teacher-claims-black-people-act-animals-misspelled-facebook -post-about-1115271 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 33 published by scholink inc. note note 1. *indicates cases that were analyzed as a part of this study. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 37 original paper the social technology of the book publishing in modern chinese libraries: taking the laws and regulations at that time as an example wang xirong 1* & yi yu tongxin 2 1 library, university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai, china 2 college of publishing, university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai, china * wang xirong, library, university of shanghai for science and technology, shanghai, china received: may 12, 2024 accepted: may 20, 2024 online published: may 28, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n1p37 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n1p37 abstract the book publishing of modern chinese libraries is a socio-technical interaction network (stin), which, together with other stin, forms a larger stin. on the basis of describing the laws and regulations related to libraries and publishing in modern china, this paper constructs and analyzes the stin of book publishing in modern chinese libraries, and point out that these laws and regulations are a kind of “social technology”, that is, the social elements of this network; it, along with other social elements and various natural technological elements, constitutes the “broad technology” of book publishing in modern chinese libraries. keywords modern chinese libraries, social technology, broad technology, book publishing, socio-technical interaction network (stin) 1. introduction “broad technology” refers to the collective of various methods that are effective in all human activities, including “natural technology” and “social technology” (shen, 2015, p. 34). natural technology, also known as narrow technology, is a technology that people usually understand; social technology involves fields such as politics, economy, law, management, military, discipline, and governance in human society (yang & wang, 2003; leibetseder, 2011). “library publishing” is a new type of service launched by domestic and foreign libraries or intelligence agencies in recent years. it is an open access publishing model based on academic exchange, knowledge sharing, and innovative development as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 38 published by scholink inc. philosophies, using relevant technological means and library network platforms. however, in the long history of human libraries, the publication of paper books in libraries has been around for a long time. for example, the library of the british museum (now the main predecessor of the british library) has published a collection of books, news announcements, internal documents and other paper materials for over 420 years. the earliest publication of libraries in the united states can be traced back to the late 19th or early 20th century, when the earliest academic publishing departments were established in university libraries in the united states, and later, many of them developed into university publishers. book publishing in the history of chinese library industry is no exception, and there is also a tradition of paper book printing. before modern times, some literati in china tried their best to publish their manuscripts or rare classics by spreading culture and preserving literature (wang, 1991). in modern times, from the beginning of the 20th century to the establishment of the people‟s republic of china, libraries not only provided conventional circulation, reading and other services, but also inherited the business of printing and publishing books from the past. that is to say, libraries also used their own advantages to carry out unique book publishing activities. the literature search results also confirmed that a considerable number of various books were published in modern chinese libraries between 1900 and 1949, with at least 1700 records retrieved (excluding the records of the hanfen building/涵芬楼 attached to the commercial press). the book publishing of modern chinese libraries and the digital publishing launched by libraries today are both services. both publishing and service cannot do without broad technology: natural technology and social technology. after briefly introducing the laws and regulations at that time, based on the conceptual model of the socio-technical interaction network (stin), we will construct and analyze the book publishing of modern chinese libraries. 2. laws and regulations related to libraries in modern china in the second year of the xuantong (宣统) reign (1910), the qing government promulgated the first law of the chinese library industry, “the ministry of education drafted the regulations for the circulation of libraries in the capital and various provinces” (《学部奏拟定京师及各省图书馆通行章程折》) (article 19). although this charter is far from the spirit of modern western public libraries, its content almost covers all aspects of the library, such as book acquisition, book cataloging, reading management, library architecture, and publication of collection resources. articles 8, 12, and 15 respectively stipulate that “if there is an invention that is worthy of academic qualification examination, it shall be photographed, printed, and recorded by the library”; “the beijing and provincial libraries may have printing and printing offices attached. if there are isolated collections of secret books, they should be copied and distributed at any time”; “the testament and version... if the private owner refuses to sell it, it should also be lent out, printed, photographed, and recorded separately (department of library science in hebei university, 1985, pp. 3-4). the books publication of library in this regulation was the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 39 published by scholink inc. main legal basis for the publishing books in library at that time. after entering the republic of china, on october 23, 1915, the ministry of education requested the president of the republic of china to publish the “library regulation” (《图书馆规程》) (11 articles) and the “popular library regulation” (《通俗图书馆规程》) (11 articles). these two regulations were the guidelines for establishing libraries in various regions at that time and had a great impact on the modern library industry in china (jin, 1928). after the nanjing national government came to power, it also successively promulgated laws and regulations related to libraries, including “library rule” (图书 馆条例》) (15 articles) and “rule on the submission of newly issued books” (《新出图书呈缴条例》) (4 articles) announced by the university institute (大学院) on december 20, 1927, “regulation on the submission of newly issued books” (《新出图书呈缴规程》) (6 articles), “library regulation” (《图 书馆规程》) (14 articles), and “measures for the registration of private libraries” (《私立图书馆立案 办法》) (3 articles) announced by the ministry of education on march 28, may 10, and october 16, 1930, as well as the “revised library regulation” (《修正图书馆规程》) (33 articles), “outline of library work” (《图书馆工作大纲》) (18 articles) and “outline of measures for library guidance on book education in local social education institutions” (《图书馆辅导各地社会教育机关图书教育办 法大纲》) (15 articles), announced by the ministry of education on july 22, july 24, and november 4, 1939, successively. “the organizational rule of the national central library” (《国立中央图书馆组织 条例》) (14 articles, revised in october 1945) promulgated by the national government on october 16, 1940, and on february 24, june 3 and december 15, 1941, the ministry of education successively issued the “measures for popularizing national library education” (《普及全国图书馆教育办法》) (15 articles, revised twice on december 21, 1943 and november 22, 1944), “measures for setting up libraries (rooms) for public reading in schools and organs at all levels” (《各级学校及各机关设置 图书馆（室）供应民众阅览办法》) (9 articles), “measures for setting up patrol libraries in county (city) libraries” (《县（市）立图书馆设置巡回文库办法》) (16 articles), “implementation measures for library work” (《图书馆工作实施办法》) (11 articles) issued by the ministry of education on march 10, 1944, and “library regulations” (《图书馆规程》) (34 articles) announced by the ministry of education on april 1, 1947. in addition, there are also some indirect laws related to the libraries. for example, in 1920, the ministry of internal affairs of the beijing government instructed all county libraries to “search for all public and private collections, as well as old engraved books, plates, and printed materials...” the main purpose of this law by the ministry of internal affairs was to revitalize china‟s culture (yang, 1923, pp. 464-465). during the period of the republic of china, some local governments actively promoted legislation and promulgated some local laws and regulations on library, such as “regulation on popular libraries” (《通俗图书馆章程》) formulated by zhili province, “organizational guidelines and work outline of henan provincial libraries” (《河南省图书馆组织简则暨工作大纲》), “regulation on fujian www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 40 published by scholink inc. provincial library” (《福建省立图书馆规程》), “measures for setting up county libraries in guangxi” (《广西各县设置县立图书馆办法》), and “organizational regulation on tianjin municipal library” (《天津市立图书馆组织规程》). 3. the laws and regulations related to publishing in modern china at the end of the qing dynasty, there were no separate laws and regulations for publication, only involving other laws and regulations. for example, in august 1902, “the ordination of the imperial rule of the imperial university of peking” (《钦定京师大学堂章程》) were promulgated, which stipulated that each school should review, compile and print textbooks and lecture notes; “special law on printing objects of the qing dynasty” (《大清印刷物件专律》) promulgated in july 1906, and “law on newspapers of the qing dynasty” (《大清报律》) promulgated in march 1908 (revised and renamed as the “the authorized regulations for newspaper”/《钦定报律》 in january 1911). after entering the republic of china, laws and regulations related to publishing emerged. on december 4, 1914, the beijing government promulgated a total of 23 articles of “publishing law” (《出版法》). this is the first official “publishing law” in chinese history, which stipulates that textbooks of each school should be uniformly printed by the national publishing agency and implement a “centralized purchase and sales of books and periodicals” (书刊统购统销) system. this law greatly limits the development of the traditional book publishing industry. in addition, the essence of the content of the publication law is no different from the relevant laws and regulations formulated by the qing dynasty, which cannot be tolerated by the chinese people. the call to abolish the law has never stopped. finally, on january 27, 1926, the beijing government passed a resolution to abolish the publication law at the state council. on march 6, 1916, the ministry of education submitted a document in accordance with the requirements of capital library (then the national library), requesting that a book registered for publication by the ministry of internal affairs be submitted to capital library for collection. two days later, the beijing government issued china‟s first book submission law, which greatly benefited the collection construction of capital library. on november 20, 1916, the ministry of education of the beijing government issued a decree on “provincial and county libraries should pay attention to collecting local art and literature”, requiring them to “collect books, in addition to collecting domestic and foreign illustrations, especially pay attention to the writings of local people” (ma, 2019, p. 124). in 1926, the beijing government revised the first law on the submission of books, stipulating that “all books published in stores and written by individuals should be sent in four copies to the provincial education bureaus for allocation by the departments. one copy should be forwarded to the national capital library, one copy should be directly sent to the national compilation and translation library (国立编译馆), and the other copy should be stored in various provincial library and local library” (jin, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 41 published by scholink inc. 1928). during the period of nanjing national government, three publishing laws were successively promulgated, namely the first “publishing law” (44 articles) promulgated in december 1930, the second revised version of the “publishing law” (54 articles, unimplemented) promulgated in july 1937, and the third “draft amendment to the publishing law” (《出版法修正草案》) (46 articles, not actually implemented) passed in october 1947. the publication laws promulgated by nanjing national government aim to “safeguard freedom of publication and prevent the spread of inappropriate publications”, but in reality, it suppresses speech under the banner of safeguarding people‟s freedom of speech and publication (ding, 2014, p. 49). during the anti japanese war, the japanese puppet government also promulgated several publishing laws in the occupied areas, such as the “publishing law” promulgated by puppet regime of reform government on july 15, 1938, the “publishing law” promulgated by wang puppet government on january 24, 1941, and the “revised war time publishing law” (《修正战时出版法》) promulgated by the propaganda department of wang puppet government in june 1942 (wu, 2008, pp. 332-336). of course, in addition to the formulation of the “publication law” mentioned above, there were also other relevant publishing laws, regulations, and articles promulgated during various periods of the republic of china. for example, “newspaper regulations” (《报纸条例》) promulgated by the beijing government in 1914, “revised newspaper regulations” (《修正报纸条例》 ) in 1915, and “management of printing business rule” (《管理印刷营业规则》) in 1919; during the period of the nanjing national government, a considerable number of laws and regulations related to publishing were promulgated. according to compilation of modern and contemporary laws & regulations of publishing & news (《近现代出版新闻法规汇编》), from 1927 to 1949, there were a total of 26 publishing laws and their rules for implementation, 56 laws or regulations on book submission and review, and 24 laws or regulations on news censorship and ban (wu, 2008, p. 336). among them, some of the more important ones were the “implementation rules of the publishing law” (《出版法施行细 则》) (25 articles) established by the ministry of the interior and the central propaganda department of the kuomintang in october 1931, “measures for prohibiting the sales of publications after investigation” (《取缔发售业经查禁出版品办法》) announced by the ministry of the interior on july 17, 1934, and “revised measures for the review of books and magazines” (《修正图书杂志审查办 法》) formulated by the central propaganda committee of the kuomintang in june 1934, which were first implemented in shanghai, on july 28, 1937, the nanjing national government promulgated “implementation rules for the revision of the publishing law” (《修正出版法实施细则》) (28 articles, not truly implemented), and on july 21, 1938, “review measures for original manuscripts of war books and magazines” (《战时图书杂志原稿审查办法》) passed at the 86th executive meeting of the fifth central committee of the kuomintang. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 42 published by scholink inc. 4. the construction and analysis of the socio-technical interaction network for book publishing in modern chinese libraries the stin model was proposed by rob kling et al, who are americans and pioneers of social informatics. this model also provides a suitable tool for people to correctly construct and analyze the book publishing network of modern chinese libraries. as the saying goes, “the use of the term „socio-technical interaction network‟ is to understand the complex system of social technology, emphasizing the interactive characteristics that exist between people, people and devices, and even between technological structural units and political trends” (wang, 2007). the book publishing network of modern chinese libraries constructed based on the stin model is easily understood as a socio-technical interaction network. this stin includes heterogeneous social elements—social technology and technological components—natural technology. the stin of modern chinese libraries‟ book publishing has connected authors, readers, libraries, librarians, commercial printing institutions or academic groups, and other relevant personnel through relevant natural and social technologies. according to the stin model, the construction of the book publishing network in modern chinese libraries can be represented by figure 1. figure 1. the construction of book publishing network in modern chinese libraries based on stin model at the same time, the network also forms a larger stin with other stins such as library societies or associations, private libraries, etc. the nodes and their relationships in this stin are shown in figure 2. author readers of the library modern chinese library collection resources c o m m ercial p rin tin g in stitu tio n s p rin tin g d ep artm en t w ith in th e lib rary publishing technology s eco n d ary literatu re to o ls library catalog index/abstract of library collection books expert learned society a b stract an d in d ex serv ice in stitu tio n s o r co m m ercial p u b lish in g in stitu tio n s resources that can be turned into books employees as participants free giver the book publishing department within the library related technologies librarian www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 43 published by scholink inc. figure 2. a large stin that includes socio-technical interaction network nodes such as the book publishing network of modern chinese libraries due to the fact that both stins mentioned above contain heterogeneous social and natural technological elements, the book publishing network of modern chinese libraries cannot be simplified into a separate social determinism or technological determinism. as long as people recognize this, the interaction of various elements in the book publishing network of modern chinese libraries can truly exert its effects and achieve the expected effects of literature dissemination and knowledge exchange. if there is a lack of understanding of the stin, the combination of natural technology and social technology in the book publishing network of modern chinese libraries would be like a lack of appropriate lubricants or adhesives, which would not appear so harmonious and stable, achieving the expected effect of literature dissemination and knowledge exchange. 5. conclusion the laws and regulations on library & publication issued in modern china, especially the registration and filing system, only involved the publication access system and publication distribution system, and did not involve publishing units, providing legal basis for libraries to carry out book publishing at that time. in modern china, the admission targets, admission conditions, and admission procedures for publications, as well as the postal and international exchange systems for publications, were important standards for the management of the book industry at that time, and library book publishing naturally had to comply with them. these laws and regulations are a kind of “social technology” and a social element in the modern chinese library book publishing stin. it, along with other social elements and the book publishing network of a modern chinese library full text resources search tool private library (including its collection and catalog, et al) other libraries donation institution host organization reade reader r ead er s t in author author author stin library society or association commercial book publishing institu tions in society technology, protocols, and standards for book publishing book submission institutions assigned by nation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 44 published by scholink inc. various natural technological elements, constitutes the “broad technology” of the book publishing network in modern chinese libraries. the publication of stin in modern chinese libraries, along with other stins, constitutes a larger stin. acknowledgement this paper is supported by humanities and social sciences planning fund project of the ministry of education of p. r. china, titled “research on the books publishing of modern chinese libraries from the perspective of generalized technology” (广义技术视域下中国近代图书馆图书出版研究) (19yja870014). references department of library science in hebei university. (1985). compilation of laws and regulations on libraries. baoding: department of library science in hebei university. ding, y. (2014). the “publication law” of the nanjing national government. unpublished master‟s thesis. nanjing university, nanjing. jin, m. f. (1928). overview of modern library cause in china (continued). library weekly of sun yat sen university, 1(2), 14-18. leibetseder, b. (2011). a critical review on the concept of social technology. socialinės technologijos/social technology, 1(1), 7-24. ma, l. h. (2019). a study on the development of the library industry in anhui province during the people’s republic of china. beijing: economic daily press. shen, j. r. (2015). philosophical study on the media technology. unpublished doctoral thesis. southeast university, nanjing. wang, x. l. (1991). a preliminary exploration of the printing and publishing history of nanjing library. journal of jiangsu library, (3), 43-44. wang, x. r. (2007). the construction and analysis of digital library as socio-technical interaction networks. library and information service, 51(1), 52-55. wu, y. g. (2008). history of chinese publishing (volume 2, modern and contemporary volume). changsha: hunan university press. yang, z. z. (1923). library science (volume 2). shanghai: commercial press. yang, j. k., & wang, h. b. (2003). concept and characteristics of social technology. journal of beijing university of technology (social sciences edition), 3(3), 74-78. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 76 original paper the influence of conversation role on prosodic entrainment in mandarin interactions zhihua xia1* 1 the school of foreign studies, jiangsu normal university, xuzhou, jiangsu province, china * zhihua xia, the school of foreign studies, jiangsu normal university, xuzhou, jiangsu province, china received: november 10, 2023 accepted: november 22, 2023 online published: december 1, 2023 doi:10.22158/csm.v6n4p76 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v6n4p76 abstract the aim of this study is to find out how conversation role affects prosodic entrainment in mandarin interactions. tongji games corpus are adopted for this study, in which two interlocutors play unequal roles in picture ordering games (information giver and information follower), and equal roles in picture classifying games. based on this corpus, two tests are conducted in this study, the role influence test and role direction test. in the analysis of role influence test, it is found that the entrainment degree in picture ordering games is significantly bigger than that in the picture classifying games. in the analysis of role direction test, it is found that information givers entrain more to followers in conversation. these findings provide evidences that conversation roles, as one type of the social factors, have influence on the degree and direction of prosodic entrainment in mandarin interactions. keywords prosodic entrainment, conversation role, mandarin interaction 1. introduction conversations are considered as joint activities in which two interlocutors share or synchronize their mental states and performances. the joint nature of language processing in communication requires the interpersonal coordination in minds and actions (brennan et al., 2010). this coordination is called entrainment. prosodic entrainment means that two speakers adapt prosody to that of their interlocutors in conversation, and then become similar in speaking for smooth and successful communication. prosodic entrainment is also named prosodic accommodation, prosodic adaptation, or prosodic alignment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 77 published by scholink inc. (brennan, 1996; cummins, 2009; van der wege, 2009; lee et al., 2014; beňuš et al., 2011; levitan & hirschberg, 2011; levitan et al., 2012; levitan, 2013; de looze et al., 2014; xia et al., 2004, 2023; xia, 2013; xia & ma, 2016a, 2016b, 2019). few attentions in previous studies are paid to conversation roles and prosodic entrainment. social factors are proved to have influence on prosodic entrainment (levitan et al., 2013). however, most of the previous studies have focused on the gender and prosodic entrainment (levitan et al., 2013, xia et al., 2014; xia & ma, 2016a, 2016b). conversation role is crucial for successful communication. the previous studies have touched some types of conversational roles in other fields, for example, the sensorimotor activation related to speaker and listener role in natural conversation (mandel et al., 2016), parent-infant conversations associated with the development of preterm and term-born infants (coughlan, 2024). different from the research mentioned above, this study aims to explore how the conversation role influences the prosodic entrainment in mandarin conversation. in this study, two types of conversation roles are designed as “equal roles” in picture classification games, in which two interlocutors have free discussion and make classification of all the pictures into certain categories, and the pairs take the equal roles in discussion, and “unequal roles” in picture ordering games, in which two interlocutors in the conversation take the roles as information giver and information follower, and the information givers instructs followers to make correct order of the pictures. with this research goal, the analyses of entrainment and role are accomplished by two steps. the first step is the role influence test, which aims to test whether the unequal roles affect the degree of entrainment or not. if the unequal roles prove to affect the degree of entrainment in the test of first step, it is necessary to test where the differences in the degree of entrainment come from. then the second step, called role direction test, aims to test the direction of entrainment between two roles in conversations, that is to say, to find out whether givers entrain more to followers or followers entrain more to givers. 2. variables the present research focuses on prosody in entrainment in mandarin conversations. seven variables are set in the analyses of tongji games corpus in this study. these parameters come from 3 main aspect of prosody, including the feature of duration (speaking-rate), the features of f0 (f0 min, f0 mean, f0 max), and the features of intensity (intensity min, intensity mean and intensity max). speaking-rate equals the number of syllables per second in this study. syllable counts are made automatically by praat according to the orthographic transcriptions. provides detailed calculation of speaking-rate. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 78 published by scholink inc. fundamental frequency of a voice is used to measure how often the sound wave repeats itself. the present research adopts min, mean and max values of fundamental frequency, which are obtained automatically by praat. the features of intensity are used to describe the degree of energy in a sound wave. it is perceived as the volume of a sound. the present research adopts min, mean and max values of intensity, which are also obtained automatically by praat. 3. corpus the corpus of the present research elicited by two games contains approximately 12 hours of spontaneous, task-oriented conversations between pairs of subjects. 70 pairs participated in the experiments, among which 17 pairs played the picture ordering game; 39 pairs played the picture classifying game, and 14 pairs played both. all the subjects produced 115 conversations (the pairs in picture ordering game produced two conversations). the average duration of conversation is 6 minutes. the analyses of the present research were based on the conversations produced by the 70 pairs. 3.1 unequal and equal roles in conversations tongji games corpus are adopted in this study. two games were used to elicit spontaneous conversations in this corpus. one is picture ordering game, and the other is picturing classifying game. in picture ordering games, two interlocutors have “unequal conversation roles”. in detail, one subject played as the information giver, and the other subject played as the information follower. the information giver’s screen displayed 18 cards in the correct order; the information follower’s screen displayed the same 18 cards but in the incorrect order. the information giver instructed the information follower to put the 18 cards in correct order. 18 pictures were labeled by the numbers. the picture ordering game started from the picture numbered as 1, continued to the picture numbered as 2, 3, ... and ended by the picture numbered as 18. when the task was completed, the same pair switched roles and accomplished the picture ordering game again, in which the previous information giver played as the information follower, and the previous follower as the giver. in picture classifying game, two interlocutors have “equal conversation roles”. in detail, two interlocutors have discussion on how to classify the 18 pictures. what is presented on the screens of computers for the two interlocutors are the same (the same 18 pictures in the same order). each pair accomplished attributive classification over 18 pictures. interlocutors had discussion, reached agreement on the common attributes they found for the pictures, and grouped the pictures with the common attributes together. every picture was assigned to a category by the common attributes accepted by both of the interlocutors. the classification also started from the picture numbered as 1, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 79 published by scholink inc. continued to the picture numbered as 2, 3, ... and ended by the picture numbered as 18. 3.2 annotation 3.2.1 ipu segmentation ipus are adopted as the minimal units in present study. ipu (inter-pausal unit) is the stretch of a single speaker’s speech bounded by pauses (for example 100 ms). it is a minimal unit frequently used in the analyses of conversations. koiso et al. (1998) utilized inter-pausal units (ipus) as the minimal units in the research of intonation in the turn taking in japanese. casper (2003) also employed this unit in studying local speech melody in turn taking system in dutch. levitan & hirschberg (2011), levitan et al. (2012) annotated the conversations by ipus (pause-free units of speech from a single speaker separated from one another by at least 50 ms) in the study of prosodic entrainment in english. the threshold for ipus of the present research is 80 ms. about setting the threshold of ipus, the previous studies point out that the threshold can’t be too big, because the longer pause in ipus would cause the omission of the ipus with shorter pauses, and the prosodic descriptions would be ignored; the threshold can’t be too small, because it would be difficult to distinguish the real pause and the stop gap within segments, including plosives, affricatives, etc. so, the threshold should be between these two extremes. it should be as small as possible, but it should be longer than the maximal stop gap of segments. therefore, the threshold of ipus is the maximal stop gap of segments in the corpus. thus, to find the threshold of ipus is to find the maximal stop gap of plosives at the word initial position in chinese conversations of this corpus. this method was carried out in several steps in the present research. the first step was to choose at random the recordings from 6 female and 6 male subjects. the second step was to find the stop gaps of plosives including [ph], [p], [th], [t], [kh], [k] at the word initial positions in these 12 recordings. the third step was to measure the durations of these stop gaps. the fourth step was to calculate the maximal stop gap. the maximum is 74.2 ms, and the present research set the closest integer value as 80 ms. ipu segmentation of the present study is accomplished in two steps. the first step is automatic labelling by sppas (bigi & hirst, 2012). the second step is the check of ipus’ boundaries in praat. 3.2.2 annotation in praat the annotation work in praat of the present research includes 4 steps. the first step is a check on ipu boundaries. the second step is dealing with the spontaneous speech phenomena in conversation. the third step is dealing with the boundaries of initial plosives. after all these three steps, the boundaries of ipus are fixed. then, the last step is to input mandarin characters within ipus for the data extraction in the following task. data extraction was operated on these 7 variables over every ipu by praat script. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 80 published by scholink inc. 4. results and discussions 4.1 role influence tests this analysis is to find out: does the unequal roles affect the degree of entrainment? the unequal roles in this section are restricted to the information giver and information follower. entrainment in conversation is proved to be related closely to social factors, and the individual differences of the interlocutors decide the direction and state of entrainment in conversation. therefore, it is hypothesized that the unequal roles affect the degree of entrainment in conversation. 4.1.1 paired t-tests between odis and cdis in order to find out whether the unequal roles affect the degree of entrainment or not, the present research compares the entrainment degree of the pairs with unequal roles and that of the pairs with equal roles, which are controlled in picture ordering games and picture classifying games. so, research question in this section is converted to find whether the entrainment degree is different between picture ordering games and picture classifying games or not. it is hypothesized that the unequal roles affect the degree of entrainment. in order to analyze the role influence in the picture ordering games and picture classifying games, paired t-test is used in comparing entrainment degree between these two games. as mentioned above, the present research has made the control that the same pairs play both games, so the interference from the different pairs of speakers is controlled for in this analysis. thus, the paired t-tests over the same interlocutors are valid to find out the difference of entrainment degree between two games. the entrainment degree in picture ordering games, odis, refers to the distance of prosodic features over the whole conversation between two speakers in picture ordering games. the entrainment degree in picture classifying games, cdis, refers to the distance of prosodic features over the whole conversation between two speakers in picture classifying games. paired t-tests are accomplished between odis and cdis. according to the description of corpus, pairs of subjects participated in both the picture ordering games and picture classifying games. in terms of odis, the distance of prosodic features over the whole conversation between two speakers in the picture ordering games conversations, the average distance from two conversations is calculated as its value, because every pair of subjects plays the picture ordering game twice by switching the roles from information giver to information follower in picture ordering games. thus, 14 odis are computed for one prosodic parameter over 28 conversations in picture ordering games by getting their averages. in terms of cdis, the distance of prosodic features over the whole conversation between two speakers in picture classifying games conversations, one value of cdis comes from one conversation, because every pair plays classifying game once. 14 pairs participated in 14 conversations, so 14 cdis are computed over 14 conversations for one prosodic parameter. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 81 published by scholink inc. one paired t-test is accomplished between 14 odis and 14 cdis for one prosodic parameter. 7 paired t-tests are accomplished for 7 prosodic parameters. the data used in paired t-tests are listed in the following table 1 and 2. table 1. the values of odis in picture ordering games speaking _rate f0_min f0_mean f0_max int_min int_mean int_max 1 1.36 24.56 19.43 31.92 6.54 7.70 7.83 2 0.33 19.38 31.72 32.16 14.02 9.78 9.07 3 0.10 13.06 8.50 15.25 1.55 7.16 8.84 4 1.09 12.82 26.33 56.78 5.17 3.85 3.83 5 1.09 78.38 104.50 152.71 8.60 0.59 0.19 6 0.59 27.76 45.63 57.65 2.64 7.31 8.26 7 0.98 29.28 28.73 37.18 3.24 4.48 4.34 8 1.18 21.78 21.20 22.51 6.79 4.19 4.82 9 0.19 13.80 14.38 21.62 2.39 2.95 3.16 10 1.09 2.97 13.71 32.23 3.69 4.01 4.31 11 0.70 6.08 1.64 5.93 2.04 3.71 3.73 12 0.87 7.23 6.14 15.05 1.48 1.47 1.26 13 0.85 26.81 25.72 23.99 2.88 6.79 7.13 14 0.46 16.57 14.00 30.11 2.68 2.63 3.24 table 2. the values of cdis in picture classifying games speaking _rate f0_min f0_mean f0_max int_min int_mean int_max 1 1.66 19.49 25.55 38.02 11.45 6.05 5.64 2 0.30 11.65 27.60 33.57 11.92 11.02 10.45 3 0.34 0.71 1.89 4.12 3.74 3.08 3.80 4 0.51 5.08 18.68 44.65 9.07 4.78 3.62 5 1.26 72.52 105.69 150.37 13.43 1.55 1.77 6 0.15 26.78 49.28 64.88 3.03 8.79 9.70 7 0.29 21.09 22.59 28.09 0.54 2.65 3.33 8 0.55 15.70 18.67 21.59 7.14 2.19 1.89 9 0.78 15.13 13.22 20.45 1.26 2.18 2.21 10 0.54 4.54 10.07 28.00 4.31 3.31 3.71 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 82 published by scholink inc. 11 0.15 1.01 0.95 1.70 1.95 1.32 1.55 12 0.40 11.54 6.96 6.47 3.25 2.87 3.37 13 0.05 24.31 20.15 12.65 5.12 9.19 9.13 14 0.29 18.81 6.40 21.38 0.56 2.46 2.97 4.1.2 results of the entrainment degree tests the results in paired t-tests of entrainment degree for the same interlocutors between two games are listed in table 3. table 3. paired t-tests in entrainment degree between two games feature t df p-value sig. meano meanc speaking-rate 2.225 13 0.044 * 0.7782 0.5194 f0 min 2.887 13 0.013 * 21.4646 17.7399 f0 mean 2.119 13 0.054 / 25.8304 23.4078 f0 max 2.506 13 0.026 * 38.2213 33.9959 intensity min -1.391 13 0.187 / 4.5517 5.4831 intensity mean 0.746 13 0.469 / 4.7587 4.3888 intensity max 0.875 13 0.397 / 5.0007 4.5094 in table 3, an asterisk * indicates the significant difference, and the symbol / indicates no significant difference. according to this table, the entrainment degree between the picture ordering games and picture classifying games are significantly different over 3 prosodic parameters: speaking-rate (p= 0.044 < 0.05), f0 min (p= 0.013 < 0.05) and f0 max (p= 0.026 < 0.05). the entrainment degree between two games is significantly different over f0 mean (p= 0.054 < 0.1) at confidence level 0.1. these results indicate that the degree of entrainment is significantly different between picture ordering games and picture classifying games over three prosodic parameters: speaking-rate, f0min, and f0max, and the feature of f0 mean tends to be different between the two games. in addition, the mean entrainment degree in picture ordering game (indicated by meano in table 2) is bigger than the mean entrainment degree in picture classifying game (indicated by meanc in table 3) over almost every prosodic feature tested over the feature of duration and f0. it is the same for the features of intensity, although the differences are not significant. these indicate that the entrainment degree in the picture ordering game is larger than the entrainment degree in the picture classifying game over almost every prosodic feature tested. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 83 published by scholink inc. the results above prove that the unequal roles (information giver or follower) affect the entrainment degree in conversation over the prosodic features of duration and f0, and the entrainment in the picture ordering games is stronger than that in the picture classifying games. that is, there is more entrainment in the conversations with unequal roles than in those with equal roles. 4.2 role direction tests it is proved in the section 3.1 that the unequal roles (information giver or follower) affect the entrainment degree in conversation over the prosodic features of duration and f0. questions can be asked further: what is the entrainment direction? do information givers entrain more to followers, or do followers entrain more to givers? 4.2.1 paired t-tests between ｜ag-a0｜and ｜af-a0｜ as mentioned at the beginning of this section, the role direction test is the second step in the analyses of entrainment and role. in the first step, the role influence test, it is found that the degree of entrainment is significantly different between picture ordering games and picture classifying games over the features of duration and f0. then it is necessary to analyze where the differences in the degree of entrainment come from. as mentioned above, some subjects are chosen to participate in both picture ordering games and picture classifying games. in picture ordering games, two interlocutors (a and b) have different roles as information giver and information follower. when they finished the first game, they switched the roles in another ordering game. that is, two interlocutors participated in two ordering games, in which they switched the roles between information giver and information follower. in picture classifying, two speakers have the same roles in discussion. thus, every subject has 3 speaking states. for instance, a subject in a pair (a & b) has 3 speaking states. ag: a plays as an information giver in the first picture ordering game with b. af: a plays as an information follower in the second picture ordering game with b. a0: a plays in an equal role with b in a picture classifying game. bg: b plays as an information follower in the first picture ordering game with a. bf: b plays as an information giver in the second picture ordering game with a. b0: b plays in an equal role with a in a picture classifying game. the same pair plays two kinds of games: the picture classifying games and picture ordering games. taking one side of the interlocutors as an example, a0 is a’s speaking state with equal roles; ag is a’s speaking state when a is an information giver; af is a’s speaking state when a is an information follower. the difference between ag and af is the change in speaking state caused by the change in a’s roles from the information giver to the information follower, while the partner is still b. what is changed in b in picture ordering games is also the state of speaking from the information follower to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 84 published by scholink inc. the information giver. therefore, as the other side of the pair, the partner of a, b also has 3 similar speaking states. the differences in the entrainment degree between two kinds of games found in the section 5.1 are assumed to be caused by the difference in the roles. in the present research, among the 3 speaking states of a, a0 is considered as a reference state, because this speaking state is produced under the equal role with the partner. the deviation between ag and a0 is caused only by a’s role of a giver, and the deviation between af and a0 is caused only by a’s role of a follower. therefore,｜af-a0｜is the deviation caused by the role of giver;｜af-a0｜is the deviation caused by the role of follower. the key point to make such comparisons valid is that in this analysis the partner of a is not changed, and what is changed is only the role of a. and all of this attributes to the experiment design of the present research that several pairs of subjects participated in both games. a paired t-test between｜ag-a0｜and｜af-a0｜is adopted in this section in order to find out which role causes bigger deviation. if｜ag-a0｜is bigger than｜af-a0｜, the deviation caused by the role of giver is bigger than that caused by the role of follower. that is, the giver makes larger deviation in entrainment than the follower does in conversation, so the giver entrains more to the follower. if｜ ag-a0｜is smaller than /af-a0/, the deviation caused by the role of giver is smaller than that caused by the role of follower. that is, the follower makes a larger derivation in entrainment than the giver does in conversation, so the follower entrains more to the giver. one point should be mentioned in the use of this method. the post-conversation influence is not considered in this analysis. fourteen pairs participated in both the picture ordering games and picture classifying games. every two interlocutors of them participated in two ordering games, in which they switched the roles between information giver and information follower, and a picture classifying game, in which two speakers in the pair have the same roles in discussion. one pair of these subjects actually produced three conversations. thus, a question is raised: is there post-conversation influence among these conversations? that is, is the entrainment state in the followed conversations influenced by the previous ones? in the present research, the post-conversation influence of these three conversations produced by every pair of the 14 is not considered, because the requirements of these games are different. after the first picture ordering game, the roles of two interlocutors are changed in the second picture ordering game, and the content of picture classifying game is quite different from the previous two. thus, the requirements of the games are always different. therefore, the post-conversation influence is excluded in these analyses. according to the corpus description in section 2, 14 pairs (28) subjects participated in both the picture ordering games and picture classifying games. then 28 subjects made 28 conversations. one subject (a) has 3 speaking states, ag, af and a0 from the picture ordering games and picture classifying www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 85 published by scholink inc. games. for 28 subjects, there are 28 groups of ag, af and a0. the role influence test in section 3.1 is the precondition of the role direction test in section 3.2. that is, those features which show role influence could be tested further for the role direction. according to the results of role influence test, different entrainment degree is found between unequal roles (the role of information giver and follower) and equal roles (the role of picture classifier) over the features of duration and f0. so as the further test of role influence test, in the role direction test, paired t-tests are accomplished over the features of duration and f0 including speaking-rate, f0min, f0mean, and f0max. the values of｜ag-a0｜and｜af-a0｜used in paired t-test are listed in the following table 4. table 4. the values of｜ag-a0｜and ｜af-a0｜ ｜ag-a0｜ ｜af-a0｜ speaking _rate f0_min f0_mean f0_max speaking _rate f0_min f0_mean f0_max 1 0.34 5.40 1.01 11.92 0.18 19.03 10.64 4.00 2 0.98 1.93 20.62 33.59 0.12 1.55 1.23 5.46 3 0.36 2.90 3.30 1.31 0.14 6.42 1.86 9.68 4 0.16 5.27 0.88 8.18 0.00 0.87 5.91 13.74 5 0.29 2.90 2.62 8.67 0.07 10.90 3.06 3.26 6 0.08 5.66 12.74 26.45 0.07 6.66 6.16 1.36 7 0.23 7.66 17.63 27.87 0.60 22.36 4.84 6.97 8 0.24 4.46 1.84 2.52 0.09 15.40 5.32 0.83 9 1.16 2.91 0.93 0.32 0.13 8.47 5.85 2.23 10 0.49 7.20 2.80 18.33 0.67 10.08 0.27 11.74 11 0.72 1.77 1.69 2.82 0.22 3.96 0.89 0.02 12 0.26 5.85 9.95 16.97 0.20 1.70 18.06 34.23 13 1.30 3.31 3.68 6.80 0.20 9.66 0.69 13.59 14 1.56 2.24 3.79 11.89 0.70 1.18 5.50 13.07 15 0.68 1.94 4.37 4.95 0.02 0.24 1.01 1.48 16 0.83 6.23 8.45 10.47 0.87 7.62 2.00 2.20 17 0.03 1.91 7.56 8.39 0.67 6.50 2.47 2.95 18 1.35 7.36 5.48 4.95 1.03 3.73 2.24 1.83 19 0.81 5.37 7.03 11.39 0.13 8.50 3.41 2.02 20 0.09 1.42 3.53 6.37 0.07 0.26 0.37 1.42 21 0.03 3.20 0.51 1.34 0.46 3.68 0.83 2.82 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 86 published by scholink inc. 22 0.57 3.25 0.84 4.99 0.33 2.04 1.90 0.71 23 0.75 5.57 14.72 24.58 0.83 6.81 8.23 5.04 24 0.41 2.22 12.23 25.72 0.47 1.53 9.07 21.07 25 0.26 1.53 5.77 10.86 0.20 5.38 4.19 3.33 26 1.20 1.72 1.44 0.94 0.86 0.18 2.62 9.43 27 0.04 1.98 7.46 26.30 0.03 0.21 2.66 2.19 28 0.09 0.47 13.40 35.19 0.31 2.23 4.48 3.46 4.2.2 results of the role direction tests in table 4, for the features of duration and f0, 28 groups of｜ag-a0｜and｜af-a0｜are listed. the paired t-tests are accomplished between these groups. the results of paired t-tests between｜ag-a0｜and｜af-a0｜are listed in table 5. table 5. paired t-tests between｜ag-a0｜and /af-a0/ feature t df p-value sig. ｜ag-a0｜ ｜af-a0｜ speaking-rate 2.481 27 0.02 * 0.5472 0.3448 f0 min -2.437 27 0.8 / 3.7020 5.9698 f0 mean 1.912 27 0.067 / 6.2957 4.1347 f0 max 2.790 27 0.01 * 12.6457 6.4339 in table 5, an asterisk * indicates the significant difference, and the symbol / indicates no significant difference. according to this table, the｜ag-a0｜is significantly and consistently bigger than /af-a0/ over speaking rate and f0 max (p=0.02, 0.01 < 0.05). in addition, ｜ag-a0｜is significantly bigger than｜af-a0｜over f0 max (p=0.067 < 0.1) at confidence level 0.1. these show that ag makes the significantly bigger deviation than af. that is, when a plays as the information giver, deviation in entrainment is bigger than that when a plays as the information follower. the results in table 4 indicate that givers make larger adjustments towards their followers, and followers make smaller adjustments towards their givers. when a giver makes larger adjustment and a follower makes smaller adjustment, the giver entrains more to the follower. based on the results above, it is found that there is more entrainment when speakers are givers than when they are followers. information givers entrain more than followers in conversation. in conversation, givers entrain more to followers. and the entrainment from givers to followers is prominent over speaking-rate and f0 max which are the main features that show global entrainment as well. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 87 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion and discussions 5.1 major findings this study has accomplished two tests: role influence test and role direction test. through the role influence test, it is found that the unequal roles (information giver or follower) affect the entrainment degree in conversation over the prosodic features of duration and f0, and there is more entrainment in the conversations with unequal roles than in those with equal roles. through the role direction test, it is found that there is more entrainment when speakers are givers than when they are followers. information givers entrain more than followers in conversation. in conversations, givers entrain more to followers. and the entrainment from givers to followers is prominent in speaking-rate and f0 max. through the role influence test and role direction test, this study has the following major findings for conversation roles and prosodic entrainment: 1) the unequal roles (information giver or follower) affect the entrainment degree in conversation over the prosodic features of duration and f0, and there is more entrainment in the conversations with unequal roles than in those with equal roles. 2) there is more entrainment when speakers are givers than when they are followers. information givers entrain more than followers in conversation. in conversation, givers entrain more to followers. and the entrainment from givers to followers is prominent in speaking-rate and f0 max. 5.2 discussions these results supply evidence for the fact that there is directive distinction in entrainment between two interlocutors. that is, the entrainment degree of a pair in conversation is unbalanced. we can feel the entrainment direction in our daily life. for instance, in child-directed speech or motherese (fernald et al., 1989), which is a term used to describe speakers’ accommodation when having conversations with children. it is observed that adults entrain more to children in their conversations. for another example, in foreign talk or foreigness (ferguson, 1975; zuengler, 1991; smith, 2007), which is used when talking with non-native speakers, we observe that native speakers entrain more to the foreigners. the analyses of prosodic entrainment and role (information givers and information followers) in the present research support the existence of directive distinction in entrainment between two interlocutors as the previous studies in literature. motivated by the hypothesis of audience design (bell, 1984), which means the audience-oriented entrainment, studies have been accomplished to find out to how and what extent speakers adapt to their addressees (branigan et al., 2007; galati & brenna, 2010). kristiansen (2008) proposes that there are three possible directions in entrainment between two interlocutors (a, b) in conversation. one is a to b (a→b), the other one is b to a (a←b), and the third one is that both a and b approach to an intermediate state (a→←b). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 88 published by scholink inc. there exists unbalanced entrainment between two interlocutors in conversation. it is necessary to do research on the production and perception of the unbalanced entrainment in conversation. different from the analyses in previous studies, the present research has examined the entrainment between information givers and information followers. in this chapter, role influence test is made to examine whether there is prosodic entrainment between information givers and information followers, based on which, role direction test is made to find out the direction of entrainment between them, that is, whether information givers entrain to information followers, or followers entrain to givers. it is found by the present research that more entrainment is made from givers to followers. the present research analyzes the role in prosodic entrainment. these speakers’ roles are controlled in this study. actually, the entrainment in conversation is closely related to the social factors: the status, age, gender, role, region, ethnicity, environment, etc. the various responses to individual’s interaction with the environment are assessed with reference to the individual himself; this assessment produces the perception of affordances which exist as a mix of an individual’s abilities, their background, and even the environmental features. besides conversation role in this study and gender in previous studies, more social factors should be involved in the future study of prosodic entrainment. the emphasis and difficulty in research on the various social factors in entrainment is how to appropriately control these factors in experiments. in order to make some factors prominent, it is necessary to control for other factors. it is usually not easy to control several social factors in one experiment. efforts should be made to produce well balanced experimental design in order to control some social factors in one experiment or a series of experiments. much future work could be done in this direction. it is necessary to have discussion on the methods used in this study. what should be mentioned is the method used in role direction test. in this test, a subject in a pair (a & b) has 3 speaking states (a0, ag, and af). taking one side of the interlocutors as an example, a0 is a’s speaking state with equal roles; ag is a’s speaking state when a is an information giver; af is a’s speaking state when a is an information follower. the difference between ag and af is the change in speaking state caused by the change in a’s roles from the information giver to the information follower. because several pairs of the subjects are asked to play two kinds of games, the interference from the speakers is reduced. in the present research, a0 is considered as a reference state, because this speaking state is produced under the equal role with the partner. the deviation between ag and a0 is caused only by a’s role of a giver, and the deviation between af and a0 is caused only by a’s role of a follower. therefore, /ag-a0/ is the deviation caused by the role of giver; /af-a0/ is the deviation caused by the role of follower. the key point to make such comparisons valid is that in this analysis the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 89 published by scholink inc. partner of a is not changed, and what is changed is only the role of a. and all of this attributes to the experiment design of the present research that several pairs of subjects participated in both games. however, there are limitations in the use of this method. firstly, the number of subjects who participated in both games should be enlarged. in the present research, 14 pairs of subjects participated in both the picture ordering games and picture classifying games. then 28 subjects made 28 conversations. one subject (a) has 3 speaking states, ag, af and a0 in the picture ordering games and picture classifying games. for 28 subjects, there are 28 groups of ag, af and a0. therefore, there 28 groups of｜af-a0｜and｜af-a0｜in the paired t-tests. 28 values are not the big samples in statistics. the number should be larger. that is, there should be more subjects who participate in both games in the future experiments. secondly, quantitative analyses are needed to test post-conversation influence between the conversations produced by each pair in this analysis. as mentioned in the section 3.2.1, the post-conversation influence of the three conversations produced by every pair of the 14 is not considered in this analysis, because the requirements of these games are different. in detail, after the first picture ordering game, the roles of two interlocutors are changed in the second picture ordering game, and the content of picture classifying game is quite different from the previous two. however, we can’t deny the existence of the post-conversation influence between conversations. quantitative analyses are needed to test it in the future studies. 5.3 conclusions conversation roles are proved to have influence on prosodic entrainment in mandarin conversations in this study. more comprehensive tests are suggested to examine the influence of conversation roles on prosodic entrainment, and other social factors are also needed to be tested in the study of pragmatic use of social factors and prosodic entrainment. at the same time, the cross-linguistic comparisons of the conversation role’s influence on prosodic entrainment are also expected in the future. the findings of all these studies are of crucial importance for exploring the nature of human conversations and for supplying references to construction better models of human-machine interactions. acknowledgments this work was supported by the national social science fund of china (nssf grant no. 20byy099), the fund for english teaching from jiangsu higher education association (2022wjzd006), the fund for courses construction in ideological and political education from jiangsu normal university (22kcszkc10), and the fund for english lesson construction from the school of foreign studies in jiangsu normal university (2022yykc3, 2022yykc6). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 90 published by scholink inc. references bell, a. 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(1991). accommodation in native-non-native interactions: going beyond the “what” to the “why” in second language research. in h. giles, j. coupland, & n. coupland (eds.), contexts of accommodations (pp. 223-244). cambridge: cambridge press. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 97 original paper n2n parallel therapy for covid-19 intervention for effective clinical outcome, a case study ghulam yasin naroo1*, tanveer ahmed yadgir2 & javeriya khurshid3 1 rashid hospital, dubai, uae 2 fatima college of health sciences, al ain, uae 3 rashid hospital dubai * ghulam yasin naroo1*,rashid hospital, dubai, uae received: november 1, 2020 accepted: november 11, 2020 online published: november 21, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n4p97 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n4p97 abstract background: although several therapeutic agents have been evaluated for the treatment of covid-19, none has yet been shown to be effective. large randomized control trials are required to see the efficacy of current medical treatment. objective: evaluating the role of n2n parallel therapy for adult covid-19 patients with lower respiratory tract infection for early discharge from hospital or keeping in hospital for infection control only. holistic med provides a complementary and alternative medical platform together with an integrative approach incorporating timely prescribed conventional medicine to achieve complete cure. case history: a 57-years old emergency physician developed symptoms of high grade fever, cough, loss of appetite, body aches & fatigue. he tested positive for covid-19 and was started on antiretroviral and antimalarial therapy as per the dubai health authority (dha) protocol. he received the current medical treatment for four days without any improvement in his condition. his treatment was tailored by adding n2n parallel therapy for 72 hours followed by continuity of care. results: tailored treatment through the use of acute detox, ingestion of anti-oxidants, intermittent fasting, using micronutrients, oxygen supplement and intake of steroid during the 2nd phase of treatment. the results were promising which helped avert an icu admission. improvement in health was also seen in the form of better lab results and exercise tolerance while hospitalization. this therapy if applied will reduce icu admissions, duration of hospital-stay and mortality rate. conclusion: n2n parallel therapy is superior to the current medical treatment in terms of early www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 98 published by scholink inc. discharge of adult hospitalized covid-19 patients with evidence of lower respiratory tract infection. overall, to reduce morbidity & mortality. what is known about the topic? global perspective on covid-19 is increasing rapidly, with previous research suggesting numerous underlying factors. what does this study add? this case study will emphasize the role of n2n parallel therapy with the support of primary research (case study) and secondary research (literature review). these factors have not been previously synthesized in the international literature. this narrative clearly reviews and articulates the underlying problems as well as focuses on the parallel therapy for clinical implementation. this is a proposed parallel therapy that can reduce the number of days of hospitalization, thereby decreasing the overload of patients in the healthcare facilities, have better health outcome for the patient after he survives the virus by helping him recover, and most importantly, it can promise to reduce mortality rate once clinical data for it is made more evident through multiple clinical studies carried out at healthcare facilities worldwide (large clinical trials). what are the implications for practitioners (both clinician and researcher)? this study outlines the need for further research and clinical trials using parallel treatment for covid-19 to enable the development of appropriate strategies to manage in the future for better clinical outcome. -reduced workload -reduced bed occupancy -hope for better outcome for their patients in their wards -may result in further evidence and need for further research to know about human immunity in terms of response to viruses -prevents focus of other important illnesses to be shifted to covid-19, helping better global health outcomes 1. introduction 1.1 overview coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) is a respiratory tract infection caused by a newly emergent coronavirus that was first recognized in wuhan, china, in december 2019. genetic sequencing of the virus suggests that it is a beta-coronavirus closely linked to the sars virus (26). while most people with covid-19 develop only mild or uncomplicated illness, approximately 14% develop severe disease that requires hospitalization and oxygen support, and 5% require admission to an intensive care unit (26). as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 99 published by scholink inc. of november 17, 2020, there have been more than 50 million reported cases and 1.3 million deaths worldwide. this novel beta-coronavirus is similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (sars-cov) and middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus (mers-cov) (2,4). 1.2 objective the purpose of this case study is to evaluate the role of n2n parallel treatment of nature therapy in covid-19 and determine the effective outcome of the treatment. 2. methodology-secondary research literature review the following database was searched including medline, literature (cinahl), cochrane library, google scholar and pubmed. search strategy was perused with key terms such as “covid-19 clinical outcome and management”, “use of parallel therapy for covid-19 treatment”, “detox role in covid-19 treatment”, “drug therapy for covid-19” and “scope of alternative treatment in covid-19”. additional articles were found from the reference list of these studies. e.g., of pubmed search results (“covid-19” [mesh terms] or “pandemic” [all fields] or “drug therapy” [all fields]) and services [all fields] and (“alternative therapy” [mesh terms] or (“covid-19 management” [all fields] and “health” [all fields]) or “clinical outcome” [all fields]). inclusion criteria consisted of full text articles, studies conducted on covid-19 treatment and pandemic relation, articles published in english language from the time period of 2019-2020. peer reviewed articles were preferred. search was broadened to other healthcare settings due to lack of evidence found on parallel or alternative treatment for covid-19 and pandemic. the articles were then reviewed by title and abstract. irrelevant articles were excluded. the method sections of the articles were reviewed and study design literature review were preferred. the initial search resulted in 308 hits. 221 were excluded due to unobtainable full text articles and some were irrelevant based on title and abstract. some were repeated articles. 87 were then selected for further review. upon inspection and thorough reading of the papers, 70 more excluded. finally, only 10 articles remained which matched the search strategy and inclusion criteria. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 100 published by scholink inc. figure 1. prisma flow diagram used for article’s selection to conduct literature review 3. case this section provides the details of the case in the following order: a 57-year old emergency physician, developed symptoms of high grade fever, mild cough, loss of appetite for one day. his sars-cov-2 pcr test results came positive. his chest x-ray showed a small opacity on the lower lobe of rt. lung. after discussion with the hospital’s infectious team, he was started on antiviral and antimalarial medications as per the dha (dubai health authority) protocol. he continued to take current medical treatment for 2 days but his symptoms worsened and he started to have breathing difficulty. on the 3rd day of his treatment while he was isolated at home his respiratory rate was 35-40 breaths per minute with tachycardia and spikes of fever. he had general fatigue and was feeling very unwell. at this time, it was decided that he be admitted in the mediclinic city hospital. his baseline labs including inflammatory markers were done as well as his chest x ray and hrct scan were carried out. he continued on the same treatment although he was asked to add azithromycin by the infectious diseases team. his qt interval was normal on ecg, but the cardiologist of his working hospital (rashid hospital) advised that it should not be added. he was given the same antiviral plus chloroquine treatment for the next two days in addition with oxygen by nasal cannula at 4-liter per minutes but there was no improvement in his health clinically. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 101 published by scholink inc. on the night of his second day of admission, his condition worsened further to the point that his treating doctors decided to shift him to the icu as they thought he may need ventilator support. the patient requested to be provided with cpap to support his airways intermittently but was refused as it was not in accordance with the dha protocol. as the patient was fearful due to the high rate of mortality of covid-19’s icu patients, he refused to be shifted to icu and thought of adding a parallel therapy, later to be termed the n2n therapy. while tailoring his treatment by adding n2n parallel therapy to it for the next 72 hours and repeating lab on the following days, his inflammatory markers reduced to less than 50% their value compared to the marker levels before the parallel therapy began. furthermore, his nlr ratio dropped from 14.14 to less than 2 and clinically his condition had improved. following this 72-hour time period, he started max vo2 and did cardio along with chest expansion exercises. his health was improving constantly and he was able to challenge his body by increasing his cardio and sets of chest expansion exercises. on the last two days before his hospital discharge, he did reverse vo2 and his body compliance was excellent and a final set of labs and a chest x-ray while in hospital were conducted. then he went into quarantine for 14 days at a private accommodation on the sea side where he continued his cardio and chest exercises. his second hrct was done in 35 days and his initial hrct results were mostly reverted and he resumed his duty in the hospital as a doctor. physical examination: grossly within normal limits. chest: no added sounds heart sounds: s1+s2 vital signs: temperature dates: 5 apr 6 apr 7 apr 8 apr 9 apr temp(°c) 38.2 38 37.8 37.4 36.8 oxygen saturation dates: 5 apr 6 apr 7 apr 8 apr 9 apr 10 apr 11 apr o2 by nasal cannula at 4–6 l/ min at 4–6 l/ min at4–6l/ min at 4l/min at 3l/min intermittent at 3l/min room air 94% 94% and 95% 96% 96% 98% 98% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 102 published by scholink inc. dropping further sequence of events: day 1 high grade fever, mild cough, body ache, fatigue, loss of appetite on april 1st, 2020. corona rna pcr done on april 2nd, 2020. day 2 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rtpcr) positive for covid-19 with high titre. symptoms as day-1 continue. chest x-ray--small opacity at base of right lung selfisolate at home. medical treatment-antiretroviral(lopinavir + ritonavir) +chloroquine started. + paracetamol prn day 3 no improvement. mild breathlessness and increased cough as well as symptoms as the previous day. continue medical treatment. day 4 symptoms worsen. started breathlessness at rest & on walking a few steps. rr: 35-40 hr: 100 and above. spikes of fever. admitted in hospital lab and hrct done: lab shows markedly increased neutrophil / lymphocyte ratio (nlr) and other inflammatory markers. x ray: no gross focal lesion hrct chest: there was bilateral extensive peripheral as well as sub segmental consolidation involving all lung lobes bilaterally especially the lower lung lobes. started oxygen by nasal cannula at 4-6 liters per minute. medical treatment continued as previously. day 5 continued oxygen by nasal cannula plus continuation of current medicines. no improvement of symptoms. further deterioration in clinical condition with breathlessness, fluctuation in heart rate. unable to sleep. candidate for icu. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 103 published by scholink inc. day 6-8 continuation of current medicine. o2 by nasal cannula. started n2n parallel therapy that includes: acute detox using evian water (calculated by evian formula). antioxidant using vitamin. c (used oranges. each orange average equal to 100 mg vitamin c. it’s 2.4 gm vitamin c on day-1, 2 gm vitamin c on day-2 and 1.8 gm vitamin c used on day-3); micronutrients as zinc, mg+ and vitamin added. day 9 labs and x-rays done, inflammatory markers reduced <50%. o2 by nasal cannula intermittent. continue current medical treatment. also continuity of care for n2n parallel therapy. chest x ray: inhomogeneous opacities are seen in the left mid zone as well as both lower zones suggestive of pneumonitis day 10 started controlled aerobic exercises using max vo2, doing cardio and core body exercises. chest expansion by peak-flow. improvement in general condition started steroid as of phase -2: tab. prednisolone. day 11-15 cycles of aerobic exercises using max vo2 continued. chest expansion by peak-flow. marked improvement in body resilience. day 16-17 cycles of exercises using reverse vo2. marked improvement in cardio. day 18 repeated lab and chest x ray: no new changes discharged from hospital. day 35 repeated lab and hrct chest. lab is normal. hrct chest: significant improvement of the previously bilateral pneumonitis. only subtle residual changes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 104 published by scholink inc. figure 2(a) exercise and vital signs comparison www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 105 published by scholink inc. figure 2(b) exercise and vital signs comparison www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 106 published by scholink inc. figure 3. exercise using max vo2 & reverse vo2 therapy lab results: full blood count dates: 5 apr 10 apr 14 apr 20 apr wbc (k/ul) 11.2 7.2 9.4 8.1 neutrophils (k/ul) 9.9 4.1 7.50 4.2 lymphocytes (k/ul) 0.7 1.7 1.20 3.0 rbc (m/ul) 5.06 4.42 4.22 4.30 hemoglobin (g/dl) 14.8 13.1 12.6 12.9 hematocrit/pvc% 44.3 38.3 37.3 38.2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 107 published by scholink inc. platelets (k/ul) 190.0 391.0 519.0 326.0 inflammatory markers dates: 5 apr 10 apr 14 apr 20 apr procalcitonin (ng/ml) 0.28 0.08 0.04 0.04 crp(mg/l) 222.11 89.69 13.49 2.91 serum ferritin (ng/ml) 2081.0 783.5 514.8 593.4 ldh(u/l) 482 272 218 221 d-dimer (ug/ml) 0.83 0.37 0.27 0.85 cpk (iu/l) 1163 199 140 117 nlr 14.14 2.41 1.4 liver function test dates: 5 apr 10 apr 14 apr 20 apr total bilirubin (umol/l) 27.4 16.5 12.30 15.50 direct bilirubin (umol/l) 14.5 8.5 5.20 5.30 alp(u/l) 187 121 106 105 alt(iu/l) 81 48 43 104 ast (iu/l) 83 26 16 25 protein total (g/l) 79 70 68 63 albumin (g/l) 35 28 32 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 108 published by scholink inc. coagulation dates: 5 apr 10 apr 20 apr pt (seconds) 14.4 13.9 12.9 aptt (seconds) 33.2 inr 1.1 1.0 0.9 renal function test dates: 5 apr 10 apr 14 apr 20 apr urea (mmol/l) 2.8 3.5 68 creatinine (mmol/l) 70.8 71.5 67.9 69.10 egfr (ml/min/1.73m2) 98 98 100 99 electrolytes + random glucose dates: 5 apr 10 apr 14 apr 20 apr sodium (mmol/l) 132 138 134 131 potassium (mmol/l) 3.4 4.4 4.7 4.2 chloride (mmol/l) 95 103 magnesium (mmol/l) 0.93 bicarbonate (mmol/l) 24 27 cardiac marker dates: 5 apr 10 apr 14 apr 20 apr troponin i(ng/ml) 0.009 0.04 0.04 0.007 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 109 published by scholink inc. g6pd (ug/hb) 5 apr 10 apr 15.1 14.3 sars-cov-2 testing 1 apr 5 apr 7 apr 13 apr 15 apr 17 apr detected detected detected not detected not detected not detected imaging day-2: x ray (figure 4) finding: small opacity at base of right lung: day 4: x ray: no gross active focal lung lesion seen day-4: hrct chest (figure 5a & 5b): there was bilateral extensive peripheral as well as sub segmental consolidation involving all lung lobes bilaterally especially the lower lung lobes day 9: chest x ray (figure 6): inhomogeneous opacities are seen in the left mid zone as well as both lower zones suggestive of pneumonitis day-35: hrct chest (figure 7a & 7b): significant improvement of the previously bilateral pneumonitis. only subtle residual changes noted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 110 published by scholink inc. figure 4. chest x ray small opacity at base of right lung figure 5(a). hrct (chest) bilateral extensive peripheral as well as sub segmental consolidation involving both lungs showing classical ground glass appearances www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 111 published by scholink inc. figure 5(b). hrct (chest) bilateral extensive peripheral as well as sub segmental consolidation involving both lungs showing classical ground glass appearances figure 6. chest x ray inhomogeneous opacities are seen in the left mid zone as well as both lower zones www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 112 published by scholink inc. figure 7(a). hrct (chest) significant improvement of the previously bilateral pneumonitis. only subtle residual changes noted figure 7(b). hrct (chest) significant improvement of the previously bilateral pneumonitis. only subtle residual changes noted www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 113 published by scholink inc. steroid dose dates: 10 apr 11 apr 12 apr 13 apr 14 apr 15 apr 16 apr 17 apr 18 apr 19 apr 20 apr 21 apr prednisolone at 1.2mg/kg/day-april 10-14, then tapering. 60mg morni ng 40mg eveni ng 60mg morni ng 40mg evenin g 60mg mornin g 40mg evenin g 60mg morni ng 40mg evenin g 60mg morni ng 40 mg evenin g 60m g 50m g 40m g 30m g 20mg 10m g 0m g fasting blood glucose mg/dl 140 84 78 treatment plan: sars-cov-2 outbreak is a global dramatic pandemic that is immeasurably impacting our community. there are measures to be taken by which to improve the condition of patients to accelerate recovery and to reduce the risk of morbidity and mortality. a) medications: 1) kaletra tablet (lopinavir 250mg + ritonavir 50mg): two tablets bd for 2 weeks 2) hydroxychloroquine (200mg) bd for 5 days 3) paracetamol tablet (1 gm) prn n2n parallel therapy for becoming covid 19-free: my specially devised near to nature (n2n). holistic medecine provides a complementary and alternative medical platform together with an integrative approach incorporating timely prescribed conventional medicine to achieve complete cure. highlights of the n2n therapy: management through science: n2n (near to nature) parallel therapy. stage 1: (infectious stage, first 72 hours): at this stage the immune system is responsible for eliminating virus, preventing healthy cells invasion by virus and the parallel therapy is based on science to improve immune response which is of importance. stage 2: (inflammatory stage that starts after 72 hours). cascade of inflammation happens especially in the lungs though in other organs too due to release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, interleukins(il6,18, 1b as well as other immune cells. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 114 published by scholink inc. personalized specialized corona maneuver 72 ➢ acute detox therapy (evian formula). ➢ antioxidant mega doses. ➢ fasting 10-12 hours as tolerable. ➢ oxygen 2–3l/min by nasal cannula; improves outcome in patients with room air sat ≥94%. ➢ niv: niv (non-invasive ventilation and strictly no contaminated vapor spread) or hfnc (high flow oxygen by nasal cannula) intermittent first 3 days. ➢ plasma transfusion of patients who have recovered covid-19, for moderate and severe corona cases during the 1st 3 days of their illness. ➢ micronutrients for performance enhancement. ➢ anti-inflammatory after 72 hours if criteria are fulfilled as in phase 2. ➢ max vo2 followed by reverse vo2—after 72 hours as tolerable. ➢ mental well-being. ➢ therapy analysis by intermittent prone position of the body & by doing exercises. it was a multi-pronged approach that i had carefully put together to challenge my body to slay the covid-19 beast. 1) acute detox therapy: the main focus of this is to clean the body, keep cells healthy and get rid of toxins being built up in the respiratory tracts and other organs of the body owing to the replication of the virus that results in apoptosis of the cells and inflammatory response of the body. evian formula = 2.5ml/kg/hour for 24 hours (using evian water to clean the body) for example, a person of 80kg weight needs to consume 200ml per hour for 24 hours i drank 6 l of evian water daily for 4 days that i later reduced in the following days. evian water is a natural source of mineral water, rich in mineral contents and neutrally balanced with a ph value of 7.2 for the body. 2) mega doses of antioxidants: antioxidants are important to protect cells against damage caused by sars-cov-2 toxins and free radicals and help in cell regeneration and build up natural immunity. i took vitamin c in the natural form of oranges each day (one medium sized orange is equal to 100 mg of vitamin c). i started with 2.4 gm of vitamin c on day -1 followed by 2 gm of vitamin c on day-2 and then 1.8 gm of vitamin c on day-3 & 4. 3) low-flow oxygen with nasal cannula (3-6l/min): there is a general perception that oxygen supplementation results in an improvement in outcome of patients at room air sat ≤ 94%. i used to take low flow oxygen with the nasal cannula at 4-6 l/min during the first 72 hours of starting n2n therapy. during the next 2 days at 3 l/min intermittently. max vo2: i started this while introducing exercise in the healing process during phase 2 on day5. i carried out cardio exercises, core body exercises, and mild weight-bearing exercises such as planks with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 115 published by scholink inc. high flow oxygen in small intervals. measurements were taken for heart rate and oxygen saturation during exercise and recovery. max vo2 is oxygen by nasal cannula, an oxygen supply system capable of delivering up to 100% humidified oxygen at a flow rate of up to 10-litre per minute used during exercise intervals and being off oxygen during recovery periods. reverse vo2 therapy: an oxygen supply system capable of delivering up to 100% humidified oxygen at a flow rate of up to 10-litre per minute by nasal cannula. this was used during the recovery period only while doing cardio and core body exercises at room air meanwhile checking heart rate and oxygen saturation by finger pulse oximeter at interval of exercise and recovery. 4) intermittent fasting fasting for over 12 to 14 hours has proven beneficial in detoxification as it promotes cell regeneration. i used to fast every night from 10 pm until 9 am but the only exception was drinking evian water. i did it as part of n2n therapy for a few days. 5) micronutrients: to have a balanced diet, i used multivitamins, vitamin d, minerals and plant-based/seed-origin omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids. i was using multivitamin (the brand name is centrum) that included vitamin b complex and zinc, magnesium and other minerals. i took a tablet vitamin d 50,000 iu once a week. in a 2006 study, the prophylactic and therapeutic effectiveness of zinc-sulphate was noted on children with common cold. (7) 6) anti-inflammatory medications: phase 2 is an inflammatory phase that starts on day 4 of starting n2n parallel therapy. i started taking steroids on day 5 (delayed one day as 4th day was spent in discussion with icu consultants in rashid hospital and dubai hospital). i started tablet. prednisolone 100mg daily in divided doses of 60mg morning and 40 mg evening for 4 days. i tapered the initial dosage on day 5 after starting steroids to 60mg in the morning only. it was further tapered by reducing 10mg daily until the course was completed. our treatment protocol was aimed to pre-empt the inflammatory changes that is categorized as the inflammatory phase of the coronavirus which follows phase 1. it helps reduce the anatomical damage to lungs as well as to reduce the inflammatory cascade reaction at alveolar capillary level and so to reduce the micro emboli formation in capillaries. 7) nppv (noninvasive positive pressure ventilation) on the second night of hospitalization i deteriorated and requested for non-invasive ventilation but was not facilitated as it was not in hospital protocol for covid-19 patients. i was advised to move to icu, a bed was arranged but i was not comfortable with this as i had fear due to high mortality in icu patients who are put on ventilators. data shows reduction in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 116 published by scholink inc. the need for intubation in patients who received hfnc or nppv [20]. expected outcome of the treatment plan: there was improvement in patients and symptoms, lab results, oxygen saturation and lung capacity was improved. the patient was able to start his cardio, chest expansion and core body exercises improving his physical fitness to return to his pre-covid fitness. actual outcome: the acuity of clinical condition was reduced from high to low. patient stayed in the hospital for infection control only otherwise could have discharged with continuity of care at home and follow-up in the clinic. further studies are needed. 4. discussion 4.1 secondary research discussion several studies have suggested number of medicines as interventions, potentially effective for the treatment of covid-19 (literature review table 3). most of these suggestions are based on records of their effects on sars and mers. in addition to these medications for specific treatment as well suggested supportive treatment for covid-19 need to consider. the published clinical treatment experience, outside the few clinical trials mentioned, mostly consists of descriptive reports and case series from china and other countries affected early in this pandemic. therefore, outcomes including case-fatality rates must be interpreted with caution given the presence of confounding and selection bias as well as the shifting demographics, testing, and treatment approaches. however, no clinical study has demonstrated the clear effects of either specific treatment or supportive treatment on covid-19 and further studies are indeed required. table 1. literature review for selected studies ontreatment and clinical outcomes covid-19 source study setting & country sample size (no. of patient) age, median (iqr), y icu status/comp lications, no. (%) treatments, no. (%) discharged alive, no. (%) deaths, no. (%) supportive care specific treatment huang et al., 2020(10) wuhan jinyintan hospital, china (12/16/19-1/2/20) 41 hospitalized 49 (41-58) icu: 13 (32); ards: 12 (29); mi: 5 (12); aki: 3 (7); shock: 3 (7); secondary niv/hfnc: 10 (24); mv: 2 (5); ecmo: 2 (5); krt: 3 (7) antivirals (oseltamivir): 38 (99); anti-bacterials: 41 (100); corticosteroids:9 (22) 28 (68) 6 (15) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 117 published by scholink inc. infection: 4 (10) patel et al., 2020 (21) temple university hospital in philadelphia, pennsylvania, (10/3/ 202024/04/ 2020 445hospitali zed only 104 met inclusion criteria average age was 60.6 icu: 104 dm:35(34) htn: 46 (45) ckd:15 (14) cvd:23 (22) niv/hfnc:104 (100) intubation 37 (36) remdesivir 9(9) sarilumab 40(39) anakinra 12 (11.7) pulse steroids 66 (64.7) hydroxychloroqu ine 22 (21) azithromycin 59 (57) antibiotics 76 (73) 48 (47%) 15 (14.4%) chen et al., 2020 (3) wuhan jinyintan hospital, china (1/1/20-1/20/20) 99 hospitalized mean (sd), 55.5 (13.1) icu: 23 (23); ards: 17 (17); aki: 3 (3); shock: 4 (4); vap: 1 (1) niv: 13 (13); mv: 4 (4); ecmo: 3 (3); krt: 9 (9) antivirals (oseltamivir, ganciclovir, or lopinavir/ ritonavir): 75 (76); antibacterial: 70 (71); antifungals: 15 (15); corticosteroids: 19 (19); ivig: 27 (27) 31 (31) 11(11) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 118 published by scholink inc. wang et al., 2020(27) zhongnan hospital, wuhan, china (1/1/20-1/28/20) 138 hospitalized 56 (42-68) icu: 36 (26); ards: 27 (20); mi: 10 (7.2); arrhythmia: 23 (17); aki: 5 (3.6); shock: 12 (8.7) niv: 15 (10.9); mv: 17 (12); ecmo: 4 (2.9); krt: 2 (1.5) antivirals (oseltamivir): 124 (90); antibacterial: moxifloxacin: 89 (64), ceftriaxone: 34 (23), azithromycin: 25 (18); corticosteroids: 62 (45) 47 (34) 6 (4.3) yang et al., 2020 (28) wuhan jinyintan hospital, china (12/24/19-1/26/20) 52 (all icu) mean (sd), 59.7 (13.3) icu: 52 (100); ards: 35 (67); mi: 12 (23); aki: 15 (29); bacterial infection: 8 (15) niv: 29 (56); mv: 22 (42); ecmo: 6 (12); krt: 9 (17) antivirals: 23 (44); antibacterial: 49 (94); corticosteroids: 30 (58); ivig: 28 (54) nr 32 (62) young et al., 2020 (2) 4 singapore(1/23/202/3/20) 18 hospitalized 47 (31-73) icu: 2 (11); ards: 0 (0); secondary bacterial infection: (0) supplemental oxygen: 6 (33); mv: 1(6) antivirals (lopinavir/ ritonavir): 5 (42); other antivirals or antibacterial: nr 8 (75) 0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 119 published by scholink inc. kujawski et al., 2020 (11) us-confirmed hospitals cases (1/20/20-2/5/20) 12 (only 7 hospitalized) 53 (21-68 icu: 1 (8); culture-posit ive secondary bacterial infection: 0 (0) supplemental oxygen: 4 (33) antivirals (remdesivir): 3 (25); antibacterials: 5 (42); corticosteroids: 2 (17) 100 (100) 0 guan et al., 2020 (8) national chinese cases (12/19/19-1/29/20) 1096 hospitalized 47 (35-58) icu: 55 (5); ards: 37 (3.4); aki: 6 (0.5); shock: 12 (1.1) oxygen: 454 (41); niv: 56 (5); mv: 25 (2); ecmo: 5 (0.5); krt: 9 (0.8) antivirals (oseltamivir): 393 (36); antibacterials: 637 (58); antifungals: 31 (2.8); corticosteroids: 204 (19); ivig: 144 (13) 55 (5) 15 (1.4) used abbreviations in above table: aki, acute kidney injury; ards, acute respiratory distress syndrome; covid-19, coronavirus disease 2019; ecmo, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation; hfnc, high-flow nasal cannula; icu, intensive care unit; iqr, interquartile range; ivig, intravenous immunoglobulins; mi, myocardial infarction; mv, invasive mechanical ventilation; krt, kidney replacement therapy; niv, noninvasive ventilation; nr, not reported; vap, ventilator-associated pneumonia. 4.2 case study discussion covid-19 continues to be a pandemic costing lives daily on the global level as it also remains a constant threat to healthcare professionals' lives and those dealing with chronic illnesses and also the aged who have weak immunity there is a constant shift in treatment protocols on a weekly basis in countries around the world. this study aimed to make a difference by showcasing how a combination of other treatments can make a whole lot of difference in the absence of an approved therapy for covid-19. the study was conducted as a personal experience of an emergency physician who was hospitalized after being diagnosed with covid-19. it offers a non-invasive therapy with limited to no side effects that was taken by this doctor through his medical experience which then resulted in immediate surprising recovery from www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 120 published by scholink inc. symptoms. the changes in labs and imaging at a time when his health was worsening even though he was on treatment as per hospital protocols. the therapy has proven its effectiveness in a short duration of time bringing into attention the power of the simple yet effective important factors that need to be taken into account as these may be the only factors that make a difference why the vaccine is waited upon for the treatment. this study gives a chance to doctors to give their patients more than what is being offered at the hospital. if replicated in large trials it may significantly reduce the number of deaths. this therapy can be practiced at home for mild cases. moderate cases can be treated in non-hospital settings but provision of oxygen, portable monitoring facility and mobile x-ray and lab are supportive facilities. it can help to reduce hospital bed occupancy so general community care isn’t compromised. hospital admissions could be only for severe category patients. parallel therapy (n2n) is based on science and is a supportive treatment for covid 19 with anticipated outcome of reduced number of days of stay in hospital, reduced further complication, and reduced mortality rate. for that purpose, we are recommending a large study on this proposed n2 parallel therapy in accordance with national level guidelines. it discusses the state of the art based on science clearly de-marketing phase 1 and phase 2 as well as usage of various treatments such as acute detox, anti-oxidants, intermittent fasting, micro-nutrient and anti-inflammatory like usage of steroid and its timings to help anti-inflammatory effect. medications like kaletra and hydroxychloroquine that’s considered earlier as the mainstay of treatment for covid-19 patients as per dubai health authority protocols have been found to have more side effects than benefits according to research now. currently the above medications are not in practice and have been obsolete from treatment protocols for covid-19 patients. now i realize that usage of these medications by me had just a placebo effect. acute detox is a milestone of cleaning the body as a result cells remain healthy, immune system works in a natural way and invasion of viruses into the cells is protected. ingesting large amounts of natural (mountain spring water) like evian water for natural detoxification is important. the evian formula is helpful to calculate the water needed for individual patients. the reason for suggesting evian water is because according to hydrogeologists, the mountains overlooking evian water spring, france are in an exceptional geological setting, where they block clouds allowing snow and rain to trickle down the glacial rocky that naturally filter and enrich the water with minerals in a process that takes 15 years. natural source of mineral water, rich in mineral contents and neutrally balanced at 7.2 for the body (6). oxidation is a process that produces free radicals which cause damage to the human body. evian has an additional ability to slow down oxidation or aging process as recognized tests conducted using an oxidation reduction potential electrode device show. make sure an adequate urine output and precaution for cardiac patients. antioxidants can be divided into carotenoids, phenolic compounds and vitamins. vitamin c is a powerful antioxidant in its role in controlling infection and promoting wound healing especially mega doses www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 121 published by scholink inc. improve immunity and flu symptoms, however precaution should be taken and mega doses should not be continued for a longer number of days as oxalate can get deposited in the kidney and may cause renal failure (25). in a small study it has shown benefit, however in the large study it has not proven to be useful. a 2013 meta-analysis of 24 trials (10,708 participants) found no evidence that daily vitamin c supplementation prevents the common cold in the general community (risk ratio 0.97, 95% ci 0.94-1.00. (17). however, daily vitamin c supplementation may shorten the duration of the common cold in children. in meta-analysis of 14 trials (2530 cold episodes), daily vitamin c (at least 200 mg/day) by children shortened the duration of the common cold by 14 percent (95% ci 7.3-21 percent); no serious adverse effects were reported (16). l-glutathione is another powerful antioxidant, a co-factor in phase-1 hepatic detoxification involved in synthesis of dna and protein, amino-acid transport, enzyme activation, and immune system functioning. (14) it can be given along with micronutrients after checking baseline micronutrients, which is well recognized for its ability to clean the body and keeps cells healthy. glutamate is a precursor of glutathione. observational evidence suggests that it may reduce respiratory infection in athletes. micronutrients are the basic ammunition for the body’s immune system to generate and fight back. animal origin omega 3 fatty acids should be avoided as it increases ldl cholesterol and can cause weight gain. vitamin d is a secosteroid that has a wide spectrum of immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory ant fibrotic, and antioxidant actions. it inhibits expressions of cytokines (il), tnf and deficiency is associated with over-expression of these cytokines that propels activation of inflammatory cascade in the lungs it is recognized that sars-cov-2 binds to ace 2 receptors in the respiratory tract that's the way how the virus enters host cells. vitamin d has an immuno-modulatory effect at ace2 receptors and helps reduce binding hence protect cells against viral invasion (20). a majority of those who succumbed to covid 19 were above the age of 65 or have type 2 diabetes and it is these people who often suffer from severe vitamin d deficiency.) as for intermittent fasting, the japanese cell biologist yoshinori ohsumi, who won the nobel prize for medicine in 2016, propounded the theory of autophagy. autophagy, meaning “cell devouring”, is the process in which in the absence of external sources of food, the body in order to eat, recycles its own damaged cells, triggering cell regeneration as new cells replace the dead cells which are recycled or is metabolized. (13). it is a process of cellular housekeeping and definitely helps in clearing the backlog of toxins. fasting eliminates toxins from our body and is a good way to detox and reboot our system. the changes in metabolism: the fasting brings changes in the metabolism and slows it down putting the body in starvation mode. it resets the immune system providing many potential benefits (22). valter longo and his colleagues at usc found that fasting lowers white blood cell count and triggers the immune system to start producing new white blood cells which are healthy and combat better to defend the body.) it also www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 122 published by scholink inc. stimulates the liver to get rid of toxins and combats viral infections, although more studies are needed. phase 2 of sars-cov-2 (begins after 72 hours that’s on day 4: counting day 4 with n2n parallel therapy) is an inflammatory phase mediated by macrophages and release of inflammatory mediators as cytokines, cascade of inflammation in alveoli that disrupt the alveoli-capillary membrane leading to respiratory distress. a delicate balance between inflammation and anti-inflammation is essential for lungs’ homeostasis. the classical radiological changes that appear in chest imaging ground glass appearances that mimic more triggered by inflammatory cascade in all cases. it is important to intervene during phase 2 before an anatomical damage of the alveoli sacs happens. finally, who (world health organization) has agreed with the role of anti-inflammatory to curb covid-19. still there is a flaw as the timing of starting anti-inflammatory during treatment has not been specified. our understanding from the beginning, based on science is that anti-inflammatory has an important role in phase 2. i used tab. prednisolone 100 milligram per day for four days that i then tapered and the results were promising. interestingly inhospital protocol steroids were not included for covid-19 patients. i requested the medical team that it is an important treatment as part of n2n therapy in phase 2 of the staging and received the course of steroids and arranged this medicine from rashid hospital and completed its course. according to dr. angel atienza in valencia, spain, the use of anti-inflammatory drugs started on the 6th day of the disease. her research has never been explained why particularly the second phase of treatment starts from sixth day. we believe that phase 2 should be categorized as one that starts after 72 hours of n2n therapy i.e. day 4 (not the proposed day 6 according to dr. angel) on the criteria of necessary findings of inflammatory markers<50% when compared to day-1 after diagnosis. this should be done after n2n therapy of intensive detox, anti-oxidant doses, intermittent fasting, micronutrients, oxygen supplement, as it is then the right time to prescribe high doses of anti-inflammatory medications. our treatment protocol aims to pre-empt the inflammatory changes during phase 2 to curb inflammatory cascade. the choice of medications among different anti-inflammatory drugs are steroid or tocilizumab (immunosuppressant) and anakinra (anti-interleukin) and methotrexate (12). our choice of steroid was tablet prednisolone 1.2 mg/kg body weight in preferably the full dose to be given in the morning hours. in case there are gastritis-like symptoms, ppi (proton pump inhibitor) like tablet omeprazole 40mg can be given. it is noted that many physicians in their practice divide steroid doses in the morning and evening. the fact is by doing so leads to imbalance of hormones that leads to metabolic complications such as iatrogenic high blood sugar. i was taking steroids in two daily divided doses until the 5th day of my diagnosis when my fasting glucose results became 8.1 mmol/l. therefore, i stopped the evening dose and on the next day the fasting glucose dropped to 4.3 and the following days it remained within normal limits as i had started taking steroids in a single morning dose. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 123 published by scholink inc. anti-inflammatory treatment at this stage potentially reduces the inflammatory response and prevents the progression to ards. for many covid-19 patients in the critical stage, this inflammation results in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ards) and eventually they cannot even survive with ventilator support. also clinically the patient feels far better in terms of his chest comfort/breathing/lung capacity/limited mobility/response to max vo2 followed by reverse vo2 therapy during his cardio and other exercises. objectively, the patient can be off oxygen for hours without desaturation at rest and minimal to moderate exertion. the studies have shown that patients with covid-19 with mild illness with saturation ≥94% at room air still can benefit with supply of oxygen with nasal cannula. the reason is though room air saturation is normal there is a local hypoxia at alveolar capillary level. by doing this therapy it reduces the inflammatory process in alveoli as well as cascade of inflammatory reactions at alveolar capillary level. in severe covid-19 cases where breathing is labored, and blood oxygen levels are dropping, the patients are first provided non-invasive ventilation through c-pap and bi-pap (18). early reports from the lombardy region of italy indicated that about 50 per cent of patients on non-invasive ventilation were able to avoid the use of full mechanical ventilation. regular and steady exercise routine is to be introduced slowly while in hospital during phase -2. (16). the exercises can be as little as a 10-minute walk with oxygen support within the room, to be gradually increased from 10-15 to 30-45 minutes in the room both with and without oxygen support. this has to be supplemented with other weight-bearing exercises such as planks, side planks lasting 1 to 2 minutes (duration to be gradually increased) as exercises are known to have a direct impact on building the body’s immunity and improving lung capacity. as patients progress, higher amounts of oxygen are needed (19). options at this point in covid-19 patients are high-flow oxygen via nasal cannula (hfnc) or the initiation of noninvasive ventilation (niv) (9). both modalities have been used variably (15). protection of healthcare workers is paramount and full ppe and negative pressure rooms are warranted. in retrospective cohorts, rates for hfnc use ranged from 14 to 63 percent while 11 to 56 percent were treated with niv while respiratory rate decreased with a relatively low exhaled tidal volume, non-invasive strategy could be working and intubation delayed. we also suggest starting with cpap using the lowest effective pressures (e.g., 5 to 10 cm h2o). there is a risk of exposure to healthcare workers due to increased risk of aerosolization (1). the rationale of this approach is based on direct evidence and observation in the field as well as evidence of its efficacy to reduce use of ventilators with acute respiratory distress with severe to critical covid-19 patients. 12 out of 15 covid-19 patients treated with niv and pronation (median total of two cycles, three hours) experienced an improvement in the peripheral oxygen saturation (20, 5). categories of covid-19 patients: a) covid-19 acute respiratory syndrome – asymptomatic through critical. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 124 published by scholink inc. b) stroke cases secondary to thromboembolic phenomenon related to covid-19. c) life-threatening acute inflammatory condition potentially related to covid 19. as per statistics, about 80-85 percent of the patients who are afflicted with covid-19 recover fully. the virus acts differently in people with different immune systems. the stronger your immune system, the higher are your chances of recovering faster from it. people who are below 60, follow a physically active lifestyle and do not have comorbidities, tend to have stronger immune systems that helps combat the virus. i) asymptomatic testing positive: these are usually the younger population who after being exposed to the virus, show no symptoms at all. the maximum impact they have is of feeling a mild discomfort and if they are found positive, they can easily self-quarantine at home and recover with little or no prophylactic medication. it is important these individuals self-isolate to prevent the community transmission of the virus. the only way to know how many people are asymptomatic would require a mass antibody screening, which once rolled out, will give an idea of the invasiveness from this virus. eventually, as most virologists around the world say, when the virus spreads really wide and people develop antibodies, we might develop herd immunity (herd immunity is achieved usually through vaccination). but in the absence of vaccination as the virus spreads, it becomes less virulent in mass transmission. when a sufficiently large population is exposed to such a contagious virus, it develops antibodies resulting in the entire community being protected from a severe outbreak. ii) mild: these patients manifest the illness with mild influenza-like symptoms—low-grade fever (not more than 37.8 c), headache, sore throat and fatigue but they do not have symptoms of breathlessness. these patients can take vitamin c natural treatment such as hot water, green tea, etc., along with symptomatic treatment which is available over the counter, like mild painkillers. iii) moderate: this marks the progression of the disease to the lower respiratory tract, affecting the lungs—its bronchioles and alveoli. such patients have fever (higher than 37.8 c), a sore throat, nasal congestion, inflammation of the lungs, feel breathless and tend to have an increased heart rate, may suffer from diarrhea, vomiting, lack of appetite, lack of a sense of smell and taste. this category of people cannot self-isolate at home and must seek medical attention when they test positive. iv) severe: this usually happens to people in advanced age, 60 and above, and those with comorbidities. such cases present with fever that spikes high, body ache, severe throat and nasal congestion and pneumonitis. they have trouble breathing and might be taking anything from 20-40 breaths per minute. (a normal adult takes in about 12-18 breaths per minute.) such patients have to be closely monitored in hospitals and administered antivirals and be on oxygen support. v) critical: the critical cases are wherein the symptoms spiral out of control from the severe stage, with escalating pneumonitis that makes the patients unable to breathe independently, requiring intubation, along with a strict medical schedule. this category has been observed to have a higher mortality rate as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 125 published by scholink inc. multiple organ failure is of a higher incidence here. life-threatening acute inflammatory syndrome in children potentially related to covid-19. recently, more than 85 children in new york manifested a lethal inflammatory syndrome that may be linked to covid-19 infections. more than 100 cases of this illness have emerged in at least six countries. the syndrome resembled the kawasaki disease, which is an inflammatory disease of the blood vessels in children with rashes on the chest and abdomen and high fever, swollen hands, lymph glands and swelling on the mouth and lips. some universal measures that can be implemented across the globe include: national strategic coordinated response: reduction rate of contamination by our action. i) people trust and information sharing. ii) find and isolate. iii) disinfection for circuit breaking. 5. limitations the major limitation with our study is that it has been applied to only one case, so the results cannot be generalized. further randomized clinical trials required for large sample size to develop nature therapy as parallel treatment for covid-19 intervention. 6. strengths overall study has shown very surprising results, as well indicates potential to explore the individual items to understand nature therapy perception for utilization of parallel treatment for effective outcome in more depth. 7. conclusion the covid-19 widely recognized global emergency, thus the role of the parallel treatment and other clinical trials has changed and continues to evaluate regularly. the literature, therefore, points to the development of extended alternative management in line with government policies and supported by formal clinical protocols to treat and further prevent the complication of covid 19. the basic steps can be adopted by “public health education initiatives' ' in collaboration of government and public health organizations together to adopt health as center of care by focusing physical, mental and social well-being. we as a global community need to acknowledge that there is a need for further research in development of policies, procedures and collaboration for enhancement of nature therapy as a key role for managing not only covid-19 though other such infectious diseases too. lastly, we strongly recommend the definition of health components to be considered while treating the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 126 published by scholink inc. covid-19 as physical health, mental health and social wellbeing. 8. acknowledgements we thank all the healthcare workers who contribute in this study and the reviewers for their time and constructive feedback. this case study is approved by the medical research & ethical committee, mediclinic hospitals dubai, uae. 9. conflict of interest as the authors of this study we declare that we have no conflict of interest. this work for further consideration for clinical trials. references adir, y., segol, o., kompaniets, d., ziso, h., yaffe, y., bergman, i., . . . eden, a. 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(2020). respiratory parameters in patients with covid-19 after using noninvasive ventilation in the prone position outside the intensive care unit. jama, 323(22), 2338. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.7861 stay healthy with dr brownstein’s holistic medicine. (n.d.). retrieved june 19, 2020, from https://www.drbrownstein.com/ team ncpere. (2020). vital surveillances: the epidemiological characteristics of an outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus diseases (covid-19)—china. china cdc weekly, 2(8), 113-122. https://doi.org/10.46234/ccdcw2020.032 wang, d., hu, b., hu, c., zhu, f., liu, x., zhang, j., . . . peng, z. (2020, february 7). clinical characteristics of 138 hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia in wuhan, china. retrieved june 19, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32031570 yang, x., yu, y., xu, j., shu, h., xia, j., liu, h., . . . shang, y. (2020, may). clinical course and outcomes of critically ill patients with sars-cov-2 pneumonia in wuhan, china: a single-centered, retrospective, observational study. retrieved june 19, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32105632 appendix a. abbreviation bipap bilevel positive airway pressure cpap continuous positive airway pressure dha dubai health authority n2n therapy near to nature therapy niv non-invasive ventilation n2n parallel therapy near to nature parallel therapy nppv noninvasive positive pressure ventilation hfnc high flow oxygen by nasal cannula https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/critical-care/oxygenation-and-ventilation/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32105632 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 129 published by scholink inc. author with affiliation dr yasin naroo frcp (glasgow), frcp (ireland), assoc. frcem (london), mrcs (edinburgh) a&e, consultant emergency medicine, rashid hospital trauma centre dubai senior lecturer dubai medical college senior faculty, american college of surgeons, american heart association yasin naroo graduated from the quaid-i-azam medical college bahawalpur in pakistan. he did his initial training in the bahawal victoria hospital in bahawalpur with professor tehseen cheema, a renowned hand and orthopedic surgeon in asia. subsequently, he joined the teaching faculty at his alma mater and worked as a demonstrator in the pathology & physiology department. he then went to the uk to earn his mrcp from the royal college of physicians london. he returned to pakistan and joined the mayo hospital lahore that is affiliated with the king edward medical university, working with professor hafeez khan, a renowned figure in medicine and cardiology in the state of punjab in pakistan. in 2001, dr naroo joined the rashid hospital dubai in the emergency medicine department and has been working there to date. in his long and distinguished career with the rashid hospital, dr naroo has undertaken many additional responsibilities including as team leader, medical team, from december 2002 until 2005. he has been a part of many hospital committees, including the sterling committee for trauma centre, to improve hospital standards. he has worked closely for the jci accreditation and has played a key role in formulating and implementing medical disaster management protocols for the dubai health authority (dha). dr. naroo has authored many scholarly works and textbooks: heart miles beyond pheidippides; textbook of critical care including trauma & emergency care; the 5-minutes clinical consult; acute coronary syndrome; and ischemic heart disease. he has played a leading role in regional and international publications such as circulation, global heart journal, us-china medical science, hkjem, international journal of current research, bmmr, heart views journal and the emirates medical journal. he serves on the paros (pan-asian resuscitation outcomes study) executive committee to analyze data in asian countries for ohca (out of hospital cardiac arrest). he has been the recipient of a number of honors for his extensive research and has lectured widely on topics of emergency medicine. a deeply committed family man, dr naroo has four children, two daughters and two sons, three of whom are married, with his youngest son in college. a passionate sportsman all his life, dr naroo has run many marathons and is an ardent believer in health and fitness. his more than three decades of experience as a physician, and all his learnings in life as an individual, were put to a severe test when he contracted covid-19. as he fought and vanquished the unseen enemy, he gained new perspectives www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 130 published by scholink inc. that changed him forever, both as a doctor and a human being. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 127 original paper netflix overseas strategy: why is china the most unnecessary market for netflix? yiwei gao 1* 1 academy of film, faculty of humanities and arts, macau university of science and technology, macau, china * yiwei gao, academy of film, faculty of humanities and arts, macau university of science and technology, macau, china received: july 30, 2024 accepted: august 13, 2024 online published: august 24, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p127 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p127 abstract netflix, inc. has grown into the world‟s leading internet television network, offering on-demand streaming ser-vices globally. its core business strategy focuses on expanding its streaming membership while maintaining profitability. over recent years, netflix has shifted its attention towards international markets, which now generate more revenue than its domestic market. however, despite substantial investments, challenges remain, including intense competition, high costs, and differing user habits. netflix‟s attempts to enter china, a significant market, have been met with regulatory challenges and stiff competition from local players. the complex landscape suggests that large-scale investment in china may not yield favorable returns for netflix. keywords global expansion, streaming services, international markets, competitive landscape, china market challenges 1. introduction netflix, inc. is the world’s leading internet television network, provide on-demand video, streaming movies, original series and documentaries in over 190 countries. netflix’s users can watch contents anytime, anywhere, on nearly any internet-connected screen. additionally, netflix also provides dvd services in the united states till september 29, 2023. netflix’s core business strategy is “to grow our streaming membership business globally within the parameters of our profit margin targets” (netflix 2023 annual report, 2023). by the end of the fiscal year 2018, there are three main business segments for netflix: domestic streaming, international www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 128 published by scholink inc. streaming and domestic dvd. starting from the fiscal year 2019, netflix combined the domestic streaming and international streaming segments, and reported the streaming financials based on four regions: united states and canada (ucan), europe, middle east, and africa (emea), latin america (latam), and asia-pacific (apac) (netflix 2019 annual report, 2019). let’s take a look at the netflix 2016-23 annual report. from 2016 to 2018 annual reports where the domestic dvd segment’s data is separately listed, we can see that the domestic dvd segment is the only part that losing customers even it’s still profitable and had the highest contribution margin and maintained a slight but steady growth each year. table 1. domestic dvd segment, netflix 2016 annual report table 2. domestic dvd segment, netflix 2018 annual report although the total revenue of the domestic dvd segment continuously declined from 2016 to 2023, its low costs allowed this part of business to positively contribute to netflix’s financial health until the segment was discontinued in september 2023. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 129 published by scholink inc. table 3. netflix 2023 annual report for the streaming services part, the classification method from netflix’s 2016-2018 fiscal years will be temporarily adopted, dividing the market into domestic streaming and international streaming segments. netflix has developed its domestic streaming market over several years, resulting in a mature and highly competitive landscape. membership growth steady each year, by the end of the second quarter of 2023, the number of sub-scribers in the u.s. and canada amassing over 75 million, and one in three u.s. users said they would not drop the streaming service. table 4. domestic streaming segment, netflix 2018 annual report to achieve more profit, netflix has been vigorously pursuing international expansion. from 2014-2018, the membership of international streaming segment grows very fast every year, mainly generated by its continuing increased investment. the highest increase in the cost of revenue occurred in 2016, with a 64% rise compared to 2015; the lowest increase, in 2018, was still substantial at 32%. at the end of 2018 fiscal year, the cost of revenue for the international streaming segment reached an astounding 5.7 billion, brings back 7.7 bil-lion revenues, in the meantime, the domestic streaming segment has a cost of revenue of 4 billion, at a significantly lower cost, brings 7.6 billion of revenue in return. it’s noteworthy that despite cost considerations, the fiscal year 2018 saw overseas streaming segment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 130 published by scholink inc. profits surpass those from the domestic u.s. market for the first time. table 5. international streaming segment, netflix 2016 annual report regardless of the significant revenue gap before 2018, the international streaming segment allocated a much larger portion of its budget to marketing expenses compared to the domestic streaming segment. however, despite these investments, the overseas contribution profit remained in a deficit state for years. from the perspective of netflix’s investment and marketing, we can infer that the overseas part is at the center of its cur-rent business strategy. table 6. international streaming segment, netflix 2018 annual report the continuously increasing cost of revenue and marketing expenditures eventually yielded substantial returns. in 2017, netflix nearly broke even in the international streaming segment. by 2018, the contribution margin for the international streaming segment finally turned profitable. this turnaround, coupled with the continuously expanding and deepening overseas market, resulted in the international www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 131 published by scholink inc. streaming segment’s revenue surpassing that of the domestic segment. these factors likely explain why, starting in 2019, the international streaming segment was no longer reported as a separate category. instead, revenue began to be reported by region, with cost of revenue and marketing expenses unified across segments. in 2017, netflix passed a major milestone in terms of its subscriber base, surpassing 100 million sub-scribers globally. it was also in this year that the number of international subscribers exceeded the number of u.s. domestic subscribers for the first time (netflix 2017 annual report, 2017). by the end of the 2023 fiscal year, the total number of subscribers worldwide had surpassed 260 million. of these, approximately 31% were from the united states and canada (ucan), 34% from europe, the middle east, and africa (emea), 18% from latin america (latam), and 17% from the asia-pacific (apac) region (netflix 2023 annual report, 2023). this indicates that the broader international market (outside north america) has become the primary revenue source for netflix. table 7. international streaming segment, netflix 2017 annual report table 8. domestic streaming segment, netflix 2017 annual report www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 132 published by scholink inc. table 9. ucan, emea, latam, apac revenus, netflix 2023 annual report 2. method 2.1 current stage of netflix overseas strategy as previously discussed, the international segment is the main direction of development for netflix. from the 10-k report, it is evident that despite rapid membership growth and the expansion into more countries, these achievements come at a significant cost. whether in 2016 or 2023, the expenses are substantial and certainly not cheap. table 10. cost of revenues & marketing, netflix 2023 annual report www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 133 published by scholink inc. according to calculations by the statista digital market outlook analyst team, netflix incurred a monthly loss of $0.60 per international subscriber in the second quarter of 2016, while u.s. subscribers generated an operating profit of $2.90 per month. the international segment continued to lose money until the first quarter of 2017. meanwhile, annual reports consistently show that the contribution margin of the international segment has been persistently lower than that of the domestic segment. the long-term losses and lower contribution margin in the international segment are due to several factors adversely affecting international results: 1) the average revenue per international user is lower than it is in the united states because prices differ across different regions, in some newer market netflix offers customer one-month free trial, and in some market, the subscription fee is different (lower) from the domestic market; 2) secondly, the cost of revenue, consisting mainly of costs related to the acquisition, production and licensing of content, is significantly higher on a per user basis than it is in the united states (statista felix richter, 2016). netflix made $990.3 increase in 2017 and $976 million increase in 2018 in content expenses for international spending; 3) thirdly, entering new markets requires significant marketing expenses. rising brand awareness in a new market is challenging, a company needs to consistently invest heavily in promotion, and it will take a long time to see a return. in 2018, $327 million increase in expense was due to the streaming delivery expenses, costs associated with customer service call centers and payment processing fees, all driven by its growing member base (netflix 2018 annual report, 2018). since 2018, marketing expenses for the international streaming segment have surpassed $1 billion. in 2023, netflix’s total marketing expenses reached $2.6 billion, with the majority allocated to international markets, accounting for 8% of that year’s total revenues. through years of sustained investment, netflix’s global expansion has yielded substantial returns. as of march 2022, netflix is available in over 190 countries, with more than 260 million paid subscribers, over 73 million of whom are located in the united states (netflix, 2024). globally, netflix is unavailable only in main-land china, north korea, russia, and syria (netflix, 2024). the absence of netflix in north korea, russia, and syria is due to political or wartime reasons. however, why has china, a major market, not become one of net-flix’s territories? 2.2 netflix‟s attempt to enter china during the years china has 1.09 billion internet users as of 2023, representing 77.3% of the chinese population who can access the internet at home via any device type and connection. this also means that one-fifth of the world’s internet users are in the chinese market (cnnic, 2024). signs of netflix’s interest in china first surfaced in may 2015, when the company was reported in talks to form a partnership with wasu media, a chinese holding company backed by alibaba’s jack ma (net-flix’s pricing power, 2015). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 134 published by scholink inc. disney took the initiative to enter the chinese market. at the end of 2015, disney and alibaba launched disneylife in china; only after five months, this streaming video service has been shut down. con-firmation of the closure follows the shutdown of apple’s itunes movies and ibooks services in china in april 2016 (frater, 2016). not only disney and, in june, uk-based video streamer mubi also terminated plans to form a $50 million venture with chinese film distributor huanxi (jon russell, 2016). under such a circumstance, on oct 7, 2016, netflix’s chief executive reed hastings said at the new yorker techfest that “disney, who is very good in china, had their movie service shut down. apple, who is very good in china, had their movie service closed down. it doesn’t look good” (bnn bloomberg, 2016). in 2017, netflix has given up its intention to launch its own streaming services in china but choose to license their content to a local streaming website called “iqiyi” (frater, 2016). in the netflix’s 2016 final q3 letter, it includes a particular section to talk about china market: “the regulatory environment for foreign digi-tal content services in china has become challenging. we now plan to license content to exist online service providers in china rather than operate our own service in china in the near term” (final q3 letter, 2016). on 27 april 2017, iqiyi and netflix have signed a content licensing agreement for netflix original series. the de-tail of this agreement hasn’t been revealed. in 2020, when netflix’s co-ceo reed hastings was once again asked about the chinese mainland market, he stated, “we got turned down by the chinese government several years ago. and we have not been spending any time on china in the last couple years”, instead of pursuing the chinese market, netflix has di-rected its focus towards other regions such as india, europe, and latin america. the company has also been making efforts to appeal to mandarin-speaking audiences worldwide (kevin, 2020). 3. result although there are many cultural and political factors, this study will mainly focus on the financial performance segment as much as possible. this research will discuss whether the chinese market is worth net-flix’s large-scale investment or not from the perspective of economic cost and roi, based on netflix and some chinese local video providers’ financial reports as well as other financial-related materials. (1) fierce competition due to the enormous potential of the chinese market and a series of policies aimed at protecting local enterprises, china is home to numerous large-scale and highly competitive internet companies. as of august 2023, alibaba and tencent rank among the top five capitalization internet companies in the world, while baidu ranked 18th on that list (companiesmarketcap.com., 2023). interestingly, these www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 135 published by scholink inc. leading internet companies all have their own streaming services platforms. baidu owns iqiyi, while alibaba owns youku. tencent, a chi-nese conglomerate offering streaming services, entertainment, gaming, payment systems, music, etc., generated a revenue of 77.99 billion in the 2022 fiscal year. wetv, along with iqiyi and youku, form the big three of the chinese streaming market. additionally, there are formidable competitors such as bytedance, which owns douyin and xigua video. douyin has registered users reaching 1.06 billion and daily active users of 770 mil-lion. xigua video has not only reached content cooperation agreements with bbc studios but also has accu-mulated over 350 million users, with a daily playback volume exceeding 4 billion (jiangxi network radio and television station, 2020). other competitors like acfun, bilibili, mango tv etc., each have a considerable market share, leaving netflix with limited room for market development. (2) hash operating costs except for the saturated market, netflix also doesn’t have a financial advantage. the fierce of competi-tion in the chinese market is reflected in almost all of the streaming services mentioned before are losing mon-ey year after year to seize the market and compete with each other. take iqiyi as an example, table 11. revenues, iqiyi 2018 annual report table 12. revenues, iqiyi 2021 annual report www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 136 published by scholink inc. table 13. revenues, iqiyi 2023 annual report from iqiyi’s financial reports from 2018 to 2023, it is evident that the operating costs and expenses were above $4.1 billion (30 billion rmb) each year from 2018 to 2022. it wasn’t until the end of the 2023 fiscal year that iqiyi achieved profitability for the first time. prior to 2023, iqiyi’s annual losses were partly covered by inves-tors and partly by baidu. the primary reason baidu continues to support this part of the business is to compete with other streaming services, relying on income from its other business segments (search engine, financial ser-vice, delivery service etc.) to offset the losses of this plate. the first profitable year for iqiyi came 13 years after its establishment. why did iqiyi finally turn profitable in 2023? was it due to increased revenue? between 2016 and 2018, iqiyi’s revenue maintained a high growth rate of over 40%. revenue increased by 16% from 2018 to 2019, but from 2019 to 2023, revenue remained stagnant at around $4 billion (30 billion rmb) with no signif-icant increase. thus, the answer to iqiyi’s profitability lies in cost reduction. the method of reducing costs was simple yet harsh: layoffs. starting at the end of 2021, iqiyi implemented multiple rounds of large-scale layoffs. except for the core departments (such as procurement and production department of series and variety show), non-core departments such as iqiyi research institute, iqiyi game center, and the short video product “sui ke (similar to youtube)” all faced layoffs. some departments were merged. in fact, during the analyst conference call for iqiyi’s q3 2021 report, iqiyi’s founder, chairman, and ceo gong yu hinted that non-core business departments might be layoff. “for iqiyi, the focus is on increasing revenue and cutting costs, mainly by cutting inefficient businesses and projects, and increasing and trying new monetization opportunities”, said gong yu (2021). in 2023, iqiyi delivered its best financial report in history, but wall street seemed unimpressed. imme-diately after the release of the report, the company’s stock price briefly rose before falling again. the capital market is always right; turning a profit does not necessarily mean iqiyi has fully turned the corner (sina fi-nance, 2024). the terrible news for netflix is that losses are the norm for all chinese domestic streaming services—it relates to consumer habits, which will be discussed later—but not a single company has any intention of leav-ing the market. some of them have strong parent companies (iqiyi, wetv, youku, mango tv), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 137 published by scholink inc. which netflix does not; some have government support (migu tv), which netflix does not; and some are niche services (bilibili), targeting a specific otaku community and becoming an integral part of its culture, something netflix clearly cannot replicate or compete with. from netflix’s annual report, netflix has spent a significant amount of money on expanding into over-seas markets. if they attempt to enter the chinese market, it would feel like falling into a bottomless pit, with a hard-to-achieve return on investment. consider the example of uber when it entered china and faced competition from didi and kuaidi. for several months, people in china who wanted to take a taxi not only did not need to pay but also received cou-pons for their next ride using these taxi apps. as didi and kuaidi completed their merger, the final battle be-tween the local company and uber began. uber, which did not adopt a subsidy strategy in other parts of the world, allocated $1 billion for subsidies in china. “didi and uber raised a combined total of about $20 billion, while the first gulf war cost approximately $60 billion” (lu, 2016). as the money-burning war intensified, investors’ patience wore thin. additionally, losses in the chi-nese market somewhat hindered uber’s global ipo plans. for uber’s investors, cutting losses in china, preserv-ing the global market, and going public as soon as possible were more important than capturing the chinese market (brad et al., 2016). uber poured all its earnings from the u.s. into china, but it was still not enough. the result was didi acquiring all of uber’s business in china. netflix would not want a repeat of this scenario. (3) different user habits so why are almost all streaming services in china losing money? lowering prices to increase competi-tiveness and investing heavily in promotions are some of the reasons. the biggest issue is the video consump-tion habits of chinese audiences. only in recent years has the “subscription” awareness started to develop; for decades, everyone watched videos and online content for free. according to statistic, in 2022, china accounted for about one-fifth of the 5.4 billion (1.08 billion) internet users worldwide. however, compared to its total population, china’s internet penetration rate is lower than in other asian countries (https://www.statista.com/statistics/265140/number-of-internet-users-in-china/). in china, iqiyi’s membership fees are considered relatively high. its basic plan costs $4 per month and $25 per year, offering 4k max+hdr+surround sound on mobile devices. youku’s annual membership can be as low as $18. these membership price levels were reached after a series of significant price hikes led by iqiyi from 2020 to 2022, which sparked considerable public dissatisfaction and led to a wave of membership cancellations across various streaming platforms. currently, netflix’s basic plan (which only supports 1080p and includes a few ad breaks) costs $6.99 per month, making it difficult for netflix to compete with chinese streaming providers on price. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 138 published by scholink inc. facing high video membership fees, according to statista, 52 percent of respondents from china stated that they had watched pirated content on a mobile device (irdeto; yougov, 2017). if netflix can’t come up with new revenue growth channels, relying solely on subscriptions won’t give it a fighting chance in the chinese market. user habits also encompass audience tastes, which are notoriously difficult to predict. take netflix’s original drama “marco polo” as an example. this show, set against the backdrop of chinese history and pro-duced with a chinese audience in mind, cost netflix approximately $90 million for its first season’s 10 epi-sodes, making it the second most expensive tv show in the world after “game of thrones”. netflix is hoping the series will help their international expanding, however only after two seasons marco polo has been canceled. the series’ two seasons resulted in a $200 million loss for netflix (goldberg, 2016). that is a typical case of failure to grasp the user’s preferences. these differences in user habits can cost netflix a fortune, netflix needs to find ways to lower sub-scription fees while enhancing service content. additionally, they must conduct in-depth studies on the tastes of the chinese market, providing more original series and acquiring more existing local content if necessary. how-ever, this approach may also lead to further complications. (4) high original program production costs in china the different market has different production structures. netflix’s original programming is the key ele-ment to differentiate their service from other offerings, enhance netflix’s brand and otherwise attract and retain members. but produce original series not that easy in china. despite the censorship and regulation difficulties, the production cost is also a big problem. in this stage of chinese motion picture business, actors and actresses are much more important than the program itself. lu han, a former member of the south korean chinese boy group exo, now one of the most popular idols in china, earned $17 million (120 million rmb) by shooting his very first a tv drama called “choose heaven”. the total cost of this show is $60 million (400 million rmb), with one-third of the budget goes to one single actor, other actors and actresses are not cheap either. $1.4 million on promotion, $5 million on special effects, and only $2 million on clothing (netease entertain-ment, 2017). the allocation of resources reflects the show’s high production costs. on december 24, 2018, the beijing radio and television bureau issued the “implementation rules for further strengthening the management of radio, television, and online audiovisual programs”, which stipulates that the total remuneration of all guests for each program must not exceed 40% of the total program cost, and the main guests’ remuneration must not exceed 70% of the total guest remuneration (beijing munici-pal people’s government, 2018). however, according to china news weekly (2024), the top-tier actors’ remu-neration for a single project still reaches around $ 3 million (20-25 million rmb). these actors do not demon-strate outstanding performance skills, and the anticipated online traffic they are expected to generate often re-mains unrealized. their value predominantly lies in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 139 published by scholink inc. attracting investment during the pre-production stage of film and television projects. 4. discussion fierce competition, high operating costs, different user habits, and high original program production costs in china, these difficulties and other political constraints make the chinese market a place that is not suitable for netflix’s expansion. if netflix forced into the chinese market, it is likely to fail quickly like disneylife and apple’s itunes movie; even if it can stay for a long time, it can hardly make differences from what’s happening to uber—caught into the big fight with china’s local companies, invested heavily but hopeless to see any payback. references adkins, t. 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(2016, april 13). retrieved may 14, 2017, from http://finance.eastmoney.com/news/1355,20160413613855634.html communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 1 original paper the language of the ukrainian national minority as an element of media propaganda delfina ertanowska1* 1 university of information technology and management, rzeszow, poland * delfina ertanowska, university of information technology and management, rzeszow, poland received: november 16, 2019 accepted: december 1, 2019 online published: december 10, 2019 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n1p1 abstract the article deals with the issue of the language of the ukrainian national minority as a tool in russian media propaganda. the impact of media manipulation of the ukrainian language for the formation of the concept of nationality and self-identification among ukrainian national minorities living in central europe has been approximated. keywords media propaganda, national minority, language manipulation, self-identification, central europe 1. introduction there are many definitions of the word propaganda, it can occur as a political aspect with what is usually associated, media propaganda, and even propaganda regarding national and ethnic identity. propaganda and its various subjective ways of the storytelling they have accompanied humanity from the beginning. various versions of narrative and persuasion are elements intended to “volunteer” persuade someone for their version of events, does not necessarily coincide with the ethics and moral assessment, but profitable for their own material, political or ideological benefits. of course, propaganda appearing in mass media it combines elements of politics, national identity and is usually part of a larger political game. definitions propaganda was already defined in antiquity, aristotle was the creator of the first complete theory of conviction. he recommended that the sender submit himself as a warm and kind person. it recommends that the authors of speeches use logical arguments, referring to the history and imagination of the recipient, and the message itself should be constructed in such a way that it corresponds to the previous convictions of the listeners (pratkanis & aronson, 2013. p. 49). david miller defined media www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. propaganda as information winning hearts and minds (yahya, kamalipour, snow, & boulder, 2004. p. 7), and this is the shortest and most accurate wording, therefore when once we have mastered the minds of the population, we will have unlimited power, over these people to whom pseudo-scientific arguments do not speak, because it is only about such as that which are mentioned in this case, we will win its hearts through the most primitive play on human feelings and emotions. all these factors are tools in the hands of propagandists—political, ethnic, national, religious and gender aspects, properly formulated and transmitted through various means of communication: television and radio programs, articles in newspapers and websites, also today as comments under articles, in social media, tweets, on facebook, memes, and other internet resources, also as hate speech, trolling and fake news which are part of online life. ethnic and national minorities are easy morsels for propagandists; deprived of their country, among “strangers”, often discriminated by authorities, society. they are looking for support in populist texts, feel finally noticed, appreciated. propaganda works best when it exploits pre-existing prejudices (peters, 2018). these stereotypes are the main activities of propagandists. ethnic intolerance, as the epilogue of cleverly devised propaganda in the media, resulted in practically general support for the ferocious war in the former yugoslavia. many studies and much research about the role of media in ex-yugoslav conflict indicated that media, while serving the regime, was producing wars and hatred (mijatović, 2015, p. 5). unfortunately, even such a tragic after-effect of war did not speak to the creators of the media machine of hatred, who, in a similar vein, are building political capital on the foundation of hateful media propaganda. many thinks propaganda is a feature of bad and totalitarian regimes, and it amounts to clever deception. in modern terms, the word “propaganda” also included the meaning of the proposal and influence through the manipulation of symbols and the use of psychological mechanisms of individuals (pratkanis & aronson, 2013. p. 17). manipulation of symbols, colors, associations is the simplest message that goes to all, even a less demanding recipient. such manipulation may also be called ideological journalism or ideological message in the media, understood as a concept that contains an ideological element or paradigm of world outlook. ideologies and propaganda in the media can be viewed and defined in many ways: as a stream, a current symbol, a sign perceived as an element of ideological norms (lylo, 2017, pp. 14-20). 2. method the research methodology used in this study was a comparative analysis of media content appearing in russian, serbian, polish, czech, slovak and ukrainian media. covering various ways of presenting the creation of ukrainian statehood, a sense of national and linguistic identity among the ukrainian minority living in the above-mentioned countries. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. 3. results for a long time ukrainians were under partitions of various empires, deprived of their own state were exposed to attempts of russification and polonization. language, culture, sense of nationality as well as faith were fought and discriminated by the authorities of these empires. centuries of activities have led to the formation of many myths, lying stereotypes and deliberate attempts to falsify the history. all of the above to this day is used as element of carefully prepared propaganda and disinformation and the spread of fake news. ukrainians who after the second world war and the subsequent collapse of the ussr and the eastern bloc found themselves within the borders of various neighboring countries are exposed to increased propaganda and disinformation activities. the victims are also the ukrainian minority in serbian vojvodina, which was there as a result of resettlements and labor migrations from the reign of austro-hungarian empire (hvat, 2016, p. 3). it was found that the propaganda tool, which is the manipulation of the national language among national minorities inhabiting central europe, has a direct impact on the formation of a sense of national belonging and self-identification among ukrainian national minorities. it was also noted that manipulation of the ukrainian language is a tool used by the russian propaganda, aimed at breaking unity and a sense of national belonging among ukrainian minorities living in central europe. 4. discussion history of russian propaganda in galicia in the 19th and 20th centuries. the historical propaganda itself, referring to attempts to russification of ukrainians, is a phenomenon quite commonly described and has been going on for over two centuries. form of agitation and spreading false information only changes its vectors. once through direct meetings and rallies of support by distributing the printed press to this day through all forms of online media. over the years, it has turned into an attempt to rewrite history. the idea goes back to the interwar period, when through religious conversions it was attempted to create a nation of carpathian russians, such as the example of the village of florynka (augustyniak, 2013), or supporting ruthenian’s autonomy in transcarpathia in czechoslovakia, just because the ruthenians did not identify themselves as ukrainians (stec, 2015). the polish people's republic also pursued its “policy of polonizing” ukrainians—lemkos (vatra, 1994, pp. 6-7). moskvofil’stvo—endowed large financial outlays, found a large group of recipients and supporters (pidhirskyi dzvin, 5, 1912, p. 1). many ukrainians did not give in to this manipulation, they thought russophilism was just a figment of propaganda, and also deeply regrets the behavior of the russophile part which is called brothers they took into their home, and they now say that this is their home (franchuk, 1912, p. 2). from a pro-russian newspaper addressed to the inhabitants of the lesser poland we learn that the wave of russophilism comes from russian communities in the usa (lemko, 27, 1912, p. 3). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. pro-russian enthusiasts also argued that the name ukraine was only a piece of land, not a state formation (shelukhyn, 1930, p. 3). all these types of activities are called propaganda, but russia has perfected the ways of manipulating the sense of national belonging and creating history for its own benefit. walter lippmann, the author of the best known definition of propaganda, states that it is the effort to alter the picture to trigger a reaction, to substitute one social pattern for another (lippmann, 1992, p. 26), which perfectly fits the new historical narrative published in russian-language media. nikolay starikov claims that ukraine is an artificial creation of the austro-hungarian government, established only to divide the russian nation (starykov, 2019). we find this statement many times in the russian press, but also in scientific articles. in one of the journals of sociological sciences, we also find this rhetoric, along with the reference to events in galicia, where the author divides the ukrainian nation in ukrainian “ukrainofily” invented by the austrians and “starorusyny” faithful to their “truely nationality” (barinov, 2012). the active struggle against the very nature of ukraine’s statehood and the manipulation of names is a slogan repeated for many years by russian propaganda instruments according to the principle: a lie repeated a hundred times becomes true. language as a propaganda tool. probably no other language arouses such interest of propagandists as ukrainian. this language survived the official prohibition in ukrainian ssr (in the interwar period), and also ridicule and negation of its existence. the most famous ukrainian writer taras shevchenko in his poetry collection kobzar wrote to the ukrainians: slavic people someday we will speak in our own way (shevchenko, 1987, pp. 290-291), and it has happened after the collapse of the ussr, finally the ukrainian language became national. the ukrainian language itself, apart falsifying the history of this country, has been the biggest victim of propaganda since the interwar period. rusophile movements with the approval of the authorities of the second polish republic created a universal student’s book—based on the russian alphabet, in the intention of proving that the ukrainian language is only an old-russian dialect (nash lemko, 23, 1935. p. 1), which did not appeal to ukrainians aware of their origin—which more interestingly the majority of the population did not even understand this artificial newspeak. although russophiles from the interwar period were deprived of such enormous financial support from the bolsheviks (nash lemko, 9, 1934, p. 5), they felt attachment to the communist system. language has become one of the most important elements of maintaining ukrainian culture and nationality. as claims t. lylo—language and its communicative possibilities of maintaining national identity in people, even in such conditions where the community has no designated common territory is the main identification vector (lylo, 2010, p. 79). that is why in the ukrainskyi beskyd newspaper we meet with an appeal to the population for the group development of ukrainian science and culture (fylypchak, 1937, p. 1), while in the ukrainskyi beskyd we read about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. the power to cultivate native speech as part of the community and national identity (a. st, 1929, p. 1). in the pages of this newspaper hamchykevych states that culture is needed for a nation as a light for a living organism (hamchykevych, 1920, p. 1), which is why the editorial office of ukrainskyj holos published linguistic guides (ukrainskyi holos, 35, 1919, p. 1) and lists of words borrowed from russian and polish as well as their ukrainian equivalents as part of the adopted education plan (chykalknko, 1920). kalman segal in his reports from the galician town described the stubbornness and perseverance of the ukrainian student jurek korba in gaining a higher education (segal, 2017, pp. 120-121), which proves that the nation was not illiterate as it was presented by russian propaganda. however, the events of world war ii changed the course of history, including speech development, for many years. during the communist period and the prevailing censorship, and the unified socialist worldview program prevailing throughout central and eastern europe—in a ukrainian-language newspaper addressed to this minority in poland, we read that they themselves come from the russian and belarusian culture, while the language is a mixture of russian and old-slavic language (shch, 1957, p. 2). media propaganda is also about spreading trust and ideas of action programs among people, giving them authority, presenting certain facts, forming opinions, arguing or counter-argumenting in the political, ideological and ideological struggle (rajczyk, 2016, p. 24). viktor mozgin notes that modern russian propaganda draws heavily on the achievements of western precursors. however, it can be seen that he uses many techniques borrowed from the doctrine of nazi germany, he also notes that it is part of the large-scale information war waged by russia against the west (mozgin, 2017, pp. 109-125). anatolij vasserman russian agitator (he left ukraine for russia few years ago), personally in one of the interviews reveals the secrets of the success of propaganda: one of the heard methods consists in bribing all who would be against the integration of ukraine in russia, he added, of course, that the ukrainian language is a dialect of russian, and repeats the previously mentioned “historical sensation” about the creation of ukraine by the austrians in the 19th century (silayev, 2010). nobel prize winner olga tokarczuk writes that language is something of its own (tokarczuk, 2019, pp. 199-200), a treasure that you can only have for yourself, as already mentioned earlier, it is an element uniting society, especially in the context of national minorities, thanks to which they can preserve their identity. propagandists, however, make great use of it and write, for example, that the ukrainian language was invented by the writer ivan kotlarevskiy in 1794, and it is an artificial creation. however, in 1918 in saint petersburg, aleksander pavlovsky created the “grammatics of malorussian nationalist”, recognizing ukrainian as a little-russian dialect (analiticheskaya gazeta). an interesting fact is that the publication of this grammar in russia and bukvar in poland coincided in time, presented the same content and national-political orientation. ryszard kapuściński said that the support from populists, warlords, nationalists and party leaders is destructive for the language (kapuściński, 2007, p. 155). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. however, as we learn from the czech press, the integration of ukrainian lemkos with their country is disturbed by, as jevgenen župan puts it, by propagandists and saboteurs living in russia and transcarpathia (němec, 2017, p. 12). as we read in the report of russian social media influence. understanding russian propaganda in eastern europe, russia is also pioneering using automated accounts in social media, troll factories and skillfully uses fake news (helmus & bodine-baron, 2018, p. 40). in slovakia, where the ukrainian minority is a large group, speech awareness is an indicator of ethnic orientation (plyishkova, 2009, pp. 8-11), which is why language has become a tool of media propaganda. contemporary propaganda has moved away from information and education in the spirit of the promoted idea, and is aimed at persuading people to a certain point of view and got support and votes (pratkanis & aronson, 2013, p. 19). its important assumption is to manipulate the emotions of the recipients (pratkanis & aronson, 2013, p. 49), which is the sense of ethnicity or nationality. the game on the emotions of ukrainians also takes place in vojvodina, where sputnik, a russian electronic newspaper having editions in more than 20 european countries, also spreads the myth about the russian pedigree of ukrainians living in galicia and the carpathians, where it comes from the most of the ukrainian emigration living in former yugoslavia; similar information concerns the origin of the language, and calls them russian ruthenians (grigor’yev, 2015). here, however, propaganda goes a step further and also looks for similarities in the colors of the coats of arms and colors which ruthenians used as connections to russia, in the sense of the word—propaganda as an influence by manipulating symbols as psychological mechanisms (pratkanis & aronson, 2013, p. 17). propaganda in the balkans were already known from the time of world war ii, where as part of the spread of false information, the ukrainian minority took preventive measures in the form of press publications (stsiborskyi, 1940, pp. 5-7). also, it is noteworthy that considered as 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(2004). war media and propaganda a global perspective. ny – toronto – oxford: rowman & littlefield publishers inc. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 143 original paper communicating food heritage in the digital age: a study on the multisensory and participatory design of the guangxi rice noodles museum yaqi yang 1* 1 the university of sheffield, sheffield, united kingdom * yaqi yang, the university of sheffield, sheffield, united kingdom received: september30, 2025 accepted: october 26, 2025 online published: november 24, 2025 doi:10.22158/csm.v8n2p143 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v8n2p143 abstract based on the critical underrepresentation of regional food heritage in conventional museum practices, this study proposes the design and theoretical underpinnings of the guangxi rice noodles museum, a hybrid digital-physical exhibition. the project aims to preserve and communicate the cultural significance of guangxi rice noodles as both tangible and intangible heritage, fostering intergenerational transmission and critical reflection on its commercial value. drawing on participatory museology and sensory studies, the methodology integrates immersive technologies—including markerless ar, vr cooking simulations, multilingual voice interaction, and motion-triggered scent devices—with community-driven content collection and inclusive design principles. the research results in a detailed, implementable framework comprising a structured content data model, user journey mapping, and functional specifications for interactive systems. it is concluded that this multisensory and participatory approach effectively transforms everyday food culture into an engaging heritage experience, bridging the gap between local knowledge and global audiences. the museum model demonstrates how digital curation can serve as a platform for cultural democratization, inclusivity, and sustainable heritage practice, positioning regional culinary traditions within broader discourses of identity and memory. keywords guangxi rice noodles museum, hybrid exhibition, multisensory experience, participatory design, digital heritage www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 144 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction this study proposes an integrated physical and digital exhibition—the guangxi rice noodles museum—which explores how regional food heritage can be communicated through inclusive, multisensory curatorial strategies. combining traditional displays with ar, audio-visual storytelling, tactile installations and oral histories, the project aims to engage diverse audiences in cultural participation. this hybrid exhibition addresses the underrepresentation of local culinary knowledge and sensory experience in conventional food heritage practices. rice noodles are not just regional treats; they are cultural artefacts linked to memory, labor, identity, and mobility. the project aims to highlight guangxi rice noodles as tangible and intangible heritage, showing stories of community resilience, intergenerational transfer, and place-based identity. inspired by raymond williams‘ (1989) understanding of everyday culture, the exhibition highlights how food can anchor emotions, memories, and belonging. the cultural foundation of this project stems from the broader challenges of heritage representation. whether in china or globally, much of the existing exhibition work related to food remains overly commercial and visual (sandell, 2007). while tourism and viral media shape regional identities and strive to benefit communities, the situation of heritage cultural development can become extremely complex (su & teo, 2009). the sensory richness of daily labor, voices, and food culture is often erased. in guangxi, it involves marginalizing rural noodle shop artisans, elderly women producers, and ethnic minority traditions. so, this exhibition promotes curatorial justice by including unheard voices and decentering the dominant narrative. in terms of methodology, the exhibition is based on the design of participatory museums and draws on nina simon‘s (2010) participatory museum model, as well as the research on accessibility by vikmane et al. (2024)—stimulating emotions, memories, and imaginations can significantly enhance the overall museum experience for all visitors and facilitate the development of interactive technologies and co-created content. the olfactory display and vr cooking simulation not only make the space accessible to different users (including children, the elderly, and disabled visitors), but also enhance the cultural immersion by connecting physical sensations with historical knowledge (howes & classen, 2013). moreover, the exhibition responds to critiques by bell and valentine (1997) and lebesco and naccarato (2012), who argue that food heritage spaces often obscure structural inequalities and commodify culture for mainstream consumption. through participatory design and embodied interpretation, this project seeks to counter such tendencies. it challenges the viewer not just to consume, but to feel, reflect, and act. to capture these dynamics, the project engages in comparative research across regional and international food exhibitions, identifying representational gaps and conceptual weaknesses in existing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 145 published by scholink inc. practices. it also draws on walter benjamin‘s (2008) notion of aura to critique the disconnection between mass-reproduced food images and the intimate, sensorial processes of food making and sharing. by repositioning rice noodles as daily sustenance and mobile cultural memory, the project aims to create a new museum practice that is ethical, embodied, affective, and inclusive. ultimately, the guangxi rice noodles museum contributes to discourses on heritage studies, cultural democratization, and digital curatorship. it asks how underrepresented food cultures can be reimagined for dialogue and transformation, with multisensory experience as a means for cultural justice and community empowerment. 2. aims and objectives the aims and objectives outlined below form the strategic foundation of the exhibition at the guangxi rice noodles museum. this exhibition encompasses both digital and physical dimensions and aims to redefine rice noodles not merely as a commercialized regional symbol but also as a carrier of memories, traditions, and identities. through the integration of immersive technologies, oral history, and participatory design, the exhibition presents a multi-voiced, community-centered cultural narrative mode rather than a simplistic heritage narrative. it aims to reflect the best practices in digital heritage, sensory museology, and mobile technology curation (parry, 2007; lynch, 2013; economou & meintani, 2011). aim 1: to preserve and communicate the regional diversity and cultural significance of guangxi rice noodles through immersive, multi-sensory curatorial practice. this aim positions the exhibition not merely as an information display, but as an experiential intervention into how local food traditions are remembered, shared, and valued. it challenges dominant narratives that often reduce food heritage to a visual spectacle or tourist branding tool. instead, it seeks to recover and reframe rice noodles as living heritage embedded in social relations, sensory memory, and geographic diversity. objectives: 1) to create six regionally themed exhibition halls by month 6, each representing a key rice noodle tradition within guangxi (e.g., guilin, liuzhou, nanning), and showcasing 57 varieties of rice noodles through spatial, visual, and material design. justification: by curating rice noodles by locality, the exhibition resists homogenized representations and instead visualizes geographic specificity and culinary nuance. this directly supports the aim of promoting cultural complexity and region-specific knowledge. as scarpato (2001) argues, local culinary expressions are crucial markers of identity and social cohesion. 2) to integrate ar/vr and interactive technologies by month 8 that simulate rice noodle production processes, enabling deeper sensory and procedural understanding. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 146 published by scholink inc. justification: digital interaction expands the scope of sensory interpretation curatorial tools. it allows visitors to experience food-making practices and connect intellectually and emotionally with other overlooked knowledge systems. following cameron (2011), immersive technologies can break passive viewing, transcend the limitations of the venue, and encourage concrete engagement with cultural content. this is in line with the shift in digital museology towards more equitable access. 3) to provide a multi-sensory interpretive strategy including soundscapes of noodle markets, scent diffusers mimicking broth aromas, and tactile replicas of tools and ingredients. justification: sensory design deepens emotional and cognitive responses, enhancing memory and empathy. this method supports the exhibition‘s communicative goal by activating taste memory and sensory recognition. 4) to build a sustainable digital archive platform by month 12 that stores regional typologies, oral histories, visitor inputs, and multimedia content for long-term access by educators, curators, and the public. justification: a digital archive ensures long-term cultural preservation and positions the exhibition within an open-access, educational framework. harrison et al. (2020) highlight the importance of archiving community-driven heritage within collaborative, participatory systems. aim 2: to foster intergenerational transmission, community participation, and critical reflection on the cultural and commercial value of guangxi rice noodles. this aim centers the social life of heritage—how food knowledge circulates, who participates in it, and how communities negotiate cultural continuity. it also attends to the tensions between heritage preservation and commodification. through oral history, workshops, and participatory design, the project positions the museum as a dialogic space, not just a display site. the goal is to facilitate an ongoing cultural conversation, responsive to local voices and shifting identities. objectives: 1) to collect and digitally present oral histories from local elders, noodle artisans, small vendors, and tourists, using audio booths and video installations in the exhibition space. justification: oral storytelling sustains cultural memory and democratizes authority by foregrounding lived experiences. this fulfills the aim by ensuring intergenerational and grassroots knowledge becomes central to the exhibit. 2) to set up community-oriented workshops and interactive storytelling zones, where visitors (particularly students and families) can learn noodle-making, engage in taste memory activities, and contribute personal stories. justification: these workshops animate heritage as lived and ongoing. by making space for experiential learning and user-generated narratives, the exhibition becomes a platform for cultural transmission and civic participation. this approach advocates for co-creative museum models that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 147 published by scholink inc. recognize visitors as contributors. 3) to curate a cultural-creative display zone for local rice noodle brands, paired with a feedback mechanism (questionnaire) that gathers visitor reflections and opinions on commercialization, tradition, and authenticity. justification: presenting commercial branding alongside critical reflection surfaces the cultural contradictions inherent in heritage commodification. it supports the aim by provoking thought about how food heritage is shaped in markets and media. 4) to analyze visitor responses and publish a post-exhibition evaluation report that assesses user engagement, cultural impact, and public perception of commercial vs traditional heritage expressions. justification: this supports institutional learning and transparency, feeding back into heritage research and future curatorial practice. participatory exhibition models should build in evaluative tools to remain accountable to diverse stakeholders. why these aims and objectives matter together, the two aims reflect a dual commitment: first, to present guangxi rice noodles as rich, multi-dimensional cultural heritage; and second, to activate this heritage as a living and shared experience. these aims are intentionally broad yet conceptually grounded. each objective is a concrete action toward realizing these intentions through curatorial design, technological integration, and social engagement. the selected methods—regional exhibition zoning, ar/vr simulation, oral history collection, community workshops, and brand feedback—support these aims by fostering sensory immersion, social inclusion, and critical reflection. 3. context 3.1 cultural background and content understanding the cultural context of guangxi rice noodles is not just a culinary interest but crucial for recognizing the cultural necessity and academic value of their exhibition. this resonates with raymond williams‘s (1989) critique that culture is not confined to elite expressions but deeply embedded in everyday practices, including food. pine and gilmore‘s (1999) theory of the ‗experience economy‘ also suggests that cultural consumption is increasingly tied to emotion and memory, underscoring the need to foreground such foodways in curatorial practice. by situating guangxi rice noodles within these theoretical frameworks, we underscore the compelling reasons why their conservation and interpretation within the museum context are not merely pressing but also hold profound significance. although rice noodles are popular in china, guangxi‘s versions are a unique cultural practice little explored in museums and academia. this section contends that guangxi rice noodles are more than food; they symbolize ecological adaptation, cultural resilience, and social cohesion. despite being www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 148 published by scholink inc. common, their cultural significance is overlooked or just used for tourism. the following analysis highlights the need to present, interpret, and critically examine this history. guangxi rice noodles have a history of over two thousand years, influenced by the region‘s unique geographical, agricultural, and ethnic conditions. abundant rainfall and mountainous terrain make it suitable for rice cultivation, different from the wheat-dominated north. guangxi‘s rice noodle culture developed from ecological needs and local wisdom, challenging the common top-down, han-centric view of food heritage. archaeological findings and texts like in the book of han show long rice-based food consumption in lingnan. early records stress the sophistication and social value of rice food processing. the traditional method (soaking, grinding, steaming, cutting) is still used, maintaining knowledge and authenticity. previous studies show it is essential to document these in a museum; otherwise, modernization may erase this knowledge. guangxi rice noodles are more than a single tradition. they are a mix of regional types influenced by trade, ethnic relations, and local tastes. guilin‘s noodles show cantonese braising influence; liuzhou‘s snail noodles use local fermentation and snail resources; nanning‘s old friend noodles, from zhuang cuisine, have medicinal and communal meanings. these differences oppose the one-sided view of ‗chinese food‘ and encourage a more diverse understanding of regional identity. yet these histories are not easily accessible to the public. digital platforms and packaged goods (like instant snail rice noodles) have separated rice noodles from their cultural background. social media can increase visibility but often sacrifices depth, strengthening stereotypes and commercial aesthetics. after 1978, urbanization and mass production helped cross-regional exchange but also made regional differences less distinct. in this context, curating a guangxi rice noodles exhibition is not just about nostalgia or celebration; it is an urgent cultural preservation and interpretation act. the exhibition corrects mainstream narratives that neglect or commodify local culinary knowledge. it invites audiences to see rice noodles not as snacks or souvenirs, but as artefacts of migration, memory, and meaning. by tracing their history, diversity, and social function, we show their relevance to identity, mobility, and belonging in contemporary china. it is the basis for a key claim: guangxi rice noodles are intangible heritage needing attention, curation, and public engagement. without this, the cultural meanings in this food may be lost due to convenience and consumption. 3.2 the socio-cultural environment in recent decades, guangxi rice noodles have changed from a common daily staple to a symbol of regional pride and cultural capital. understanding this change is crucial to show why the museum‘s intervention is needed. once mainly eaten by laborers, students, and rural people, rice noodles now play a big role in food festivals, social media marketing, and tv documentaries as icons of china‘s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 149 published by scholink inc. diverse cuisine. this phenomenon illustrates how food traditions are re-framed as consumable heritage (tellström, gustafsson, & mossberg, 2006), creating both opportunities for visibility and risks of distortion. as bourdieu (1984) noted, cultural practices like food are not just acts of consumption but also expressions of symbolic capital. the change of rice noodles from necessity to nostalgia, and from marginal snack to trendy item shows this. in this process, their original socioeconomic background and meaning may be erased or changed to suit the middle class and tourists. such changes highlight the need for a critical, museum-based approach to preserve original meanings and context. this shift also reflects the broader trend of cultural commodification in contemporary china, where local traditions are often commercialized to support domestic tourism and soft power campaigns (nyíri, 2006). events like liuzhou river snail rice noodle food festival or xing‘an guilin rice noodle festival show how cultural policy and market dynamics intersect to promote food as heritage and economic driver. however, as watson (2006) has shown in his work of mcdonald‘s in east asia, localization of food products can also reproduce dominant narratives while silencing subaltern voices. this increases the urgency for a museum to show the marginalized and overlooked parts of noodle heritage. furthermore, the museum emerges as china‘s young generation, especially post-2000 digital users, is increasingly detached from traditional foodways. surveys and interviews with guangxi university students indicate many know little about the production, variety, or history of daily-consumed rice noodles. for them, rice noodles are often experienced digitally: ordered via apps and reviewed through influencer videos. as benjamin (2008) said, mechanical reproduction can remove the ―aura‖ of cultural artefacts. here, the guangxi rice noodles museum aims to reconnect food to its roots. thus, the museum is necessary both as a knowledge repository and a generational bridge. rural rice noodle-making by older women without digital storytelling platforms is often excluded from urban-centered narratives. feminist food scholars have emphasized the invisibility of women‘s culinary labor in heritage discourse (avakian & haber, 2005). these silences marginalize elder knowledge and homogenize guangxi‘s noodle traditions. focusing only on successful forms like liuzhou snail rice noodles, public discourse may flatten local differences for marketable stereotypes. furthermore, heritage politics dynamics often privilege certain geography narratives and exclude humanity culture value (smith, 2006). the museum aims to intervene by creating a platform for multiple voices, especially those excluded from mainstream branding like rural producers, minority communities, and women elders. the socio-cultural environment for this museum‘s development is shaped by tensions like commodification vs preservation, globalization vs localization, digital vs physical. the guangxi rice noodles museum aims to expose rather than resolve these tensions, following tunbridge and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 150 published by scholink inc. ashworth‘s (1996) dissonant heritage concept. it must carefully handle these tensions and be open to public reflection. by curating contested narratives critically, it promotes a more inclusive heritage practice, preserving cultural heritage while maintaining its contested and pluralistic nature. 3.3 exhibition practices and critical comparisons current food-related exhibitions, both in china and globally, reveal why this project is urgently needed. such as the liuzhou snail rice noodles museum, the guilin rice noodle cultural experience hall, or various local-brand showrooms. while they contribute to regional branding and food tourism, these exhibitions tend to prioritize visual aesthetics and marketability over historical depth or cultural reflexivity. they often present as commodified versions of food culture, reducing multifaceted local traditions to consumable places for tourists. this tendency is not limited to china. globally, exhibitions such as the dubai coffee museum or the smithsonian‘s ―food: transforming the american table‖ face similar criticisms. scholars like heldke (2003) have noted that food exhibitions often reproduce dominant culinary narratives while marginalizing subaltern voices and everyday foodways. they may romanticize tradition, depoliticize food systems, or overlook the labor, gender, and ethnic relations embedded in culinary heritage. critiques from critical museology also emphasize that many food heritage exhibitions fall short of engaging local communities in curatorial processes. instead, curatorial authority tends to remain centralized, limiting the diversity of perspectives represented (simon, 2010). simon‘s participatory museum model is particularly relevant here—it advocates for the shift from audiences as passive viewers to active participants in shaping cultural narratives. likewise, multisensory design—essential for fully conveying food‘s material and emotional significance—is underutilized or poorly integrated (edwards et al., 2006). this aligns with juhani pallasmaa‘s (2005) critique of ocularcentrism in spatial environments, calling instead for multisensory and embodied modes of interpretation. in the chinese context, food exhibitions are often shaped by government and commercial agendas. heritage is selectively framed to support narratives of national unity, economic growth, or regional distinctiveness (oakes, 2013). this instrumentalization can flatten cultural differences and silence more complex or contested aspects of local identity. in the case of present guangxi rice noodles, exhibitions usually highlight liuzhou river snails rice noodles‘ recent popularity while neglecting lesser-known varieties, the voices of rural producers, or the social practices around production and sharing. therefore, the absence of exhibitions that critically explore food heritage in multisensory, participatory, and locally grounded ways points to a significant cultural gap. the analysis of existing exhibitions reveals a recurring pattern of surface-level storytelling, economic instrumentalism, and aesthetic formalism. this critique provides the basis for arguing that more reflexive, inclusive, and community-informed approaches are urgently needed in food museology. only by addressing these limitations can future exhibitions meaningfully reflect the complexity and cultural significance of food www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 151 published by scholink inc. as lived heritage. 3.4 inclusivity and accessibility design institutional mission statements often mention inclusivity, but it is unevenly applied in cultural exhibitions, especially food museums. many exhibitions are visually dominant, assuming a typical visitor (sighted, mobile, tech-literate), leaving disabled and neurodivergent audiences underserved (sandell, 2015). this is not just a design oversight; it is epistemological exclusion. bouffard (2025) says curatorial care is an ―art of attention‖ that reconstructs an exhibition‘s meaning and value through physical and sensory experiences. the guangxi rice noodles museum emerges in this context of exclusion. it views accessibility not as a regulatory box to tick but as a critique of current exhibition norms and a proposal for different museological futures. scholars in disability studies and inclusive design say access should be seen as a cultural justice issue, not just about convenience (sandell, dodd, & garland-thomson, 2010). museums should actively break down sensory hierarchies that favor vision and text over touch, sound, and smell. contemporary food exhibitions often neglect this need. recent studies on b&vi access to cultural spaces show that even inclusive-claimed exhibitions rarely enable independent and immersive engagement. instead, they rely on aids like verbal descriptions or tours, widening the gap between disabled and ‗normal‘ audiences. few offer multisensory content or co-create with disabled communities. eardley et al. (2022) say such approaches only compensate for vision loss and lack true inclusion. in response, the guangxi rice noodles museum advocates a radical rethinking of inclusion, drawing on universal design principles and multi-sensory curation, stimulating emotions, memories and imagination, can significantly enhance the overall museum experience for all visitors—whether visually impaired or not (vikmane et al., 2024). its approach incorporates tactile replicas, audio narratives in multiple dialects, ambient soundscapes, and scent-infused zones to recreate the spatial, sonic, and olfactory context of rice noodle culture. this strategy builds on the work of pallasmaa (2005), who challenges ocularcentrism in architectural and museum design, and aligns with participatory approaches that see access as co-production. digital inclusion is equally important. ar and vr in exhibitions often widen the digital divide, leaving out those unfamiliar with devices or using assistive technologies. inclusive ar/vr can be exclusionary without simplified or adaptive interfaces. creed et al. (2024) note immersive technologies have accessibility barriers unless inclusive design is prioritized. the museum‘s tech strategy tackles this with simplified interfaces, voice commands, high-contrast options, and accessible ar overlays. inclusive design is inseparable from the museum‘s subject. guangxi rice noodles are everyday food for all. an inclusive approach is both ethically and culturally essential. the museum says if rice noodles are shown as living heritage, all who live it should fully experience it. this turns accessibility into a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 152 published by scholink inc. curatorial method and political stance, expanding culture and cultural subjects. in this sense, the guangxi rice noodles museum is part of a critical museology movement. it views access as key to cultural engagement. it says heritage should be more than visible; it must be touchable, audible, smellable, and co-authored. by questioning and changing dominant sensory norms, the museum makes food culture accessible to the excluded and reshapes the public‘s idea of cultural inclusion. 3.5 audience, purpose and impact the guangxi rice noodles museum is designed for a diverse audience. its main audience are local residents in guangxi, especially those familiar with rice noodles. the museum is like a mirror, affirming their culture, boosting community pride, and helping the young reconnect with culinary traditions. youth, especially students, are a key audience, both as learners and potential inheritors of the region‘s intangible heritage. the museum aims to bridge generational gaps by creating accessible, interactive content appealing to digital natives with historical and social depth. school tours, community workshops and university collaborations will integrate the museum into local education. by using rice noodles to explore history, identity, ecology and economy, the museum goes beyond a food showcase and becomes an educational platform. for domestic and international tourists, the museum acts as both an attraction and an educator. in the context of china‘s booming cultural tourism industry, visitors increasingly seek authentic, localized experiences. the museum responds by offering not just tastings or performances, but knowledge: stories of people, places, processes, and meanings. for international audiences unfamiliar with chinese regional cuisine beyond dim sum or sichuan hotpot, the museum introduces a lesser-known but richly layered food culture, positioning guangxi as a unique cultural geography within china‘s broader landscape. cultural researchers, anthropologists, food historians, and curators are also key stakeholders. by providing meticulously curated exhibits and an open-access digital archive of oral histories, historical materials, and ethnographic data, the museum contributes to scholarly conversations around food studies, heritage theory, and participatory curation. the space also welcomes critical dialogue—hosting roundtables, exhibitions-in-progress, and public reviews that invite critique and co-creation. in doing so, the museum does not merely transmit knowledge but generates it. from an industry perspective, the museum holds value as a hub for gastronomic innovation, entrepreneurship, and brand storytelling. it provides an arena where small-scale producers, chefs, designers, and culinary startups can interact, test ideas, and reach new markets. through partnerships with local governments, cultural agencies, and businesses, it becomes a nexus where heritage meets opportunity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 153 published by scholink inc. the broader educational and social outcomes of the project are far-reaching. culturally, it restores dignity and visibility to everyday knowledge and labour, particularly that of women, elders, and rural communities. socially, it builds platforms for inclusion and participation, aligning with unesco‘s emphasis on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage through education and dialogue. emotionally, it fosters a sense of belonging, nostalgia, and curiosity, inviting people to reconsider what they thought they knew about food and culture. in essence, the guangxi rice noodles museum is not just for cultural elites or food enthusiasts—it is for everyone who has ever shared a bowl of noodles, learned a recipe from a parent, or walked past a street vendor and caught a whiff of something familiar. it offers not only a celebration of rice noodles but a deeper reflection on who we are, how we remember, and why the ordinary deserves to be extraordinary. 4. technology and data the guangxi rice noodles museum combines digital innovation with tangible heritage for a hybrid exhibition. its tech infrastructure has a multi-layered architecture (presentation, business logic etc.) for an immersive system. this section details the technologies, data standards, and strategies, with reasons for use and analysis of pros and cons. 4.1 hybrid exhibition architecture: bridging physical and digital 4.1.1 ar/vr integration and exhibition impact the guangxi rice noodles museum employs a hybrid architecture that deliberately combines physical artefacts with ar and vr, reflecting the idea that digital media should extend, not replace, heritage experiences (biedermann, 2021). this choice responds to a core problem: visitors cannot usually handle fragile artefacts or access their sensory environments (wojciechowski et al., 2004). by embedding ar overlays, such as showing how a rice noodle pot was once used in liuzhou kitchens, the exhibition provides cultural depth without compromising conservation. the decision to adopt markerless ar via vuforia and 8thwall was based on usability and aesthetics. marker-based systems may be more stable but introduce visual clutter that undermines curatorial design. similarly, overlay-based ar was justified because it creates embodied engagement by reconstructing noodle stalls in situ, which static signage could never achieve. unity3d and webgl were selected not for graphic superiority but for inclusivity: they enable browser-based 3d rendering across both highand low-spec devices, removing the need for downloads. here, accessibility outweighs maximal visual fidelity. vr experiences on meta quest 2 were integrated because they provide immersive kitchens and markets that no physical gallery could replicate. while headsets introduce barriers, fallback browser-based vr mitigates exclusion. this two-tier approach demonstrates a commitment to both immersion and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 154 published by scholink inc. equity—prioritising cultural understanding over technological spectacle. drupal was adopted as the cms because it facilitates co-creation and educational layering, unlike wordpress, which lacks flexibility for multi-modal cultural content. this reflects a broader design logic: technologies are chosen not for novelty but for their ability to support participatory museology and iterative adaptation. there are technical challenges—such as ar instability in poor lighting or webgl lag on older devices—but these are acceptable compromises. what matters is that the hybrid system creates multiple interpretive paths, fosters accessibility, and embeds guangxi‘s noodle heritage into global cultural discourse. ar and vr thus function not as decorative add-ons but as critical interpretive strategies that align directly with the project‘s mission of inclusivity and cultural continuity. 4.1.2 scent devices and multisensory curation the guangxi rice noodles museum uses scent technology, following sensory museology principles to expand cultural engagement beyond sight and sound. scent-emitting devices reproduce key ingredient aromas like pickled cowpea and snail broth, placed in thematic zones. these scents are essential to the rice noodle narrative. pairing olfactory cues with visual and textual content helps visitors connect with heritage more affectively and bodily than written panels or images alone. the decision to use micro-nebulizer scent dispensers with motion sensors was made after evaluating alternatives. passive methods were dismissed due to lack of dosage control and freshness assurance, and manual activation would disrupt the visitor journey. automated, sensor-triggered release ensures precision and immersion, meeting the museum‘s goal of low-friction interactions. precedents like the scents of ancient egypt at the egyptian museum have shown scents‘ potential to deepen cultural immersion. however, they focus on ritual atmospheres while the guangxi project emphasizes everyday culinary culture. this is intentional: it views rice noodles as a living tradition, not static artefacts. also, adding scent increases inclusivity as it involves visually impaired visitors, giving them a different sensory way into the exhibition‘s stories. the choice of this technology recognizes its challenges like frequent cartridge refills and cross contamination risk. ventilation and zoning were added to the design for airflow management. despite complexities, the advantages of olfactory storytelling are greater as scent is crucial for food heritage. the tate sensorium (2015) showed the power of integrating smell, touch, and sound into art exhibitions, but was criticized for limiting user agency as sensory triggers were pre-designed. this led the museum to embed interactive games, feedback systems, and user-generated content platforms, making visitors co-creators of meaning instead of passive recipients. similarly, touching the prado (2015) offered a pioneering accessibility model. it let visually impaired visitors explore tactile 3d painting reproductions with braille and audio guides. its value was showing how physical reproduction could democratize access. but its tactile-first way was very object-centered and less into contextual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 155 published by scholink inc. storytelling. the guangxi project adapts this by combining tactile replicas with voice interaction and ar overlays, achieving inclusivity without losing narrative depth. 4.1.3 voice interaction system the integration of a voice interaction system in the guangxi rice noodles museum is not just a tech embellishment. it is a response to inclusivity and cultural preservation. traditional touchscreens, though common, marginalize the elderly or visually impaired. speech-based interaction is more natural and intuitive, letting visitors query the exhibition and get real-time responses. the system is built on speech recognition apis like google cloud speech-to-text and cmu sphinx, along with nlp tools that match visitor queries to pre-scripted answers or trigger multimedia segments. this architecture was chosen over options like qr-code-triggered audio guides or static listening devices, which offer only linear paths. voice interaction enables conversational flexibility and personal choice, letting visitors follow narratives based on their curiosity. multilingual capability is crucial for the system‘s cultural mission. supporting mandarin, zhuang, and english, the platform respects local linguistic diversity and international visitors, providing a more inclusive experience than single-language audio guides. significantly, it preserves intangible heritage: oral stories, dialect recordings, etc. can be activated by spoken prompts. for example, when a visitor says, ―tell me about liuzhou snail rice noodles‖, the system plays local vendors‘ narratives with archival photos. this storytelling way maintains local voices‘ authenticity and creates emotional connections that static text labels can not. accessibility is enhanced with features like whisper-sensitive microphones (for private queries in quiet zones) and simple navigational voice commands (e.g., ―next station‖, ―play video again‖). these functions reduce barriers and mirror daily conversation, making the technology less intimidating for new users. there are challenges. accurate transcription needs a high signal-to-noise ratio, and a limited response set may cause mismatches without continuous updates from user input logs. but benefits outweigh these issues. different from conventional audio guides, the voice system turns visitor interaction from passive listening into a dynamic dialogue, enabling audiences to shape their interpretive journey. 4.1.4 digital interactive games the decision to embed digital interactive games in the guangxi rice noodles museum comes from the understanding that play can be a strong medium for cultural learning. traditional displays usually fail to attract younger audiences or hold their attention. interactive games turn passive viewing into active participation. by letting visitors simulate, guess, and reconstruct aspects of rice noodle culture, these games help people learn both how noodles are made and the social settings where they are consumed. the games are developed in unity3d and deployed on mobile ar platforms and touchscreen kiosks. unity3d was chosen over options like html5-based mini-games due to its richer 3d environments, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 156 published by scholink inc. smoother cross-platform performance, and compatibility with existing vr/ar infrastructure, ensuring design consistency in the hybrid exhibition. ―rice noodles vr making‖ immerses visitors in noodle-making, reinforcing the process and highlighting regional differences. passive video demonstrations can convey the same info but lack kinaesthetic engagement and decision-making. ―guess the tool‖ uses 3d-scanned artefacts for recognition and contextual learning. it is favored over static labelling as it stimulates curiosity and memory through trial and error, effective for school-aged learners. gamification‘s benefits go beyond engagement. games boost repeat play, competition, and knowledge retention, expanding the exhibition‘s reach. but integration needs safeguards. balancing entertainment and education is crucial to prevent trivializing heritage. localized versions in mandarin, zhuang, and english are needed for accessibility. also, data from scores or user content must meet privacy standards like gdpr to avoid unregulated data collection pitfalls in commercial gaming. digital games are not just added for novelty. they are chosen over less interactive options as they create low-barrier, affective entry points for audiences unfamiliar with guangxi food culture, while keeping the experience rooted in tangible heritage. by combining playfulness with historical accuracy, the games act as bridges between cultural tradition and contemporary digital engagement. 4.1.5 questionnaire platforms and visitor feedback systems the guangxi rice noodles museum features an iterative design relying on continuous audience dialogue. thus, an integrated questionnaire and feedback system was favored over traditional comment books or sporadic interviews. analogue methods offer anecdotal insights but lack the scale, immediacy, and data richness for real-time adaptation in a hybrid digital exhibition. digital platforms enable the museum to quickly collect, visualize, and act on visitor responses, ensuring the exhibition evolves to meet user needs. technologies like surveymonkey and typeform were chosen for cross-platform compatibility and easy deployment. bespoke in-house tools were considered but rejected due to high costs and limited question-design flexibility. the selected platforms have built-in analytics. with firebase/google sheets integration, they enable lightweight and scalable real-time data capture. tableau was used for backend visualisation as it presents complex datasets in accessible dashboards for curators and stakeholders. unlike excel, it supports interactive pattern exploration, crucial for curatorial decisions. the rationale for this system goes beyond operational efficiency. by embedding questionnaires at multiple touchpoints (touchscreen kiosks, qr codes, post-visit app notifications), the museum ensures inclusivity for different visitor preferences and literacy levels. a multi-channel approach was chosen instead of just post-visit emails (which have low response rates). integrating feedback into the digital layer allows for participatory curation as visitors can share personal stories, photos, and memories of guangxi noodles. this turns the feedback mechanism from a passive evaluation tool into an active www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 157 published by scholink inc. co-creation process, enriching the museum‘s cultural archive. however, choosing digital-first questionnaires brings challenges. user consent and gdpr compliance must be strictly followed, especially when dealing with personal stories or behavioural data. also, while urban and younger visitors usually have high digital literacy, rural and elderly audiences may have difficulty with touchscreen surveys. thus, paper-based options are kept as a backup to ensure inclusivity. ultimately, the adoption of this feedback infrastructure is justified by its ability to close the design-experience loop. by enabling evidence-based iteration, the museum avoids static curatorial models and fosters a responsive ecosystem where community voices shape the exhibition‘s evolution. this aligns with the project‘s inclusivity and co-creation aims, showing why digital questionnaires are essential to its cultural mission. 4.2 cultural content digitisation digitising guangxi rice noodles‘ tangible and intangible heritage is key to turning local cultural practices into accessible, shareable and sustainable digital assets. the business logic layer is crucial as it manages content capture, processing, standardisation and delivery for interaction. this goes beyond static documentation to support dynamic storytelling and participation. the project uses photogrammetry (agisoft metashape, realitycapture) and 3d scanning (artec eva, ipad pro lidar) to capture high-fidelity replicas. manual 3d modelling was considered but rejected due to distorting authenticity and needing much input. photogrammetry and scanning ensure accuracy, crucial for heritage integrity and ar/vr experiences. for intangible heritage like dialect stories and food prep rituals, portable audio-visual suites (zoom h6, dji osmo) were picked instead of smartphone-only recording. smartphones are convenient but sacrifice sound quality and spatial fidelity, which are vital for oral heritage preservation. the project invests in better equipment to ensure archival-quality recordings that can be adapted into narrative-driven apps with little quality loss. editing and narrative tools such as adobe premiere, audacity, and klynt were chosen for their cross-media interoperability and ability to layer sound, image, and text into coherent storylines. simpler, single-purpose tools were considered but rejected due to lack of flexibility for creating multisensory narratives. this toolset choice reflects the project‘s dedication to multisensory museology, where cultural content is re-contextualised for experiential learning, not just stored. adopting open technical standards is a strategic choice. lightweight formats like .glb/.gltf allow smooth webxr deployment across devices. audio is stored in .wav for preservation and .mp3 for streaming. metadata follows the dublin core schema for international interoperability, ensuring digitised noodle heritage can be discovered and reused. nevertheless, digitisation brings practical challenges. photogrammetry needs controlled settings for consistent lighting, and dialect recordings www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 158 published by scholink inc. need much subtitling and metadata. high-resolution 3d models and video have large file sizes, causing bandwidth and hosting issues. but these trade-offs were accepted as precision and authenticity were prioritised over convenience, ensuring the museum‘s digital resources are credible, accessible, and sustainable long-term. in sum, the digitisation strategy is not only a technical but also a cultural choice. the business logic layer, by emphasizing accuracy, interoperability, and narrative flexibility, ensures guangxi‘s noodle heritage is preserved authentically and can be innovatively reinterpreted in digital and hybrid settings. 4.3 data architecture and management the success of the guangxi rice noodles museum depends on digitising content and how it is stored, managed, and delivered sustainably and ethically. the project adopts a data architecture to balance archival stability for long-term preservation and dynamic interaction for user engagement. by designing a flexible model, the museum ensures digital heritage assets are credible and adaptable to future needs. the architecture manages multiple data types like text, visuals, audio, and behavioural data. the content diversity required a relational database, so mysql was chosen for metadata management. although nosql options like mongodb are more flexible, mysql offers a stable and well-supported framework for structured heritage metadata, ensuring long-term interoperability with repositories. for content delivery, lightweight formats like json and xml were chosen as they enable modular presentation across devices and platforms. this was deliberately over heavier or proprietary options that could restrict reuse and integration. multimedia files are encrypted and stored on google cloud for scalability and security, crucial due to high bandwidth needs of 3d models and video. local servers can cut costs but have hardware fragility and limited scalability, so cloud hosting was adopted for reliability and global access. user engagement tracking is supported by matomo analytics, chosen for its gdpr-compliance and anonymized data collection. this is a conscious choice to avoid dominant platforms like google analytics, which may raise ethical data concerns. prioritizing an open-source, privacy-focused solution aligns the project‘s tech infrastructure with its ethical framework. the ethical aspect of data architecture is a guiding principle, not an afterthought. user contributions are governed by creative commons licenses for ownership and reuse clarity. gdpr compliance is ensured through anonymisation and data minimisation, safeguarding visitor trust in this heritage project with user-generated content in the archive. the design draws on precedents. for example, the cartoon movement api and newspaper/blog rest apis inspired using lightweight protocols instead of rigid soap standards, showing adaptability. also, the google drive strategy for multimedia organization informed the museum‘s cloud storage model. by weighing alternatives carefully and considering ethics, the data architecture does more than offer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 159 published by scholink inc. technical infrastructure; it supports the museum‘s cultural mission. it ensures guangxi‘s rice noodle heritage is preserved intact and remains accessible, useful, and meaningful across different situations and generations. 4.4 participation and user-generated content the guangxi rice noodles museum aims to present heritage as a living, co-created resource, not a static one. to do this, the integration layer has a participation platform in drupal cms for community members to upload personal stories, photos or ar triggers. this design follows simon‘s (2010) ―participatory museums‖ framework, where audiences are active cultural memory contributors, not passive consumers. the choice of technologies was guided by flexibility, multilingual access, and structured moderation needs. twine + h5p was selected for branching narrative paths, letting user contributions be part of interactive storylines. simpler options like static comment boards were considered but risked making contributions unstructured and underused. the interactive approach was chosen as it integrates personal memories into dynamic storytelling, making community input part of the exhibition. similarly, elasticsearch was chosen for fast and multilingual content retrieval. traditional sql full-text search might work for small-scale databases, but it can not support the various dialects and languages (mandarin, zhuang, english) the museum wants to cover. thus, elasticsearch was prioritized for its scalability and inclusive search capabilities. drupal‘s modular participation tools were chosen over basic cms options (like wordpress plugins) due to their strong content moderation workflows. this ensures the museum can accept participatory content while maintaining curatorial quality and safety. for instance, when a visitor uploads a childhood photo of a liuzhou noodle stall, the system tags it by region and date and links it to relevant archives. once approved, it can show up as an ar object at the exhibition, creating a feedback loop turning personal memory into shared heritage. technical safeguards are in this participatory framework. a moderation layer filters bad submissions, and server-side security with oauth2 authentication protects user accounts. these measures, though adding administrative work, are essential for balancing openness with data protection and ethics. by embedding users‘ contributions into the exhibition‘s interactive structure, the community knowledge content base expands continuously, proving the museum‘s future and creating an evolving archive with the audience. thus, user-generated content strengthens museums as cultural institutions and participation platforms. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 160 published by scholink inc. 5. practical work 5.1 content data model to support the hybrid exhibition experience, a structured and scalable content database is essential for managing the cultural materials related to guangxi rice noodles. the data model is designed to allow seamless integration between physical artefacts, digital storytelling, and user interaction modules (ar/vr interfaces, multilingual guides, and scent systems). below is a breakdown of the core components of the cultural content database: figure 1. content data model for guangxi rice noodles management system this table archives visitor-submitted stories (via web or in-museum kiosk), allowing users to attach personal rice noodle memories or recipes, recorded in multiple languages and linked to relevant noodle types. these entities are interlinked via foreign keys, enabling curated data display depending on user journey. for example, when a visitor scans a qr code on a guilin mi fen bowl, the system can display historical facts, ar-enhanced media, and nearby user-submitted stories, all drawn dynamically from this content model. this structure is flexible enough to accommodate future entries or regional noodle variants, ensuring long-term sustainability of the digital archive. rice noodle type serves as the core basic table. other tables (seasoning profile, historical narrative, media asset, user contribution) establish associations with it through the foreign key fk_rice noodle_id (or fields with similar names, with the unified logic of being associated with the primary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 161 published by scholink inc. key of rice noodle type), reflecting the relationship of ―one type of rice noodle corresponding to multiple seasoning configurations, historical narratives, digital media assets, and user contributions‖. for example, stories submitted by different users regarding ―guilin rice noodles‖ are all associated with the rice noodle_id corresponding to guilin rice noodles in rice noodle type. in this way, when a certain interaction related to rice noodles is triggered (such as scanning the model of guilin rice noodle bowl), the system can query the corresponding seasoning information (seasoning profile), historical stories (historical narrative), digital media (media asset), user contributions (user contribution) etc. through the rice noodle_id association, realizing the dynamic retrieval of content mentioned in the text and supporting the hybrid exhibition experience. 5.2 exhibition data model figure 2. exhibition data model of immersive experience hall of liuzhou snail rice noodles the exhibition data model demonstrates the integration method of physical exhibits and digital interactive content in the liuzhou snail rice noodles immersive experience hall, as well as the interaction process between users and the system. user interaction process after visitors enter the immersive experience hall, they will first pass through the physical exhibition area, which includes the display of finished rice noodles, production tools, raw materials, etc. the system will make a judgment based on whether the user triggers a certain exhibit or interactive device: if not triggered, the system will maintain the original content state; if triggered (such as scanning a qr code, identifying a rice noodle model, using vr/olfactory equipment etc.), the system will identify the corresponding ricenoodle id and enter the data call link. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 162 published by scholink inc. digital content after the event is triggered, the system retrieves multi-modal content related to the ricenoodle id from the database, including 3d models, videos, audio guides, historical narratives, and smell-triggering information. all content is presented in real time according to the exhibit location and user operations. for example, ar overlay display, vr experience of traditional rice noodle workshops, playing of 360° short films and audio guides, simulation of smells such as bamboo shoots and pickled bamboo shoots etc. data feedback and update while providing content, the system records the user‘s access behavior and interaction path. these data are used to update the exhibition data model to optimize subsequent content push and user experience. for example, if a certain exhibit is accessed frequently, the system can increase the proportion of its digital extended content or optimize the display method in the future. the integration of physics and digital technology the model visually reflects the two-way connection between physical exhibits and digital content. this ensures that when users experience the culture of liuzhou snail rice noodles, they can not only obtain an intuitive physical perception but also deeply explore the historical and cultural stories behind it through digital technology, thus achieving an immersive and personalized visiting experience. 5.3 user requirements target groups: domestic tourists (especially those from other provinces, who are interested in the food culture of guangxi) local young residents (aged 18 to 35, who enjoy immersive experiences and interactions) questionnaire 1) which of the following do you think can best enhance your overall experience in the immersive experience hall of liuzhou snail rice noodles? (multiple choices are available a) introduction to the historical and cultural background of rice noodle soup with snails and its ingredients b) on-site demonstration or digital reproduction of the production process c) interactive display of rice noodle soup with snails and local culture of guangxi d) immersive experiences through ar/vr technology e) others: ________ purpose: identify the core content direction that users value most and determine the main highlights of the exhibition. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 163 published by scholink inc. 2) which way do you prefer to obtain exhibition information? (multiple choices are available a) display boards and physical description boards b) interactive videos and short films c) audio guide (with multilingual support) d) mobile app e) others: ________ purpose: prioritize the medium for information presentation and optimize the display and guidance methods. 3) if there is an official app, would you use it during your visit to get more interaction and information? a) yes b) no (you can directly jump to question 7) c) uncertain purpose: to predict app usage rates and provide references for investment in digital functions. 4) how interested are you in the following numerical functions? (multiple choices are available a) ar navigation map (for locating exhibition hall routes) b) virtual rice noodle making workshop (vr scene) c) 360° display of details of rice noodles and tools d) exhibition timeline (historical evolution) e) personalized visiting route recommendations f) others: ________ purpose: to identify users‘ interest in specific functions for prioritized development. 5) how much do you think the following functions have helped your experience? scent interaction (pickled bamboo shoots, spices, soup bases etc.) a) it is very helpful b) it is of some help c) general d) no help purpose: to assess the practical value of olfactory interaction and determine the direction of investment and optimization. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 164 published by scholink inc. 6) what do you hope to gain from the immersive experience hall of liuzhou snail rice noodles? (multiple choices are available a) learn more about the culture and history of rice noodle soup with snails b) experience the production process c) gain a thorough understanding of ingredients, seasonings and regional differences d) gain interactive entertainment experiences e) others: ________ purpose: clearly define the core gain goals of the visit and match the educational and entertainment values of the exhibition. 7) what do you think is the most attractive way to showcase the evolution of rice noodle soup with snails? for example, timelines, the combination of physical objects and digital elements, immersive storytelling etc. purpose: to collect suggestions on innovative display forms for optimizing exhibition design. 8) what extended content do you hope to obtain after the exhibition ends? (multiple choices are available a) electronic recipes b) download of historical and cultural materials c) exhibition review video d) purchase link for exhibition theme souvenirs e) others: ________ purpose: explore the demand for digital extensions and derivatives to enhance user engagement. this questionnaire adopts a user-centred design approach and is specifically targeted at domestic tourists interested in guangxi cuisine and young local residents seeking immersive cultural experiences. its purpose is to understand visitors‘ expectations for the liuzhou snail rice noodles immersive experience hall, particularly regarding interactive content, sensory engagement, and digital tools such as ar/vr navigation, virtual workshops, and 360° object displays. the results will inform the functional design of both the physical exhibition and its accompanying app, ensuring that content presentation, navigation flow, and personalisation options align with audience needs. furthermore, the survey explores potential barriers to technology use and gathers opinions on post-visit engagement, enabling the team to refine features for accessibility, cultural authenticity, and sustained user interest. the final open-ended questions encourage participants to contribute creative suggestions, fostering a sense of co-creation in the exhibition‘s development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 165 published by scholink inc. 5.4 user interface figure 3. ar scanning interactive interface (doubao, “liuzhou snail rice noodle exhibition hall”, 2025), further edited in js design this diagram shows the ar scanning interactive interface of the ―liuzhou snail rice noodles immersive experience hall‖. it is mainly used for visitors in the exhibition hall to conduct real-time scanning and information acquisition through mobile devices or tablets equipped in the hall when visiting physical exhibits. at the top of the interface, the scanning status (scanning…) and the recognition result (such as ―snail rice noodle‖) are displayed. the middle part presents a high-definition real-scene image of the scanned object to ensure that users can intuitively confirm the scanning object. the information panel on the right is divided into two core modules—origin and cooking method. they summarize the historical background and production process in concise text and provide a ―show more‖ button to support users to expand and view more details. at the bottom, there are two core interactive buttons, 3d model and video, which are used to view the rotatable 3d model and play short videos respectively, enhancing the immersive and visual experience. in addition, the interface is also equipped with a language switch button and a return button to ensure multi-language adaptation and usability. the overall design highlights immediacy, interactivity, and multimedia integration, enabling users to obtain in-depth digital information supplementation while visiting the physical exhibition. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 166 published by scholink inc. figure 4. vr making interface (doubao, “guangxi rural kitchen, vr game style”, 2025), further edited in js design this diagram showcases the ―liuzhou snail rice noodles vr interactive production interface‖, which is used in the digital experience area to allow audiences to learn and simulate the production process of snail rice noodles in an immersive virtual environment. the background of the interface replicates the scene of a traditional rice noodle workshop, including elements such as bamboo racks for drying rice noodles and firewood stoves, enhancing the cultural atmosphere and sense of authenticity. the steps module on the left clearly displays the progress of the production steps. for example, ―select rice‖ (completed) and ―rice milling‖ (in progress), helping users proceed with tasks in an orderly manner. the ingredient bar in the upper right shows the key available ingredients (rice noodles, pickled bamboo shoots, river snails), facilitating players to make quick selections. the gesture area below provides interactive gesture prompts (grab, stir, pour) to guide users to complete operations correctly, enhancing the sense of immersion and learning. the replay and tip buttons at the bottom enable users to watch again or obtain tips, reducing the learning threshold. the customer rating module in the lower right corner instantly provides feedback on the user‘s completion rate and performance in the form of a score. the finish! and exit buttons offer options to end or exit the current task. the overall design takes into account teaching guidance, cultural experience, and gamified interaction, enabling audiences to not only acquire knowledge but also enjoy the sense of accomplishment from interesting operations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 167 published by scholink inc. 5.5 cultural content figure 5. the digital exhibits presentation (doubao, „guilin rice noodles with the scenery of guilin‟, 2025), further edited in js design this picture showcases the digital presentation of guilin rice noodles in the exhibition, reflecting the combination of cultural content and interactive functions. on the left side of the picture is a high-definition real-object image, directly presenting the color and details of the ingredients of the rice noodles. on the right side is a concise english cultural introduction, covering the origin, development, and cultural significance. the imagery of guilin‘s mountains and waters is incorporated into the background to strengthen the regional association. at the bottom, there are four interactive entrances labeled 3d, audio, video, and ar. visitors can browse the ingredient structure through the 3d model, listen to multilingual audio explanations, watch videos of the production process, or use the ar function to overlay digital information on-site. this multi-modal design ensures that visitors can comprehensively perceive the historical and cultural value of guilin rice noodles through visual, auditory, and interactive experiences, while also meeting the immersive experience goals of the online and offline hybrid exhibition. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 168 published by scholink inc. 6. conclusion this study has explored the conception, design, and critical reflection of the guangxi rice noodles museum as a hybrid digital–physical exhibition. at its core, the project has aimed to preserve and reinterpret the tangible and intangible heritage of rice noodles through a multisensory and participatory framework. the museum was envisioned not simply as a cultural showcase but as a dynamic platform that could bring together tradition, technology, and community in meaningful ways. throughout the project, several priorities guided the work. first, accessibility was central to the design. the museum integrated tactile replicas, scent stations, multilingual voice interaction, and universal design to let different audiences participate fully. second, education and intergenerational learning were emphasized. gamified modules, vr cooking demos, and interactive storytelling were developed for school curricula and to spark curiosity. third, the museum was a participatory archive where community members could contribute stories, images, and oral histories, keeping the rice noodle narrative alive and collective. in terms of process, the project has drawn extensively on precedents from multisensory exhibitions, and participatory museology as discussed by simon (2010). at the same time, it has extended these precedents by emphasising stronger user agency and technological integration. the technical layers—from ar overlays and vr environments to data architecture and content logic—were specified in detail to demonstrate how abstract ideas could be translated into actionable requirements. each system, whether mobile ar or scent diffusion, was justified in relation to user needs, with functional specifications mapped clearly so that the museum could be realistically prototyped. the project is also significant because it reframes food heritage as a powerful medium of cultural communication. whereas food museums are often limited to visual displays or tasting events, this proposal argues for rice noodles as an entry point into memory, identity, and community. by engaging the senses and creating opportunities for storytelling, the museum moves beyond nostalgia to foster critical awareness of how everyday culture is intertwined with history, migration, and globalization. in conclusion, the guangxi rice noodles museum is more than an imagined institution. it is a model for digital museology to turn everyday heritage into an immersive cultural experience. combining tech with local traditions, it shows the need to bridge innovation and authenticity. focusing on accessibility and participation, it emphasizes designing museums with audiences. this project proves the humble rice noodle can carry deep cultural meaning and, through good curation, be a means for education, identity, and global dialogue. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 8, no. 2, 2025 169 published by scholink inc. references avakian, a. v., & haber, b. 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(2004). building virtual and augmented reality museum exhibitions. proceedings of the web3d symposium (pp. 135-144). https://doi.org/10.1145/985040.985060 communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 26 original paper distributing the modal load: the oral presentation ensemble and professional identity formation terri grant1* 1 professional communication unit, university of cape town, cape town, south africa * terri grant, professional communication unit, university of cape town, cape town, south africa received: september 7, 2020 accepted: september 18, 2020 online published: september 30, 2020 doi:10.22158/csm.v3n4p26 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v3n4p26 abstract scenario learning and pedagogy (slp) involves immersing an entire university professional communication course within a selected sustainable business practice scenario. this article focuses on the draft and final oral presentations of two teams who chose recycling and sustainable building practices as their institutional “workplace” scenarios respectively. a semiotic and metafunctional approach combined with authorial identity markers produced a sound theoretical frame and methodology against which a multi-layered analysis and comparison of their presentations could be instantiated. video recordings of both their rehearsal and final presentations allowed for fine-grained scrutiny of selected video clips to focus a lens on various verbal and non-verbal elements of communication such as speech, vocal intonation and projection, dress (appearance), posture, gesture and movement, eye contact and gaze behaviour, and facial expression. the emergence of confidence as a proxy of growing professional identity to a greater or lesser extent could be determined within each team. how each team member leveraged their linguistic and cultural backgrounds, age, gender and scenario knowledge provided individual as well as collective insights into the team dynamic. although some team members fared better than others, their collective support worked to suppress weaknesses and disjunctures to the benefit of the team effort. keywords scenario learning and pedagogy, semiotic resources, video recording, professional identity 1. introduction professional communication as a core course for students who are studying other degrees in commerce, engineering or science, is often seen as an “add-on”, a soft skill to be tolerated (wardrope, 2002; archer, 2004; grant, 2012). scenario learning and pedagogy (slp) is a term coined to describe an approach to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 27 published by scholink inc. teaching professional communication to senior students at tertiary level. instead of viewing professional communication as an isolated extra, this teaching approach aims to embed the course in real-time workplace scenarios and practices in order to foreground and enhance professional identity. by immersing an entire course within a particular scenario involving sustainable business policies and practices at their “workplace” institution (their university), commerce students engage in authentic university investigations, debates and negotiations on topical issues (grant, 1999, 2012). on this slp course, topics cover waste, water, energy, transport, building and landscape management on campus and each student pair selects an issue within these investigative fields. during the semester, they engage in various iterative activities involving numerous genres and formats. receiving feedback at each draft stage along their developmental trajectory provides an opportunity for teams to design and redesign their semiotic products towards the final professional deliverables. these culminating products, comprising a slide presentation and a bound written report for a designated external client, emerge as exemplars of transformed practice (cope & kalantzis, 2000). this article focuses on the oral presentation work of two pairs: the rehearsal in front of the class as well as the final presentation to which the client is invited. these videoed reporting products, the one building upon the other, serve to represent the scenario findings, conclusions and recommendations and fulfil the original terms of reference commissioned at the start of the course. filming both presentations allows a comparison of each product and how pairs attempt to transform their work, based on facilitator and peer feedback. the analysis focuses on how professional communication practice and identity emerge and are instantiated through various textual products and processes and how slp aims to contribute to this manifestation. the aim of this article is to compare, juxtapose and analyse this progression and how students grapple with various challenges—some more successfully than others—along the way. pseudonyms are used for both team’s work. team r, lindiwe and vusi, explored the university’s recycling practices while team sb, jenny and hussein, chose sustainable building practices. the four participants from varied cultural, language, age and gender backgrounds substantially represent course participants and, more practically, covered very different scenario topics. not only did they have to engage in a collaborative and dialogical relationship with other course participants and external stakeholders but more importantly had to rely on and engage with each other as partners. 2. theoretical framework and methodological approach in this section, the various theories which underpin this analysis are examined, particularly insofar as they engage one another and contribute towards a fine-grained analysis. 2.1 ensembles and orchestrations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. the following questions are of particular interest: how do partners begin to negotiate professional identity through their active participation in the presentation, and how do they express their own sense of who they are individually as well as collaboratively as a partner in a task team? in particular, speech acts as expressions of embodied professional practice and delegation are foregrounded. embodied professional practice is exemplified by the modal orchestrations of • speech, vocal intonation and projection • dress (appearance), • posture, gesture and movement, • eye contact and gaze behaviour, and • facial expression together, these semiotic resources act in concert to instantiate a professional communication identity in the eyes of the audience as interpreters and the speakers as signmakers, rhetors and partners. each semiotic resource selected may have its limitations but as ensemble, their individual partialities diminish. meaning can be straddled across modes and media, which, according to kress (2011) provide the technologies of representation and dissemination respectively. each element has significance according to its materiality, affordances, constraints as well as “sensoriness” (kress, 2011). what can be done with sound, for example, differs from what can be done with sight or gesture or colour and, according to kress (2011), their “complementaries” forge meaning cognitively and affectively to produce embodied meaning (kress & van leeuwen, 2006). another “complementarity” is that of turn-taking within teams. how partners negotiate their performative contributions in terms of content, timing, salience, interpersonal relations and modal load is crucial to establishing rapport and credibility. salience includes both primacy and recency effects in terms of emphasis and positioning (first and last) as well as proportion. how partners divide up their presentational content and slides and engage with their material, each other and their audience are significant. the choice of modes as semiotic resources and how much prominence is accorded to each in terms of load, logic, specialization, reach and modality are important considerations as are leadership roles and power relations (jewitt, 2009; kress, 2010). haliday’s metafunctions provide a useful analytical lens (haliday & hasan, 1985; haliday & matthiessen 2004). what speakers say and the epistemological value in ideational terms and how they say it and what that communicates interpersonally are both foregrounded. the textual metafunction, as instantiated through modal composition, coherence, alignment and integration, is also a key factor insofar as audiences need to interpret spoken and visual messages that are fleeting and do not persist. the more clearly and precisely audiences can follow the structure and sequence of these messages, irrespective of agreement, the more likely rapport and interest will be maintained. congruence as mutual understanding rather than agreement is a key factor in professional communication where problem-solving and decision-making www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. play major roles. important terms in this multimodal research are ensemble and orchestration (jewitt, 2006, 2009; kress, 2003, 2010). this analysis looks at what semiotic work is afforded by various modes and how modes work together within professional domains and discourses, characterised by interdiscursivity and intertextuality (fairclough 1992, 1995; chouliariaki & fairclough, 1999; candlin & hyland, 1999). the affordances and constraints of modes add nuanced complexity to meaning making as teams grapple with choices and combinations (kress & van leeuwen, 2006). as students have a rehearsal before the final presentation, changes are negotiated with facilitator and peers for teams to ask questions and interrogate assumptions, resolve disjunctures and inconsistencies, transform their presentational practices and strengthen coherence and confidence in a simulated professional setting. although participants are not professionals in the workplace, but students cast in a role-play scenario within an affinity space (gee, 2003), these presentational practices allow them to explore emerging professional identity in order to narrow the gap between the classroom and the workplace. the inclusion of real professionals in the guise of consultants and audience members aims to contribute to their development as future professionals. this too becomes a collaborative ensemble as partners and audience members dialogically explore, negotiate and shape ideas towards transformed practice. 2.2 modal choices to instantiate professional communication practice and identity it is generally accepted that communicative aspects involving the body, territory and space are culturally embedded rather than universally determined (grant & borcherds, 2020; davis, 2002; kaschula & antonissen, 1995; trompenaars & hampden-turner, 1998). according to kress (2010) modal reach is also culturally bound, not inherently “fixed”. he (2010, p.11) argues that there is “no reason to assume that the ‘modal division of labour’ will be the same across societies”. these differences may be quite profound. what too may be considered “professional” practice in one society may be frowned upon or taboo in another. even within the same country so-called normative behaviours and practices may differ from community to community. contradictions and differences in terms of gestural articulations, direct versus indirect eye contact, conventions of dress, gender and power relations and use of space and territory abound and may cause anxiety and confusion in diverse professional contexts. being aware and accepting of difference and hybridity in dress codes is but one example which seems requisite in a multicultural global economy (grant & nodoba, 2009). awareness of shifting global practices which are arguably more fluid and flexible than in the past increases the likelihood of divergence and convergence as equally salient (rogers & kincaid, 1981; grant & borcherds, 2020). what may have been seen as a disjuncture or “un-western” in a hegemonic past, may today be contested and prove more acceptable in a landscape of change, provisionalism, innovation and shifting power relations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. despite other “voices” and ways of being, the pressure to conform to the dictates of a professional business presentation in contrast, say, to african oral traditions of story-telling, is strong and widely endorsed in boardrooms at the cost of anything “other”. these contestations may cause a tension in assessment as pressures mount to privilege other voices and transform practice on a very different scale. so, although shifting global imperatives and power relations may accelerate hybridity and contestation—and assessment practices may need to take stock of these changes—what is validated and privileged in business and industry falls subject to this hegemonic worldview. with so much cultural capital still invested in the west, corporate hegemony persists particularly in the world of corporate finance and management. english as the official language of government, business and education prescribes a certain bias which renders visibly (rules) and invisibly (norms) “how things are done around here”. in other words, students get the message very early in their curricula as future accountants, auditors or financiers that their chances of success will improve if they “buy in” to the system and toe the corporate line. the stakes are high in terms of assessment too so students (and staff) are reluctant to take risks that may backfire. already, in creating computer-mediated draft products at the planning stages, students confirm the need to appear “professional” according to a particular norm; this need is even more evident in presentations of their oral reports although there are a few instances where students have attempted to push the boundaries and this has become a growing trend in later presentations (note 1). contrary to other ways of doing things, the so-called received wisdom in terms of presentational “graduateness” is set out in the table below. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 31 published by scholink inc. table 1. bodily characteristics relevant to professional communication practice and identity embodied semiosis semiotic dimensions semiotic choices speech and voice content and context style, tone and register pace and unloading rate sound diction structure of design intertextual/discursive choices linguistic choices pausing for transitions volume, projection, pitch and modulation fluency/clarity in voice modulation and pace verbal/visual choices to order information (speech and slides e.g. powerpoint) dress and appearance demeanour grooming clothing and accessories overall impression positioning and movement head movement posture gesture body movement territory angle/tilt of head physical stance and position types and occurrence trajectory of motion use of space eye contact direction open/closed gaze behaviour eye and lid movements facial expression degree of affect degree of expressiveness/animation use of smiling these dimensions and questions relate to presumed professional communication identity within a hegemonic western tradition, foregrounding embodied and visual modes. the columns encapsulate the “regions” in content and delivery style which purport to influence modality and authorial stance in a professional domain. how do speakers compose and arrange their presentations in terms of audience expectation? what choices do speakers make in how they use their bodies to communicate and establish rapport and credibility? although various sections will be dealt with separately, only key semiotic resources will be selected for further analysis, given the amount and complexity of data evident in table 1. teasing out several strands relating to team delegation and turn-taking allows me to focus on in-class interactions and support and how these assist students in developing confidence as “learner” professional communication practitioners. gestures such as pointing and gaze behaviour that link what and how students express themselves to what they show on a slide may emphasise or enhance meaning making; other directional cum www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 32 published by scholink inc. navigational devices may not. co-verbal gestures that mirror linguistic meaning may be said to be subordinate as both words and gestures have similar meanings. iconic gestures often fall into this category as they “generally mimic what the individual communicates verbally” (norris, 2004, p. 29). those that hold different meanings of equal value can be classified as complementary. abstract gestures such as “weighing up” a proposition or beat gestures to reinforce movement or directionality may play a complementary role. supplementary gestures also have different meanings but are classified as super-ordinate if they “add value” to signification. some deictic and metaphoric gestures that can be understood by viewing the gesture alone have super-ordinate meaning making potential within specific contexts. examples of various types of gesture are provided in the analysis below. congruent orchestration versus disjuncture occurs when verbal and visual meaning making resources either blend seamlessly or clash and hinder assumed professional practice. the bodily choices speakers make in relation to audience, equipment and partners contribute to communication and interpretation. of interest are the discursive, generic and modal merges and clashes that arise as students explore and negotiate knowledge and interpersonal relationships, including power relations, between themselves as partners and between teams and their audience. as multimodal ensemble, the affordances of modes and modal load are important to the extent to which speech, appearance, movement, gesture and gaze behaviour mirror, complement or supplement each other to realise ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning and coherence. in terms of content and delivery professional communicators need to consider: representational and communicative alignment with purpose verbal/visual relevance interpersonal aptness for audience. verbal/visual appropriateness textual and structural unity and salience for purpose and audience verbal/visual coherence it is important to state that there is no fixed template for designing and presenting a presentation; a right way and a wrong way. a range of possibilities exist, depending on purpose, audience and socio-cultural context and occasion. how audiences gauge professional communication practices during an event such as a business presentation relies on a combination of factors and their take primarily on relevance, appropriateness, coherence and overall focus on communicative goal. as this presentation follows on draft oral processes during the semester, speakers are already aware of and have been prompted to make choices based on situated practice, explicit and implicit instruction, critical framing and embodied reflection (their own and based on feedback received) in order to transform their practice www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 33 published by scholink inc. (cope & kalantzis, 2000). the more students own this iterative process, the more meaningful the co-construction of knowledge becomes. in the analysis below, the discussion is initiated by looking at video as pedagogical tool before focusing on authorial stance and modality as instantiated through the dimensions of embodied speech. two sets of frames as multimodal ensemble are then analysed, focusing on the orchestration of speech, gesture and facial expression including eye contact. how these modes may index matches and mismatches is analysed in both sections. 3. result and discussion 3.1 video as a tool for teaching and learning in the table below, examples are given of long, medium and close-up shots. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 34 published by scholink inc. table 2. distance and coverage of various screenshots screenshot distances coverage examples long shot: lindiwe and vusi during their final presentation (r report) as the camera was not static but actively managed by the facilitator, some shots were taken at wide angle to take in speakers, their presentation slides and their interactions with each other, the equipment (laptop and screen) and the audience. how and where they stood and moved could more easily be established. location and posture as well as dress were more visible in these instances. medium range: lindiwe during her final presentation (r report) at other random moments, the facilitator zoomed in from long shot to medium range displaying torso with greater attention paid to shoulder movements, arm/hand gestures as well as frontal stance versus profile view. close-up: jenny during her rehearsal (sb report) close-ups allowed for clearer observation of eye contact and gaze direction, facial expression and head movement. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. the use of video as pedagogical tool allows students to view themselves for reasons of personal evaluation and feedback. although, according to jewitt (2002, p.177), “[t]he camera encodes a viewing position, both in terms of distance and in angle of representation” to instantiate involvement of subjects and viewers or lack thereof, this was not the facilitator’s primary intention in this instance. she was not attempting to make a video with scripted camera movement, for example. she did not plan her camera angles or shots but aimed to ensure a balance for each team member to provide opportunities at playback for students to get a good overall impression of their delivery style, both visually and aurally. the sound was kept constant across the session which allowed for student feedback and comparison on vocal clarity, intonation and projection. the variation of shots with accompanying soundtrack also allowed me, as researcher, to select key analytical moments. 3.2 authorial stance as an element of professional identity characteristics of a professional business stance are endorsement and cited authority, particularly in what hyland (1999) calls, the “soft disciplines” such as business studies and professional communication as opposed to the “hard sciences”. as professional identity may seem more blurred in these so-called soft disciplines than in “‘established’ professions” (beck & young, 2005, p. 188) such as engineering or medicine, for example, students may be more inclined to resort to opinion leaders and external sources for confirmation and substantiation of findings. ideationally, more “overt intertextuality” (hyland, 1999, p. 111) is evident in these interdisciplinary fields to construct knowledge, engage support, strengthen arguments and enhance professional identity. students used both verbal and visual semiotic resources to underpin and reinforce mutual meaning-making and understanding, bolster confidence in themselves and their material and encourage the audience’s confidence and trust in their delivery and content. 3.2.1 authorial voice and modality during both talks, speakers drew on their sources to substantiate their findings and boost their arguments. lindiwe and vusi (r) used data from several sources to foreground their argument and reinforce their authority. these included the green campus initiative (gci), wasteman, a waste disposal company, institutional comparisons (for example, two local universities) and findings from prior studies on recycling data, practices and measures (for example, the war on waste [wow] campaign). jenny and hussein (sb) used local architectural data and global comparisons of green building practices (for example, london’s “gherkin” building) to imbue their findings, conclusions and recommendations with “truth” value. these examples and comparisons made verbally through speech and visually through embodied delivery and powerpoint, aimed to enhance modality in a professional domain. speech assisted by technology allowed speakers to “set out a claim, comment on its truth, establish solidarity and represent their credibility” (hyland, 1999, p. 105). the variety of modes and media contributed to the intertextual nature of their presentations which aimed to elevate their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. authoritative stance. during the question and answer session, lindiwe (r) amused the audience when, in a parody of this convention, she commandeered a late team arrival as the “planned” arrival of the very “experts” she was awaiting to answer a particularly tricky question. but we do have a team who have just walked in who will be…who are going to be talking about student communication in respect of, you know, the sustainability plan and communicating to students… figure 1. lindiwe “welcoming another team of ‘experts’” as this team just happened to arrive at this point, she cleverly used coincidence in her role-play situation and hastily added them to her “script”. this adroit improvisation worked to simulate a professional practice that got her “off the hook”. instead of undermining her authority, she was seen to enhance it by taking command of the situation and (re)negotiating contextual meaning with, presumably, a more “expert” other. earlier, during the rehearsal session, lindiwe introduced the team’s name incorrectly substituting “global” for “green” in their fictitious company name, green planet consulting. this slip of the tongue also caused amusement as it seemed to elevate the team, their subject and context to a global stage rather than the more mundane recycling practices of a local institution. attempts to instantiate a global identity and international benchmarking also aimed to elevate presentation content within both local and international contexts to enhance credibility in a professional domain. by introducing the iconic “gherkin” building, jenny and hussein also introduced international benchmarking into their oral report to elevate the status of the sustainable building design content and context. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 37 published by scholink inc. lindiwe and jenny took responsibility for a greater proportion of their respective presentations from a primacy, timing and positioning perspective, confirming both their cultural capital and positions of power within the team (bourdieu, 1991; fairclough, 1992, 1995). during the rehearsal, lindiwe delivered a straightforward introduction of the topic and speakers and spoke for nearly two minutes before handing over to vusi who set out the objectives of recycling before giving a narrative account of the university’s two major recycling projects. lindiwe then finished off the presentation by comparing the efforts of both local universities. of the 12 minutes they took during rehearsal (two minutes over the recommended time), lindiwe spoke for seven. feedback centred on the lack of a hook (note 2) to command attention in the introduction and overly detailed and descriptive findings which lacked emphasis and impetus. although they cut their final presentation by just over three minutes, lindiwe’s time “on stage” was double that of her partner whose narrative had been criticised the week before. she also reframed her comparison as an argument to encourage her institution to greater efforts so as not to be “outdone” by the other university. in the sb presentation, jenny not only spoke for longer but was responsible for the international comparison, the more sophisticated part of the presentation. the sections lindiwe and jenny handled seemed to draw more audience attention, in part due to their wider application and internationalism. the type of content they presented was regarded as more “interesting” and “global” than the shorter, local sections handled by vusi and hussein. audience attentiveness could also be attributed to length of section and the confident delivery style of both women. they seemed to have exercised more say in division of labour and content choice. peer feedback during the rehearsal session may also have contributed to decision-making as both women received more positive feedback than their male partners. vocally, both vusi and hussein were more subdued and softly spoken than their female counterparts. in giving feedback during the rehearsal, facilitator and students focussed on vocal tone, projection and diction, describing their presentations as being somewhat “monotonous” and lacking “oomph”. in vusi’s case, audibility was noted specifically. a steady voice, appropriate vocal projection and clear diction may serve as proxies for confidence and certainty whereas the opposite may be true reflecting heightened nervousness, anxiety and uncertainty. during the rehearsal, lindiwe had started the recycling presentation. besides reshaping the content, the order of speakers was also changed. perhaps in a bid to boost vusi’s confidence and not keep him waiting, lindiwe persuaded him to open the final presentation. attempting to include a hook and enhance rapport, vusi asked the audience a direct question. however, this backfired somewhat when he fumbled the wording. good morning, ladies and gentlemen. did you know that, er, waste recycling is the simplest way of saving….? did you know that, er, waste recycling is the safest, is the simplest way of saving carbon emissions? ninety percent of the energy used to recycle one tin can be saved by recycling one tin. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 38 published by scholink inc. his hesitant opening which saw him “start again” and repeat his opening question lowered modality in a professional domain and weakened his overall credibility, despite it being an arresting fact and a good idea as such. this repetition is typical of a rote learning style where speakers tend to recite their words. if they stumble or get lost, they seem unable to improvise and continue but feel compelled to start again and repeat their script as learnt. lindiwe took over at this point and was responsible for the full introduction including the objectives which vusi had previously handled. he then discussed the university’s contribution in a more conceptual categorical framing than “story-telling” narrative which strengthened the argument and audience rapport. focusing less on a chronological account, this section was shorter, yet seemed sharper and more to the point. lindiwe once again compared both universities using argument rather than description to weigh up implications. being responsible for drawing conclusions and making recommendations also put her in a powerful position as primary decision-maker. her imperative style, persuading the university what they “should” and “must” do in future, served to reinforce professional modality. at the end of the presentation, lindiwe confidently opened the floor to questions which she then answered, injecting the humour as previously mentioned when she commandeered the arrival of another team. the camera remained on her until the end. the fact that the audience’s attention (and camera) stayed with her during the question session consolidated her leadership position and boosted her confidence as practitioner. although hussein listed their recommendations at the end of the sb presentation and called for questions, jenny immediately took charge and answered them, once again highlighting her topic “ownership” and leadership credentials. the firm notes of finality and friendly collegiality, coupled with the intelligent handling of questions, ensured an overall positive recency effect which left the audience satisfied with both presentations as a whole. despite vusi’s hesitant start and hussein’s general nervousness, therefore, their joint presentations were regarded as textually more coherent, authoritative and professional than the earlier rehearsals. 3.2.2 visual modality and powerpoint as evident in table 2, neither party used cue cards during their presentations nor was there any evidence of a written script. as can also be seen, each team used powerpoint to augment their words and bodies. they used their slides on screen or the laptop as well as introductory turn-taking verbal links as mnemonic prompts and, having rehearsed the presentation the previous week, neither team relied too heavily on these discursive prompts nor did they merely read their bullet points. despite the more reserved presentations of vusi and hussein, the teams’ familiarity with their material, lack of notes, complementary verbal-visual slides and carefully negotiated division of labour enhanced their credibility as professional presenters. the order of the slides followed and reflected the textual structure of the respective presentations, moving from the general to the particular. lindiwe and vusi designed eight slides comprising their title www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 39 published by scholink inc. slide (see table 2), an overview slide and three body slides on the green campus initiative, waste management and university comparisons respectively. their final slides comprised one each on conclusions, recommendations and questions. jenny and hussein created twelve slides comprising an introduction to heating and cooling practices (two slides), one slide on the university’s older buildings and five slides on the female residence they had selected to analyse, photographically depicting the building and its geographical location. these were followed by two slides on sustainable heating measures, diagrammatically illustrated, two slides on sustainable cooling plans with accompanying photographs and two more slides on other available methods, one of which displays a photograph entitled “london’s gherkin”. the presentation ended with two final slides on conclusions and recommendations respectively. these slides represented the narrative and conceptual ordering frameworks that each speaker used to describe and explain past and current initiatives and recommend future action. both teams also used classification (types of waste) and causal analysis (old versus new buildings) to provide evidence of their findings and further their recycling and sustainable business arguments. the distribution of data across the slides varied as team members out of class negotiated what to depict on each. they had to consider the compositional relationship between visual and written text, areas of specialization of each and choices depending on what they were trying to achieve. a visual rather than verbal load was far greater in photographic, diagrammatic or graphic slides whereas the opposite was true of numbered lists of conclusions and recommendations. others, like the recycling title slide in table 2, juxtaposed the visual and verbal for shared emphasis. using colour and providing a photographic display of the cooling features on the female residence and gherkin building (sb report) and mounds of litter and colour-coded bins (r report) seems more apt and fit for purpose than describing them verbally. the modal logic and reach inherent in visual design is greater for audience interpretation, irrespective of linguistic competence. besides representational accuracy and clarity, the affective impact of colour and image makes a lasting impression which persuasively reinforces the necessity of introducing cost-effective measures of building design and recycling. a verbal argument in the conclusions, followed by a list of implementation steps in the recommendations, contributes to enhanced cognition. the ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions are realised in speech, words, image and delivery style which together create an orchestrated ensemble of negotiated meaning making. as speakers determined the pace of the presentation and when to change slides, the use of slide handouts served to compensate not only for pace, unloading rate and lack of persistence, but also for the partiality inherent in each slide. acknowledging perhaps the fleeting nature of speech compared to writing, jenny and hussein also included their report executive summary on their handout to add value to their oral presentation. as these were distributed in advance, audiences could read ahead and move www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 40 published by scholink inc. to and fro autonomously. it is worth noting that although these supplementary practices emerged in class during situated practice and instruction, the facilitator did not prescribe them, and their use was entirely optional. by including handouts—a different genre—for slides or financial statements, students demonstrated their understanding of the affordances and constraints of various semiotic resources. a balance sheet, for example, is too detailed as a slide but apt as a handout which audiences could take away and study at their leisure. given time constraints, each team had to decide what to foreground both verbally and visually and to précis their reports accordingly. in particular, given explicit instruction and modelling of powerpoint behaviour, they had to be very selective in terms of words chosen for display. the recycling slide presentation comprised 210 words and six images and the sustainable building presentation comprised 252 words, 13 numbers and nine images, distributing the modal load linguistically, numerically and pictorially. besides the use of numbers in the text, each slide in the latter presentation was also numbered. this conventionalised practice enhances professionalism as presenters can easily locate a slide during question time which acts to speed up proceedings. both pairs elected to use ready-made powerpoint templates from the repertoire available in the menu although they chose the colour scheme, selection of images and font size. templates are useful for novice users who have not yet mastered the more sophisticated features of the software, which are “difficult to access and (learn how to) use” (djonov, o’halloran & van leeuwen, 2010). neither team used clip art nor image bank samples, however, electing greater customisation of their visual material. jenny and hussein physically took their own photographs and used diagrams provided by the architects. the only picture they downloaded off the internet was of london’s “gherkin”. the internet, acting as a conveyor and distributor of previously organised knowledge, provides opportunities (as do other sources) for transferring “ready-made” semiotic resources from one context to another to serve a different purpose. lindiwe and vusi used existing photographs made available by their sources at the university and wasteman. possibly reflecting the more fleeting nature of the oral genre, the fact that teams were “given” visual material or that they didn’t see the need to “duplicate” their citation practices, saw very little acknowledgement of sources on slides. lindiwe and vusi also designed their own graphics in word which they then imported into their powerpoint presentation, displaying their familiarity with this specific software practice and numeracy in general. the similar look of each slide created a unity of style which reinforced the impression that these were jointly authored presentations. they also used colour, spacing and bullets (at two levels) with indentation and font size variation to represent the various sub-levels. each set of slides functioned as a summary to the oral presentation in similar fashion to the summary of the written report but, taken on its own, the slide presentation as genre seldom functions as a “standalone” product as it requires spoken verbiage to co-instantiate the slides. although powerpoint is often criticised for its reductionist and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 41 published by scholink inc. synoptic tendencies (tufte, 2001; grant & borcherds, 2020; martin, 2010), too much writing and continuous prose is contrary to good slide design. presenters must be extremely selective in their verbal and visual choices and to view their slide presentation as a complementary product. although this may pose numerous threats to accuracy, completeness and validity, the ensemble of speech, writing and image coupled with viewing and listening simultaneously work to enhance unity, coherence and emphasis. each mode may have its affordances and constraints, but the combination of modes and media allows for the distribution of meaning across them. despite this combination of spoken text and visual display, choices must be made and much more material omitted than the written document, for example. the audience, for the most part, focuses on what is said and displayed rather than what is absent. although they may address gaps during the question session, the bias and distortion that may arise during a so-called informative oral report may go unnoticed or be considered inconsequential. the onus on presenters to honour the data seems greater during the oral than the written report and, with so little time, choosing what to privilege, becomes a real test of professional practice. as evident in the handouts combined with their embodied presentations, both teams managed to coherently convey the gist of their written reports and to appropriately spread the verbal and visual load in terms of logic and specialization. a downside of software packages such as powerpoint and, to a lesser extent, prezi, is that slides are pre-set and cannot be changed during the presentation. although some students, particularly during the last few years, have used sophisticated animation of procedures, film clips and other web links, given time constraints and advice to keep it simple, many stick to the basics, as was the case here. despite attempts at multimedia approaches, students still must decide in advance what to include and how to order their presentation. they do not change this on the day, during the actual presentation or question session although they may re-show a specific slide or even “extra” slides, not included in their original, if warranted by questions. unlike an interactive whiteboard, for example, powerpoint does not allow for interaction nor is frequent interruption encouraged during a more formal presentation when time is of the essence. the informal draft products used earlier were far more conversational and interactive, although the product (e.g., mind map) was “fixed”. nevertheless, additions and changes could be made during discussion (and were). inserting one’s own identity into this “template” genre becomes more possible with practice, know-how and on-going changes to presentation software and technology as these mature and expand into more interactive and customisable products. one of the few unplanned interactive asides during the final powerpoint presentation was lindiwe’s impromptu deviation and this did entail comments and laughter from the group as mentioned. despite the generally static and pre-ordered nature of powerpoint and, according to tufte (2001), the often lamentable and mechanistic “powerpointlessness” inherent in its ubiquity, it is, like many other presentation applications, common in professional practice and its explicit instruction is necessary for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 42 published by scholink inc. workplace applications. combining this practice with all the other exercises in which students participate as well as the use of video playback for students to view their presentations allows the embodied reflection so necessary in multimodal meaning making within slp. 3.2.3 dress, authorial stance and power dress and grooming can also be viewed as manifestations of authorial stance and heightened power and credibility if they work to realise a sense of professionalism in both the team as senders and the audience as recipients. how presenters appear to self, each other and audience and the impression created may reflect their level of confidence, both cognitively and affectively. tan and yuet see (2009, p. 369), using a hallidayan framework, argue “that any kind of semiotic system (clothing included) functions to make “…‘experiential’…,‘interpersonal’…and…‘textual or compositional meaning’” (their italics). communicators seek to promote an air of knowledge, professionalism, authority and rapport and to impress their audience before they have spoken a word. they are hopeful that appearances will count in their favour to realise all three metafunctions. in terms of dress, differences in interpretation seem evident from video footage. in both the rehearsal and final presentation, lindiwe’s dress is similar irrespective of the nature of the session, as can be seen in screenshots of the rehearsal below and final presentation, shown in table 2 above. figure 2. lindiwe during rehearsal although no comment was made, it is interesting that she removed her glasses for the final presentation in contrast to her rehearsal. whether out of vanity or realising that the reflection may hamper eye contact, she decided to present without them when audience members, other than her peers, were present. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 43 published by scholink inc. this was the only change, however. rather than the more dramatic shift of jeans to suits of some of her peers, lindiwe wore smart skirts and slacks throughout the semester. as can be seen in figure 4, jenny’s appearance changed more radically moving from a student “classroom” appearance of grey top and tied back hair to a more corporate impression and neat styling. despite wearing her hair down during the final presentation, she appeared more neatly groomed and professional than at her rehearsal. both vusi and hussein transformed their appearance from normal student wear throughout the semester (jeans, open-necked shirts or t-shirts with windbreakers/hoodies) to formal wear. they aimed for a boardroom appearance. figure 3. vusi during his rehearsal and final presentation the ubiquitous “suit and tie”, epitomising a western professional identity, was adopted by both males during the final presentation. in fact, all but two males over the period in question, irrespective of background, purpose or audience, wore a suit and tie during this session even when the occasion did not warrant it. some talks were targeted at internal audiences such as the gci which comprises staff and students. although these speakers undoubtedly looked smart, one could argue that a clash of discourses may result by blindly following a particular convention; formal dress may not be appropriate for this type of audience (note 3). the decision to “dress up” may have resulted from the feedback they had received the previous week to make more of an impression. as it is easier to change clothing than state of mind or demeanour, both men elected to appear as formal as possible in the hope, perhaps, that they would exude greater professionalism. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 44 published by scholink inc. some research has found that employees, particularly males, are reversing earlier trends of casual dress in the workplace believing “that they were not being taken seriously because of their casual dress” (kiddie, 2009). the tie, in particular, has been associated with the male corporate image for centuries in american and european society (kiddie, 2009) and as a social emblem of belonging, a “bonding icon” according to stenglin (2010). besides interpersonal meaning, the tie also carries substantial ideational meaning to convey a uniformity and level of homogeneity which aims to assure the audience of masculine business expertise and acumen, thus conflating appearance with knowledge, credibility and respect (kiddie, 2009; grant & nodoba, 2009). if equated with a corporate “business” persona and community of practice in the making, then someone who “looks the part” may be seen to “fit in” professionally. in vusi and hussein’s case, however, the quality of their appearance seemed inconsistent with their demeanour for the most part. this lack of congruency may have hindered more than enhanced audience receptivity in places. vusi removed his jacket as he “got down to business” and his presentation did improve after a slow, practically inaudible start and fumbled opening. despite his language difficulties, his smart appearance and more interactive delivery style seemed to enhance his confidence during his second stint as speaker. devoting most of his attention to his slides rather than the audience and they, in turn, redirecting their attention away from him to his slides, allowed vusi to adopt a more relaxed demeanour. he seemed more comfortable “out of the limelight”. despite his formal jacketed appearance throughout, hussein seemed the most ill at ease of all four speakers. his seemingly unfamiliar clothing proved restrictive and he fidgeted with his cuffs, suit buttons and tie in a distracted and distracting fashion. watching the video, there seems a mismatch in his appearance and demeanour. despite the professional look and the no nonsense formality of the corporate “dark suit”, his awkwardness inhabiting it belies the authority that he may have wished his clothes might bestow. the mismatch of clothing and delivery may also be regarded as a clash of discourses. given hussein’s background, a cultural mismatch may also have underlined his awkwardness. colour as a semiotic mode also featured prominently, not only in slide design but also in dress (kress & van leeuwen, 2002). although all presenters settled for darker and more muted and conservative clothing during their final presentations, lindiwe’s clothing appeared more striking in terms of colour contrasts during the course and she seemed unafraid to draw attention to herself. both she and jenny (as with many other women) wore long trousers and could be described as smart and business-like rather than formal. they appeared more comfortable in their outfits than the men in their suits and this may have been true, literally so, given the softer, more yielding fabric and styling of their clothing. lindiwe and jenny’s calm attitude, aligning with their confident styles of delivery, resulted in greater congruence between appearance and content. another point worth mentioning is that their appearance seemed at once modern yet quite “masculine”. this may reflect shifting power relations (fairclough, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 45 published by scholink inc. 1995) and more feminist perspectives (guy & banim, 2000). whereas in earlier corporate and institutional settings, women were expected to wear dresses, skirts and stockings, now the question of “who wears the pants” is blurred with more women in the workplace overtly signalling a more androgynous stance in selection, style and colour. lindiwe and jenny’s choice of trousers is clearly salient yet also clearly western, as their dress may not be acceptable in many african, middle eastern and asian contexts (grant & borcherds, 2020; grant & nodoba, 2009). both women may also have been signalling their ongoing leadership credentials by “wearing the pants” at their video presentations. their greater cultural capital, by way of age, experience, scenario background and topic choice, allowed them to assume command from the outset and maintain it throughout the course. 3.2.4 movement, territorial distance and “ownership” in both presentations, lindiwe and jenny were physically closer to the screen and the laptop than their male counterparts and this management role was very evident in long shot as can be seen in table 2 above and figure 6 below. being in charge of equipment put them in a more powerful position as gatekeeper and monitor. presenter location differed in both teams, however. lindiwe and vusi stood on either side of the screen at quite a distance from each other and remained in these fixed positions throughout. during the rehearsal, lindiwe started the presentation by introducing herself and her partner, the scenario context and speaker breakdown. she alone handled all slide changeovers, with vusi operating in a much more marginal “sidekick” position, less powerful in all respects. jenny and hussein positioned themselves on the same side of the screen, sharing territorial space and swapping positions intermittently to signal a change in turn taking. jenny also assumed a more prominent position in terms of the length of time she held the floor and her location. during both the rehearsal and the final presentation, jenny stood further to the front. she sometimes physically hid her partner hussein from view while he hovered in the background. even when he was talking, she merely turned side-on and watched him intently, as if monitoring him. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 46 published by scholink inc. figure 4. jenny and hussein’s rehearsal and final presentation her position, like lindiwe’s, seemed more powerful in terms of content, quantity and delivery style. of interest is that during the rehearsal, jenny and hussein stood alongside the laptop and both reached for it during slide changeovers, sometimes simultaneously as can be seen below. this happened on several occasions. this issue was resolved for the final presentation when they reached an understanding on their division of labour. jenny did all her own slide changeovers and although hussein did most of his, jenny took over while he engaged with his slides during the air-conditioning and window shutter explanations. she did not invite him to return the favour while she was demonstrating the opening and closing of the window shutters on the london gherkin building, however. although she had her hands full, gesturally speaking, she was quick to control the laptop while hussein moved sideways out of her way as can be seen in figure 6 below. this too may relate to power relations in the team as jenny seemed to want to manage every aspect of her own section as well as overall control. although some teams changed their slides remotely, merely swapping the device when it was their turn, neither of these teams elected to do so. not using the equipment fully or being able to freely move away from the laptop may render a more static delivery style and hinder credibility in a professional domain. this seemed to confirm their status as novice equipment users. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 47 published by scholink inc. figure 5. hussein and jenny in rehearsal of all the modes critical to effective presentations and embodied delivery, gesture is arguably one, if not the most, significant metafunctionally to enhance understanding, credibility, rapport, coherence and emphasis. according to varela and shear (1999), in their research on first-person consciousness, motor neurons and the sensory areas in the brain are activated when an action is observed. these activations elicit empathy and engagement which may heighten rapport between speaker and audience and develop trust and credibility, particularly if motivated gesture autonomously or as co-speech mirrors, complements and/or supplements the speaker’s words to enhance and speed up comprehension. figure 6. jenny demonstrating shutter movements and listing conclusions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 48 published by scholink inc. both lindiwe and jenny used gesture to mirror, complement or supplement verbal and intonational modes so that their speech and use of pausing aligned with content to enhance understanding. their ratio of iconic, pointing and beat gestures (norris, 2004) was higher than either male, particularly hussein, adding an assertive quality to their delivery styles. in the above screenshots, jenny uses an iconic gesture to demonstrate the shape of the “gherkin” building while during the conclusions, she listed various implications using beat gestures. further examples are analysed below. figure 7. lindiwe signifying approval examples of supplementary gestures were evident at the end of lindiwe’s talk. during audience applause, she clapped and then gave vusi a thumbs-up sign before tackling the question session. whereas most of her gestures, to generalise across the entire presentation, could be said to mirror or complement meaning, playing subordinate or equal roles to the spoken word, both the clapping and thumbs-up sign are examples of abstract supplementary gestures. these signs added value to understanding between speakers rather than with the audience. not relying on speech at all, it could be said that they played super-ordinate positions (norris, 2011). clapping and the thumbs-up sign as signifiers of affirmation are globally understood. the fact that lindiwe clapped while facing vusi before ending with this sign, indicated her approval and reassurance. taking space bodily also conveyed an assertive confidence which translated into feelings of relaxation, even fun. as observer of speakers and audience during both presentations, this sense of greater relaxation created a sense of rapport and enjoyment. in contrast, hussein seemed relieved at the end of his recommendation section and made a move to sit down before the questions started. jenny smiled at him reassuringly and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 49 published by scholink inc. signalled their continued attention. her meaning, also silently conveyed, combined with eye contact and facial expression to halt further movement. both lindiwe and jenny’s actions and demeanour overall can be seen to construct a professional identity and a position of authority and power within their teams. 3.2.5 eye contact, expressiveness and links to confidence and credibility gaze behaviours change depending on social and cultural situations and contexts. purpose and audience will also influence eye contact norms within academic or corporate domains. in more casual settings, such as the mind map “exhibition” and presentation, gaze behaviour of all participants seemed more random than structured. according to norris (2004, p. 38), “the more structured the interaction, the more structured the gaze will be”. as the final oral report is a highly structured activity, the distribution of gaze also tends to be more structured. speakers direct and re-direct their attention from laptop to screen to audience as they engage with their material and the audience tends to follow the speaker’s lead in this regard, particularly if gaze, body positioning and gesture work as vectors to influence deictic directionality. lindiwe and jenny used eye contact with the audience to full effect and ensured that their gaze behaviour included both sides of the audience. eye contact was inclusive taking in various members of the audience on both sides of the room. even when jenny was demonstrating the opening and closing of the gherkin building shutters, as shown in figure 6 above and the sequence to follow, she kept her eyes front, looking to left and right rather than at the picture on the screen. her focus of attention is clearly observable in these screenshots so that although she is talking about a building, she foregrounds gaze and gesture rather than speech and image to convey the impact of the movement of the shutter cones. figure 8. hussein and jenny during final presentation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 50 published by scholink inc. movements of body and eye tracking were steady and unhurried for both women. their square-on body posture and direct eye contact reinforced their sense of control and professionalism. as mentioned, vusi’s delivery style improved during his second stint. his eye contact, however, was quite restricted and often reserved for the screen as can be seen in figure 3 above and the sequence below. being turned away and seemingly reliant on his slides also broke the audience connection and undermined credibility and authorial stance in a professional domain. when he did glance at the audience, he only included those people directly in front of him (his left, audience right). he never looked at the audience seated in front of lindiwe, almost as though they were her preserve and even when he did look up, his eye contact was fleeting and more oblique. this may have cultural implications for many black students for whom direct eye contact and lengthy gaze behaviours may be regarded as confrontational and disrespectful (grant & borcherds, 2020; grant, 2012). the tension between western conventions and traditional practices, particularly in black rural communities, may have caused him some discomfort in the classroom. this ambivalence and heightened levels of anxiety seemed to affect vocal tone and audibility as well. his much older and more experienced partner, lindiwe, did not display any discomfort despite a similar background. she was the most animated in terms of facial expression, smiling at her audience when urging the university not to be “outdone” by its opposition and joining in the laughter, as can be seen in figure 1 above, during the question session. jenny too presented an open body posture, facial expression and steady gaze which seemed congruent with her delivery style overall. hussein appeared the most somber and deadpan of the four presenters and when he looked up, he was inclined to look more directly at the camera than the audience, as can be seen in figure 8. moving from camera to screen, he seemed to avoid his live audience. his limited eye contact and generally tense demeanour worked to distance the audience which may negatively impact rapport. there seemed a definite relationship between heightened confidence, direct eye contact, assertive square-on body posture and strong, motivated movement and gesture. if modes, as ensemble, work together, meaning and credibility are enhanced. 3.3 modal ensemble: orchestrated meaning-making multimodal meaning making as constructed ideationally, interpersonally and textually is the focus of the following two excerpts comprising a sequence of nine screenshots, taken at 5 second intervals. each frame has been numbered for easy reference. these are from lindiwe and vusi’s recycling and jenny and hussein’s sustainable building practices presentations respectively. in particular, the “what” and the “how” of embodied delivery and how this modal ensemble may realise or hinder professional communication practices and identity are the focus of the analysis. arrows are used to indicate the directional vectors created by gaze behaviour, hand and arm movement. light and dark arrows are used against dark and light backgrounds respectively. dots are used for pausing. their spoken words are placed below each shot. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 51 published by scholink inc. the first excerpt is of vusi during his second stint in which he interacts with his audience and slides during his discussion of the university’s dry waste collection. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 52 published by scholink inc. table 3. excerpt 1: vusi in action vusi’s recycling presentation extract 1) if you see it, it is from april to may...also june, there is an improvement... 2) ja, there is this improvement in figures which is interesting... 3) while you are doing this, you can...you can also save some money... 4) end up paying less than the r47000 per month 5) and looking up to june, we’ve got a...it’s increasing so it’s good. 6) unfortunately, because this project is a recent one, we do not have the actual data 7) of how much is exactly or where... 8) of how much dry is actually become recyclable. 9) i’ll give up to [lindiwe] who will...[inaudible] www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 53 published by scholink inc. ideational meaning is mostly realised through the spoken word, the data, as conceptually argued. vusi, through comparison between months provides the evidence for “increasing” amounts at “less cost” (4 and 5). he uses causal analysis to offer the disclaimer “because” (6) which coupled with the attitude marker “unfortunately” provides a hedge to the factuality of the “evidence”. as there is no “actual data” as “project” so “recent” (6), he claims that it is impossible to generalise or draw reliable conclusions about amount of recyclable dry waste (7 and 8). although vusi does have some “actual data”, which is graphically displayed in powerpoint, the audience realises that he means that there is too little data yet (only three months’ worth) to discern a trend. listening to the presentation it seems obvious that, as a second language speaker, vusi grapples linguistically and struggles in places to articulate his argument. the elliptical style and errors of expression and grammar make comprehension difficult in places. as the graph itself is clear, easy to follow and depicts what vusi is trying to explain, the verbal-visual combination facilitates comprehension. although usually associated with interpersonal meaning, clothing may also instantiate ideational meaning. the formality of vusi’s clothing carries ideational “weight” insofar as “professional characteristics” such as “authoritativeness and competence” may be associated with it (cardon & okoro, 1999, p. 357). vusi uses gesture, eye contact and colour in the main to instantiate interpersonal relations. the focus from the start is on “improvement” (1). turning to his audience, he confides that “this is interesting” (2), a rhetorical aside which had members nodding in agreement. his pointing gestures and gaze behaviour direct the audience’s attention to the bottom and top of the graph which aligns with the “less” and “increasing” claims and the monetary savings that can be made (4 and 5). the juxtaposition of the head from image to audience punctuates this aside and invests it with a salience which aims to enhance rapport as he engages with them directly. the open-handed gesture, which underscores the “unfortunately” (6), helps to plead his innocence in terms of this gap in the research. turning away from the graph and facing the left section of the audience (his left), he uses his hands like scales to “weigh” up the recyclable amount and the up-down gestural opposition underscores the imbalance, the lack of certainty (7). this abstract, complementary gesture reinforces the argument as it goes beyond mere repetition of meaning. his final gesture (8) before he literally “hands over” to lindiwe in slide 9, echoes a rotating, washing movement which imitates the symbolic action of recycling as change, cleanliness, renewal and transformation. the use of colour in the graph and vusi’s tie may also invoke an interpersonal reaction and attract attention (kress & van leeuwen, 2002). the red tie stands out visually in terms of salience. the colour red as accessory in a corporate setting has been associated with status and power (tan & yuet see, 2009). although these attributes were not linguistically or vocally evident in terms of expression, diction, fluency and clarity, they may have helped create a more “articulate” image overall during this section. textually, the spoken word, technology, image, body position, gesture and eye www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 54 published by scholink inc. contact (as fleeting as it was), all worked as ensemble to enhance unity, coherence and emphasis. the next excerpt is from jenny’s presentation where she demonstrates the workings of the cooling mechanism in london’s gherkin building, introduced above. the amount of spoken text is noticeable in that jenny, as a first language speaker, gets through more data with little evidence of unmotivated pausing or hesitations. her expository use of language is pitched at a consultative level, appropriate for purpose and audience within an oral genre. her gestures frame her message in such a way that comprehension is assured. in the shutter movement section of her talk, jenny’s arms and hand movements emphasized and complemented her spoken language to portray how the shutters worked. by first steepling her fingers (figures 1 and 6 above), she demonstrated the shape of the building, using an iconic gesture to represent an object. this gesture aligned with her words and, by “repeating” what she was saying, could be judged as subordinate to her spoken words. she then rotated her hands inwardly and outwardly to imitate the opening and closing of the shutters which she likened to a pinecone (1). her evocative use of metaphor and synchronisation of speech and gesture facilitated comprehension. the complementary gesture and metaphor added value to her explanation and, as a mode, this set of gestures could be said to have equal value. the oppositional sliding gestures (3), imitating the motion of the shutters, reinforce the image of both sides of the building “closing up” for winter. several thrusting and pointing gestures are used to indicate the downward motion of both air through the vents and sunshine on the building as well as to draw attention to the overall glass construction (2, 4-6). she indicates what is inside with two identical arm gestures astride “the building” (7) before clasping her hands into a single unit to represent the inner cavity (8). her final gesture, palms downwards, signifies the satisfactory temperature balance and sustainability of this cooling and heating mechanism “throughout the year” (9). how load is distributed across various modes for seamless multi-layered meaning making is particularly evident here. the gesture/speech relation seems carefully divided, each performing different semiotic work yet mutually synergistic. speech is fleeting and immaterial whereas gestures in space carry a materiality which sounds do not possess. the materiality of the image, visible throughout this sequence, underscores the discussion and holds it together. the speaker as designer, taking the affordances and constraints of different modes into account, determines how each mode fits together and partners one another interactively (jewitt, 2011). it seemed clear that jenny’s eye contact did not follow her gestures, for the most part, but overwhelming held her audience, creating a powerful gaze engagement with them. when she did glance at her image (“as you can see, it’s all made of glass”), the swinging head movement underlined meaning, the strength of which heightened ideational and interpersonal salience. her assertive and confident posture adjacent to the screen adds to her professional identity within the arrangement of the venue. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 55 published by scholink inc. table 4. excerpt 2: jenny’s demonstration jenny’s sustainable building practices report extract 1) the building opens during very hot temperatures...like a pinecone, allowing air to be drawn through vents 2) down the building. this flow of air down these vents 3) cools down the building during these periods. in the winter or colder periods, the building closes up again, 4) allowing air to be trapped inside the building and then, along with the sunlight 5) shining down directly on the building 6) as you can see, it’s all made of glass the building heats up to be warmer during the winter period. 7) they also use the system of double glazing on the outside of the windows 8) and single glazing on the inside with a cavity in between. this acts in the same way as a ceiling acts.. as an insulator. 9) it keeps extreme hot or cold air on the outside allowing the inside to stay at a comfortable room temperature throughout the year. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 56 published by scholink inc. whereas the more conversational earlier iterations in class distributed power among all participants with dispersed eye contact and freedom to move, these formal presentations changed the power dynamic. in both sequences above, “room as boardroom” seems more feasible with the formally structured and orchestrated ensemble of these team presenters confirming their growing confidence as professional practitioners in a commerce domain. 4. final comments behaviours which may be more imitative and assisted at the outset of the course, particularly in earlier sessions, become progressively more expert with scaffolding and support (tharpe & gallimore, 1988; lave & wenger, 1991; gee, 2003, 2004; grant, 2012). vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (zpd) narrows as student teams become more empowered in their learning (hay & barab, 2001). as they develop the know-how and affinity within a professional domain, they also become more mindful of what is fit for purpose and audience in their own eyes as well as those of their audience. this shift may be greater for some students than others. as vygotsky (1978) contended, although students may work and learn collaboratively and socially, each team member would have his or her own zpd with some individuals needing more support than others. this is certainly the case in the sample teams discussed. significantly, this support and know-how did not only come from the facilitator but also from student peers, partners and external experts. both lindiwe and jenny managed the process and played dominant roles within their respective teams. in her partnership with vusi, lindiwe came across as a role model and mentor, an observation that was reinforced by audience appraisal and the facilitator’s response to lindiwe as team leader. although one might question vusi and hussein’s “growth” in terms of emerging professional identity and confidence, their transformed practice, collaboratively negotiated, saw crisper and shorter presentations with the stronger party in each team taking the vocal lead. this, as partnership, confirms a professional response where not everyone presenting in the workplace may require equal “air-time” (or to speak at all) but jointly succeed in realising a professional team identity and enhanced authorial stance as partners. the use of video provided all student teams with the means to analyse their own performances and, by receiving copies, reflect on these at their leisure during multiple viewings. course assessments annually point to these oral sessions, both rehearsal and final, as particular highlights of the course and a fitting culmination for both speakers and audience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 57 published by scholink inc. references archer, a. 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(2002). department chairs’ perceptions of the importance of business communication skills’. business communication quarterly, 65(4), 60-72. https://doi.org/10.1177/108056990206500406 notes note 1. in a more recent course, a team whose scenario choice involved ethical sustainability, did their entire presentation as a mock interview using masks of prominent politicians “mouthing” the usual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 60 published by scholink inc. promises of “action”. the parody of content and format, which flew in the face of the usual oral report genre, worked as a persuasive argument. note 2. a hook can be defined as a strategic presentational device to raise audience interest and curiosity at the outset and establish a positive first impression. examples may range from thought-provoking quotations, statistics, anecdotes or rhetorical questions to visual and/or aural stimuli. note 3. it is important to note that the facilitator did not prescribe dress but merely recommended that speakers dress according to purpose and audience. communication, society and media issn 2576-5388 (print) issn 2576-5396 (online) vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 170 original paper application of knowledge-based short videos in university students’ learning: examination and enhancement of motivation, goals, strategies, and achievements baiyan du 1 , yuege lai 1* , jun cheng 1 , & xiuhua yi 2 1 college of teacher education, quzhou university, quzhou, 324003, zhejiang, china 2 college of music, hubei normal university, huangshi, 435002, hubei, china * corresponding author: yuege lai, 32073@qzc.edu.cn received: july 31, 2024 accepted: august 16, 2024 online published: august 29, 2024 doi:10.22158/csm.v7n2p170 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v7n2p170 abstract in today’s world of accessible knowledge education, knowledge-based short videos have become a favored learning tool for many learners. however, the effectiveness of this learning method remains unclear, and research in the field of short video learning is still in its early stages and needs further exploration. this study surveyed 202 university students and conducted case analyses on 4 students to investigate the effects of self-determined motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievements in the context of learning through knowledge-based short videos. the results indicate that students who use short videos for learning demonstrate a moderate level of self-determined motivation, while their goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievements require improvement. senior students exhibited better self-determined motivation and cognitive academic achievements compared to junior students. additionally, an increase in self-determined motivation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievements was observed with increased time spent watching short videos. it was found that a moderate viewing time of about 2 hours per day is associated with certain learning benefits, while excessive viewing time may result in the opposite effect. based on these findings, the study concludes with learning recommendations aimed at optimizing the application of short video learning tools and providing insights for future research in this area. keywords short video learners, self-determined motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, cognitive academic achievement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 171 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction with the development of mobile internet and social media, short videos have emerged as a new form of communication, attracting widespread attention. the concept of short videos first appeared in 2011 with the viddy app, allowing users to create and share short videos on social networks. this feature was later adopted by instagram (zou, 2022). in 2018, platforms like tiktok, bilibili, and youku introduced short video content in the chinese market (sijia, 2019; zhao & ma, 2020; ki & kyoung, 2011). especially after the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic in 2019, the modes of information dissemination diversified (ren, 2023; zhang, lucas, & pedro, 2022). the content of short videos expanded beyond entertainment, advertising, music, animation, and film to include knowledge-based videos (zou, 2022). knowledge-based short videos are multimedia content that conveys specific knowledge or information to viewers through short video clips, usually lasting between 1 and 10 minutes (fei & koo, 2020; zou, 2022; zhao & ma, 2020). the primary purpose of these videos is to highlight key information and enhance viewers’ understanding of a specific field or topic through concise, engaging, and visual content. viewers can also interact with the video content by commenting, liking, sharing, or joining groups, thus increasing engagement and feedback mechanisms (wang, 2021). since the emergence of knowledge-based short videos, some researchers have begun to focus on the learning outcomes associated with this tool. ren (2023) confirmed that english learners improved their speaking accuracy and fluency by learning through english knowledge-based short videos. wu (2022) found that dance learners’ motivation to learn dance was effectively enhanced after learning through dance content in short videos. these effects were reflected in aspects such as knowledge acquisition, material pursuit, achievement orientation, and engagement. wang (2023) similarly verified that knowledge-based short videos could increase students’ interest in learning chemistry and help them develop the process of processing chemical knowledge information. meanwhile, some views suggest that learning through short videos poses challenges. for example, the quality of courses in knowledge-based short videos varies. learners without clear goals may lack in-depth learning behaviors regarding the content, and the focus on single, concentrated knowledge in short videos may lead to a lack of systematic understanding of the knowledge structure. if the video content contains misleading information, it can also affect learners’ cognition (gao, 2023; siyu, xinchen, jingtong, jiahao, & zhen, 2020; peng, li, tan, & wang, 2024). given these concerns, the learning effectiveness of short videos remains to be further explained. some studies have provided recommendations for enhancing learners’ academic achievement through knowledge-based short videos. wang and zhang (2022) suggested that short videos can be viewed as tools to spark interest in learning a particular field. learners should purposefully and autonomously choose to watch high-quality knowledge-based short videos and integrate, understand, and apply the knowledge points through independent deep thinking to truly master the knowledge and build a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 172 published by scholink inc. knowledge system. wang and xiang (2022) recommended that learners improve their literacy in using short video media, apply efficient learning methods and strategies, and create a learning atmosphere guided by a rigorous and pragmatic approach. wang (2021) pointed out that short video learning is closely related to learners’ learning conditions, cognitive foundation, resource presentation types, and online interpersonal interactions. learners demonstrate continuity, cross-contextuality, improvisation, and interaction expectations in their online learning behaviors. therefore, short video learning should provide appropriate learning support, enhance the expansion of learning resources, and improve the learning experience. gou, chen, and yang (2022), from the perspective of microlearning theory, suggested that instructional content should be divided into interrelated yet independent knowledge units, supporting learners in utilizing fragmented time for learning. they advocated that educational short video design should guide students through cognitive processes such as discovery, conceptualization, decision-making, induction, and evaluation, thereby fostering good learning experiences and motivating students’ desire for knowledge and interest through vivid and engaging content narratives to achieve the goal of learning through entertainment and improve learning outcomes. the aforementioned perspectives and the principles of autonomy and self-determination in self-determined motivation theory (wang & zhang, 2022; wang & xiang, 2022), learning goals (wang & zhang, 2022; gou, chen, & yang, 2022), and self-regulated learning strategies (wang & zhang, 2022; wang & xiang, 2022; wang, 2021; gou, chen, & yang, 2022), as well as the viewpoints on enhancing academic achievement (wang & zhang, 2022; wang & xiang, 2022; gou, chen, & yang, 2022), are potentially related. these factors represent the foundational prerequisites, process control, and outcomes of learning through knowledge-based short videos. by observing the effectiveness of short video learning through this complete path, we can further explain the effectiveness of knowledge-based short video learning. currently, research on knowledge-based short video learning is still in its early stages, and empirical studies are relatively lacking. therefore, this study examines the self-determined motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievements in short video learning through surveys and case analysis. the study aims to expand the theoretical foundation in this field and provide practical value in enhancing the learning efficiency of short video learners. 2. theoretical background 2.1 self-determination motivation self-determination theory is one of the most comprehensive and empirically supported theories of intrinsic motivation in the field of psychology (akhasbi, belghini, & riyami, 2021). initially, it emerged from the combination and systematization of organic integration theory and deci’s (1975) cognitive evaluation theory, exploring the tendency for internal organization and overall self-regulation, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 173 published by scholink inc. as well as the integration between the self and others from an organic dialectical perspective. the complementary relationship between these two tendencies is essential for healthy development (ryan & deci, 2002). self-determination motivation aims to distinguish between autonomous intention and controlled intention, focusing on the extent to which individual behavior is self-determined. it is a theory that explains human motivation on a continuum from autonomy to control. on one end of the continuum, behavior is freely chosen by the individual, representing intrinsic motivation, while on the other end, behavior is driven by compulsion or external control, representing extrinsic motivation (salikhova, lynch, & salikhova, 2020; choi, 2022). most studies have found that self-determination is associated with positive psychological functioning; when self-determination is strong, it signifies positive individual performance, whereas weak self-determination is associated with motivational negativity (jeon, 2017; vallerand, 1997). online learners typically possess a certain degree of autonomy, allowing them to study according to their own schedule and pace. if learners have strong self-determination motivation, they are likely to show higher engagement, satisfaction, and learning outcomes in online learning, thereby maintaining consistent and effective learning behavior (li, 2023). unlike traditional learning environments, the maintenance of online learning behavior relies more on intrinsic motivation rather than external supervision and constraints. knowledge-based short video learning falls under the category of online learning, similar to general online video courses in that it involves one-way content delivery while also allowing interaction with other learners or video creators. it covers a wide range of learning resources and content, meeting diverse learning needs. however, short videos are characterized by greater flexibility and convenience, enabling people to learn during fragmented moments of daily life. this feature aligns with the demand for quick information intake in today’s “fast-food culture” (sijia, 2019; michael, 2010). the content of short videos tends to be concise, focusing on key knowledge points. for learners, insufficient self-determination motivation when using short videos may indicate a reliance on passive knowledge intake, an inability to customize learning paths according to personal needs and interests, poor learning efficiency, and a suboptimal learning experience. therefore, whether short video learning supports learners’ self-determined learning motivation remains to be explained. 2.2 goal orientation the concept of goal orientation developed in the 1980s, based on achievement motivation theory, and is defined as an individual’s belief about the purpose of their behavior and the reasons for engaging in it (ames, 1992; reeve, 2014). goal orientation is broadly divided into mastery goal orientation and performance goal orientation. individuals with mastery goal orientation focus on the learning process itself and adopt strategies to improve their abilities with a positive attitude. even if they experience failure, they will reflect on the reasons for the failure and analyze the next steps for improvement and direction of effort (ames, 1992). on the other hand, individuals with performance goal orientation see www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 174 published by scholink inc. learning as a means to an end, achieving normatively defined success through external recognition and evaluation, and it is strongly related to extrinsic motivation (ames, 1992; nicholls, 1989). learners with high performance goals tend to avoid challenging tasks and adopt short-term learning strategies. if they fail to achieve their goals, they may experience negative emotions, while success with minimal effort leads to positive emotions (meece & blumenfeld, 1988). existing research has explored the relationship between achievement goals, suggesting that performance goal orientation does not always lead to negative outcomes, and individuals who possess both mastery and performance orientations may achieve better results (barron & harackiewicz, 2001). in the context of online learning, where freedom and flexibility are emphasized, students are also required to adjust their learning strategies and methods through multiple goal orientations to support their learning behavior (heilporn, lakhal, & bélisle, 2023; yeh, kwok, chien, sweany, baek, & mcintosh, 2019; zhou, wang, 2019). as a convenient and flexible online learning tool, short videos also require multiple goal orientations to enhance the learning experience and promote learning outcomes. individuals with low goal desire may be more susceptible to distractions from other short video content or struggle to focus during short video learning, lacking a clear learning plan, and using excessive ineffective learning time. this may lead to low learning efficiency, difficulty in applying acquired knowledge, and further decrease in autonomy and positivity in short video learning (gao & xiao, 2022; gao, 2023; shan, 2023; zou, 2022; cardamone et al., 2023; ting, lai, yong, subramaniam, & dollery, 2020). 2.3 self-regulated learning strategies self-regulated learning refers to the ability of learners to control and regulate their learning behavior to achieve their goals, actively engaging in the learning process through metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral strategies (zimmerman, 1986, 1989). self-regulated learning emphasizes the control and regulation of oneself during the learning process to achieve academic success, viewing learners as the object of regulation and management, capable of controlling their learning process (pintrich & de groot, 1990; zimmerman & martinez-pons, 1986). some argue that self-regulated learning has a greater impact on academic achievement than instructional effectiveness (kim, 2018). different views exist on the definition of self-regulated learning, with corno and mandinach (1983) defining it as a series of learning strategies used by learners in acquiring classroom knowledge, or specific cognitive activities undertaken to complete learning tasks. bandura (1977) described self-regulated learning as the process by which learners become the subject of their learning activities, setting learning goals, diagnosing learning motivations, managing the resources needed for learning, and making decisions and taking action throughout the learning process. based on these viewpoints, this study integrates the cognitive and motivational aspects of self-regulated learning, considering the individual as the subject of decision-making and action throughout the learning process, capable of judging learning goals and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 175 published by scholink inc. motivations and managing resources accordingly. compared to traditional learning, online learning requires learners to independently schedule their study time and progress while managing diverse learning resources and environmental distractions. individuals using short videos for learning may face similar constraints. therefore, self-regulation strategies are particularly important in a highly flexible learning environment for filtering resources, maintaining focus, managing self-discipline, and setting personalized learning goals. these processes require constant adjustment of learning methods through self-assessment and reflection (gao & xiao, 2022; anique, ellen, jill, & andries, 2017). for instance, wang and zhang (2024) suggest that learners should purposefully select high-quality content, use short videos as auxiliary learning tools, and integrate knowledge points to form a complete knowledge system. combining short video learning with other forms of learning can achieve an effective process of information intake. ting, lai, yong, subramaniam, and dollery (2020) suggest that learners using short videos for learning could benefit from a structured knowledge framework to facilitate deep learning and build systematic knowledge connections. although existing research offers insights into strategies for optimizing learning effectiveness with short videos, it remains necessary to comprehensively examine and explain self-regulated learning strategies as a factor influencing the effectiveness of short video learning. 2.4 cognitive academic achievement academic achievement refers to the degree to which educational goals are met and is often used as an indicator of changes in learners’ cognition (hyo, 2021). in learning contexts, achievement can be measured through exam scores and credits. however, quantifying cognitive gains across multiple subjects can be challenging, making it difficult to objectively assess learners’ academic performance. when these issues arise, cognitive academic achievement can be used for measurement instead of actual grades (hwang, 2017). additionally, the results of learners’ self-assessed cognitive academic achievement are highly correlated with actual learning outcomes, maintaining consistency with traditional measures of academic performance (chesebro & mccroskey, 2000; top, 2012; metcalfe, 2009). even when similar items are used in self-report questionnaires, internal consistency yields relatively objective results (hwang, 2018). therefore, this study uses cognitive academic achievement as a proxy for academic achievement to assess learning effectiveness. as covid-19 has led to a shift from offline to online teaching, the integration of teaching and media has rapidly developed. researchers have increasingly focused on how online learning environments can enhance academic achievement, particularly with the inclusion of knowledge-based short videos in educational content, which has changed conventional learning methods (wang & zeng, 2022). although some researchers have demonstrated the significant effects of short videos on academic achievement (ting, lai, yong, subramaniam, & dollery, 2020; ren, 2023; zou, 2022), they also highlight the need for specific learning process controls and strategies to enhance the effectiveness of short video learning. however, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 176 published by scholink inc. further research is needed to comprehensively assess the general conditions and universal strategies of academic achievement in knowledge-based short video learning. 3. research methods 3.1 survey participants and questionnaire composition table 1. demographic characteristics of survey participants component number ratio gender male 90 44.6% female 112 55.4% grade level lower grade (1st and 2nd year) 106 52.5% upper grade (3rd and 4th year) 96 47.5% preferred length of knowledge-based < 5 minutes 79 39.1% 5-10 minutes 82 40.6% > 10 minutes 41 20.3% total daily viewing time for knowledge-based short videos < 1 hour 85 42.1% 1-2 hours 65 32.2% > 2 hours 52 25.7% total 202 100% this study collected questionnaires using the questionnaire star app between july and august 2024. before answering the questionnaire, participants were informed of the study’s objectives and target audience. a total of 202 questionnaires were collected and analyzed using spss 25.0. the demographic information is presented in table 1. among the respondents, 90 were male (44.6%) and 112 were female (55.4%). regarding academic standing, 106 were lower-grade students (52.5%), and 96 were upper-grade students (47.5%). the preferred length of time for watching knowledge-based short videos was under 5 minutes for 79 respondents (39.1%), 5-10 minutes for 82 respondents (40.6%), and more than 10 minutes for 41 respondents (20.3%). the total daily time spent watching knowledge-based short videos was less than 1 hour for 85 respondents (42.1%), 1-2 hours for 65 respondents (32.2%), and more than 2 hours for 52 respondents (25.7%). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 177 published by scholink inc. table 2. composition of research instruments component number of items cronbach α self-determination motivation identified regulation motivation 6 11 0.828 0.883 intrinsic motivation 5 0.836 goal orientation mastery goal orientation 5 10 0.942 0.932 performance goal orientation 5 0.939 self-regulated learning strategies cognitive strategies 17 27 0.908 0.895 metacognitive strategies 10 0.835 cognitive academic achievement 5 0.983 additionally, this study examined the reliability of the instruments used for assessing the main variables, as shown in table 2. all measurement tools utilized a 5-point likert scale. the self-determination motivation scale, derived from jeon’s (2017) research, was used as the instrument for this study, comprising 11 items, including 2 sub-factors. identified regulation motivation consisted of 6 items, with a cronbach’s α of 0.828, and intrinsic motivation consisted of 5 items, with a cronbach’s α of 0.836. the content included statements like “learning is a very interesting thing”, “when i study and find something interesting, i become fully engrossed”, and “i feel happy when i master knowledge that i didn’t know before”. the goal orientation scale from seon’s (2011) research was used, with a cronbach’s α of 0.932, including 10 items. mastery goal orientation consisted of 5 items, with a cronbach’s α of 0.942, and performance goal orientation consisted of 5 items, with a cronbach’s α of 0.939. the content covered statements like “i care about whether i can learn new things”, “when studying, i try to learn as much as possible”, and “my goal is to learn many new study methods”. the self-regulated learning strategies scale from yang’s (2000) research was used, with 27 items in total, including 17 items for cognitive strategies (cronbach’s α of 0.908) and 10 items for metacognitive strategies (cronbach’s α of 0.835). items included statements like “i try to demonstrate what i’ve learned”, “i try to remember as much as possible”, and “after studying, i review what i’ve learned repeatedly”. cognitive academic achievement was measured using ji’s (2018) scale, which included 5 items, such as “i believe i will learn more through knowledge-based short video courses” and “my understanding of certain subjects has become clearer through short video courses”, with a cronbach’s α of 0.983 in this study. 3.2 case study participants and interview content composition www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 178 published by scholink inc. table 3. characteristics of case study participants participant grade gender number of interviews student a 1st year male 4 student b 2nd year female 4 student c 3rd year male 4 student d 4th year female 4 to gain an in-depth understanding of the impact of knowledge-based short video learning on university students’ self-determination motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievement, this study conducted four in-depth interviews as shown in table 3. to ensure the broadness and representativeness of the study participants, four students of different grades and genders were selected from the group who participated in the survey for case study interviews, as shown in table 3. during the interviews, mobile devices and word were used to record the content and key points in real-time for subsequent organization. the case study interviews were conducted from july to august 2024, involving 2 male students and 2 female students, each from a different year of study. the themes and key factors explored in the four interviews were based on the self-determination motivation scale from jeon (2017), which includes the factors of identified regulation motivation and intrinsic motivation; the goal orientation scale from seon (2011), which includes the key factors of performance goals and mastery goals; the self-regulated learning strategies scale from yang (2000), which includes cognitive strategies and metacognitive learning strategies; and the cognitive academic achievement scale from ji (2018), which includes the key factor of cognitive academic achievement. the theme of the first interview was self-determination motivation as shown in table 4. the core questions included “why did you choose to use knowledge-based short videos for learning?”, “what kind of content in knowledge-based short videos interests you the most?”, and “how do you feel when you learn new knowledge or solve problems through short videos?”, focusing on the key factors of identified regulation motivation and intrinsic motivation. these questions were designed to deeply understand the sources of motivation and points of interest for students when using knowledge-based short videos for learning, and to explore their emotional responses when mastering new knowledge and solving problems, thereby analyzing the impact of short video learning on students’ self-determination motivation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 179 published by scholink inc. table 4. composition of case study interview content participant interview number interview theme core questions key factors explored student a student b student c student d 1st interview self-determination motivation why did you choose to use knowledge-based short videos for learning? what kind of content in knowledge-based short videos interests you the most? how do you feel when you learn new knowledge or solve problems through short videos? how long do you spend watching short videos daily? identified regulation motivation; intrinsic motivation 2nd interview goal orientation do you set specific learning goals when watching short videos? how do you evaluate your progress in short video learning? do you consider others’ opinions while learning through short videos? performance goals; mastery goals 3rd interview self-regulated learning strategies what methods do you use to help remember and understand content while learning through short videos? how do you schedule and manage your short video learning time and plan? how do you monitor and adjust your learning strategies during the learning process? cognitive strategies; metacognitive learning strategies 4th interview cognitive academic achievement what specific knowledge have you gained through short video learning? in which subjects or areas has your understanding improved through short video learning? how has short video learning contributed to your academic performance? cognitive academic achievement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 180 published by scholink inc. the theme of the second interview was goal orientation. the core questions included “do you set specific learning goals when watching knowledge-based short videos?”, “how do you evaluate your progress in short video learning?”, and “do you care about others’ opinions when learning through short videos?”, focusing on the key factors of performance goals and mastery goals. these questions aimed to understand how students set goals and evaluate themselves during short video learning and how they perceive others’ opinions on their learning behavior, thereby analyzing the impact of short video learning on students’ goal orientation. the theme of the third interview was self-regulated learning strategies. the core questions included “what methods do you use to help remember and understand content when using knowledge-based short videos for learning?”, “how do you schedule and manage your short video learning time and plan?”, and “how do you monitor and adjust your learning strategies during the learning process?”, focusing on the key factors of cognitive strategies and metacognitive learning strategies. these questions were designed to explore the specific learning methods and strategies that students use when learning through knowledge-based short videos, including how they plan and manage their study time and how they monitor and adjust their strategies during the learning process to improve learning outcomes. the theme of the fourth interview was cognitive academic achievement. the core questions included “what specific knowledge have you gained through knowledge-based short video learning?”, “in which subjects or areas has your understanding improved through short video learning?”, and “how has knowledge-based short video learning contributed to your academic performance?”, focusing on the key factor of cognitive academic achievement. these questions were designed to assess the specific knowledge and skills that students have gained through knowledge-based short video learning, and the impact of this learning on their academic performance and subject understanding, to analyze the contribution of short video learning to students’ cognitive academic achievement and their self-assessment of learning outcomes. 4. results 4.1 basic information of survey participants given that the tools used in this study are mature scales from previous research, and to avoid the complexity of measurement analysis caused by examining too many factors, this study followed the approach of mathieu and farr (1991) by synthesizing and packaging the sub-factors of self-determined motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievement to examine the overall levels of these factors and the differences across various demographic variables. descriptive statistics, including mean, standard deviation, kurtosis, and skewness, were used to understand the general situation of self-determined motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 181 published by scholink inc. strategies, and cognitive academic achievement, as well as the fulfillment of the conditions for a normal distribution. self-determined motivation had a mean (m) of 3.07, goal orientation had a mean of 2.63, self-regulated learning strategies had a mean of 2.47, and cognitive academic achievement had a mean of 2.55. the specific data are shown in table 5, where the kurtosis and skewness of each variable fall within the range of -2 to 2, indicating a normal distribution (nadarajah, 2011). table 5. descriptive statistics of survey participants by variable (n=202) actor mean standard deviation kurtosis skewness self-determined motivation 3.07 0.58 1.231 -0.985 goal orientation 2.63 0.87 0.853 1.119 self-regulated learning strategies 2.47 0.54 -0.674 0.043 cognitive academic achievement 2.55 1.07 -1.210 -0.097 to analyze the differences in self-determined motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievement, a factor analysis of variance was conducted, as shown in table 6. first, no statistically significant differences were found across variables based on gender (p > 0.5). second, regarding grade level differences, both self-determined motivation (t = -11.786) and cognitive academic achievement (t = -6.901) were statistically significant. senior students demonstrated higher levels of self-determined motivation (m = 3.45) and cognitive academic achievement (m = 3.04) compared to junior students, whose levels were m = 2.71 and m = 2.11, respectively. goal orientation and self-regulated learning strategies were not significant (p > 0.5). in the category of preferred short video duration, significant differences were observed in self-determined motivation (f = 77.314), goal orientation (f = 4.685), and cognitive academic achievement (f = 15.583). students who preferred watching knowledge-based short videos for more than 10 minutes had higher levels of self-determined motivation (m = 3.53), goal orientation (m = 2.86), and cognitive academic achievement (m = 3.15). those who preferred watching for 5-10 minutes had corresponding means of m = 3.28, m = 2.41, and m = 2.68, while those who preferred watching for less than 5 minutes had means of m = 2.6, m = 2.74, and m = 2.12, respectively. thus, students who preferred watching knowledge-based short videos for more than 10 minutes performed better in self-determined motivation, goal orientation, and cognitive academic achievement compared to other groups. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 182 published by scholink inc. table 6. differences in self-determined motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievement among participants component self-determined motivation goal orientation self-regulated learning strategies cognitive academic achievement gender (m±sd) male(n=90) 3.09±0.52 2.6±0.82 2.47±0.55 2.52±1.07 female(n=112) 3.04±0.63 2.65±0.92 2.46±0.54 2.58±1.07 t 0.595 -0.442 0.152 -0.425 p 0.553 0.659 0.880 0.671 grade (m±sd) junior(n=106) 2.71±0.5 2.7±1.06 2.47±0.5 2.11±0.93 senior(n=96) 3.45±0.39 2.55±0.6 2.46±0.59 3.04±1 t -11.786 1.328 0.095 -6.901 p <0.001 0.186 0.924 <0.001 preferred short video duration (m±sd) <5 minutes (n=79) 2.6±0.55 2.74±1.02 2.41±0.62 2.12±0.93 5-10 minutes (n=82) 3.28±0.2 2.41±0.61 2.5±0.49 2.68±1.1 >10 minutes (n=41) 3.53±0.54 2.86±0.93 2.52±0.47 3.15±0.9 f 77.314 4.685 0.751 15.583 p <0.001 0.010 0.473 <0.001 total daily viewing time of knowledgebased short videos (m±sd) < 1 hour (n=85) 2.96±0.73 3.4±0.8 2.47±0.55 2.47±1.18 1-2 hour (n=65) 3.28±0.36 2.27±0.18 2.55±0.56 2.85±0.93 >2 hour (n=52) 2.97±0.44 1.81±0.27 2.37±0.5 2.32±0.96 f 6.854 158.564 1.504 4.036 p <0.001 <0.001 0.225 0.019 regarding the total daily viewing time of knowledge-based short videos, significant differences were found in self-determined motivation (f = 6.854), goal orientation (f = 158.564), and cognitive academic achievement (f = 4.036), while self-regulated learning strategies showed no significant differences (p > 0.5). students who watched knowledge-based short videos for more than 2 hours daily www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 183 published by scholink inc. had self-determined motivation (m = 2.97), goal orientation (m = 1.81), and cognitive academic achievement (m = 2.32), while those who watched for 1-2 hours had corresponding means of m = 3.28, m = 2.27, and m = 2.85. students who watched for less than 1 hour had self-determined motivation (m = 2.96), goal orientation (m = 3.4), and cognitive academic achievement (m = 2.47). these results suggest that students who watch knowledge-based short videos for less than 1 hour daily exhibit higher goal orientation, while those who watch for 1-2 hours demonstrate relatively better self-determined motivation and cognitive academic achievement compared to other groups. 4.2 in-depth interview analysis on self-determination motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievement after coding the content from the four in-depth interviews, it was found that regarding self-determined motivation, student a believed that knowledge-based short videos, with their short duration and rich content, are suitable for learning during fragmented time. they watch for about one hour daily, reflecting low self-determined motivation as shown in table 7. student b preferred using short videos to access diverse learning resources, allowing for learning anytime and anywhere during their spare time. they watched for 1-2 hours daily, indicating some flexibility and low motivation levels. student c required a large amount of high-quality learning content, which short videos provided, watching for more than 2 hours daily, demonstrating strong self-determined motivation typical of senior students. student d found the flexible learning method of short videos particularly helpful for preparing for exams and completing assignments, watching for 1-2 hours daily, reflecting high motivation among senior students for flexible learning methods. in terms of goal orientation, student a typically set specific learning goals and conducted self-assessments upon completion, showing clear performance and mastery goals. student b used short videos mainly for focused review before exams and did not set long-term learning plans, indicating unclear goal setting and a tendency towards ad-hoc learning. student c made detailed learning plans based on course content at the beginning of each semester, with short videos helping them quickly grasp abstract concepts. they regularly evaluated their learning progress, showcasing clear long-term goal setting and systematic self-assessment. student d occasionally used short videos to help understand difficult classroom concepts but rarely made learning plans, lacking specific goals and regular evaluations. in terms of self-regulated learning strategies, student a used short videos for preview and review, employing dual visual and auditory stimulation to aid memory retention and conducting regular self-assessments. student b used short videos to quickly grasp new knowledge, especially for exam review, but mainly relied on ad-hoc self-assessment. student c combined short videos with other learning materials, such as textbooks and notes, to fully understand course content and performed systematic self-assessments. student d preferred using videos to learn new concepts but rarely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 184 published by scholink inc. combined them with other resources, mainly using them for understanding basic knowledge, and seldom conducted systematic self-assessments. in terms of cognitive academic achievement, both student a and student c believe that short videos greatly assist in understanding complex concepts and preparing for exams, thereby enhancing their academic performance and learning outcomes. student a feels that short videos effectively improved their academic achievement, while student c combined short videos with traditional learning methods to boost learning efficiency and course grades. although students b and d believe that short videos are helpful in mastering exam content and understanding new knowledge, they think that more time is needed to consolidate and deepen their learning. student b showed improvement in exam scores, while student d needs to further deepen their understanding and application through other means. table 7. interview coding table 1st interview component student a student b student c student d self-determined motivation “i find knowledge-based short videos to be short and content-rich, making them suitable for learning during fragmented time. however, i sometimes rely on short videos rather than actively seeking more in-depth learning materials. i watch about 1 hour of educational short videos daily”. “i enjoy learning through short videos because they provide diverse learning resources. however, i usually need extra motivation to watch them daily. although convenient, short videos can also easily distract me. i watch about 1-2 hours of educational short videos daily”. “i need a large amount of learning content, and knowledge-based short videos quickly provide high-quality information that meets my learning needs. i actively choose and filter high-quality short videos for learning. i watch over 2 hours of educational short videos daily”. “the flexibility of short video learning allows me to acquire a lot of useful information in a limited time, especially when preparing for exams and completing assignments. i actively select suitable short videos based on learning needs. i watch about 1-2 hours of educational short videos daily”. identified recognizes the recognizes the recognizes the recognizes the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 185 published by scholink inc. regulation motivation advantage of short videos for fragmented time learning but relies on them value of short videos in providing diverse learning resources but needs additional motivation benefit of high-quality short videos in meeting large content needs and actively selects and filters high-quality short videos help of short videos in exam preparation and completing assignments, and actively selects suitable short videos based on needs intrinsic motivation interest in the content and convenience of short videos interest in diverse learning resources and enjoyment need for high-quality information and satisfaction in meeting learning needs interest in flexible learning methods and satisfaction in acquiring a lot of information in limited time 2nd interview goal orientation “i set specific learning goals when watching knowledge-based short videos and conduct self-assessments after completing them. short videos help me achieve short-term goals, but long-term goals require supplementary learning methods”. “i mainly use short videos for focused review before exams and do not set long-term learning plans. short videos are more of a supplementary learning tool rather than my main learning method”. “at the beginning of each semester, i make detailed learning plans based on course content, and short videos help me quickly understand abstract concepts. i regularly evaluate my learning progress to ensure the achievement of my learning goals”. “i occasionally watch short videos to help understand difficult classroom concepts but rarely make learning plans. i prefer to use short videos on an as-needed basis”. performance goals sets specific learning goals and conducts self-assessments uses short videos for focused review before exams makes detailed learning plans based on course content and regularly uses short videos to understand difficult www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 186 published by scholink inc. evaluates learning progress classroom concepts but rarely makes learning plans mastery goals achieves short-term goals but requires supplementary methods for long-term goals does not set long-term learning plans short videos help quickly understand abstract concepts uses short videos on an as-needed basis 3rd interview self-regulated learning strategies “short videos help me preview and review content. by using both visual and auditory stimulation, i find it easier to remember information. however, i still need to deepen my learning through books and notes”. “i use short videos to quickly grasp new knowledge, especially for exam review, where they are particularly effective. although short videos are effective, i mainly rely on ad-hoc self-assessments and need to supplement with other methods”. “i combine short videos with other learning materials, such as textbooks and notes, to fully understand course content. i perform systematic self-assessments to ensure learning effectiveness”. “i prefer using videos to learn new concepts but rarely combine them with other resources. i mainly use them to understand basic knowledge and need more time for systematic self-assessment”. cognitive strategies uses short videos for preview and review quickly grasps new knowledge, particularly effective for exam review combines short videos with other learning materials to fully understand course content uses videos to learn new concepts metacognitive strategies uses dual visual and auditory stimulation to remember information but needs deeper learning relies on ad-hoc self-assessments and needs to supplement with other methods performs systematic self-assessments rarely combines with other resources, mainly uses for understanding www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 187 published by scholink inc. basic knowledge 4th interview cognitive academic achievement “short videos have greatly helped me understand complex concepts and prepare for exams. however, i find i need more time to consolidate this knowledge”. “using short videos helps me quickly grasp exam content, but i need other methods to deepen understanding and application”. “i combine short videos with traditional learning methods to improve learning efficiency and help me achieve good grades in my courses”. “although short videos help me understand new knowledge, i still need other methods to deepen understanding and application to truly improve academic achievement”. cognitive academic achievement short videos help in understanding complex concepts and preparing for exams but require more time to consolidate knowledge short videos help quickly grasp exam content but require other methods to deepen understanding and application combines short videos with traditional learning methods to improve learning efficiency and help achieve good grades short videos help understand new knowledge but require other methods to deepen understanding and application 5. conclusion the purpose of this study was to examine self-determined motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievement in the context of short video learning. a total of 202 university students were surveyed through self-report questionnaires, and case analyses were conducted with four students. based on the results of comprehensive statistical analysis and variance analysis, it was found that university students who use short videos for learning exhibit moderate levels of self-determined motivation (m = 3.07), while their goal orientation (m = 2.63), self-regulated learning strategies (m = 2.47), and cognitive academic achievement (m = 2.55) require improvement. this phenomenon may be related to the difficulties in short video learning revealed by previous research, such as unclear learning goals and a lack of supportive learning strategies, leading to insufficient deep learning behaviors and a systematic understanding of knowledge, resulting in suboptimal learning outcomes. the interview www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 188 published by scholink inc. results further explain these phenomena. lower-grade students (a and b) showed weaker self-determined motivation, mainly relying on fragmented time and flexible learning methods for short video learning, resulting in moderate levels of self-determined motivation. in contrast, higher-grade students (c and d) demonstrated stronger self-determined motivation, requiring a large amount of high-quality learning content and finding the flexible learning approach of short videos particularly helpful. regarding goal orientation, students a and c displayed a higher level of goal orientation, setting specific learning goals and conducting self-assessments, with clear long-term goal setting. in contrast, students b and d showed lower goal orientation, lacking long-term learning plans and systematic assessments. for self-regulated learning strategies, students a and c demonstrated stronger self-regulation, using dual visual and auditory stimuli to remember information and combining multiple learning resources for systematic self-assessment. however, students b and d exhibited weaker self-regulation strategies, mainly relying on ad-hoc self-assessment and single learning resources. regarding cognitive academic achievement, students a and c believed that short videos greatly helped them understand complex concepts and prepare for exams, enhancing their academic performance. in contrast, students b and d needed more time to consolidate and deepen their learning; although short videos helped them grasp exam content, their cognitive academic achievement still needed improvement. among the variance results, no significant gender differences were found. however, based on grade-level results, higher-grade students exhibited stronger self-determined motivation (m = 3.45) compared to lower-grade students (m = 2.71), and their cognitive academic achievement (m = 3.04) was also superior to that of lower-grade students (m = 2.11). this is related to their increased autonomy and decision-making abilities in learning. as students progress through grades, they gradually accumulate more learning experience and self-management skills, enabling them to better control their learning pace and choose appropriate learning methods, resulting in higher self-determined motivation. the interview results also indicated that higher-grade students (c and d) exhibited stronger self-determined motivation and cognitive academic achievement, suggesting they could better utilize short videos for systematic learning and combine multiple learning resources to enhance learning outcomes. in contrast, lower-grade students (a and b) showed weaker self-determined motivation and cognitive academic achievement, relying mainly on fragmented time for learning, with relatively lower motivation and academic achievement. regarding the preferred length of time for watching knowledge-based short videos, students who preferred watching videos longer than 10 minutes had higher self-determined motivation (m = 3.53), goal orientation (m = 2.86), and cognitive academic achievement (m = 3.15) than other groups, while those who preferred watching videos for less than 5 minutes exhibited lower trends across variables. an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 189 published by scholink inc. increase in the levels of self-determined motivation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievement was observed with increased viewing time. this may be because longer knowledge-based short videos usually cover more comprehensive content, satisfying students’ needs for knowledge exploration, thus enhancing their intrinsic learning motivation. additionally, longer videos can provide more detailed explanations and demonstrations, helping students better understand and grasp knowledge, thereby increasing their perceived learning effectiveness and knowledge accumulation, which contributes to enhanced achievement and a sense of efficacy. for the total daily time spent watching knowledge-based short videos, students who watched for 1-2 hours daily showed better self-determined motivation and cognitive academic achievement than other groups. those who watched for less than 1 hour daily exhibited a more prominent goal orientation compared to other groups, with a decrease in distinctive characteristics as total viewing time increased. this result indicates that a moderate learning investment, with a total study time of up to 2 hours, is most appropriate, allowing enough time for knowledge digestion and absorption without causing learning fatigue. this moderate investment can effectively enhance students’ self-determined motivation, as they can perceive the effectiveness and progress of their learning within a relatively short period. moreover, longer but not excessive study time allows for relatively in-depth learning rather than just surface information acquisition, helping students focus better on learning content and improving learning quality. additionally, the study results highlight the marginal effect of study time; as study time increases, students’ attention and focus may decrease, leading to reduced learning efficiency. excessively long study sessions can cause fatigue and distraction, affecting the setting and achievement of learning goals, thereby reducing the differences in goal orientation. the interview results also revealed that students c and d, who watched educational short videos for 1-2 hours daily, exhibited higher self-determined motivation and cognitive academic achievement. they could digest and absorb knowledge effectively without causing learning fatigue. students a and b, who watched short videos for less than 1 hour daily, exhibited higher goal orientation, completing specific learning tasks and satisfying learning needs within a short period. this further confirms that moderate learning investment can enhance students’ self-determined motivation and academic achievement, while excessively long study sessions may decrease attention and focus, affecting learning outcomes. in the current results, goal orientation and self-regulated learning strategies were relatively low (m = 2.63, m = 2.47). although some students (such as student c) performed well in these areas, the overall levels were low. this may be due to weaker performance in these areas by other students, thereby lowering the overall levels. additionally, various factors such as the learning environment, personal background, and study habits may also influence the overall levels. future research can further explore the specific impact of these factors. data also show that students who watched for 1-2 hours daily www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 190 published by scholink inc. exhibited the best performance in self-determined motivation and cognitive academic achievement (m = 3.28, m = 2.85), while performance declined when viewing time exceeded 2 hours. this marginal effect may be due to longer viewing sessions leading to decreased attention and fatigue. however, some students (such as students c and d) who watched longer daily could still learn effectively, likely due to stronger self-regulation abilities and learning strategies that allowed them to maintain efficiency during extended study sessions. therefore, individual differences play a crucial role in learning outcomes. although the data did not reveal significant gender differences (p > 0.05), the interviews indicated that different genders exhibited varying learning motivation and strategies. this may be due to the limited sample size, which did not reveal significant differences. future research could increase the sample size and analyze gender differences in learning motivation and strategies to explore potential impacts. thus, it can be understood that lower-grade students need guidance in applying short videos for learning. when selecting short video lengths, it is recommended to choose longer videos for learning, and study time for short videos should not be excessive; effective time management is necessary. self-regulated learning strategies are factors that urgently need improvement, as no prominent group or significant differences were observed across demographic variables. this may be due to the need for long-term practice and reflection to cultivate self-regulated learning strategies in the short video learning environment, which might be lacking or underdeveloped in the current fragmented and instant nature of short video content. this requires attention. based on these results, students engaging in short video learning, due to the inherent time-limited nature of short videos, are allowed multiple opportunities to trial and error in content selection. before starting each short video, students should clarify the extent of learning they aim to achieve and select high-quality content. if the video content is found to be unsuitable, students should promptly change it and adjust their learning methods accordingly. in relatively short total study time, goal orientation shows a moderate trend, indicating that short-term goals can be effectively achieved. however, short video learning still requires the establishment of long-term learning plans to stabilize academic achievement outcomes. for self-regulated learning strategies, students should reflect after each short video learning session, evaluate their learning outcomes and methods, and make necessary adjustments. if needed, students can seek appropriate feedback and motivational mechanisms to assess their learning. this study explored the effectiveness of knowledge-based short video learning through surveys and case analyses, focusing on four aspects: self-determined motivation, goal orientation, self-regulated learning strategies, and cognitive academic achievement. existing research has primarily focused on traditional classrooms and general online learning environments, while this study focuses on the emerging medium of knowledge-based short videos, expanding the applicability of the aforementioned www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm communication, society and media vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 191 published by scholink inc. theories in a new media environment. additionally, this study provides practical suggestions for educators and content creators in designing knowledge-based short videos, helping them create more effective educational content. the results suggest that moderate study time and longer short video length significantly enhance motivation and academic achievement, providing practical reference for the design of knowledge-based short videos. finally, this study offers practical advice for short video learners to improve learning efficiency. these suggestions include selecting longer knowledge-based short videos, controlling daily study time, and continuously adjusting learning methods through reflection and evaluation, aiming to help them more efficiently utilize short video resources in their daily studies. acknowledgements project support: this project is supported by the ministry of education’s humanities and social sciences research project “the mechanism of knowledge-based short videos in enhancing academic achievement 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