Band 2, Heft 1

This paper offers a transnational comparative framing analysis of leading legacy news media in Switzerland ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung , abbreviated to NZZ , in German) and China ( China Daily in English) in their coverage of Swiss engagement with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2017 and 2019. The results implied a clear dominance of both newspapers’ economic and political actors and related frames. By introducing a geopolitical frame into the generic frame categories and adding an economy-driven frame into domestic frame categories based on the current framing pool from Transcultural Comparative Framing Model (TCFM), the study discussed how the two newspapers shared the same focus by frequency but differed from each other in the contextual discourse through argumentation. China Daily preferred to report from a general and positive overview, focusing on bilateral relations between China and Switzerland. In contrast, NZZ intended to cover more about specific Swiss industries and international actors such as the European Union and the United States, presenting a hybrid perspective towards BRI. The study found a clear presence of ideology-driven and political-position-driven frames on both newspapers— NZZ in particular. Given the importance of cultural congruence in framing studies, the study calls for an inclusion of more cultural notions and a general transcultural frame for reporting and researching emerging transnational topics through TCFM. Only when a discursive space is created with respect to different cultural patterns, might resonation in communicative encounters and conceptualization repertoires become possible.

With the continuing innovation of digital technologies and mobile multimedia terminals, the live steaming industry still has its relatively enormous market share in China. However, the aura of the platform profit-making period seems to glow faintly after 2016, the year regarded as “the booming year of the Chinese live streaming industry”. As the user bonus fades, the growth of the online live broadcasting industry becomes stable, and the industry development returns to rationality. This work poses several questions: in what ways can the survived platforms move forward to seek profits? What type of potential transformations have happened during the monetization for capital accumulation in the digital economy blended with diverse cultures? How can the labor rights of common people be ensured among the persistent chess-play in the virtual live streaming world? By jumping out from techno-optimistic research rhetoric and orthodox political economy discourse, this study stems from a macroscopic perspective of cultural political economy (CPE) with systematical consideration of broader functional factors. Netnography, online in-depth interview, and walkthrough qualitative methods are also conducted to analyze the transformation development in China’s live streaming industry. Results disclose that a gameplay still exists at the core of the dystopian cyberspace, especially residing among different context factors in the platform society, and this academic disclosure can be viewed from cultural and political economy dimension.

In the post-epidemic era, international students are standing in the communication intersection of the Global South. Through interviews with 15 international students from developing countries, this paper finds that with the deepening of polymedia use during epidemic, the image of China in the media use of international students has changed and contains new energy for international communication. Firstly, in terms of media use, “from straying to breaking the wall”. There is no significant change in the platform of international students’ use of polymedia, but the demand for life information and comparison among media have increased significantly. Secondly, in terms of national image acceptance, “from information to action”. Even facing the stigmatization of China, international students’ reliance on Chinese local media still has been increasing during this period especially after the comparison between Western social media reports and their local experiences, while professional media image and concrete government actions are key factors. Thirdly, the role of individuals in the communication of the Global South goes “from nodes to windows”. International students using polymedia gradually convey China’s national image to the outside world through a cross-platform approach dismantling the incorrect frames after frames’ competition, generating the radiation effect of international communication from individuals, and driving the communication and correction of the international image within a limited scope.

Since 2014, more and more Chinese dramas have been streamed on international platforms such as YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, as well as on regional ones such as Viu, Naver, etc. Among those sites, Viki, with its special affordance features, has become a major platform for Chinese TV dramas to reach a global audience. The presence of Chinese TV dramas on Viki is a successful case of contra-flow of media products propelled by political, economic, technological and cultural factors. Based on the political economy and platform affordance theory, this paper explores why and how Chinese TV dramas offer new ways of presenting audiovisual content. It starts by laying out the political-economic context of the globalization of Chinese TV dramas and then focuses on how Viki has become a streaming hub. It examines the motivations of TV drama producers and distributors in the distribution of Viki and investigates the role of Viki from its specific platform affordances. The principal data sources of this study are market reports, news, and online observation. They show the internationalization process of Chinese TV dramas on Viki. The findings of this study share insights into how Chinese TV dramas as a kind of cultural product become internationalized in the platformization age of video-streaming and what the contra-flow of entertainment content implicates.

In the context of globalization, the Chinese story of Mulan has moved from China to the world, providing an important case for feminist film criticism. From the perspective of film narratives of female characters, intertextual narratives about Mulan reveal the neutral change in the female narratives from the male “gaze”, gender role anxiety and female self-awakening, transcending traditional gender role norms. From the perspective of the gender narrative of the role relationship in the movie, the gender role relationship shifts from implicit patriarchy to a new relationship involving equal dialogue between gender roles. The inner strength of the development of feminist films in the context of globalization is the result of the strong willingness of female directors who want to create narratives of independent women and audiences who desire new images of independent women.