Volume 1, Issue 4

Purpose This paper measures how often audiences in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa consume Chinese media, and investigates whether a positive relationship exists between the consumption of English language Chinese media and attitudes towards China. Method We analyze three waves of survey data collected in 2017/2018, 2020 and 2021 ( N  = 5876) in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. Findings We show that, while Chinese State-owned news media have a growing but limited following, the minority of media users who report getting news from Chinese media have better attitudes towards China than those who don’t. Implications Our findings suggest that Beijing’s external communication activities might have the potential to fulfil Beijing’s goal of improving the country’s image overseas, provided that media reached a wider audience. Value The paper overcomes the limitations of previous studies on the reception of Chinese external communication practices in Africa (i.e., small sample sizes, failure to differentiate between increased presence and increased impact, and use of indirect rather direct measures of media use to infer possible effects on public opinion).

Purpose With the recent social phenomenon that TikTok has transformed the media landscape and fundamentally changed the way that people interact with content, this study explores and examines the ways in which this new type of personalized and often raw content can present an image of China. Design/methodology This study uses a content analysis to first explore the type of China content on TikTok, followed by a survey attempting to find connections between national image of China and social media consumption habits. Findings The most viewed China related TikToks portray the country and people in a largely positive or neutral tone, with seemingly diverse content. National image was positively correlated with participant’s perceived authenticity of China related content, liking to the videos shown, and positive perception of U.S./China relations. Practical implications Nations may become increasingly concerned with the way they are portrayed on social media and how it can be used as a tool to form images and opinions. While these content platforms continue to transform, there will be a continuous need to reevaluate the power and potential they have. Social implications The study explores how TikTok can be used as a tool for understanding others in different countries and cultures that people may otherwise never interact with. Originality/value This study contributes to the growing literature on TikTok during a time when it is at the forefront of popular culture.

Purpose This study examines the use of social media by individuals during protests in China (Hong Kong), Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon. Method Surveys in the four countries assess the relationship between people’s attitudes toward the protests and their selection bias on social media, manifested through selective sharing and selective avoidance. Findings Regardless of the different political and media systems in each country, social media usage was largely similar. Overall, our findings established that people’s attitude strength toward the protests was associated with their selective sharing behavior; those who scored high on supporting the protests were more likely than those who scored high on opposing the protests to share news that supports the protests, and vice versa. As for selective avoidance, social media protest news use emerged as the strongest predictor. The more individuals followed and shared protest news on social media, the more likely they were to engage in selective avoidance by hiding or deleting comments, unfriending or unfollowing people, and blocking or reporting people for posting comments with which they disagreed. Implications For selective sharing, our findings are consistent with extant research that found individuals with strong attitudes toward certain issues are more likely to express their opinions on social media. Also, for selective avoidance, our study supports the literature, which shows individuals practice selective avoidance to clean up their environment from attitude-inconsistent information, especially on social media, and exceedingly so during protests and crises. Value Selection bias places individuals into secluded groups and contributes to political divisions and polarization. Research has focused on online selective exposure and on offline selective avoidance, but online selective avoidance and sharing have rarely been studied. Our study contributes to emerging research on selective sharing and selective avoidance online during a period of polarization in multiple countries.

Purpose This study attempts to explore the mechanism of how broadband influences economic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic period, and examine different impacts of fixed and mobile broadband on economic growth during this period. Design/methodology/approach The panel data regression method and across-country data are used to estimate the impacts of fixed broadband and mobile broadband on economic growth rate. Findings The mobile broadband penetration rate and the mobile broadband network size have positive and significant correlations with economic growth rate during 2020–2021. Practical implications The findings have the policy implications that governments should promote the diffusion of mobile broadband especially 5G to sustain economic growth during the time of the pandemic. Social implications The diffusion of mobile broadband and 5G further facilitates telework mode. Originality/value This study theorizes the role of broadband in economic growth by proposing a new concept – effective labor – which reflects the extent of labor participation in productive activities when the containment measures of the pandemic are implemented.

Purpose On November 19, 2020, a man was brutally murdered by security guards of a supermarket chain located in a city in the very south of Brazil, home to the world’s largest Afro-Black community outside Africa. This killing triggered protests across the country, as a Black man was killed one day before Black Awareness Day. This large popular mobilization happened at the end of 2020 and resembled the George Floyd protests. Despite the anger resonating across communities in Brazil and abroad, the news media coverage on social media resulted in an inequitable distribution of editorial space to both the affective and critical dimensions. As users often adopt view-based practices by not clicking on social media content shared through URLs, it is essential to understand how news media portrays content in short text posted online. Study design Under the lens of news frame and social media theories, our study was built on a multi-method approach combining computational, quantitative, qualitative methods to understand how news media portrays content in a tweet. To do so, we collected 267,576 tweets. They were filtered through the case’s perspective and analyzed using frame theory. Findings Results show that Brazilian news media value different angles concerning Mr. Freitas’s death and subsequent events. While traditional media tends to be more neutral in portraying protests and the killing, digital media raised the debate on the issue and about racism in the country, highlighting protests and using supporting hashtags. Furthermore, cultural hybridity can be seen in Brazil with Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Practical and social implications In a media system that shares some aspects with those found in the United States, such as highly commercial media, our study demonstrates the importance of digital media for articulating racial issues and segregation in Brazil. Originality/value A long tradition of scholarship in sociology and communication studies has investigated how news media frames social movements and the impact this coverage might have on protesters and their ability to gather public support in Western-rich democracies. Less well documented is the use of news frames in Brazil. Furthermore, it shows how BLM is hybridized with local topics and has gained traction with digital media outlets. This study aims to fill this gap by becoming the first study investigating how news media frames social movements against racism in Brazil.

This article discusses media researchers’ understanding of the term “conflict,” what types of experience objects social scientists include in this category, and the possibility of categorization and theoretical understanding of these objects in the context of modern media research in Russia and abroad. Also discussed are the theoretical issues of the interaction between media and conflict, theory-based methodology of conflict research, and the types and key subjects of conflict, which have become the subjects of empirical research on scientific papers published in major media academic journals at home and abroad. In discussing the study’s empirical results, the necessity of cultivating ethical and moral values in the media, according to Habermas’s communicative behavior theory where he opposes the anti-values of conflict, was raised.