School of Culture and Communication - Research Publications
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ItemEthnic community media can play a key role in a crisis – but it needs our support(The Coversation, 2022)
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ItemBooks Versus Screens: A Study of Australian Children's Media Use During the COVID Pandemic(SPRINGER, 2022-12)Abstract As children’s use of screens increased during the COVID pandemic, their reading of traditional books was affected, a national survey of Australian parents shows. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Melbourne to compare young people’s use of screens and books in the pandemic. Their online survey of 513 primary caregivers of children aged seven to thirteen around Australia showed that tablet use flourished during the pandemic and that COVID lockdowns influenced book buying and library borrowing in consequential ways for publishing and literature. Many parents believed their children’s use of screens had come at the expense of book reading.
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ItemCOVID-19 Contact Tracing and the Operationalisation of Somatechnics(EDINBURGH UNIV PRESS, 2022-08)This article draws on the paradigm of media operationalism to understand the somatechnical construction of bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the concept of somatechnics, one’s experience with the social world is articulated through the available technologies and techniques required to and developed from using these technologies ( Sullivan and Murray 2016 ). By drawing on the case of the Service Victoria app, the digital COVID-19 contact tracing system launched by the Victoria State government in Australia, I focus on the transformative meaning of technologies and somatechnics and how subjectivity is being redefined through the lens of technological utilisation. I suggest that all human-related forms of relations (human-to-human and human-to-machine) have become secondary and give way to the synchronic data-to-data relation of the app. In the regime of operational media, the body is not just a historical and cultural construction but a techno-transactional object that supports the optimisation of automated-decision making. The recent operational-turn in media studies provides a useful pathway to rethink the changing meaning of body and the human/technologies entanglement.
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ItemGoverning via platform during crisis: People's Daily WeChat Subscription Account (SA) and the discursive production of COVID-19(Taylor && Francis, 2022-05-05)In early 2020, China witnessed the first case of COVID-19. The nation strived to manage the situation through stringent measures with the help of digital technologies including platforms. This article investigates the discursive production of COVID-19 on People’s Daily Subscription Account (SA, dingyue hao), a state-affiliated media channel on the WeChat platform. Through a mixed approach using the walkthrough method and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this article uncovers the power dynamics existing within WeChat and how such dynamics shape the mode of discursive production during the health crisis. Findings reveal the role of People’s Daily in commanding mainstream discursive production in support of the Chinese Communist Party’s continuous quest to legitimise its use of platform media to guide its political subjects and supervise everyday practices of social life. This article can potentially contribute to consolidating understandings of the role of platform media in shaping political governance in contemporary China.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableHow can we stop fake election news spreading in migrant communities?( 2022-05-02)Tackling fake news in CALD communities requires partnerships between governments, community groups and media organisations. There should be a particular focus on digital literacy of community leaders. And more resources should be devoted to improve journalists’ cultural competence in communicating with CALD Australians.
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ItemWhat social media platforms can and should do to build young Asian Australians’ resilience against online racism(Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2021-11-29)
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ItemLooking after the elderly, looking after the nation: Red (Xiao Hongshu) and China’s biopolitical governance of ageing(Informa UK Limited, 2021-09-03)This article examines the cultural production of ageing in China. Specifically, it studies the representation and cultural construction of ageing on Red (xiao hongshu), a popular e-commerce orientated social media application (app). By noting the local in-app and techno-political dynamics the ageing discourse operates in, this article argues that the representation of ageing on Red reflects Chinese platform’s dual ambitions of pursuing market success and securing political support from the party-state. Drawing on data collected from a mixed-method approach of platform and document analysis, it finds that Red’s representation of ageing is located within the state’s official discourse that shifts the caring responsibility and duty to younger family members. By governing the ageing body, the Chinese government is also governing the general population. This article advances knowledge of digital media use in producing cultural discourses around their role in shaping biopolitical governance in China.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableCommunicating COVID-19 to our older culturally diverse Australians( 2021)COVID-19 lockdowns forced us online, but that’s been a mixed experience for older Chinese Australians – especially when it comes to getting accurate vaccine information
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ItemNo Preview AvailableSearching Guangzhou: Regionalising Weibo( 2013)This post reflects on regionalising Chinese Internet: how the geo-identity of a city/province shapes and is also being shaped by developing communication technologies in China. A city is not merely the administrative unit that is part of the nation, but a city’s transformation and experience over time offer the realm to manage one’s sense of self and belonging. Weibo taps into this process and mediates the tension and conflicts between regions and nation.
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ItemDining 'on and off': Good, wellbeing and WeChat use among older Chinese migrants in Australia(Association of Internet Researchers, 2020)This study examines how WeChat, one of the most popular Chinese messenger applications installed on smartphone, facilitates the formation of an older Chinese diasporic space that is centered around the self-nurturing diet (yinshi yangsheng) cultural discourse in Australia. Media has traditionally played a crucial role in disseminating yangsheng-related information and knowledge in China (Sun 2016). However, currently literature in older Chinese people’s media consumption mainly focuses on experience and processes within China few have paid attention to surging number of older Chinese who are ageing in a transnational context. Through analysing data collected from eight focused group (12 people each) conducted at a Chinese restaurant in Brisbane, Australia, and examining OCM participants’ WeChat use,it is found that WeChat not only facilitates the formation of an older Chinese social space in Australia but the platform has acted as a self- and mutual-reliance mechanism for OCMs to negotiate and make sense of their biological change of ageing and biographic change of transnational migration.