Media Realities A West-Eastern Divan

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Media Realities

1. The West is the East of the East - Oxana Timofeeva

2. This Side of Good and Evil - Dirk Baecker

3. The Cat of Borodjanka: An Attempt at the Media Real Symbol in War - Joachim Landkammer

4. Media and Reality. Luhmannian Perspectives on Identity, Objectivity and Truth - Danny Schmidt

5. Ecological Communication Revisited: Unveiling the Role of Media in Luhmann’s Systems Theory - Christian Morgner

6. The End Game of Media Realities? Some loosely connected considerations - Kai-Uwe Hellmann

7. From Opposition to Subversion: The Rise and Fall of Jimmy Lai's Media Empire - Alex Lo

8. China Different - Maritta Tkalec

9. “This is China!” – The Story That Sells: The Politics of Rebranding National Images in the News Media - Thomas Heberer, Anna Shpakovskaya, Danhong Zhang

10. Western Media Unmasked: Biases, Perversions, Hypocrisies and Harm - Chandran Nair

11. East vs West Soft Power Tussles: Understanding the Co-Construction of Media Realities in Sino-African Relations - Mistura Adebusola Salaudeen

12. Shifting Realities in Development and Social Change Theories: The Role and Place of Media and Communication - Srinivas Melkote

13. "Return to Dust": Harvesting Realism - Li Ruijun

14. "Solo Sunny": A Story of Solitude - Maren Lehmann

15. The Second Interrogation - Wang Tuo

16. A New “Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere”? Seven Theses against the Widespread Assumption of an All-Powerful Internet - Kai Hafez

17. Concealment and Freedom: A Study of Youth Self-Empowerment through Pseudo-Anonymity in the Douban Momo Group - Wei Baotao, Dong Lixue, Zhou Wei

18. The Evolution and Logic of China's Propaganda Model in a Global Context - Liu Hailong

19. Rethinking Chinese Propaganda: The Continuity of the Ancient Art of Governance - Ting-mien Lee

20. Reading the City: Linguistic Landscapes and Ideological Hegemony in Urban China - Lu Deping, Yu Liang

21. Cute Authoritarianism - Ewan Morrison

About the authors

About the editors

Editorial notes

Biography

Markus Heidingsfelder is an Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University.

Yan Bo is an Assistant Professor of Applied Translation Studies at Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University.

Holger Briel is a Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University.

“Carefully curated and culturally sensitive, this interdisciplinary collection of essays offers new perspectives on the contemporary realities of our globalized media world.”

Daya Thussu, Professor of International Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University

“Media Realities is a surprisingly fresh and thoroughly intriguing mosaic of insights into the peculiar differences and samenesses of Eastern and Western media realities—probably the realities most of us today spend most of our time with in one way or another. Quite unlikely for an academic book, it’s almost a page turner, due to its kaleidoscopic and sometimes experimental approach.”

Hans-Georg Moeller, Professor of Philosophy, University of Macau

"Media Realities rethinks the mass media in sweeping theoretical terms—opening a space for a reevaluation of the relationship between universities, social scientists, and the media."

Emily Erikson, Professor of Sociology, Yale University

“Media do not merely report on reality; they create the frameworks within which it can be perceived, debated, and remembered. Media Realities reminds us—all of us—that the realities we inhabit are mediated realities: shaped, sustained, and shared by everyone. In an age when wars, crises, and politics unfold as much in their staging as in their substance, this volume calls us to reflect on the new realities of and by all." 

Zhao Tingyang, Professor of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences