[Air-L] CFP || Global Media and China_Special Issue: Platforms for Social Good

[Xiao Han]

Global Media and China CFP 
(Follow us at: https://twitter.com/GCHjournal <https://twitter.com/GCHjournal>; https://www.facebook.com/Global-Media-and-China-110136464998539/ <https://www.facebook.com/Global-Media-and-China-110136464998539/>) 

Special Issue: Platforms for Social Good

Guest Editors: 
Leanne Chang, Hong Kong Baptist University (leannechang at hkbu.edu.hk <mailto:leannechang at hkbu.edu.hk>)

Xinzhi Zhang, Hong Kong Baptist University (xzzhang at hkbu.edu.hk <mailto:xzzhang at hkbu.edu.hk>) 



Time Schedule:

—01 August 2022: a 1,000-1,500-word abstract and a 100-word bio, mentioning the title of the special issue in the subject line, to the guest editors:  leannechang at hkbu.edu.hk <mailto:leannechang at hkbu.edu.hk> and xzzhang at hkbu.edu.hk <mailto:xzzhang at hkbu.edu.hk>

—15 August 2022: authors of accepted authors will be notified

—30 November 2022: full paper submission


Overview:  

China formally joined the Internet in 1994. Since then, Chinese internet technologies have flourished at a startlingspeed. China has become the world’s largest internet market by several measures. It casts a great impact on individual and collective life at the domestic, regional, and global levels. After more than two decades of development, it is time to investigate the Chinese internet’s potential to foster communication for social good in digital environments and the benefits it can provide to different populations in different ways.

Scholars have argued that the Chinese internet has entered a “platform society” (Van Dijck, Poell, & De Waal, 2018). Various types of digital media platforms—from the decade-long social networking sites like Weibo and Douban, to the emerging, algorithmic-driven multimedia platforms like Bilibili, RED, and Douyin—have been thriving.These platforms enable professional communicators (such as government and public sectors, journalists, and non-governmental and professional organizations) to promote and disseminate their work and engage the audience. The platforms also help ordinary people with information seeking, entertainment, and interaction with other stakeholders. Critical reflections argue that these platforms may not always nurture social good. Professional communicators’ over-dependency on platforms may reinforce the dominant role of platforms in the communication infrastructure, mirror existing social disparities, and harm a diverse and inclusive digital public sphere (Lewis & Molyneux, 2018; Nielsen & Ganter, 2022). How ordinary people can avoid the dark side of platforms also becomes a pressing research agenda, such as how to overcome the digital divide and reduce the harmful effects of misinformation, echo chambers, and algorithm-driven fragmentation (Bail et al., 2016; Cinelli et al., 2021; Walter et al., 2021).

The theme of this special issue is“Platforms for Social Good.” In this special issue, scholars from China and around the world shared their theory-driven observations, explanations, and forward-looking works on a wide range of issues associated with the development of the Chinese Internet and the potential of Chinese digital media platforms to foster communication for social good and bring tangible and intangible benefits to different populations. Their intellectual debates about the public implications of Chinese digital media platforms and reflections on the digitalization of communication processes shed light on the future development of Chinese internet technologies and their potential impacts on different parts of everyday life.

This special issue focuses on interdisciplinary intellectual debates about the advancement of various Chinese digital media platforms and the potential of these platforms to support communication for social good. The scholarly work inquiries into the relationship between emerging Chinese internet technologies—such as social networking sites, platforms, and algorithms and their capacity to offer tangible and intangible benefits to different populations in Chinese contexts. In this special issue, authors take different empirical approaches to interrogating how Chinese internet technologies re-define communication processes and how communication taking place in Chinese digital platforms yields impacts on different populations’ lives.

Refences:

Bail, C. A., Argyle, L. P., Brown, T. W., Bumpus, J. P., Chen, H., Hunzaker, M. F., ... & Volfovsky, A. (2018). Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(37), 9216-9221.

Cinelli, M., Morales, G. D. F., Galeazzi, A., Quattrociocchi, W., & Starnini, M. (2021). The echo chamber effect on social media.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(9).

Gamer, B. A. (2019).Black’s law dictionary (11th ed.). Thomas Reuters.   

Lewis, S. C., & Molyneux, L. (2018). A decade of research on social media and journalism: Assumptions, blind spots, and a way forward.Media and Communication, 6(4), 11-23.

Nielsen, R. K., & Ganter, S. A. (2022).The power of platforms: Shaping media and society. Oxford University Press.

Van Dijck, J., Poell, T., & De Waal, M. (2018).The platform society: Public values in a connective world. Oxford University Press.

Walter, N., Brooks, J. J., Saucier, C. J., & Suresh, S. (2021). Evaluating the impact of attempts to correct health misinformation on social media: A meta-analysis.Health Communication, 36(13), 1776-1784.


Dr HAN Xiao

Research Associate, State Key Lab of Media Convergence and Communication, Communication University of China (CUC)

Commissioning Editor, Global Media and China http://journals.sagepub.com/home/gch <http://gch.sagepub.com/>