Rooted cosmopolitanism and the construction of Chinese identities in transnational spaces

Dissertation 2013 Spring

Rooted cosmopolitanism and the construction of Chinese identities in transnational spaces

School / Department School of Journalism Major Global Media and Communications

Student Name Lee Zhuomin Date 2013-05-21

Fudan University The Construction of Chinese Identities in Transnational Spaces

2

Acknowledgements

My sincerest gratitude goes to professors David Maguire and Hong Bing for

their patience and guidance throughout the course of this research. I would also like to

express my heartfelt appreciation to unnamed interviewees cited in this paper for their

friendship, invaluable insight and advice on the practice of journalism in China,

without which I would be unable to grasp the depth and intensity of the profession.


3

Abstract Integrating concepts from transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, identity and cultural

studies, this study presents a conceptual framework for examining how identity is

constructed and construed in transnational spaces. Such a topic is currently significant

in a time where increasing globalization and mediatization have led to the rise of a

generation of ‘armchair travelers’. As a consequence an individual’s sense of place

and belonging are simultaneously transformed. These processes form the basis for

examining the conflicts and dilemmas of those working in China’s media system,

which is said to be a transnational space in transformation and transition. Six in-depth

interviews were conducted with Chinese journalists who work in English-language

news media in China. The data confirms that there is little editorial independence

from the political and ideological frameworks that control China’s media system. The

data also offers a fresh perspective on how defining structures impact the

cosmopolitan identity. In the analysis, theoretical implications are discussed,

reconceptualizing the ways in which we understand the local, place, space, value

orientations, and an individual’s sense of belonging.


4

Table of Contents Acknowledgements 2

Abstract 3

List of Appendices 6

Introduction 7

1.1 Literature Review 12

1.1.1 The many faces of cosmopolitanism

1.1.2 Transnational social spaces and identity

1.1.3 Rooted cosmopolitanism and identity

12

15

18

1.2 Conceptual Framework 24

1.3 Research Objectives and Questions 27

2. Methodology 29

2.1 Research Strategy

2.2 Research Design

Procedure

Analysis

Sampling

Reflexivity

2.3 Operational Terms

RQ 2

2.4 Potential Limitations of Methodology

3. Findings and Analysis

3.1 Media in China

The reality of ideological and political controls

Media, diplomacy and the transnational experience

29

29

33

33

35

35

3.2 Identity and Cosmopolitanism

Self and the Other

Identities in between spaces and places

4. Conclusion

43

51

References

54


5

Rooted cosmopolitanism and the construction of Chinese identities in

transnational spaces: Conversations with journalists

Introduction

It is reasonable to say that the terms globalization and mediatization are seldom

separable. Giddens’ (1990) seminal definition of globalization may best represent this

statement — an “intensification of worldwide social relations, such that local events

are shaped by those happening elsewhere” (p. 64). Similarly, other scholars have also

observed that globalization is an awakening and an intensification of global awareness

(Robertson, 1992); an interconnected fragile global ecology of five scapes

(Appadurai, 1990); a reflection and recognition of world events in a networked

society (Castells, 1996). To sum up briefly, it is clear that a consequence arising from

this phenomenon is the creation of complex forms of interaction and interdependency

with people around the world (Thompson, 1995).

Central to this phenomenon is the role of mediated technologies as a facilitator in

making this possible. Mediated representations are a paradoxical reification of reality

that not only evoke a re-imagination of the world, but also enable us to discern and

come into contact with a world made of diverse cultures all the time (Meyrowitz,

1985; Rantanen, 2005). As the ‘distance’ between us and the Other is reduced through

mass mediated experiences (Silverstone, 2007), scholars have pointed out the

symbolic power of global media from whence we derive a knowledge (Chouliaraki,

2008), an identification (Tomlinson, 1994) and a relationship with the Other

(Hannerz, 1990, p. 239). This symbolic power has also produced implications for

society and, in this respect, there is a moral-ethical disposition surrounding the idea


6

that how the Other has been represented in transnational media will have a direct

impact on how we see and treat them in real life (Calabrese, 2005: Calhoun, 2008;

Chouliaraki, 2008; Nussbaum, 2002; Silverstone, 2007; Tester, 2001).

Although responsible representation and the spectacle of the suffering are highly

significant in the field of media and morality, Ong (2009) believes that these

conceptual frameworks lack sufficient examination of how a moral identity is

developed. His argument is not irrelevant to what has been depicted in the literature,

after all a common thread that runs through such a position is the fundamental

relationship between the self and the Other; host vs. stranger, a recognition and

acceptance of difference (Ong, 2009). It is always in relation to someone else.

Ong’s position is one that I am inclined to take because it is a response crucial to

awaken our sense of consciousness so that we are in a better position to make sense of

how we are to participate in world events according to the social roles we see

ourselves playing (Carey, 1989; Mohanty, 2000). More importantly, increasing

engagement with global media means that pre-existing cultural experience and

imagination is also increasingly transformed in inconceivable ways. As a result, it has

implications for the way we see ourselves in such a context (Tomlinson, 2003). Thus,

the transnational experience should no longer merely apply to immigrant and diaspora

groups (Robinson, 2007, p. 137).

This study therefore attempts to fulfill a research gap by looking at the direct impact

of global media experience on identity in everyday lives. Instead of using

globalization, Calhoun (2008) gives reason to use cosmopolitanism as a theoretical


7

background because we are so intensely connected today and this puts pressure on our

sense of territory. It also has an impact on our sense of duty towards the Other when

we become implicated in a relationship with him whom we have never met. Thus, by

integrating theoretical literature from cosmopolitanism, culture, media and identity

studies, it brings value to the field of media studies by steering research in this

direction: Firstly, how is identity constructed and construed in a time where people

are able to ‘travel’ so easily from one place to another? Secondly, what tensions can

be identified from living in such a period? Here it is hoped that a new perspective can

be gained from an empirical study that examines the lives of people who work in

transnational spaces. To achieve this, I look at Chinese nationals who are in the

business of global media operating locally in China.

The choice of China as a background study is for its uniqueness as a socialist country

with a capitalist economy. While technology and world trade were rapidly speeding

up throughout the 20th century, China only jumped back onto the bandwagon when it

re-opened to the world in 1979 (Wei, 1995). The concept of globalization re-entered

its history books again under its ‘Open Door Policy’ during Deng Xiaoping’s era

when it began to re-engage again with the world. Subsequently, export-led double-

digit growth over the next 20 years made China the world’s second largest economy,

just behind the United States and ahead of Japan. According to a report by the

National Intelligence Council, an analytical arm of the U.S. government's Office of

the Director of National Intelligence, China’s economy is predicted to surpass that of

the United States by 2030 (China Daily, 2012). The capitalist-style economy

possesses a huge potential for growth and development, even in the current economic

downturn — China’s GDP for 2013 is expected to be 8.2 percent, about 1 percentage


8

point higher than a previous prediction (Chen, 2012). By 2020, per capita GDP is

likely to exceed $10,000 (Xinhua, 2012).

Consequently, these domestic economic reforms and reception towards foreign

investment have led to commercialization and marketization of the mainstream media.

These market-oriented policies though, are not in favor of a more liberal and open

press; rather, they are carried out to consolidate political control, support the state’s

objective of economic growth and enhance social stability (Hong & Cuthbert, 1991;

Lee, 1994; Zhao, 2000). Other scholars however, beg to differ (Chan, 2002; Hong,

2011; Ma, 2000). Nevertheless, to date, a state-owned authoritarian media, heavily

controlled and regulated by the Chinese Communist Party, means that the media still

exists to be the voice of the government (Ostini & Fung, 2002).

In recent years, the advent of the Internet and the Party’s realization of how the media

can be exploited as a diplomatic tool have also brought about some changes (Shirk,

2007). For example, Chinese media companies such as Xinhua, China Daily, Caijing

Magazine and CCTV are also expanding their presence abroad by setting up global

and regional offices (Kusisto, 2012). In an act of reciprocation, the government is also

encouraging foreign communication and information companies to invest in China

(Schiller, 2005). Another example is seen in how the Shanghai Daily newspaper

prides itself locally as ‘Reporting China to the world’.

These global exchanges and collaborations reflect a multitude of implications. Firstly,

China is eager to expand and circulate its content on a global stage to reflect a

positive image of China to a global readership (Castells, 2009, p. 91; Hong, 2011).


9

Secondly, China’s media is reminiscent of a transnational space that encourages

exchange and engagement beyond its national borders. Theoretically, access to global

media means increasing awareness of the world, resulting in an increasing openness

and the possibility of a ‘world where there are no Others’ (Giddens, 1990, p.27).

Consequently, Chinese journalists who work in such an environment make for a good

case to study, even as their experience in this space of transition and transformation

impacts their cultural orientations and imagination of the self (Tomlinson, 2003;

Yang, 2003).

This study is organized into four sections. The first section reviews existing literature

on cosmopolitanism. I examine the various ways in which it has been conceptualized

and seek to pull out key points relating to the construction of identities. Its relevance

to the Chinese context will also be outlined. Secondly I discuss the methodology and

reflect main considerations in using in-depth interviews as a means of data collection,

as well as the preferred means of analysis. I present my findings in the third section

and wrap up with some conclusions in the fourth.


10

1.1 Literature Review

1.1.1 The many faces of cosmopolitanism

In an age of interaction with people through mediated networks and experiences, the

world is now better understood beyond one’s own immediate time and space

(Mendiata, 2001). These evolving processes and conditions of the contemporary

world have brought forward cosmopolitanism as a new focus for sociological enquiry,

buoyed by other concepts in globalization, transnationalism, universalism and

glocalization (Beck & Sznaider, 2006; Roudometof, 2005; Tomlinson, 2003). Yet,

despite its proliferation in literature, cosmopolitanism is not only heavily contested, it

also lacks defining parameters and agreements on its exact attributes (Calhoun, 2008;

Robinson, 2007; Roudometof, 2005; Skrbis, Kendall & Woodward, 2004). Beck, for

example, suggests that cosmopolitanism and transnationalism are different names for

the same thing, and can be used interchangeably (as cited in Roudometof, 2005). It is

for this reason that Beck and Sznaider (2006) also propose a critical examination of

cosmopolitanism in a different way, involving a redefinition and an insight to ‘key

conceptual, methodological, empirical and normative issues’ in social science today

(p. 2).

For the purpose of this study, the point of departure begins from Kant’s vision of an

utopian cosmopolitan society with everyone engaged in a harmonious relationship of

mutual influences (Nussbaum, 2010). Such a focus necessarily acknowledges the

growing awareness of common risks and interdependence with one another, which in

turn creates a realization of contrasts and differences (Beck, 2006; Vertovec & Cohen,

2002). To this extent, there is a moral-ethical disposition involved in the local-global

binary. As people begin to learn more about the Other beyond the border,


11

cosmopolitanism’s basic problem arises — fiercely guarded national boundaries, the

rejection of the visitor and hospitality towards him (Baker, 2009).

The existing theoretical debates on resolving this local-global dilemma in

cosmopolitanism reside in the nation-state taken as the local and as a necessary

variable that must be considered in relation to the community of people studied (Beck

& Sznaider, 2006; Hirst & Held, 2002). Such an assumption stems from a history of

social systems which were coordinated across time and functioned based on the

control of place (Giddens, 1990). Others emphasized the state as a “sovereign system

of government within a particular territory” (Schiller & Fouron, 2001, p. 18),

stressing the principality of territory and boundaries (Atabaki & Mehendale, 2005).

However the birth of technology has shrunk distance and changed the ‘situational

geography’ of social life, such that the “places in which people lived in were no

longer the only places they had access to” (Meyrowitz, 1985, p. 51). In other words,

communities once bound by time and space are now experiencing a time-space

distanciation. As a result, this traditional way of thinking — linked heavily to location

and place — also pointed to the nation-state as a necessary unit of analysis.

Scholars like Beck and Sznaider (2006), and Mitchell (2007) argue that the idea of

cosmopolitanism should no longer be rooted upon the national-global equation

because irreversible multi-dimensional changes in society have changed the very

nature of how states are situated in the world. Instead, cosmopolitanism today is

found at every space and level, highlighting the more important fact that cultural

spheres have merged and overlapped one another. Thus this should also alter the way

in which we see binary opposites in the study of cosmopolitanism such as national-


12

global and us-them. Elsewhere, Grande (2006) also pushes this agenda through,

arguing instead, for an analysis of mobility and space because of how it can be further

examined to propel cosmopolitanism studies to higher levels.

Unfortunately, despite being re-conceived and re-conceptualized to take into account

the diverse ways in which cosmopolitanism may be understood, little progress has

been made in attempting to understand a way of identifying oneself against diverse

influences, one in which particular traditions can be rendered transparent so that a

common ground can be met (Skrbis, Kendall & Woodward, 2004; Vertovec & Cohen,

2002)). Furthermore, removing cosmopolitanism from the traditional local-global

continuum to solve this theoretical knot is hardly a solution for two reasons: how

would we then re-conceptualize the traditional national-bound view of the world as a

collection of different cultures and identities, and of diverse backgrounds (Castells,

1997)? And what would this mean for the construction of an individual’s identity,

whose sense of context is still physically rooted in defining structures though he

experiences the world globally (Tomlinson, 1994)?

To this end, I am still inclined to consider the nation-state because the local is the

basis upon which an individual finds practical association and a spiritual anchor to

familiar pillars that support him (Appiah, 1997; Chan, 2005; Mendiata, 2001). Hence,

to ignore it would be to threaten and disrupt continuity from the past (Tomlinson,

2003). Furthermore, the denial of the nation-state would also mean a denial of one’s

sense of self because the formation of cultural identity begins first with an

identification with fixed institutional forms (Delanty, 1999). As a result, the loss of

attachment to defining structures would also lead to an incapacity to search for the


13

fundamental root of social meaning (Castells, 2007) or construct an identity that is

sensitive to the Other (Ong, 2009; Skrbis, Kendall & Woodward, 2004). This

awareness, as Baker (2009) points out, is important if we want to make significant

progress in moving towards an ethics of hospitality in the study of cosmopolitanism.

In this current study attempting to understand an individual’s identity construction in

the context of cosmopolitanism, there is no conflict in attaching identities to the

nation-state and then integrating it against a global context because the global and

national are not mutually conflicting (Chan, 2005; Wang, 2000). Furthermore, an

individual’s identity construction is built upon fixed civil and cultural societies which

form the basis for them to reach a comprehensive understanding of collective

experience around them (Castells, 1997). Along these lines, how to re-evaluate and

ultimately reconcile the relationship between attachments to home and the value

beliefs of the wider global community is a question that needs to be addressed in

order to come up with more flexible cultural concepts to study identity (Tomlinson,

2007).

1.1.2 Transnational social spaces and identity

Before moving on, it must first be noted that although Roudometof (2005) makes the

distinction between transnationalism and cosmopolitanism, he nonetheless applies

Beck’s transnational social spaces to aptly describe ‘spaces fostering the construction

of a multitude of identities such as transnational journalism’ (p. 119). Individuals [i.e.:

journalists] who are situated in this space routinely go through the motions of

transnational interactions in everyday life (Roudometof, 2005). The result of this is a

complex relationship between local-global tensions in identities, as well as a neutral


14

space of resistance and cultural autonomy (Gupta & Ferguson, 1992). In this neutral

space, cultures can travel (Clifford, 1992), suggesting that the individual is now easily

uprooted from his birth home and transplanted into new territorial and cultural

environments. The individual is thus being located in ‘circles of potential

connections’, his sense of self-belonging developed and reinforced depending on his

cultural orientation (Calhoun, 2008; Nussbaum, 1996). However a key question to ask

is how such cultures were formed to begin with and later on transformed (Gupta &

Ferguson, 2007). An examination into these inherent processes is important because it

would help us delve deeper into the politics of community, solidarity and identity in

an age of evolving cultural experiences.

It is through Bourdieu’s field analysis (1983) that we may understand how individuals

function within transnational social spaces. Bourdieu is interested in understanding

how power is subtly expressed and manifested in institutional structures (Swartz,

1997). His theoretical framework shifts focus away from the specific individual and

towards the tensions and conflicts within the arenas of everyday social life (Swartz,

1997, p. 129). Field analysis has its merits in helping one recognize power relations

throughout different structured spaces, and how actors may struggle against

institutionalized hierarchies within these arenas (Johnson, 1993; Swartz, 1997;

Thompson, 1991). This provides a more holistic understanding of self-identity

because it also takes into consideration the conditions under which identity is being

molded and transformed. For example, it recognizes the social construction of

identity, emphasizing the self as a representation of a particular categorical

membership, as well as aspects of the self in relation to others by using them as a

‘mirror’ (MacInnes, 2006). With respect to the media industry, field analysis also


15

illustrates how journalists are relatively positioned against wider structures of political

power and state policies, and how they are at the same time pressured in their

immediate environments to negotiate their own ways of producing content (Said,

1983).

To put this view into perspective, China’s media can be seen as a transnational social

space and a window where cultures are exchanged as state-owned media branch out

across the world (Schiller, 2005). Even the state news agency Xinhua is gradually

shedding its function as the mouthpiece of the government to be a media company

with global orientations (Hong, 2011). However, while the business models of

China’s media companies have liberalized, the same cannot be said of its media

system (Ma, 2000). Power is overtly expressed through fixed legitimate laws and

invisible influences that maintain the Party’s status quo. This heavy control points to

subordination to the Chinese Communist Party whereby the media acts as an advocate

for government policies (Shirk, 2007), national identity-construction (Li, 2009; Xu,

2006), as well as a diplomacy tool to influence foreign publics (Wang, 2008).

This authoritarianism has also led practitioners within the system to be careful about

what they publish, and this practice of self-regulation also extends to content

generated online. To this end, some scholars have alluded this means of regulation to

the idea of ‘panopticon’, the fear that ‘Big Brother’ is watching their every move, so

people self-regulate and self-censor in order to avoid legal repercussions (Endeshaw,

2004; MacKinnon, 2011; Tsui, 2003). In addition, Tsui (2003) also observes a

phenomenon of peer regulation whereby Internet users monitor one other, therefore

creating a decentralized structure of control. To add empirical support, Chan and


16

Zhou’s (2011) study illustrate how Netizens in China still have reservations about

expressing political opinions in China.

These various functions of China’s media demonstrate a system that is not

independent of the political and ideological structures. Indeed, it cannot be detached

from its political ties because it is precisely that which determines how information is

being constructed, distributed and interpreted (Ostini & Fung, 2002). While curtailing

free speech has been said to be suitable for Asian societies because of a strong belief

in Confucian values such as respect for hierarchy and social order, scholars have

criticized it as a poor excuse for political parties to maintain their legitimacy and

control (Doh, 2011; Ong, 1997). Indeed, I am inclined to see these regulations as an

extension on the curb on political freedom because of how China’s strictly enforced

regulations work to secure individuals in their place (Buckley, 2011; MacKinnon,

2011). As a result, these observations in Chinese society also reflect the importance of

taking the local — national, social and political realms — into consideration when

placing the study of media in the context of cosmopolitanism.

1.1.3 Rooted cosmopolitanism and identity

Ong’s (2009) position on an ‘ecstatic cosmopolitanism’, i.e. a construction of an

identity that is first and foremost at the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy examined

against other people in a globalizing world of difference, was considered for the

theoretical foundation of this paper. Though such a position is vital for the

construction of a moral identity, its conceptual diversity also makes it open to

interpretation, sometimes at the expense of it being merely an ideal (Skrbis, Kendall,

& Woodward, 2004).


17

Rather than rejecting Ong (2009) completely, I build upon his research to consider

Appiah’s (1997) notion of rooted cosmopolitanism as a theoretical background to

explain the relationship between conflicting identities in a generation of increasing

multiple affiliations. For Appiah (1997), it is possible that an individual can be

attached to his home but also take pleasure in the differences in people around him. In

such a world, the individual is shaped by local cultural practices, which ensures that it

will continue to be sustained and passed on. When they move, they take along with

them these cultures, the result of which is a local life characterized by ‘long term

persistent processes of cultural hybridization’ (p. 619).

In this moral climate of cosmopolitanism, Appiah’s idea of a rooted cosmopolitanism

gives one the freedom to continue to identify with existing social structures and at the

same time take on new collective ones expressed appropriately in different ways to

suit various contexts (Freedman, 2005). This can also be a dilemma because the very

identity one is born into and nurtured throughout necessarily begins from a self

shaped in affiliation to shared institutional identities, later on reshaped and re-

cultivated based on life experiences which may be in conflict with the ethical

demands of a person’s initial allegiance. However, though oxymoronic, it is a term

that is no less important for its relevance to describe someone with attachments to a

physical history, nation or community, and yet be a ‘citizen of the world’. For Appiah

and others (Chan, 2005; Hall, 2002; Nussbaum, 2002; Ong, 2009; Roudometof,

2005), an individual can pledge allegiance to one's country and still take on global

identities or identify with universal values.


18

Rooted cosmopolitanism dispels the anxiety of a disappearing heterogeneity and

allows us to see cosmopolitanism as a continuous flow, rather than moments of

contrasting performances (Appiah, 2005; Ong, 2009). It takes away the either/or

continuum, enabling us to better appreciate identity understood in relation to the

changing cultural contexts (Tomlinson, 2003). Scholars have theorized this approach

to studying self-identity as a symbolic project and a way of being and becoming (Hall,

1996a; Thompson, 1995). As a consequence, an individual can also be detached from

the social psychology of everyday local life as they weave in and out of the rhythm of

different spaces and overlapping cultures. This phenomenon results in a complex

situation where an individual’s sense of self and well-being are often renewed and

contested (Meyrowitz, 1985; Tomlinson, 2003, p. 272), oftentimes in a “condition of

boundless, loneliness, tentative about himself and self-conscious” (Chan, 2005, p. 13).

It is thus what Tomlinson describes as a ‘distanciated identity’ (1999), one in which a

person lives constantly in a process of imagination within ‘imagined communities’

(Appadurai, 1990). While one may be quick to downplay the significance of

‘imagined identities’, Appiah is also quick to remind us that imagined does not mean

unreal, for “nothing could be more powerful than the human imagination” (Freedman,

2005).

Before I attempt to apply rooted cosmopolitanism in the context of China, a brief

background on the current local situation is necessary to put things in context. To be

clear, the Chinese newsroom is undergoing a perplexing period of transition and

transformation — uneven degrees of liberalization has led to relative degrees of

autonomy, different tensions and pressures within the newsroom (Chan, 2002; Hong,

2011; Ma, 2000). This results in a situation whereby its workers are likely to find


19

themselves in a typical commercial media organization that adheres to practices based

on an agenda that serves an overarching corporate directive (Allan, 1999). One of the

reasons behind these changes can be attributed to the fact that the Party is also

actively using the media to reach out to the world to further its diplomatic agendas

(Hong, 2011; Wang, 2008). Using news media as a public diplomacy tool though,

must be tactfully managed because a country will only possess ‘smart’ power if its

information is seen as credible (Wilson, 2008). Conversely, diplomatic outreach

efforts will be counter-productive if foreign publics perceive information to be

propaganda (Nye, 2008; Wilson, 2008).

However, Ma (2000) points out that despite these apparently democratic progresses in

China’s media system, one must be aware that the state still sustains power. There

still exist overarching political controls with rules and regulations that journalists

must adhere to so as not to fall into legal or economic pitfalls. Socially, these tensions

between rapid commercialization and ideological control are also beginning to

produce a generation that increasingly feels a greater sense of freedom, are more

discerning, and support rather than oppose universal values of democracy and

freedom (Luo, 2002; MacKinnon, 2011; Wang, 2006; Weber, 2002). These dilemmas

and overlapping situations therefore become the source of symbolic violence as they

upset and transform the local experience for this generation of ‘armchair travelers’

(Wang, 2000, p. 109).

Against this background, Chinese journalists working in its media system make for a

fascinating and insightful context to study as they struggle to make sense of the

changing relationship between institutional influences, and their own prevailing


20

beliefs, attitudes and values. Because the impact is eventually felt on their own sense

of identity and belonging, understanding how this rooted cosmopolitan identity is

constructed and construed has increasing significance because it also addresses a key

question of how Chinese people go about their everyday lives as individuals

interacting with one another and with the Other; in other words, it is ‘a question best

answered at the level of everyday life’ (Chan, 2005, p. 35).

Adding to this, I therefore suggest that journalists are a particular group of people that

we should be looking at because of their unique position to represent people and

issues via mediated environments. To this end, they are also the best people to

develop what Silverstone (2007) calls the Mediapolis — a media as a moral ethical

social space. Putting it in context, it also “promote[s] a new sensibility of cultural

openness, human mutuality and global ethical responsibility” (Tomlinson, 2007, p.

363).

Finally, if being a ‘rooted cosmopolitan’ is about being able to relate to different

spheres of influences, then its construction must go beyond the discourse of class, of

how only the rich and elite can be cosmopolitans because they have access to

passports, destinations, and financial and cultural capital (Bauman, 1998; Lamont &

Aksartova, 2002). Hence, the present research intends to address this by scrutinizing

issues of cosmopolitanism from a different perspective — a bottom-up approach, in

order to give voice and independence to the individual (Clifford, 1992; Yuracko,

2003). This allows for reflexivity in identifying how cosmopolitanism is played out

by individuals in creative and unpredictable ways (Calhoun, 2008; Ong, 2009).


21


22

1.2 Conceptual Framework

To briefly conclude, the literature above has attempted to highlight issues in

cosmopolitanism arising from contemporary socio-changes such as mediatization,

globalization and transnationalism. As the individual resides locally, and experiences

the world globally, he can experience conflicting loyalties between institutional

influences and his own set of cultural values that make up his sense of self-identity.

As a round up, the following model will be used to illustrate a proposed conceptual

framework for the current study:

At a macro level, the state-controlled nature of China’s media means that it functions

as an ideological propaganda machine. That China’s media does not function

independently of the nation-state means that it cannot be studied out of the context of

socio-political structures (Appiah, 1997; Chan, 2005; Mendiata, 2001). Using it as a

tool for public diplomacy also means that there is an effort to extend its media outlets

into the global world, thus making it an in-between in the local-global binary

(Castells, 2009; Shirk, 2007; Wang, 2008).

Against these institutional pressures, China’s media can also be read as an abstract,

neutral and culturally autonomous space (Gupta & Ferguson, 2007) that is at the same

time a potential ground for a rooted cosmopolitan identity to be realized because of

Local (Socio-political, ideological structures)

Global and the Other

China’s Media (Transnational social space)

JOURNALISTS


23

how, as a window, it transforms the local experience and produces an increasing

awareness of the Other (Giddens, 1990; Tomlinson, 2007). In relation to the Chinese,

notions of self-identity are constantly challenged as society undergoes this period of

unprecedented changes (Wang, 2000; Xin, 2010).

One way of studying identity construction in a space of culturally blurred boundaries

is to look at how people express themselves through meaning embedded within

artifacts and practices such as photographs, language, dance and paintings (Clifford,

1986). The examination of such a symbolic exchange is reminiscent of what Geertz

said — ‘human thought is social’ (Geertz, 1973, p.361) — suggesting that these

artifacts act as a language through which members in a society communicate and

share experiences and ideas with one another (Bourdieu, 1990; Carey, 1989; Morley,

2000).

This approach likens identity to language, a collective possession shared and

understood by all and that enables one to achieve self-understanding (Palmer, 2003;

Tomlinson, 2003) because “we do not see reality as it is but as our languages are”

(Castells, 1996, p. 370). In addition, Anderson (1991) posits that how people see

themselves in shared spaces enhances the human imagination such that symbols and

histories are constructed to reify abstract societal norms.

However, analyzing artifacts as a means to study identity construction is not without

problems because it assumes a collective identity that people strongly identify

themselves strictly with. This position ignores the fact that individuals are unique

entities who can also identify themselves in different ways and as belonging to


24

different [sometimes overlapping] spheres of influence; as Hall (1996b) argues,

“identities are never unified and, in late modern times, are increasingly fragmented

and fractured” (p. 4). Furthermore, while cultural practices do construct meaning

through symbolic communication, it does not necessarily mean that it constructs

identity in the process (Tomlinson, 2003).

Instead, another anthropological approach would be to situate oneself in a direct

involvement with the subject to be studied. This approach involves acknowledging

the processes of self-transformation against the logic of a subject’s cultural and social

context (Delanty, 2006; Tomlinson, 2003). This would mean identifying constructs as

extensions of identity that highlight degrees of closeness towards different spheres of

influence. Such an approach is beneficial as the individual can recognize how what

they are taught from young is later reshaped and re-cultivated throughout their life

experiences (Freedman, 2005). In addition, I intend to take such an approach because

this human inter-subjectivity allows for reflexivity in the understanding of the

dynamism of culture (Clifford, 1986; Fabian, 1971; Pinney, 1990; Pink, 2003). And

while Geertz (1973) resists this subjective cultural analysis in anthropology and

sociology, others (Calhoun, 2008; Kellner & Pierce, 2007; Tyler, 1986; Rabinow,

1986; Yuracko, 2003) have supported this in favor of understanding the core of

cultures in context.

With respect to examining cosmopolitanism, Burawoy et al’s (2000) study has

provided suggestions on how abstract ideals may be operationalized into more

meaningful constructs that are easily related to. Similarly, Wang’s (2000) study on the

effects of globalization on the Taiwanese imagination shows how identity can be


25

examined in the context of a symbiotic relationship between the global and national.

However these suggestions do not burrow deeper into the implications of

cosmopolitan transformations on the new spaces of identity imagination for the

individual. To this extent, this study aims to undertake empirical work to address this.

1.3 Research Objectives and Questions

As the literature suggests, China’s media system is undergoing a period of transition

and transformation. Even as modernization and marketization has led to the birth of a

commercial press driven by profit-making motivations, the potential for the editorial

team to function independently beyond ideological underpinnings is still relatively

blurred (Ma, 2000). A solid comprehension of existing structural powers and

limitations is necessary if we are to have a firm grasp of how identity is developed.

This is because it will form the basis for understanding how individuals deal with

immediate institutional hierarchies within everyday arenas (Johnson, 1993; Swartz,

1997; Thompson, 1991). This informs the first research question:

RQ1: How do prevailing political, ideological and commercial motivations

influence the practice of newsmaking in China today?

In field analysis, text producers are perceived to struggle as they are relatively

positioned in different spheres of cultures (Bourdieu, 1983). This is applied to

individuals who are locked in a dynamic and organic maze of place and power in

transnational social spaces (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997; Roudometof, 2005). In order to

understand how a rooted cosmopolitanism is constructed as individuals sweep in and

out of different spaces, the next research question is posited:


26

RQ2: How do journalists negotiate identity and distance in their jobs?

From the above, it is hoped that the results will answer the final research question:

RQ3: What tensions can be identified between institutional pressures and their

own identities?


27

2. Methodology

2.1 Research strategy

This chapter presents the overall methodological approach, taking into consideration

the rationale, ethical issues and the limitations of the method employed. Six in-depth

interviews were conducted over a two-week period. Although the integration of

different methods would allow for a richer and more impactful study (Esterberg,

2002), I chose to utilize only one method because it fitted soundly into the research

questions posited in the previous section. To this end, in-depth interviews were

selected as the most appropriate means of data collection because this direct form of

contact enabled me to be aware of how meaning is produced and interpreted in

context (Lister & Wells, 2001).

2.2 Research design

Firstly, a list of potential respondents was drawn up, mostly comprising my ex-

colleagues from Shanghai Daily. I also depended on my personal contacts to snowball

the request to reach out to any Chinese journalist interested in sharing with me their

experiences working as a journalist in China. The process generated a long list of

respondents, of which only six agreed to participate in the study. Two work at

international news bureaus while the rest are currently employed in state-owned

English-language news media.

2.2.1 Procedure


28

All respondents were contacted via email. The purpose of the email was to get their

permission to be interviewed and, by agreeing, they understood their rights [see

Appendix A]. Respondents could choose not to be identified by their name or

organization. They were free to remove their responses fully from the study at any

point in time and no reason needed be given. It was important to flag these points up

front because some of them only agreed to speak with me upon condition of

anonymity. Others were doing so without their company’s approval. Nevertheless, as

a precaution, all respondents cited in this study are anonymous, identified only by

their age, gender and place of birth [see Appendix D].

Respondents could choose to be interviewed over the phone, face-to-face or in

writing, at a place and time of their convenience. They received no remuneration for

participation, though a complimentary cup of tea or coffee was extended as a form of

gratitude. All interviews were audio-recorded for transcribing purposes and a typical

interview lasted no more than 45 minutes. At the end of the interview, they were

reminded that they could contact me if they had any questions. They were also asked

if they could recommend anyone else who would be happy to share their experiences

for this study.

Interviews followed an open-ended, semi-structured style because it allowed me the

flexibility of expanding on interesting points during the session. The semi-structured

approach was also chosen because it enabled respondents to break down the

complexity of their thoughts and feelings, thus enabling them to elaborate their ideas

in their own terms (Silverman, 1993). This was certainly appropriate when discussing

abstract constructs such as identity and culture. As a result, I was able to extract rich


29

responses which would otherwise not be generated through a structured close-ended

means of query (Holstein & Gubrium, 1997). While certain questions had to be

tweaked accordingly to various background and experiences, the interview guide was

still closely followed to focus on the main topics.

2.2.2 Analysis

Responses were coded and analyzed thematically. This involved establishing a coding

frame to fit common topics and themes into sub-categories. This means of analysis

was deemed to be the most appropriate because data collected via open-ended, semi-

structured interviews was assumed to be rich and diverse (Esterberg, 2002; Flick,

1998; Richards, 2005). This would make it easier to identify similar subjects to

answer the research questions. Furthermore, a thematic coding and analysis would

allow me to make comparisons across the interviews and in the meantime be open-

minded about how the data played out (Flick, 1998).

2.2.3 Sampling

I determined that journalists should preferably be employed in mainstream media

outlets. It did not matter which beat they were covering as long as they were involved

in current affairs. They should be working in a typical newsroom so that they could

describe the constraints and struggles [or the lack thereof] against the local laws and

regulations. Although this study is examined against China’s media as a transnational

space, journalists who work in international media were also taken into the sample

because of the complexity of the contemporary media scene (Cottle, 2008). Chinese

and international media’s sets of values differ in that while the former functions on

the authority of the political and ideological mandate (Chan, 2002), the latter has its


30

own agency in supporting certain agendas (Walgrave & Manssens, 2000). This

difference is thus assumed to have an impact on how individuals see themselves.

2.2.4 Reflexivity

Through the interviews, I found myself sharing my own experiences as an example

because the identity question was quite difficult to break down. This high level of

involvement is deemed to be inappropriate because of how it can influence the results

of the study in favor of the researcher’s research objectives (Holstein & Gubrium,

1997). However this level of subjectivity was not so much to steer respondents in a

certain direction but to build a conducive environment for them to think deeper and

further (Holstein & Gubrium, 1997). Additionally Marcus and Fischer (1999) also

justifies this subjectivity because respondents are not merely informants, they are also

participants in helping me understand their universe.

2.3 Operational terms

RQ 2:

A rooted cosmopolitan identity means that one is able to identify and accept the local

and global at the same time (Freedman, 2005). Although it is qualitatively measurable

and observable (Roudometof, 2005), I measure it according to upbringing

experiences, cultural values, beliefs and lifestyles. These constructs can be said to be

an extension of identity as it distinguishes the degree of attachment towards their own

worlds (Delanty, 1999; Ong, 2009; Skrbis, Kendall & Woodward, 2004).


31

Distance is operationalized using Beck’s (2002) idea of ‘cosmopolitanization’,

explained as the degree to which an individual feels near or far from ‘life-worlds’ and

towards people who live within or without state borders. It is characterized by the

capacity to be open to other people and cultures (Urry, 2000). For the purpose of this

study, distance is operationalized as the degree to which an individual swings in

between an attachment to local institutional practices, norms and beliefs, and global

ones.

2.4 Potential limitations of methodology

The scientific rigor of in-depth interviews has been critiqued because it occurs in an

artificially constructed environment. This means that it is not only difficult to extract

true meaning out of coded discursive systems (Morgan, 2010), the circumstances

under which it has taken place could also have been adjusted according to an

interviewer bias, thus producing less-than-objective partial results (Silverman, 1993).

However, this limitation does not mean that in-depth interviews are an inappropriate

means of gathering data. Rather than focusing on the degree of ‘truthfulness’, it is the

interaction during the conversation that matters because after all, “knowledge is

power and one does not know everything” (Clifford, 1986, p. 7).

Although in-depth interviews are not meant to draw generalizations across the

population, they offer a useful means of probing deeper into the ‘whys’ and the

‘hows’, extracting responses and thoughts respondents themselves might not even be

aware of (Berger, 1998; Gaskell, 2000). They therefore enabled me to explore and

expand upon the breadth of responses and concentrate on delving deeper into issues

where appropriate. It is also for this reason that I chose in-depth interviews over a


32

structured paper-and-pen questionnaire, of which it would not be possible to probe

deeper into abstract and sometimes unexplainable feelings of nationalism and

cosmopolitanism.

Focus group sessions were also considered as a potential means of data collection

because of how they can generate a rich variety of responses (Kitzinger, 1995).

However a focused one-to-one conversation in confidence would be more appropriate

for respondents to share very personal information about their own histories, as well

as personal opinions about China that could be politically sensitive (Holstein &

Gubrium, 1997; Silverman, 1993).

In a similar example, Lamont and Aksartova (2002) have also utilized in-depth

interviews to understand cultural practices of working class citizens against a

background of cosmopolitanism, thus demonstrating in-depth interviews as a useful

means of obtaining rich information from the grassroots level.


33

3. Findings and Analysis

3.1 Media in China

3.1.1 The reality of ideological and political controls

One of the research objectives of this study is to understand the current media

situation in China. While many scholars have been optimistic about a new dawn for a

more democratic country (Hong & Cuthbert, 1991; Jiang, 2010; Lei, 2011), this

vision is hardly the case, as Respondent E offered:

Do you know the Jasmine Revolution? People are asking for media reforms

but that’s not going to happen. The Chinese government cannot stand for the

laws on media to be relaxed.

Respondents who work in international news bureaus also unanimously agreed that it

was seldom possible for them to undertake investigative reporting or be overly critical

of the government. Essentially, they would not touch sensitive topics such as the

PLA, Xinjiang or Tibet because of their statuses as Chinese citizens and the legal

trouble they and their families could potentially fall into.

There is nothing you are not allowed to do, but you have to judge the

sensitivity/danger of the news.

Respondent E

These restrictions that apply to Chinese journalists reveal that they still have to work

within political boundaries. One of the reasons why this is so lies in the fact that the


34

Party is eager to avoid irrational and aggressive confrontations which may challenge

its nationalist legitimacy and destabilize society and the country’s long-term

economic development strategy (Zhao, 2000).

Overall in the local system, there is little editorial independence evident in how the

overall hierarchy controls the process in which stories are pitched and dealt with. In

the Chinese context, potentially sensitive stories are all the more managed with care.

This is because it is a known fact that the news outlet might be closed down if

someone does not toe the line (Respondent B, personal communication, April 19,

2013); in extreme cases, the journalist himself has to personally bear the

consequences (Repnikova, 2013). In response, a journalist would then have to

anticipate how the government might respond to the story. This also includes covering

the issue from all angles, as fair and as balanced as possible, as well as ensure that

both sides of the story are adequately represented (Respondent F, personal

communication, April 26, 2013). While fairness and balance are the norm in western

models of journalism, here, a Chinese journalist does so to insure himself against

legal trouble should he come under fire for his story. Thus, this degree of fear and

skepticism illustrates the lack of freedom from a legitimate structural political power.

Respondents who work in state-owned media also felt the most control directly from

their immediate editors. For example, stories must first be approved before they can

begin developing them. The reasons behind these approvals stem more from political

sensitivity than from newsworthiness (Respondent A, personal communication, April

18, 2013). Additionally, Respondent A also shared that whenever there was a


35

breaking story, the municipal government would disseminate a set of guidelines on

how to report it and beat reporters would then have to adhere accordingly to this list.

To be clear, institutional authority exists in most newsrooms around the world (Allan,

1999; Ostini & Fung, 2002). Getting top-down approvals is also the norm for any

reporter working in a typical newsroom. This is acknowledged by Respondent E who

explained that his stories are pitched and managed based on his company’s overall

corporate directive as well as towards the interest of his western clients. However, the

contrast between local and international operations was also demonstrated when

Respondent E shared that his foreign bosses were more concerned about logistical

arrangements when deciding whether or not to go ahead with a story. On the other

hand, in a Chinese system, editors are more concerned with the potential trouble they

could get themselves into if a story is mismanaged.

These visible controls reflect Ostini and Fung’s (2002) categorization of China’s press

model as authoritarian, but a degree of freedom also exists within this

authoritarianism, depending on the type of newspaper (Chan, 2002). This spectrum of

freedom ranges from the institutionalized People’s Daily and Xinhua News on the far

right to the liberal Southern Weekend on the far left. Respondent D for instance, said

that when he used to work on diplomatic news at Xinhua, “it wasn’t news at all, just

purely dictation. It was the extreme side of Xinhua”. On the other hand, Respondent

C, working at a local Chinese-owned media company, did not feel the controls were

that strict on her. Although the editorial department was directly under control of the

municipal government, she described her relationship as horizontal, often with room

for negotiation. Journalists were free to discuss the types of stories they could


36

produce. As such, newsworthiness and currency were often at the core of the stories

they worked on.

That Chinese reporters are still hard-pressed to function within the laws and

regulations of the state reveals two things: firstly, this is contrary to Zhang’s (2006)

study on how bureaucracy at the top is beginning to be more open-minded about

liberalizing the media environment. Although his study involved in-depth interviews

with senior officials, clearly these responses have not been adequately translated into

action. Secondly, results from this study also amplify the fact that at the end of the

day, while journalists in China can be change-makers, they are no dissidents

(Repnikova, 2013).

Implications

From a theoretical perspective, the empirical results have contradicted scholars who

claim that the nation-state should be taken out of the equation in studying

cosmopolitanism (Beck & Sznaider, 2006; Grande, 2006; Mitchell, 2007).

Furthermore, in the study of the media, place should all the more be taken into

consideration because its close relationship with local political structures and

commercial networks determines how news ultimately is created, distributed and

interpreted (Ostini & Fung, 2002).

These sources and directions of power illustrate that the individual is subject to a uni-

directional top-down and horizontal power of discourse from his social surroundings.

Because ‘the most fundamental form of power lies in the ability to shape the human

mind’ (Castells, 2009, p. 3), building a foundation based on known fixed institutional


37

forms and their pressures enhances our understanding of how a cosmopolitan identity

is constructed — on one hand it helps us to recognize how the individual responds

precisely to these demands on him; on the other, how he reconciles his own values

with these institutional pressures which may come into conflict with his.

3.1.2 Media, diplomacy and the transnational experience

Before being employed at their current jobs, most respondents had previously worked

in local Chinese media. While the most obvious difference was the language of

reporting, the local media was also felt to be more strictly controlled (Respondent F,

personal communication, April 25, 2013). And for a good reason — the bulk of

Chinese news is after all, consumed by a domestic audience. Regulating information

flows thus helps to maintain the status quo in society, something the CCP is keen on

because an unstable society has the potential to threaten its legitimacy (Economy,

2008). Similarly, content produced in these news outlets are tailored more towards

local tastes and interests. Conversely, content in English-language news is written

with a foreign audience in mind. For example, Respondent A shared the following:

At Shanghai Daily, we are concerned about the expats in Shanghai. The first

thing you will think about is—will foreigners be interested in my topic? What

would they like to know? Would this attract them to read?

If readership opinion is important [and it is], one might be tempted to suggest this is

likely to lead to better journalism in the sense that there will be a natural response to

the market’s demand for truth and accountability. Unfortunately this is not the case in

China. As a transnational space, English-language news media in China is the


38

aperture connecting the world to what goes on in China; it functions as a public

diplomacy tool to present a positive image of China by representing her in a favorable

manner (Gilboa, 2001).

Here, respondents’ comments fit in with what has been said in the literature: China

prioritizes its image in the international arena. In her ‘peaceful rise’ to become a

global superpower, she has reached out to her global and regional neighbors through a

variety of soft and hard power strategies in an effort to establish strong relationships

(China Daily, 2012; Cai, 2005; Economy, 2008; Liu, 2006). Unfortunately China’s

economic and diplomatic activities have been viewed with suspicion because they are

seen to be a threat to international security (Bland & Dyer, 2012; Roy, 1996;

Schmindt, 2008). This negative perception has been her greatest obstacle in being

accepted as a friendly partner and player in world politics (Liu, 2006; Nye, 2008). The

media has thus often been suggested as a vehicle to reach out to foreign publics

(Pamlin, 2012; Schmindt, 2008; Wang, 2008). To this end, journalists working under

the Party’s umbrella objective play a key role in fulfilling that diplomatic mission by

bringing that cheerful image to the world. For example, Respondent D shared that in

Xinhua, diplomatic news is literally received from above, packaged and then

disseminated. This shows the direct involvement of the Party in controlling sensitive

news about China.

Consequently, while scholars maintain that the lack of information credibility can be

counter-productive to diplomatic outreaches, data from these in-depth interviews shed

light on how China has the potential to move towards ‘smart’ power (Nye, 2008;

Wilson, 2008). Portraying China in a positive light is not only a top-down directive, it


39

is also volunteered at the journalist’s level. As Respondent B shared, she was doing so

out of her own initiative and with balance and objectivity — traits valued in western

journalism (Tuchman, 1972; Schudson, 2001).

My status in [media] is quite special. Yes, I am Chinese and country image is

important, but balanced reporting is still key. I’m not defending everything my

country does; what I’m trying to say is there are always two sides to a coin.

Respondent B

In addition, although Respondent C desired to depict a positive image of Shanghai,

she knew it would be detrimental to the credibility of the story because the audience

would eventually figure out the truth for themselves anyway. In a similar empirical

research carried out by Hong (2011), the state-owned news agency Xinhua is

gradually changing its operations from that of a propaganda machine to a news

organization with global orientations. Clearly, using the media as a diplomatic tool is

on the Party’s list of top priorities.

Implications

It is beyond the scope of this paper to elaborate on how the government and

individuals work together to fulfill China’s public diplomacy goals. Rather, China’s

transnational media space can be said to be a platform that helps reinforce national

identities, as the overall directive on public and media diplomacy [that is, using the

media to communicate, resolve conflict and influence public opinion in foreign

societies (Gilboa, 2001)] has raised a sense of Chinese pride. This is not necessarily


40

government driven, but can be initiated from the people themselves. This is

particularly so where the idea of representing ‘home’ and ‘country’ is concerned

(Respondent A, personal communication, April 18, 2013). For example, Respondent

B insists that both sides of a ‘complicated China’ must always be taken into

consideration when there is negative coverage because, as a huge country, China

cannot always control all aspects of political, economical and social life. A real

transnational exchange occurs through this bi-directional outreach — Chinese not

only want to reach out to people on the outside, they also desire that outsiders respond

accordingly by seeing China in a better light. Thus, there exists no conflict between

institutional instructions and their own.

However, this enriched sense of being Chinese does not mean that they become more

nationalistic, i.e. wholly believing in and agreeing with the government’s perspective

towards communism, selflessness, social harmony and Chinese ‘greatness’. For

example, Respondent E did not agree with the government’s exaggerated protection

of pandas [considered to be a national treasure and epitome of Chinese culture] during

the Sichuan earthquake even when many were in need of help. Respondent E’s

personal values on cherishing human lives are universal and were at that point in time

in conflict with the government’s. There are also professional values [though not

necessarily universal] which he has picked up and he strongly identifies with. For

example on journalistic practices, he did not agree with the local custom of paying

journalists for a press release to be published in the papers the next day. These

observations are reminiscent of what has been said in the literature about identity.

Firstly, it validates that in cosmopolitanism, it is possible to have nations without

nationalism (Delanty, 1999). In relation to universality, no one is clearly homogenous


41

(Waldron, 1992); despite the re-shaping of values and beliefs, there is a heart of

universality entrenched at the core of all human beings and this just becomes

reinforced at particular moments. Finally, that no psychological struggle is felt in

going against the grain of wider national beliefs also complements Appiah’s notion of

rooted cosmopolitanism (1992). Here, it is also appropriate to add that Respondent F

also supports Appiah’s concept as she shared that she seldom speaks highly of

authorities in her own country because it is the media’s responsibility to see that they

behave and contribute to society.

3.2 Identity and Cosmopolitanism

3.2.1 Self and the Other

To begin with, all respondents had difficulty answering the self-identity question

because it was something they had never thought about. Personally, I wish I could be

more articulate about what I meant when referring to the ‘cosmopolitan identity

crisis’. But they would also not be able to grasp the conceptual complications of

cosmopolitanism had I told them straight to their face.

When asked what were the types of values and beliefs respondents were inculcated

with from a young age, most identified these values as universal, rather than Chinese.

For example, do no evil, be good and be honest. Here, they recognized that there was

no pressure in choosing between an allegiance to shared institutional identities and

new ones adopted later on in life. Through a comparison of local/cultural and

universal values, the conversations also raised an enhanced sense of the Other. This

makes sense because an individual’s own cultural identity is made conscious when

there is an encounter with distinguishable differences (Cohen, 1982; Palmer, 2003;


42

Triandafyllidou, 1998). More importantly, giving thought to these values allowed one

to be sensitive to the self because the Other brought about the realization of difference

in values from the ones they were familiar with in their own worlds (Delanty, 1999;

Ong, 2009; Skrbis, Kendall & Woodward, 2004).

The Chinese are more sensitive and less straightforward. They take care to be

politically correct and focus on not hurting the friendship, whereas foreigners

are more open and direct. But they are from a different culture, so it’s OK.

Respondent B

In transnational media, information not only travels from inside out but also outside

in, giving respondents an idea of how they were being portrayed in the Other media.

For example, Respondent F shared that most of the time, China has been represented

fairly, truthfully and objectively when she reads about how the country has been

reported in foreign media. To add a theoretical perspective, this space of exchange

melts social and cultural boundaries, giving rise to the potential for chaos and

ambivalence (Bauman, 1991). The lack of order in today’s society can lead to the

suppression and exclusion of strangers (Hall, 1997; Marotta, 2002), but I am inclined

to be more optimistic than this. By sharpening our consciousness towards the Other,

walls are taken down as the increased knowledge of self and the Other continues into

an endless cycle of understanding (Chan, 2005, p. 11). This is further expressed and

reinforced in areas of daily work, especially when dealing with victims of natural

disasters in news coverage. Respondent E shared:


43

I have seen a lot more things others have not. It’s a privilege. If you look at

survivors’ faces after an earthquake, be it the 2008 one in Sichuan or the

Japanese one in 2011, they all look the same. We are all human beings after

all.

His response illustrates a sense of moral duty and compassion attached to this

encounter. Despite cultural, historical and physical distance, people who live out of

state borders are actually spiritually brought a lot closer in death and suffering (Beck,

2002; Silverstone, 2007). In covering the suffering of the Other, Respondent E saw

his own humanity reflected and realized a commonality between him and the victims

despite living and experiencing different ‘life-worlds’. There is a mortality that is

universal and this is the thread that connects all of us. More importantly, this finding

brings empirical value to how the development of a moral identity and consciousness

is often identified first in those who work in the media (Ong, 2009); this comes about

as a result of their daily engagement with the Other through mediated spaces, which

pulls their distance together (Silverstone, 2007).

-

The global experience through their everyday work lives did not immediately make

respondents feel detached from their own local experiences or what they have been

taught growing up. This is because I took it for granted that the cosmopolitan identity

is only discovered upon engagement with everyday work in a transnational

environment. Yet clearly the Internet in daily life, overseas education, friends from

abroad, learning another language and living in an international city like Shanghai

also contributed to their cosmopolitan experience (Rantanen, 2005). In fact, Delanty

(1999) goes as far as saying that the evolution of media and communications has


44

made everyone cosmopolitan. For example, Respondent B spoke about how her

perspective of China changed upon entering university:

I used to think China is OK! This was before knowing the world because back

then there was no basis for comparison. I often took things for granted, that

it’s natural for certain things to happen as with anywhere around the world.

Rather than how they saw the world differently, prolonged exposure in a transnational

environment impacted the way they saw China. This came about through interaction

with international friends and about how China was being represented and read in a

different light. This impact of the world also translated into a change in professional

values. Respondent D shared:

Xinhua was boring. I knew I wasn’t doing journalism, but I also didn’t know

what real journalism was.

Like him, respondents who went overseas to further their studies in the field of

journalism saw the need to do so because they wanted to expose themselves to how

journalism was practiced in the west. They knew they would not be able to fully grasp

the diverse characteristics of media models such as liberalism, libertarianism and

democracy if they remained in China (Respondent A, personal communication, April

18, 2013). It came to a realization of how overseas news media operate differently —

news is news. Just report the facts and get to the point (Respondent E, personal

communication, April 25, 2013). Exposure to another cultural world was a surreal

experience, an awakening in which their own sense of self-identity began to be called


45

to question when they returned from abroad. As a consequence, it led to a re-

evaluation of previous experiences and snowballed into bigger questions of their own

existence. Respondent A shared:

My values have changed. You won’t come to work just because of the salary.

When you are in touch with the world all the time, your horizons are widened.

In terms of conflict, I often get asked [by my international friends] if there is

anything such as news in China.

Implications

What might the global experience and the exposure to the Other mean for the self?

Existing literature suggests that a cultural awareness is produced, intensifying the

sense of belonging where the self is being located in ‘circles of potential connections’

(Calhoun, 2008; Nussbaum, 1996). At the same time, this can also translate into

complex socio-psychological feelings of momentary loss, uncertainty and profound

questions of existentialism (Appadurai, 1990; Meyrowitz, 1985). These happenings

can also threaten to disrupt the continuity from the past (Tomlinson, 2003).

It is at this point that one begins to return to a fixed and familiar entity where it is

possible to find comfort and solace. When changes occur, the individual reaffirms

himself as a citizen from his country, citing tangible ownership of artifacts such as a

passport or identity card, as well as historical experiences with physical places as a

confirmation of his own identity (Respondent A, personal communication, April 18,

2013). Temporarily he goes back ‘home’, but this reaffirmation of the national

identity does not mean that he cuts off all ties with the Other.


46

The experience of being lost will help you to be more accepting towards

different cultures, including how to communicate with people from different

backgrounds. You will be more forgiving when misunderstandings occur and

be more open-minded when there’s something you cannot understand.

Respondent A

The cosmopolitan identity is constructed through historical experience.

Simultaneously a sense of moral consciousness towards the Other is developed,

making the individual more sensitive to his presence and needs. As one takes this

identity along through to the present, the individual is constantly in contact with it,

giving him the opportunity to wear that cosmopolitan identity when an opportunity

arises. Finally, frequent contact and exposure to the Other will not only lead to a

growing maturity in acceptance, it will also produce a better perspective of how the

self is understood when mirrored against the Other.

3.2.2 Identities in between spaces and places

Today, the self is forced to live in a world with many identities (Delanty, 1999).

Nussbaum (1996) describes such a person as a ‘voluntary exile’, one who has chosen

to be out there rather than back at home because the world has a lot more to offer.

Firstly, most respondents could not explain their reasons for their choice, only that

curiosity played the most critical role. On reasons to go overseas to further her studies

in journalism, Respondent A offered:


47

I hoped to learn better English and to be more international. I wanted to see

what were the kinds of concepts they taught in school there.

Being employed in the media and, for that matter, studying communications was an

uncommon route because it offered limited choices for employment or stability upon

graduation. Against these societal norms, all respondents shared that they went ahead

with their choices out of a genuine interest for the discipline, with moral and financial

support from their parents. They also shared that life decisions they had chosen for

themselves were vastly different from most of their peers who chose to lead life the

safe and boring way (Respondent C, personal communication, April 19, 2013).

To confirm this, I turned again to Zhu and He’s (2002) contemporary Chinese value

orientations of materialism and post-materialism. For example, values cited here

included being employed in a stable government job, participating in the corporate rat

race and striving for the biggest houses and cars. Indeed, I was thus able to distinguish

respondents from the mainstream Chinese identity.

Despite these inherent differences, there were moments when respondents preferred to

hang out with their Chinese friends because of a common language, culture and

background. Yet there were also times they preferred to discuss issues with their

international colleagues because of shared global experiences. Respondent E for

instance, shared that when he undertakes risky assignments, his international

colleagues respect him for his dedication to the profession. His Chinese friends on the

other hand assume that he does so because the job pays well. Positioned somewhere

in the middle where cultures mix and clash, these findings are an indication of how


48

identities take on a double life, shifting focus across overlapping spheres of influence

where appropriate (Nagota, 1974; Waldron, 1992).

Implications

Examining the processes of construction and continuation of identity is a complex

endeavor and it is not always immediately clear how it comes about. To this end, the

above findings have so far indicated that it is often discovered and modified when

examined against wider structures such as institutional pressures and the Other. Up till

this point, the significant other [i.e. ‘a kind of non-identity, providing the self with a

means of distinguishing itself from others’ (Delanty, 1999, p. 365)] in the immediate

environment also plays a critical role in allowing the individual to explore and

discover his own space for a cosmopolitan identity to develop.

As a consequence of these differences, there is a space of conflict and resistance when

situated in either sphere (Kellner & Pierce, 2007), especially when “what separates

the real and the ideal is experienced as a deep psychological and spiritual chasm that

tears the mind and the body apart” (Chan, 2005, p. 7). But rather than constantly

finding tensions and conflicts between these two worlds, this culturally autonomous

space also provides familiar comforts, particularly when there is an ease and

flexibility by which individuals are able to cross over into different cultures.

For example, Respondent C’s sharing helps us understand that this hybridity [neither

western nor Chinese] is not necessarily a bad thing, as it does not personally affect the

individual. As a result, the sharing of different views works towards creating a better


49

understanding of different worldviews and cultures, while maintaining one’s own

traditions at the same time.

It’s like working on two pieces of fabric on a sewing machine. One is Chinese,

the other western. I sew them together and make it into a nice piece of dress. I

sew it to make it fit my style. Do I lose anything from my own identity? No.

Finally, while Appadurai (1990) suggests that the process of migration and mediation

have created spaces in between for identities to flourish, and while Castells (1996)

proposes the Internet as a foundation for identities to be situated in a new spaceless

and timeless culture, findings from these interviews add on to these existing literature

by presenting a fresh concept of space built upon imagination, another dimension an

individual embraces for comfort.

4. Conclusion

This purpose of this study has been to seek a clearer understanding of how identities

are constructed and how they change throughout an era of globalization and

mediatization. With China’s media system used as an institutional background, six

interviews were conducted to understand this phenomenon. Although this study

cannot speak for the whole population of Chinese journalists working in China, it

nonetheless brings value to the study of cosmopolitanism as it has reified a

theoretically abstract ideal.

There are evident flaws in this study: Firstly, political and social structures of power

are assumed to be the main points of contestation against individuals and the


50

institutional values they are subjected to. Yet, findings reveal that the individual also

struggle against their immediate environments. Secondly, this study is based on the

assumption that the cosmopolitan experience is first discovered upon working at a

transnational media company. The results show that other factors are also at play to

create this realization. Yet, these flaws do not invalidate the purpose and outcome of

this study. Rather, it has made an additional contribution to academia by shedding

light on the influences that have impacted the continuation or disruption of the self.

From a bottom-up approach, it has illustrated how individuals construct a new

imaginative space to develop their own culture of comfort.

While this study has only explored self-identity in cosmopolitan environments, there

is still a lot of room for exploring cosmopolitanism, especially in authoritarian

countries such as China. Exposure to a world deemed more exciting and with so much

more to offer has led Respondent E to remain in a city of diverse cultures like

Shanghai. As a result, he often struggles with his duty to be a filial son to his parents

back home. Tensions are so much more evident when traditional values of home and

family are in conflict with respondents’ newly adopted ones. However I am not

proposing an investigation into a conflict between cross cultural values. Rather, what

would be interesting is to see how an individual deals with identifiable conflicts

between his own internalized beliefs and those he decides to take on in the course of

his life.

Finally, this study can be taken forward by critically examining how Chinese

journalists choose to represent themselves to an external audience. This would further


51

contribute to studies on media and public diplomacy (Gilboa, 2008), another area in

media studies and globalization that is in severe need of exploration.


52

References

Allan, S. (1999). Making news: Truth, ideology and newswork. In S. Allan (Ed.),

News culture (pp. 48-82). Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities: reflections on the origin and spread of

nationalism. London: Verso.

Appiah, K. A. (1997). Cosmopolitan Patriots. Critical Inquiry, 23(3), 617-639.

Appiah, K. A. (1997). ‘The ethics of identity’: A rooted cosmopolitan. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. In

M. Featherstone (Ed.). Global culture: Nationalism, globalization and

modernity (pp. 295-310). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Atabaki, T., & Mehendale, S. (2005) Central Asia and the Caucasus:

Transnationalism And Diaspora. New York: Routledge.

Baker, G. (2009). Cosmopolitanism as hospitality: Revisiting identity and difference

in cosmopolitanism. Alternatives, 32(2), 107-128.

Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization: The human consequences. London: Polity Press.


53

Beck. U. (2002). The cosmopolitan society and its enemies. Theory, Culture &

Society, 19(1), 17–44.

Beck, U. (2006). The truth of the others: On the cosmopolitan treatment of difference-

distinctions, misunderstandings, paradoxes. In U. Beck (Ed.), Cosmopolitan

Vision (pp. 48-71). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Beck, U., & Sznaider, N. (2006). Unpacking cosmopolitanism for the social sciences:

A research agenda. The British Journal of Sociology, 57(1), 1-23.

Bland, B., & Dyer, G. (2012, September 3). US warns China over disputed South

China sea. The Financial Times. Retrieved October 10, 2012, from

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e13ac9c4-f5e0-11e1-a6c2-00144feabdc0.html.

Bourdieu, P. (1983). The field of cultural production, or the economic world reversed.

Poetics, 12, 311-356.

Bourdieu, P. (1990). The social definition of photography. In P. Bourdieu (Ed.),

Photography: A middle-brow art (pp. 73-98). Stanford: Stanford University

Press.

Buckley, C. (2011, September 19,). China’s Sina to step-up censorship of Weibo.

Reuters. Retrieved April 15, 2013 from

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/idINIndia-59420220110919.


54

Burawoy, M. et al. (2000). Global ethnography: Forces, connections and imagination

in a postmodern world. Berkley: University of California Press.

Cai, B. (2005). China’s peaceful development and relations with its East Asia

neighbours. In S. Saw, L. Sheng, & K. W. Chin (Eds.), ASEAN-China

relations: Realities and prospects (pp. 27-30). Singapore: ISEAS Publications.

Calabrese, A. (2005). Communication, global justice and the moral economy. Global

Media and Communication, 1(3), 301-315.

Calhoun, C. (2008). Cosmopolitanism and nationalism. Nations and Nationalism, 14

(3), 427-448.

Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society. Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell.

Castells, M. (1997). The Power of Identity, vol. II of The Information Age: Economy,

Society and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell.

Castells, M. (2009). Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Carey, J. (1989). Communication as culture. London: Unwin Hyman.

Chan, A. (2002). From propaganda to hegemony: Jiaodian Fangtan and China’s

media policy. Journal of Contemporary China, 11(30), 35-51.


55

Chan, K. (2005). Chinese identities, ethnicity and cosmopolitanism. New York:

Routledge.

Chan, J. M., & Zhou, B. (2011). Expressive behaviors across discursive spaces and

issue types. Asian Journal of Communication, 21(2), 150-166.

Chen, J. (2012, December 6). GDP growth for next year ‘to beat 2012’. China Daily.

Retrieved December 10, 2012 from

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-12/06/content_15990463.htm.

China Daily. (2012, December 10). US report sees Asia's global power rising by

2030. China Daily. Retrieved December 11, 2012, from

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2012-12/10/content_16004043.htm.

Chouliaraki, L. (2008). The symbolic power of transnational media. Global Media

and Communication, 4(3), 329-351.

Clifford, J. (1986). Introduction: Partial truths. In J. Clifford, & G. E. Marcus (Eds.),

Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography (pp. 1-26). Berkley:

University of California Press.

Clifford, J. (1992). Traveling culture. In L. Grossberg, C. Nelson, & P. Treichler

(Eds.), Cultural studies (pp. 96–116). London: Routledge.


56

Cohen, A. (1982). Belonging: The experience of culture. In A. Cohen (Ed.),

Belonging: Identity and social organisation in British rural cultures.

Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Cottle, S. (2008). Reporting demonstrations: The changing media politics of dissent.

Media, Culture & Society, 30(6), 853-872.

Delanty, G. (1999). Self, other and world: Discourses of nationalism and

cosmopolitanism. Cultural Values, 3(3), 365-375.

Delanty, G. (2006). The cosmopolitan imagination: Critical cosmopolitanism and

social theory. The British Journal of Sociology, 57(1), 25-47.

Doh, C. S. (2011). Confucianism and democratization in East Asia. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Economy, E. (2008). China, the USA, and Japan: Reconfiguring relations in

Southeast Asia. In S. Zhao (Ed.), China-US relations transformed:

Perspectives and strategic interactions (pp. 210-227). Oxon: Routledge.

Endeshaw, A. (2004). Internet regulation in China: The never-ending cat and mouse

game. Information & Communications Technology Law, 13(1), 41-57.

Esterberg, K. G. (2002). Qualitative methods in social research. Boston: McGraw-

Hill.


57

Fabian, J. (1971). Language, history and anthropology. Philosophy of the Social

Sciences, 1(1), 19-47.

Flick, U. (1998). Coding and categorizing. In U. Flick (Ed.), An introduction to

qualitative research (pp. 178-198). London: Sage.

Freedman, J. (2005, June 12). ‘The ethics of identity’: A rooted cosmopolitan. The

New York Times. Retrieved March 4, 2013, from

www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/books/review/12FREEDMA.html.

Gaskell, G. (2000). Individual and group interviewing. In M. Bauer, & G. Gaskell

(Eds.), Qualitative researching: With text, image and sound (pp. 38-56).

London: Sage.

Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Geertz, C. (1973). Person, time, and conduct in Bali. In C. Geertz (Ed.), The

interpretaton of cultures (pp. 360-411). New York: Basic Books.

Gilboa, E. (2001). Diplomacy in the media age: Three models of uses and effects.

Diplomacy & Statecraft, 12(2), 1-28.

Gilboa, E. (2008). Searching for a theory of public diplomacy. Annals of the

American Academy of Political Science, 616, 55-77.


58

Grande, E. (2006). Cosmopolitan political science. The British Journal of Sociology,

57(1), 87–111.

Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1997). Culture, power, place: Ethnography at the end of an

era. In A. Gupta, & J. Ferguson (Ed.), Culture, power, place: Explorations in

critical anthropology (pp. 1-33). Durham: Duke University Press.

Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1992). Beyond ‘culture’: Space, identity, and the politics

of difference. Cultural Anthropology, 7(1), 6-23.

Hall, S. (1996a). Cultural studies and the politics of internationalization. In D.

Morley, & K.H. Chen (Eds), Stuart Hall: Critical dialogues (pp. 392–410).

London: Routledge.

Hall, S. (1996b). Introduction: Who needs ‘identity’?. In S. Hall, & P. du Gay (Eds.),

Questions of cultural identity (pp. 1-17). London: Sage.

Hall, S. (1997). The spectacle of the Other. In S. Hall (Ed.), Representation: Cultural

representations and signifying practices. London: Sage.

Hall, S. (2002). Political belonging in a world of multiple identities. In S. Vertovec, &

R. Cohen (Eds.), Conceiving cosmopolitanism: Theory, context and practice

(pp. 25-31). Oxford: Oxford University Press.


59

Hannerz, U. (1990). Cosmopolitans and locals in world culture. In M. Featherstone

(Ed.), Global culture: Nationalism, globalization and modernity (pp. 237–

252). London: Sage.

Hirst, P., & Held, D. (2002). Globalisation, the argument of our time. Retrieved April

9, 2013, from http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-7-28-637.jsp.

Holstein, J., & Gubrium, F. (1997). Active interviewing. In D. Silverman (Ed.),

Qualitative research: Theory, method and practice (pp. 113-129). London:

Sage.

Hong, J. (2011). From the world's largest propaganda machine to a multi-purposed

global news agency: Factors in and implications of Xinhua's transformation

since 1978. Political Communication, 28(3), 377-393.

Hong, J., & Cuthbert, M. (1991). Media reform in China since 1978: Background

factors, problems and future trends. Gazette, 47, 141-158.

Jiang, M. (2010). Spaces of authoritarian deliberation: Online public deliberation in

China. In E. Leib, & B. He (Eds.), The search for deliberative democracy in

China (pp. 261–287). New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Johnson, R. (1993). Editor’s introduction: Pierre Bourdieu on art, literature and

culture. In R. Johnson (Ed.), The field of cultural production: Essays on art

and literature (pp. 1-28). Cambridge: Polity Press.


60

Kitzinger, J. (1995). Introducing focus groups. British Medical Journal, 311, 299-302.

Kusisto, L. (2012, January 17). Chinese media aiming high in the city. The Wall

Street Journal. Retrieved December 10, 2012 from

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020373530457716540280572

9994.html.

Lamont, M., & Aksartova, S. (2002). Ordinary cosmopolitanisms: Strategies for

bridging racial boundaries among working-class men. Theory, Culture &

Society, 19(4), 1–25.

Lee, P. S. (1994). Mass communication and development in China: Media roles

considered. Journal of Communication, 44(3), 22-37.

Lei, Y. (2011). The political consequences of the rise of the Internet: Political beliefs

and practices of Chinese netizens. Political Communication, 28(3), 291-322.

Li, J. (2009). Intertextuality and national identity: Discourse of national conflicts in

daily newspapers in the United States and China. Discourse & Society, 20(1),

85-121.

Lister, M., & Wells, L. (2001). Seeing beyond belief: Cultural studies as an approach

to analysing the visual. In T. Leeuwan, & C. Jewitt (Eds.), Handbook of visual

analysis (pp. 61-91). London: Sage Publications.


61

Liu, G. (2006). The dialectic relationship between peaceful development and China’s

deep reform. In S. Guo (Ed.), China’s peaceful rise in the 21st century:

Domestic and international conditions (pp. 17-38). Hampshire: Ashgate

Publishing Limited.

Luo, X. (2002). Searching for life’s meaning: Changes and tensions in the worldviews

of Chinese youth in the 1980s. Michigan: University of Michigan.

Ma, E. (2000). Rethinking media studies: The case of China. In J. Curran, & M. J.

Park (Eds.), De-Westernizing media studies (pp. 17-28). Oxon: Routledge.

MacInnes, J. (2006). Castells’ Catalan routes: Nationalism and the sociology of

identity. The British Journal of Sociology, 57(4), 677-698.

MacKinnon, R. (2011). China’s ‘Networked Authoritarianism’. Journal of

Democracy, 22(2), 32-46.

Marcus, G. E., & Fischer, M. J. (1999). Conveying other cultural experience: The

person, self, and emotions. In G. E. Marcus, & M. J. Fischer (Eds.),

Anthropology as cultural critique: An experimental moment in the human

sciences (pp. 45-76). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Marotta, V. (2002). Zygmunt Bauman: Order, Strangerhood and Freedom. Thesis

Eleven, 70, 36-54.


62

Mendiata, E. (2001). Invisible cities: A phenomenology of globalization from below.

City, 5(1), 7-26.

Meyrowitz, J. (1985). The separation of social place from physical place. In J.

Meyrowitz (Ed.), No Sense of Place: The impact of electronic media on social

behavior (pp. 374-390). New York: Oxford University Press.

Mitchell, K. (2007). Geographies of identity: The intimate cosmopolitan. Progress in

Human Geography, 31(5), 706-720.

Mohanty, J. N. (2000). Understanding the other. In J. N. Mohanty (Ed.), The self and

the other (pp. 116-125). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morley, D. (2000). Home territories: Media, mobility and identity. London:

Routledge.

Nagota, J. A. (1974). What is Malay? Situational selection of ethnic identity in a

plural society. American Ethnologist, 1(2), 331-351.

Nussbaum, M. (1996). Patriotism and cosmopolitanism. In J. Cohen (Ed.), For Love

of Country: Debating the limits of patriotism. Boston: Beacon Press.

Nussbaum, M. (2002). For the love of country?. Boston: Beacon Press.


63

Nussbaum, M. (2010). Kant and cosmopolitanism. In G. W. Brown, & D. Held (Eds.),

The cosmopolitanism reader (pp. 27-44). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Nye, J. (2008). Public diplomacy and soft power. The Annals of the American

Academy of Political and Social Science, 616 (1), 94-109.

Ong, A. (1997). ‘A momentary glow of fraternity’: Narratives of Chinese nationalism

and capitalism. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 3(3), 331-

366.

Ong, C. (2009). The cosmopolitan continuum: Locating cosmopolitanism in media

and cultural studies. Media, Culture & Society, 31(3), 449-466.

Ostinit, J., & Fung, A. (2002). Beyond the four theories of the press: A new model of

national media systems. Mass Communication & Society, 5(1), 41-56.

Palmer, T. (2003). Globalization, cosmopolitanism, and personal identity. Ethics &

Politics, 2, 1-15.

Pamlin, D. (2012, November 2). China’s global image online. China Daily. Retrieved

November 14, 2012, from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2012-

11/02/content_15867385_2.htm.


64

Pink, S. (1999). A woman, a camera and the world of bullfighting: Visual culture as

the production of anthropological knowledge, Visual Anthropology, 13(1), 71-

86.

Pinney, C. (1990). The quick and the dead: Images, time and truth. Visual

Anthropology Review, 6(2), 42-54.

Rabinow, P. (1986). Representations are social facts: Modernity and post-modernity

in anthropology. In J. Clifford, & G. E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture: The

poetics and politics of ethnography (pp. 234-261). Berkley: University of

California Press.

Rantanen, T. (2005). The media and globalisation. London: Sage.

Repnikova, M. (2013, January 15). China’s journalists are no revolutionaries. The

Wall Street Journal, p. 12.

Richards, L. (2005). Working with data: Coding. In L. Richards (Ed.), Handling

qualitative data: A practical guide (pp. 85-104). London: Sage.

Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social theory and global culture. Thousand

Oaks: Sage.

Robinson, W. I. (2007). Theories of globalization. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), The Blackwell

companion to globalization (pp. 125-143). Malden: Blackwell Publishing.


65

Roudometof, V. (2005). Transnationalism, cosmopolitanism and glocalization.

Current Sociology, 53(1), 113-135.

Roy, D. (1996). The ‘China Threat’ issue: Major arguments. Asian Survey, 36(8),

758-771.

Said, E. (1983). The world, the text, and the critic. Cambridge Mass: Harvard

University Press.

Schiller, D. (2005). Poles of market growth? Open questions about China, information

and the world economy. Global Media & Communication, 1(1), 79-103.

Schiller, N., & Fouron G. (2001). Georges woke up laughing: Long-distance

nationalism and the search of the home. Durham: Duke University Press.

Schudson, M. (2001). The objectivity norm in American journalism. Journalism, 2(2),

149-170.

Silverman, D. (1993). Interview data. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Interpreting qualitative

data: Methods for analysing talk, text and interaction (pp. 90-114). London:

Sage.

Silverstone, R. (2007). Media and morality: On the rise of the mediapolis. UK: Polity

Press.


66

Shirk, S. (2007). Changing media, changing foreign policy in China. Japanese

Journal of Political Science, 8(1), 43-70.

Swartz, D. (1997). Culture & Power: The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Tester, K. (2001). Lifting the lid on compassion. In K. Tester (Ed.), Compassion,

morality and the media (pp 74-103). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Thompson, J. (1991). Editor’s introduction. In J. Thompson (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu,

language and symbolic power (pp. 1–31). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Thompson, J. (1995). The media and modernity: A social theory of the media.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tomlinson, J. (1994). A phenomenology of globalization?. European Journal of

Communication, 9, 149-172.

Tomlinson, J. (1999). Globalization and culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Tomlinson, J. (2003). Globalization and cultural identity. In D. Held et al (Eds.), The

global transformations reader (pp. 269-278). Cambridge: Polity Press.


67

Tomlinson, J. (2007). Cultural globalization. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), The Blackwell

companion to globalization (pp. 352-366). Malden: Blackwell Publishing.

Triandafyllidou, A. (1998). National identity and the 'other'. Ethnic and Racial

Studies, 21(4), 593-612.

Tsui, L. (2003). The panopticon as the antithesis of a space of freedom: Control and

regulation of the Internet in China. China Information, 17(2), 65-82.

Tuchman, G. (1972). Objectivity as a strategic ritual: An examination of newsmen’s

notion of objectivity. American Journal of Sociology, 77(4), 660-679.

Tyler, S. A. (1986). Post-modern ethnography: From document of the occult to occult

document. In J. Clifford, & G. E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture: The poetics

and politics of ethnography (pp. 122-140). Berkley: University of California

Press.

Urry, J. (2000). The global media and cosmopolitanism. Paper presented at the

Transnational America Conference, Munich. Retrieved April 4, 2012, from

www.cabuenes.org/03/documentos/cursos/.../glob_blq2_09.pdf.

Vertovec, S., & Cohen, R. (2002). Introduction: Conceiving cosmopolitanism. In S.

Vertovec, & R. Cohen (Eds.), Conceiving cosmopolitanism: Theory, context

and practice (pp. 1-25). Oxford: Oxford University Press.


68

Waldron, J. (1992). Minority cultures and the cosmopolitan alternative. University of

Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 25, 751-793.

Walgrave, S., & Manssens, J. (2000). The making of the white march: The mass

media as a mobilizing alternative to movement organisations. Mobilization,

5(2), 217-239.

Wang, H. (2000). Rethinking the global and the national: Reflections on national

imaginations in Taiwan. Theory, Culture & Society, 17(4), 93-117.

Wang, Y. (2006). Value changes in an era of social transformations: College-educated

Chinese youth. Educational Studies, 32(2), 233-240.

Wang, Y. (2008). Public diplomacy and the rise of Chinese soft power. The Annals of

the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616 (1), 257-273.

Weber, I. (2002). Shanghai Baby: Negotiating youth self-identity in urban China.

Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 8(2), 347-

368.

Wei, S. (1995). The open door policy and China’s rapid growth: Evidence from city-

level data. In T. Ito, & A. Krueger (Eds.), Growth theories in light of the East

Asian experience (pp. 73-104). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.


69

Wilson, E. (2008). Hard power, soft power, smart power. The Annals of the American

Academy of Political and Social Science. 616 (1), 110-124.

Xin, X. (2010). The impact of “citizen journalism” on Chinese media and society.

Journalism Practice, 4(3), 333-344.

Xinhua. (2012, November 29). China's 2020 GDP forecast to hit 100t yuan: official.

China Daily. Retrieved December 1, 2012, from

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-11/29/content_15969638.htm.

Xu, X. (2006). Modernizing China in the Olympic spotlight: China’s national identity

and the 2008 Beijing Olympiad. The Sociological Review, 54(s2), 90-107.

Yang, G. (2003). The Internet and the rise of a transnational Chinese cultural sphere.

Media, Culture & Society, 25, 469–490.

Yu, H. (2004). Knowledge and climate change policy in China. East Asia, 21(3), 58-

77.

Yuracko, K. (2003). Perfectionism and contemporary feminist values. Bloomington:

Indiana University Press.

Zhao, Y. (2000). From commercialization to conglomeration: The transformation of

the Chinese press within the orbit of the Party state. Journal of

Communication, 50(2), 3-26.


70

Zhang, L. (2006). Behind the ‘Great Firewall’: Decoding China’s Internet media

policies from the inside. Convergence: The International Journal of Research

into New Media Technologies, 12(3), 271-291.

Zhu, J. J. & He, Z. (2002). Information accessibility, user sophistication, and source

credibility: The impact of the Internet on value orientations in Mainland

China. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 7(2).

Rooted cosmopolitanism and the construction of Chinese identities in transnational spaces

Documents