Journalism research has long emphasized that foreign news is shaped by elite-defined national int... more Journalism research has long emphasized that foreign news is shaped by elite-defined national interests. Scant studies have addressed the differences between organizations and the implications of changes in media systems over time. This article contributes to the international news reporting literature by examining whether differences between organizations exist in the U.S., Taiwan, and Hong Kong news coverage of mainland China and how the evolution of such differences over time shaped the appearance and characteristics of China coverage.
This study theoretically draws upon the literature of journalism studies and explicates the dominant perspective that foreign news is shaped by national interests as well as how an emphasis on national interests and, to a lesser extent, cultural factors limit researchers’ attention to the question of these differences in foreign news reporting. The article argues that differences between organizations are likely to be prominent when “linkage politics” is strong and the degree of media political parallelism is high. Linkage politics refers to the degree to which foreign events and international relations are closely tied to or even integrated with local politics, whereas media political parallelism denotes the degree to which the media system of a society contains outlets of different political predilection that can be located on a spectrum parallel to the spectrum existing in the political arena. Since both domestic politics and media systems might evolve over time, the strength of linkage politics and the degree of media political parallelism can also vary over time, thus resulting in possible distinctive manifestations of between-organizations’ differences in foreign news reporting in different historical periods.
Given the theoretical considerations, the empirical research project compares how U.S., Taiwan, and Hong Kong newspapers covered China between 1977 and 2017. The U.S. represents a relatively stable media system with a low degree of media political parallelism through the entire period under study. Chinese politics and the U.S.-China relationship have not been clearly and strongly mapped onto the divide between the two major political parties in the former. Taiwan, by comparison, experienced liberalization and democratization in the 1980s and 1990s. Its media system changed from one dominated by pro-government parties to one that exhibits a high degree of political parallelism. Cross-strait relationships have experienced significant shifts over time, with the late 1970s to the early 1990s being a period of re-engagement between the two regimes across the Taiwan Strait and the 2000s onward as a period in which the two moved further away from each other ideologically. Hong Kong also experienced an important transformation from being a British colony to being a Special Administrative Region of China in the period under study. Its media system has long exhibited a significant degree of political parallelism, but the nature and character of the political parallelism has shown changes in accordance to social and political transformations.
Hypotheses and research questions are set up for each of the three places based on both conceptual and contextual considerations. The hypotheses and research questions are then tackled with data derived from content analysis of newspapers in the U.S. (New York Times and Wall Street Journal), Taiwan (China Times, United Daily News, Taiwan Apple Daily, and Liberty Times), and Hong Kong (Wen Wei Po, Sing Tao Daily, Ming Pao, and Apple Daily). The two U.S. newspapers are among the most prominent national papers in the country and represent the more liberal and more conservative perspectives, respectively. The Taiwan newspapers include both pro-KMT and pro-DPP outlets, as well as the more neutral and commercial-oriented Apple Daily. The Hong Kong newspapers include pro-government, pro-democracy, and more neutral professional newspapers. Five specific years (1977, 1987, 1997, 2007, and 20170 are analyzed and separated into two periods for comparative analysis (1977 and 1987 vs. 1997, 2007, and 2017).
The results show minimal differences among newspapers on China coverage in the U.S. While U.S. media coverage of China had become more negative over time, a finding consistent with our understanding of the changing U.S.-China relationship over the years, this trend exists in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. In contrast, there are significant differences among newspapers in China coverage in Taiwan, especially in the second period when Taiwan’s political system became democratized and its media system exhibited a strong degree of political parallelism. China Times and United Daily News became less negative toward China over time, but the emergence of Liberty Times meant that there was no lack of negative coverage toward the mainland. The result is that, overall speaking, Taiwan newspaper coverage of China did not exhibit a significant shift in tone.
There are similar, significant differences among Hong Kong newspapers in their China coverage. Individual newspapers exhibited different kinds of changes over time, with Sing Tao Daily becoming less negative toward the mainland on political issues after the handover, whereas Ming Pao exhibited a higher degree of balance between positive and negative coverages during the post-handover period. Nevertheless, the publication of Apple Daily ensured the supply of negative coverage about the mainland. As a result, there was also no overall shift in tone in Hong Kong newspapers’ coverage of China before and after the handover. In other words, in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, changes in specific news organizations’ approach to China and the impact of emerging media outlets cancelled out each other, leading to apparent continuity in China coverage.
The analysis herein thus largely supports the theoretical argument that, in places where linkage politics is strong and the degree of media political parallelism is high, there could be significant between-organizations’ differences in foreign news coverage. This study points toward how foreign news coverage needs to be understood in relation to factors beyond elite-defined national interests. The findings also hint at the need for caution when sampling media outlets for longitudinal studies of how a country or society’s media cover a certain topic. Various theoretical and methodological implications of the findings are discussed in the concluding section.
This study content analyzes the news coverage of two major presidential candidatesone populist ch... more This study content analyzes the news coverage of two major presidential candidatesone populist challenger, the other female incumbentin the 2020 Taiwan election. A nationwide survey of voters and their newspaper uses was also utilized to verify the association between partisan news reliance and candidate evaluations. Based on the concept of partisan press, the study confirms that the coverage is highly polarizing and that it includes more horse-race analysis than discussion of serious issues. Sexist and misogynistic terms were used more often by party-opponent (Blue-camp) newspapers to describe the female incumbent. The male populist candidate was portrayed more often in a personal fashion than the female candidate. The voters' primary newspaper uses were found to be positively associated with their candidate evaluations and preferences. The study sheds new light on populist vis-à-vis gendered election coverage in the context of an Asian democracy.
This article examined how social media content has shaped the representation of countries for pub... more This article examined how social media content has shaped the representation of countries for publics around the world. Based on world system theory (WST), the study investigated the underlying predictors of country mentions on X in 2018. It confirmed that countries with greater economic poweror higher status in the world systemreceived more mentions. Furthermore, countries with larger populations were mentioned more frequently as were countries that experienced major conflicts. The findings yielded from structural equation modeling shed new light on the interrelationships that drive the social media representation of individual countries and delineated an integrated Model of Country Mentions on X. These findings have implications for global leaders, policy makers, and social media firms to consider.
This study investigates voters' physiological response to real political advertisements that are ... more This study investigates voters' physiological response to real political advertisements that are issue focused and sponsored by three different political entities (2 × 3 design). Eyetracking and facial expression analyses were used to gauge viewers' cognitive and affective responses. Results show that voters' attention to political advertisements is influenced more by partisan congruence than by issue congruence. Viewers' facially expressed emotions after their exposure to political advertisements are significantly less negative but hardly elated. Participants' self-reported issue involvement and their eyetracking measure do not necessarily match, neither do their stated discrete emotions and automatically coded facial expressions. Conceptual issues and implications from selfreported and physiological measures are discussed.
This study incorporates media use pattern into examining three distinct media systems proposed by... more This study incorporates media use pattern into examining three distinct media systems proposed by Hallin and Mancini. The uses of newspapers, radio, television, and Internet in European Social Surveys were included. North-Central European nations, particularly the Nordic countries, demonstrate more widespread media use than other European nations. Media-use Gini indexes support Hallin and Mancini’s original demarcation. Cluster analysis, however, indicates that the European nations of the three groups slightly differ from the original typology.
This article divulges a new form of public diplomacy with post-truth content overseen by host cou... more This article divulges a new form of public diplomacy with post-truth content overseen by host countries to influence the cognitive and affective condition of publics in target countries. The goals of the practice are multifaceted and the negative impact on international communication and open societies is detrimental. All relevant concepts intertwined with the practice of post-truth public diplomacy (PTPD) that range from public diplomacy 2.0, post-truth content, international information flow, cyberspace issues, to unveiled PTPD cases are discussed in detail. Moreover, a four-fold typology of PTPD flow across national borders is illustrated for a better, comprehensive understanding of the PTPD terrain. Solution to address the alarming trend is proposed, which consists of five routes: detection and deterrence of PTPD sources, proactive monitoring and managing the communication space, increasing saturation of truthful information and antidotes of PTPD, media and information literacy education for target peoples, and maintenance of free cross-border communication for publics. The implications and ramifications of PTPD practice are also deliberated.
This study assesses the impact of China's mediated communication strategies implemented in Latin ... more This study assesses the impact of China's mediated communication strategies implemented in Latin America from 2013 to 2021. We content-analyzed the press coverage about China in nine countries and unveiled tones, topics, and frames which were then examined further across different sources. Public sentiments toward China were gauged to infer a potential link to China's communication efforts. Overall, China's program to influence Latin American media outlets and public opinion has not resulted in substantial gains; the region's sentiment toward China actually deteriorated. There is a communication gap between Chinese and Latin American publics, which is vital to public diplomacy.
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 2010
This study expands the theory of second-level agenda setting to include emotion as affect and see... more This study expands the theory of second-level agenda setting to include emotion as affect and seeks to understand its valence. Three important findings emerged; first, the media's emotional-affective agenda corresponds with the public's emotional impressions of candidates; second, negative emotions are more powerful than positive emotions even when the topic is not a negative “problem”; and third, agenda-setting effects are greater on the audiences' emotions, defined as feelings, than on their cognitive assessments of character traits, the most common way affect is measured in agenda-setting studies.
This experimental study explored how online disruptive advertisements affect users’ information p... more This experimental study explored how online disruptive advertisements affect users’ information processing, feelings of intrusiveness, and news site’s credibility. Unlike earlier studies, our results did not show that disruptive ads significantly interfere with viewers’ cognitive processing, measured as comprehension of news content. However, this study confirms previous findings that disruptive ads are perceived as intrusive and annoying, creating negativity on the affect level. Results also indicate an intriguing trend with respect to the impact of disruptive ads on credibility of news Web sites. If ad content is suspected to co-opt with news production, media credibility suffers.
This study investigates emotions conveyed in US presidential speeches and media coverage regardin... more This study investigates emotions conveyed in US presidential speeches and media coverage regarding the Iraq War and the Iran nuclear deal during 2003 and 2015. The researchers gathered and examined news stories about the two policies, all official speeches delivered by George W Bush and Barack Obama, and opinion polls conducted during the respective six-month period in those two years. Nine discrete emotions were coded to capture the valence and volume in the speeches and news media content. The study finds that emotions appear more frequently in the Iraq discourse than in the Iran counterpart. President Bush used more negative emotions while President Obama employed more positive emotions. Emotion in the media coverage is constant and stable across the two policy periods; yet negative emotions are more prevalent than positive counterparts in the media despite distinct foreign policies. The study also examines public opinion trends toward the two policies for inferring potential linkage. This article contributes to the conceptual nexus among emotional persuasion, journalism pattern, and foreign policy-making process.
Much is known about how individual differences such as age and education affect the news media's ... more Much is known about how individual differences such as age and education affect the news media's ability to transfer its agenda of issues to the public, but little is known about them at the affective level of agenda setting. Evidence shows individual differences may work differently with affect, thus this study examined demographics that predict adopting the news media's affective agenda. Using data from the U.S. Presidential campaigns in 2008, 2012 and 2016, it found that, indeed, demographics do not all work the same for affect as issues. Unlike with issue agenda setting, education showed no effect at all, while the young were more likely to adopt the news media's affective agenda than older age groups. As expected, Democrats and Republicans were more likely to adopt the news media's affective agenda of their own candidates, but Independents were not. As with first-level agenda setting, there was no effect of gender.
This study is intended to unveil the difference of social mediated world via major languages and ... more This study is intended to unveil the difference of social mediated world via major languages and investigates the volume of tweets individual countries received during 2015-2016 in nine languages-Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Shared language, country attributes, economic power, and communication resources were used in predicting country mention. The salient countries on Twitter overall are vastly diverse and vary from language to language. Based on cluster analysis, English and Japanese tweets distinguish themselves from other languages; yet the result from rank-order correlation test shows Arabic and French tweets treat countries differently from the rest. Core nations are still covered more in English-and French-language tweets. Shared language factor is found to predict well for tweets in Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French, and German but not in English and Portuguese.
This study investigated the network agenda setting (NAS) model with data gathered from Taiwan’s 2... more This study investigated the network agenda setting (NAS) model with data gathered from Taiwan’s 2012 presidential election. Networks of important objects and candidate attributes in the news were compared with the counterparts generated from public opinion. The overall correlation between the media and public network agendas was positive and significant, thus supporting the NAS model in a non-Western context. In addition, this study found that the NAS model offered more predictive power at the attribute than the object level. The effects of selective exposure in a partisan media system were also incorporated into the investigation. Results showed that partisan selective exposure did not lead to consistent findings about the accentuated association between like-minded media consumption and candidate evaluation.
This study examined the echo chamber phenomenon and opinion leadership on Twitter based on the 20... more This study examined the echo chamber phenomenon and opinion leadership on Twitter based on the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Network analysis and 'big data' analytics were employed to analyze more than 50 million tweets about the two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, during the election cycle. Overall, the results suggested that Twitter communities discussing Trump and Clinton differed significantly in the level of political homogeneity and opinion leadership, and that certain opinion leaders were responsible of creating homogeneous communities on Twitter. This study made a theoretical contribution to the literature by linking opinion leadership and Twitter's network structure and shedding light on what may have caused the echo chamber problem to happen in an emerging media landscape. ARTICLE HISTORY
Journalism research has long emphasized that foreign news is shaped by elite-defined national int... more Journalism research has long emphasized that foreign news is shaped by elite-defined national interests. Scant studies have addressed the differences between organizations and the implications of changes in media systems over time. This article contributes to the international news reporting literature by examining whether differences between organizations exist in the U.S., Taiwan, and Hong Kong news coverage of mainland China and how the evolution of such differences over time shaped the appearance and characteristics of China coverage.
This study theoretically draws upon the literature of journalism studies and explicates the dominant perspective that foreign news is shaped by national interests as well as how an emphasis on national interests and, to a lesser extent, cultural factors limit researchers’ attention to the question of these differences in foreign news reporting. The article argues that differences between organizations are likely to be prominent when “linkage politics” is strong and the degree of media political parallelism is high. Linkage politics refers to the degree to which foreign events and international relations are closely tied to or even integrated with local politics, whereas media political parallelism denotes the degree to which the media system of a society contains outlets of different political predilection that can be located on a spectrum parallel to the spectrum existing in the political arena. Since both domestic politics and media systems might evolve over time, the strength of linkage politics and the degree of media political parallelism can also vary over time, thus resulting in possible distinctive manifestations of between-organizations’ differences in foreign news reporting in different historical periods.
Given the theoretical considerations, the empirical research project compares how U.S., Taiwan, and Hong Kong newspapers covered China between 1977 and 2017. The U.S. represents a relatively stable media system with a low degree of media political parallelism through the entire period under study. Chinese politics and the U.S.-China relationship have not been clearly and strongly mapped onto the divide between the two major political parties in the former. Taiwan, by comparison, experienced liberalization and democratization in the 1980s and 1990s. Its media system changed from one dominated by pro-government parties to one that exhibits a high degree of political parallelism. Cross-strait relationships have experienced significant shifts over time, with the late 1970s to the early 1990s being a period of re-engagement between the two regimes across the Taiwan Strait and the 2000s onward as a period in which the two moved further away from each other ideologically. Hong Kong also experienced an important transformation from being a British colony to being a Special Administrative Region of China in the period under study. Its media system has long exhibited a significant degree of political parallelism, but the nature and character of the political parallelism has shown changes in accordance to social and political transformations.
Hypotheses and research questions are set up for each of the three places based on both conceptual and contextual considerations. The hypotheses and research questions are then tackled with data derived from content analysis of newspapers in the U.S. (New York Times and Wall Street Journal), Taiwan (China Times, United Daily News, Taiwan Apple Daily, and Liberty Times), and Hong Kong (Wen Wei Po, Sing Tao Daily, Ming Pao, and Apple Daily). The two U.S. newspapers are among the most prominent national papers in the country and represent the more liberal and more conservative perspectives, respectively. The Taiwan newspapers include both pro-KMT and pro-DPP outlets, as well as the more neutral and commercial-oriented Apple Daily. The Hong Kong newspapers include pro-government, pro-democracy, and more neutral professional newspapers. Five specific years (1977, 1987, 1997, 2007, and 20170 are analyzed and separated into two periods for comparative analysis (1977 and 1987 vs. 1997, 2007, and 2017).
The results show minimal differences among newspapers on China coverage in the U.S. While U.S. media coverage of China had become more negative over time, a finding consistent with our understanding of the changing U.S.-China relationship over the years, this trend exists in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. In contrast, there are significant differences among newspapers in China coverage in Taiwan, especially in the second period when Taiwan’s political system became democratized and its media system exhibited a strong degree of political parallelism. China Times and United Daily News became less negative toward China over time, but the emergence of Liberty Times meant that there was no lack of negative coverage toward the mainland. The result is that, overall speaking, Taiwan newspaper coverage of China did not exhibit a significant shift in tone.
There are similar, significant differences among Hong Kong newspapers in their China coverage. Individual newspapers exhibited different kinds of changes over time, with Sing Tao Daily becoming less negative toward the mainland on political issues after the handover, whereas Ming Pao exhibited a higher degree of balance between positive and negative coverages during the post-handover period. Nevertheless, the publication of Apple Daily ensured the supply of negative coverage about the mainland. As a result, there was also no overall shift in tone in Hong Kong newspapers’ coverage of China before and after the handover. In other words, in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, changes in specific news organizations’ approach to China and the impact of emerging media outlets cancelled out each other, leading to apparent continuity in China coverage.
The analysis herein thus largely supports the theoretical argument that, in places where linkage politics is strong and the degree of media political parallelism is high, there could be significant between-organizations’ differences in foreign news coverage. This study points toward how foreign news coverage needs to be understood in relation to factors beyond elite-defined national interests. The findings also hint at the need for caution when sampling media outlets for longitudinal studies of how a country or society’s media cover a certain topic. Various theoretical and methodological implications of the findings are discussed in the concluding section.
This study content analyzes the news coverage of two major presidential candidatesone populist ch... more This study content analyzes the news coverage of two major presidential candidatesone populist challenger, the other female incumbentin the 2020 Taiwan election. A nationwide survey of voters and their newspaper uses was also utilized to verify the association between partisan news reliance and candidate evaluations. Based on the concept of partisan press, the study confirms that the coverage is highly polarizing and that it includes more horse-race analysis than discussion of serious issues. Sexist and misogynistic terms were used more often by party-opponent (Blue-camp) newspapers to describe the female incumbent. The male populist candidate was portrayed more often in a personal fashion than the female candidate. The voters' primary newspaper uses were found to be positively associated with their candidate evaluations and preferences. The study sheds new light on populist vis-à-vis gendered election coverage in the context of an Asian democracy.
This article examined how social media content has shaped the representation of countries for pub... more This article examined how social media content has shaped the representation of countries for publics around the world. Based on world system theory (WST), the study investigated the underlying predictors of country mentions on X in 2018. It confirmed that countries with greater economic poweror higher status in the world systemreceived more mentions. Furthermore, countries with larger populations were mentioned more frequently as were countries that experienced major conflicts. The findings yielded from structural equation modeling shed new light on the interrelationships that drive the social media representation of individual countries and delineated an integrated Model of Country Mentions on X. These findings have implications for global leaders, policy makers, and social media firms to consider.
This study investigates voters' physiological response to real political advertisements that are ... more This study investigates voters' physiological response to real political advertisements that are issue focused and sponsored by three different political entities (2 × 3 design). Eyetracking and facial expression analyses were used to gauge viewers' cognitive and affective responses. Results show that voters' attention to political advertisements is influenced more by partisan congruence than by issue congruence. Viewers' facially expressed emotions after their exposure to political advertisements are significantly less negative but hardly elated. Participants' self-reported issue involvement and their eyetracking measure do not necessarily match, neither do their stated discrete emotions and automatically coded facial expressions. Conceptual issues and implications from selfreported and physiological measures are discussed.
This study incorporates media use pattern into examining three distinct media systems proposed by... more This study incorporates media use pattern into examining three distinct media systems proposed by Hallin and Mancini. The uses of newspapers, radio, television, and Internet in European Social Surveys were included. North-Central European nations, particularly the Nordic countries, demonstrate more widespread media use than other European nations. Media-use Gini indexes support Hallin and Mancini’s original demarcation. Cluster analysis, however, indicates that the European nations of the three groups slightly differ from the original typology.
This article divulges a new form of public diplomacy with post-truth content overseen by host cou... more This article divulges a new form of public diplomacy with post-truth content overseen by host countries to influence the cognitive and affective condition of publics in target countries. The goals of the practice are multifaceted and the negative impact on international communication and open societies is detrimental. All relevant concepts intertwined with the practice of post-truth public diplomacy (PTPD) that range from public diplomacy 2.0, post-truth content, international information flow, cyberspace issues, to unveiled PTPD cases are discussed in detail. Moreover, a four-fold typology of PTPD flow across national borders is illustrated for a better, comprehensive understanding of the PTPD terrain. Solution to address the alarming trend is proposed, which consists of five routes: detection and deterrence of PTPD sources, proactive monitoring and managing the communication space, increasing saturation of truthful information and antidotes of PTPD, media and information literacy education for target peoples, and maintenance of free cross-border communication for publics. The implications and ramifications of PTPD practice are also deliberated.
This study assesses the impact of China's mediated communication strategies implemented in Latin ... more This study assesses the impact of China's mediated communication strategies implemented in Latin America from 2013 to 2021. We content-analyzed the press coverage about China in nine countries and unveiled tones, topics, and frames which were then examined further across different sources. Public sentiments toward China were gauged to infer a potential link to China's communication efforts. Overall, China's program to influence Latin American media outlets and public opinion has not resulted in substantial gains; the region's sentiment toward China actually deteriorated. There is a communication gap between Chinese and Latin American publics, which is vital to public diplomacy.
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 2010
This study expands the theory of second-level agenda setting to include emotion as affect and see... more This study expands the theory of second-level agenda setting to include emotion as affect and seeks to understand its valence. Three important findings emerged; first, the media's emotional-affective agenda corresponds with the public's emotional impressions of candidates; second, negative emotions are more powerful than positive emotions even when the topic is not a negative “problem”; and third, agenda-setting effects are greater on the audiences' emotions, defined as feelings, than on their cognitive assessments of character traits, the most common way affect is measured in agenda-setting studies.
This experimental study explored how online disruptive advertisements affect users’ information p... more This experimental study explored how online disruptive advertisements affect users’ information processing, feelings of intrusiveness, and news site’s credibility. Unlike earlier studies, our results did not show that disruptive ads significantly interfere with viewers’ cognitive processing, measured as comprehension of news content. However, this study confirms previous findings that disruptive ads are perceived as intrusive and annoying, creating negativity on the affect level. Results also indicate an intriguing trend with respect to the impact of disruptive ads on credibility of news Web sites. If ad content is suspected to co-opt with news production, media credibility suffers.
This study investigates emotions conveyed in US presidential speeches and media coverage regardin... more This study investigates emotions conveyed in US presidential speeches and media coverage regarding the Iraq War and the Iran nuclear deal during 2003 and 2015. The researchers gathered and examined news stories about the two policies, all official speeches delivered by George W Bush and Barack Obama, and opinion polls conducted during the respective six-month period in those two years. Nine discrete emotions were coded to capture the valence and volume in the speeches and news media content. The study finds that emotions appear more frequently in the Iraq discourse than in the Iran counterpart. President Bush used more negative emotions while President Obama employed more positive emotions. Emotion in the media coverage is constant and stable across the two policy periods; yet negative emotions are more prevalent than positive counterparts in the media despite distinct foreign policies. The study also examines public opinion trends toward the two policies for inferring potential linkage. This article contributes to the conceptual nexus among emotional persuasion, journalism pattern, and foreign policy-making process.
Much is known about how individual differences such as age and education affect the news media's ... more Much is known about how individual differences such as age and education affect the news media's ability to transfer its agenda of issues to the public, but little is known about them at the affective level of agenda setting. Evidence shows individual differences may work differently with affect, thus this study examined demographics that predict adopting the news media's affective agenda. Using data from the U.S. Presidential campaigns in 2008, 2012 and 2016, it found that, indeed, demographics do not all work the same for affect as issues. Unlike with issue agenda setting, education showed no effect at all, while the young were more likely to adopt the news media's affective agenda than older age groups. As expected, Democrats and Republicans were more likely to adopt the news media's affective agenda of their own candidates, but Independents were not. As with first-level agenda setting, there was no effect of gender.
This study is intended to unveil the difference of social mediated world via major languages and ... more This study is intended to unveil the difference of social mediated world via major languages and investigates the volume of tweets individual countries received during 2015-2016 in nine languages-Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Shared language, country attributes, economic power, and communication resources were used in predicting country mention. The salient countries on Twitter overall are vastly diverse and vary from language to language. Based on cluster analysis, English and Japanese tweets distinguish themselves from other languages; yet the result from rank-order correlation test shows Arabic and French tweets treat countries differently from the rest. Core nations are still covered more in English-and French-language tweets. Shared language factor is found to predict well for tweets in Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French, and German but not in English and Portuguese.
This study investigated the network agenda setting (NAS) model with data gathered from Taiwan’s 2... more This study investigated the network agenda setting (NAS) model with data gathered from Taiwan’s 2012 presidential election. Networks of important objects and candidate attributes in the news were compared with the counterparts generated from public opinion. The overall correlation between the media and public network agendas was positive and significant, thus supporting the NAS model in a non-Western context. In addition, this study found that the NAS model offered more predictive power at the attribute than the object level. The effects of selective exposure in a partisan media system were also incorporated into the investigation. Results showed that partisan selective exposure did not lead to consistent findings about the accentuated association between like-minded media consumption and candidate evaluation.
This study examined the echo chamber phenomenon and opinion leadership on Twitter based on the 20... more This study examined the echo chamber phenomenon and opinion leadership on Twitter based on the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Network analysis and 'big data' analytics were employed to analyze more than 50 million tweets about the two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, during the election cycle. Overall, the results suggested that Twitter communities discussing Trump and Clinton differed significantly in the level of political homogeneity and opinion leadership, and that certain opinion leaders were responsible of creating homogeneous communities on Twitter. This study made a theoretical contribution to the literature by linking opinion leadership and Twitter's network structure and shedding light on what may have caused the echo chamber problem to happen in an emerging media landscape. ARTICLE HISTORY
This book explores the image presentation of candidates and its influence on voters at both aggre... more This book explores the image presentation of candidates and its influence on voters at both aggregate and individual levels. It examines how the visual and verbal cues about politicians offered in the media were transferred to the electorate and thus set the affect agenda during presidential elections.
This experiment examines how political candidates' gender and race influence their perceived elec... more This experiment examines how political candidates' gender and race influence their perceived electability by voters. Black and Asian-American candidates suffer from lower electability evaluation.
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Papers by Denis Wu
This study theoretically draws upon the literature of journalism studies and explicates the dominant perspective that foreign news is shaped by national interests as well as how an emphasis on national interests and, to a lesser extent, cultural factors limit researchers’ attention to the question of these differences in foreign news reporting. The article argues that differences between organizations are likely to be prominent when “linkage politics” is strong and the degree of media political parallelism is high. Linkage politics refers to the degree to which foreign events and international relations are closely tied to or even integrated with local politics, whereas media political parallelism denotes the degree to which the media system of a society contains outlets of different political predilection that can be located on a spectrum parallel to the spectrum existing in the political arena. Since both domestic politics and media systems might evolve over time, the strength of linkage politics and the degree of media political parallelism can also vary over time, thus resulting in possible distinctive manifestations of between-organizations’ differences in foreign news reporting in different historical periods.
Given the theoretical considerations, the empirical research project compares how U.S., Taiwan, and Hong Kong newspapers covered China between 1977 and 2017. The U.S. represents a relatively stable media system with a low degree of media political parallelism through the entire period under study. Chinese politics and the U.S.-China relationship have not been clearly and strongly mapped onto the divide between the two major political parties in the former. Taiwan, by comparison, experienced liberalization and democratization in the 1980s and 1990s. Its media system changed from one dominated by pro-government parties to one that exhibits a high degree of political parallelism. Cross-strait relationships have experienced significant shifts over time, with the late 1970s to the early 1990s being a period of re-engagement between the two regimes across the Taiwan Strait and the 2000s onward as a period in which the two moved further away from each other ideologically. Hong Kong also experienced an important transformation from being a British colony to being a Special Administrative Region of China in the period under study. Its media system has long exhibited a significant degree of political parallelism, but the nature and character of the political parallelism has shown changes in accordance to social and political transformations.
Hypotheses and research questions are set up for each of the three places based on both conceptual and contextual considerations. The hypotheses and research questions are then tackled with data derived from content analysis of newspapers in the U.S. (New York Times and Wall Street Journal), Taiwan (China Times, United Daily News, Taiwan Apple Daily, and Liberty Times), and Hong Kong (Wen Wei Po, Sing Tao Daily, Ming Pao, and Apple Daily). The two U.S. newspapers are among the most prominent national papers in the country and represent the more liberal and more conservative perspectives, respectively. The Taiwan newspapers include both pro-KMT and pro-DPP outlets, as well as the more neutral and commercial-oriented Apple Daily. The Hong Kong newspapers include pro-government, pro-democracy, and more neutral professional newspapers. Five specific years (1977, 1987, 1997, 2007, and 20170 are analyzed and separated into two periods for comparative analysis (1977 and 1987 vs. 1997, 2007, and 2017).
The results show minimal differences among newspapers on China coverage in the U.S. While U.S. media coverage of China had become more negative over time, a finding consistent with our understanding of the changing U.S.-China relationship over the years, this trend exists in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. In contrast, there are significant differences among newspapers in China coverage in Taiwan, especially in the second period when Taiwan’s political system became democratized and its media system exhibited a strong degree of political parallelism. China Times and United Daily News became less negative toward China over time, but the emergence of Liberty Times meant that there was no lack of negative coverage toward the mainland. The result is that, overall speaking, Taiwan newspaper coverage of China did not exhibit a significant shift in tone.
There are similar, significant differences among Hong Kong newspapers in their China coverage. Individual newspapers exhibited different kinds of changes over time, with Sing Tao Daily becoming less negative toward the mainland on political issues after the handover, whereas Ming Pao exhibited a higher degree of balance between positive and negative coverages during the post-handover period. Nevertheless, the publication of Apple Daily ensured the supply of negative coverage about the mainland. As a result, there was also no overall shift in tone in Hong Kong newspapers’ coverage of China before and after the handover. In other words, in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, changes in specific news organizations’ approach to China and the impact of emerging media outlets cancelled out each other, leading to apparent continuity in China coverage.
The analysis herein thus largely supports the theoretical argument that, in places where linkage politics is strong and the degree of media political parallelism is high, there could be significant between-organizations’ differences in foreign news coverage. This study points toward how foreign news coverage needs to be understood in relation to factors beyond elite-defined national interests. The findings also hint at the need for caution when sampling media outlets for longitudinal studies of how a country or society’s media cover a certain topic. Various theoretical and methodological implications of the findings are discussed in the concluding section.
This study theoretically draws upon the literature of journalism studies and explicates the dominant perspective that foreign news is shaped by national interests as well as how an emphasis on national interests and, to a lesser extent, cultural factors limit researchers’ attention to the question of these differences in foreign news reporting. The article argues that differences between organizations are likely to be prominent when “linkage politics” is strong and the degree of media political parallelism is high. Linkage politics refers to the degree to which foreign events and international relations are closely tied to or even integrated with local politics, whereas media political parallelism denotes the degree to which the media system of a society contains outlets of different political predilection that can be located on a spectrum parallel to the spectrum existing in the political arena. Since both domestic politics and media systems might evolve over time, the strength of linkage politics and the degree of media political parallelism can also vary over time, thus resulting in possible distinctive manifestations of between-organizations’ differences in foreign news reporting in different historical periods.
Given the theoretical considerations, the empirical research project compares how U.S., Taiwan, and Hong Kong newspapers covered China between 1977 and 2017. The U.S. represents a relatively stable media system with a low degree of media political parallelism through the entire period under study. Chinese politics and the U.S.-China relationship have not been clearly and strongly mapped onto the divide between the two major political parties in the former. Taiwan, by comparison, experienced liberalization and democratization in the 1980s and 1990s. Its media system changed from one dominated by pro-government parties to one that exhibits a high degree of political parallelism. Cross-strait relationships have experienced significant shifts over time, with the late 1970s to the early 1990s being a period of re-engagement between the two regimes across the Taiwan Strait and the 2000s onward as a period in which the two moved further away from each other ideologically. Hong Kong also experienced an important transformation from being a British colony to being a Special Administrative Region of China in the period under study. Its media system has long exhibited a significant degree of political parallelism, but the nature and character of the political parallelism has shown changes in accordance to social and political transformations.
Hypotheses and research questions are set up for each of the three places based on both conceptual and contextual considerations. The hypotheses and research questions are then tackled with data derived from content analysis of newspapers in the U.S. (New York Times and Wall Street Journal), Taiwan (China Times, United Daily News, Taiwan Apple Daily, and Liberty Times), and Hong Kong (Wen Wei Po, Sing Tao Daily, Ming Pao, and Apple Daily). The two U.S. newspapers are among the most prominent national papers in the country and represent the more liberal and more conservative perspectives, respectively. The Taiwan newspapers include both pro-KMT and pro-DPP outlets, as well as the more neutral and commercial-oriented Apple Daily. The Hong Kong newspapers include pro-government, pro-democracy, and more neutral professional newspapers. Five specific years (1977, 1987, 1997, 2007, and 20170 are analyzed and separated into two periods for comparative analysis (1977 and 1987 vs. 1997, 2007, and 2017).
The results show minimal differences among newspapers on China coverage in the U.S. While U.S. media coverage of China had become more negative over time, a finding consistent with our understanding of the changing U.S.-China relationship over the years, this trend exists in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. In contrast, there are significant differences among newspapers in China coverage in Taiwan, especially in the second period when Taiwan’s political system became democratized and its media system exhibited a strong degree of political parallelism. China Times and United Daily News became less negative toward China over time, but the emergence of Liberty Times meant that there was no lack of negative coverage toward the mainland. The result is that, overall speaking, Taiwan newspaper coverage of China did not exhibit a significant shift in tone.
There are similar, significant differences among Hong Kong newspapers in their China coverage. Individual newspapers exhibited different kinds of changes over time, with Sing Tao Daily becoming less negative toward the mainland on political issues after the handover, whereas Ming Pao exhibited a higher degree of balance between positive and negative coverages during the post-handover period. Nevertheless, the publication of Apple Daily ensured the supply of negative coverage about the mainland. As a result, there was also no overall shift in tone in Hong Kong newspapers’ coverage of China before and after the handover. In other words, in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, changes in specific news organizations’ approach to China and the impact of emerging media outlets cancelled out each other, leading to apparent continuity in China coverage.
The analysis herein thus largely supports the theoretical argument that, in places where linkage politics is strong and the degree of media political parallelism is high, there could be significant between-organizations’ differences in foreign news coverage. This study points toward how foreign news coverage needs to be understood in relation to factors beyond elite-defined national interests. The findings also hint at the need for caution when sampling media outlets for longitudinal studies of how a country or society’s media cover a certain topic. Various theoretical and methodological implications of the findings are discussed in the concluding section.