Chunhui He & Jing Xie
Thirty Years' Development of Public Relations in China Mainland

This paper discusses the development of public relations in a fast growing country, China. The professionalism of the public relations in China has been affected tremendously by the socio-economic, educational, and cultural development of the country. International public relations agencies chose big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai as a base for their activities in China. They have exerted a great impact on the local PR industry. More and more government administrations and companies realized the importance of public relations; they established public relations departments and sections to meet the growing demands of their various publics and benefited from it. The future of public relations in China is very promising. Although it is facing some problems, public relations has a bright future.


Linyi Liu & Yun Lai
Made-in-China across the Barrier: An Empirical Study on the Overseas Performance of Chinese-produced Motion Pictures

This study draws upon economic models to examine the exports' performance of Chinese-produced motion pictures in order to find the truth about the exports' situation or, if any, to conduct a further discussion or suggestion about Chinese-produced exports' future. Actually, the current understanding of factors that help or impede Chinese film to enlarge its market share in international competition is not yet complete. This study will analyze the film export profile of Chinese exported films as well as their performance in different regions. The results partially confirm that economic cultural factors have a significant influence on the performance. The results confirm that the increasing domestic market could generally help to export more films to overseas markets, thus make more revenue offshore. It could also be observed that higher investments could chronically contribute to a better performance overseas, though a high budget is not a plenary condition for an individual film to draw more revenue in the overseas market.


Feng-Yung Hu
Russian News Censorship in the Era of Anti-Terror

Russia experienced ten years of transformation in the 90's of the twentieth century, when the Russian president Boris Yeltsin implemented the westernized policy. At that time Russian media were commercialized and controlled by the financial and industrial oligarchy. The second Russian president Vladimir Putin changed the media system after a series of accidents designated by the terrorists in the end of 1999. In this paper, the author tries to analyze how the Russian government controls the public attitude to treat any kind of anti-terror operations by passing the federal laws which stipulate the restrictions to limit the media activities and their coverage. After more than ten years?of political and economical transformation in Russia, Russia has entered an anti-terror era in the ruling period of the Russian president Vladimir Putin 2000~2008 and after that the dual core ruling system with the following president Medvedev and premier Putin. Since the second Chechen War broke out in1999, the Russian media law system and news coverage of the Chechen War had changed as well. The Russian government regards the Chechen War as the necessary action of fighting against terrorists and maintaining the national interests under the official slogan of national dignity and territorial integrity. It's obvious that Russia has become one of the very countries where extremists and terrorists continue to act rampantly. When Putin assumed his presidency in 2000, Russia officially had entered the anti-terror era. So, after Russia in 1992 started to carry out a very liberal media law in which the feedom of press is protected and censorship is prohibitted, how to establish an environment for media activities and their news coverage in the new era might be the crucial mission for the Russian government. The author found out that the regular dialogues between the President and media representatives for finding out the mutual understanding in the crisis of crucial events become the most effective communication model in Putin's ruling Russia and the model will be continued by the president Dmitry Medvedev.


Kuang Ching Hei
Moves in Refusal: How Malaysians Say 'No'

Refusals are one of the many speech acts of conversational analysis. Many people find themselves engulfed in problematic situations because they do not know how to say ‘No’ and many have had to experience negative emotions such as shame, embarrassment, anger, guilt, inferiority complex, resentment or even vengeance when they are caught in the web of the imposition in not knowing how to refuse. The communication process may be two-way, but the feeling conveyed by one party may not always be the same as the other. This study focuses on how Malaysians, ranging from young children, teenagers, adults to the senior adults of various ethnic groups and professions, use language to make refusals. The approach adopted is that of participant observation where people are observed in the various contexts of interactions. The purpose of this study is to explore how people say ‘No’. Spontaneous data is subtly entered into a journal as they occur and where possible, the setting, gender, ethnic background, and likely occupation are indicated. Data is then analysed by focusing on two aspects: politeness theory and language and identity. The findings of this data will elucidate aspects of how language is used both positively and negatively to make refusals. The reasons for doing so will be discussed in the paper.


Victor Lux Tonn
A Xystemic World of Communication

A xystematic model is created in explicating the form and non-form structures and the underlying human dimensions of the general xystem of communication. In this approach, the role of composite cultures is emphasized, and the world of meaning constructed directly and indirectly upon the bases of ontology and axiology is stressed as well. The general xystem investigated incorporates the conventional aspects of communication -- sender, receiver, channel, feed-back, the encoding and decoding of the messages, and communicational competence. Since these aspects of communication are all manifestations of human cultures, the general grand xystem of culture underlying any xystem of communication comprises the cores of Xystem X* (capitalism/scientific humanism, culture of sciences with the spirit of conquest), Xystem D* (classical cultural system, symbolic rationality with the spirit of tranquility), and Xystem ?* (socialism/dialectical humanism, culture of dialectical rationality with the spirit of outward conquest). This model of communication is further enriched by the provision of a xystem of interpersonal network developed on the foundation of the operational sphere of mutuality.


Frederic Eckhard
What Difference Can a UN Secretary- General Make? -- Address to the Students of Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, Nov.12, 2008

What difference can a UN Secretary-General make?
He has no army and only a small budget. He has 192 bosses - the Member States of the United Nations; he has to keep them all happy. There's not much room to maneuver.
I worked for three Secretaries-General - Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt and Kofi Annan of Ghana. And I found it fascinating how each of them found a significant role to play - thanks to the circumstances of history or the force of their personality - or both.


Lin Zhu
The Journey of an Organizational Communication Scholar: An Interview with Dr. Patrice Buzzanell

This interview was conducted via email over a period of several weeks in March 2009. Dr. Patrice M. Buzzanell is a renowned Organizational Communication scholar, president of International Communication Association (ICA) and Council of Communication Associations (CCA). During the interview, Dr. Buzzanell shared some of her personal experiences as a successful researcher, mentor and teacher and offered her valuable insights regarding the discipline of communication.


Yanrong (Yvonne) Chang
Living and Working Across Cultural Lines: An Interview with Dr. Michael Harris Bond
 
This interview was conducted via email in April 2009. Dr. Michael Harris Bond is a noted Canadian social psychologist who has been teaching in the Chinese University of Hong Kong since 1974 after getting his Ph.D. in Stanford University. Dr. Bond has done extensive research in areas such as the social psychology of language use, impression management, social psychology across cultures, cross-cultural interaction, the psychology of the Chinese people, and so on. In this interview, Dr. Bond, in a unique and humorous style, describes his experiences of living and working in Hong Kong and how his intercultural experiences have impacted him personally and professionally, offers valuable insights about doing social research, and shares his words of wisdom that junior social researchers/ students may find beneficial.


Guo-Ming Chen
Toward an I Ching Model of Communication

The paper aims to develop a model of communication based on the thought of I Ching. The dialectical and dialogical interaction between yin and yang serves as the foundation of the model development, which leads to the conceptualization of communication as an interdetermining process in which interactants develop a mutually dependent relationship through the exchange of symbols. The model stipulates five characteristics of human communication: holistic, hierarchical, interconnected, creative, and harmonious. In addition, the holistic and dynamic nature of communication is delineated based on the model from three perspectives: forces of human communication, forms of the movement of human communication, and the outcome of human communication. It is concluded that while a universal model can be used to describe the universal phenomenon of human communication, the I Ching model reflects potential differences of value or moral orientations toward communication between Chinese and Westerners. Hence, the model can be used to better understand Chinese behaviors from an emic perspective in the future research.


Rich Holt & Hui-Ching Chang
Lessons from I Ching: Reconceiving Intercultural Communication from the Concept of Change

Due largely to commitment to separate domains of thought, categorical thinking prevails in intercultural communication studies. Although there has been much criticism against the rigidity and dichotomization of labels such as individualism and collectivism, potential alternatives remain to be explored. In this study we use the I Ching hexagram "The Family" as a collection of generative metaphors and apply three key analytical stances articulated in I Ching (image/judgment, sequencing, and primary/nuclear trigrams) that emphasize change and reversion, to explore the dynamism inherent in intercultural communication studies. Focusing on change provides us a refreshing and illuminating perspective to analyze intercultural communication studies.


Jensen Chung & May Ho
Public Relations, I-Ching, and Chi (Qi/Ki) Theory: A New Model from An Old Philosophy

Among the offspring concepts of I-Ching is chi (qi/ki). Chi (qi/ki) intersects with major East-Asian philosophies to become a ubiquitous and powerful cultural element. The intersection inspires contemporary scholarship in four ways: cosmologically, ontologically, epistemologically, and phenomenologically. This research zeroes in on how some of the epistemological inspirations in I-Ching bring forth principles that can counsel external organizational communication, also known as corporate communication or external public relations. To explicate and exemplify the impacts of some I-Ching wisdoms, the discussion will employ some I-Ching principles as focal points. Specifically, the study will highlight holism, circularity, and harmony as the key ingredients, in comparison with the associated key concepts of public relations principles. The study will also employ some chi-affiliated concept such as shih, also known as strategic advantage, to construct the new model.


Xiaosui Xiao
The Narrative Model of Yijing

This paper explores the narrative structure of Yijing, or the Book of Changes. As the most successful and influential book in China telling stories of change, its narrative structure must not only open itself to all possible stories of change, but also be capable of creating these stories. However, this open structure is subject to certain limitations. A course of change can be perceived as a meaningful change only when it is placed and unfolded within a certain logical or dialectical framework. How does Yijing deal with this narrative dilemma? The answer lies in understanding how its yin-yang dichotomy, its six-line arrangement, and the arrangement of the sixty-four hexagrams, which are the basic features of its narrative structure, open an infinitely wide range of possibilities for telling a story about change, while regulating the form of the story and the way of its telling.


Mary Fong
Developing Self and Communications through the Spiritual Wisdom of the I Ching

The I Ching, also known as the Book of Change is a Chinese oracle structured with 64 hexagrams or primary commentaries with six "changing lines" that are filled with wisdom rooted in Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. The purpose of this paper is to better understand the spiritual wisdom of the I Ching in order to develop ourselves and better our communications with others. This paper will briefly explain some fundamental principles and concepts: enlightenment, the Universe and energy, the tao, te, and yin and yang. These fundamental concepts and principles provide an understanding of the workings of the I Ching that fosters acceptance of the credibility of this Chinese classic oracle. Thereafter, in developing oneself and their communications with others, I will look at the types of superior personas and some of their qualities; and the characteristics of an inferior person primarily revealed in the I Ching. This paper concludes with an application of some of the I Ching wisdom to three life events that has enlighten and nourished me in my adaptation of them.

Source: China Media Research