Internationalizing Communication Research

The Center for Communication Research aims to develop an internationally and regionally recognized program of research and publications at City University of Hong Kong, in the cutting-edge issues facing communication under the forces of technological convergence and media globalization in the Asian context. Hong Kong is nowadays one of the most important institutional and cultural bases for studying the whole Greater China region and the process and phenomenon of globalization at large. The Center hopes to provide a platform to gather an already existing critical mass of researchers in communication studies and discourse studies at the University, to facilitate exchanges and collaborations between communication researchers at different institutions in Greater China and beyond, as well as between the local and international communication research communities.

Communication research has primarily been Anglo-American -- which is very rich but amazingly parochial: the interest of U.S. media studies stops at the water's edge to the point that "international communication" means "non-U.S. communication," whereas British cultural studies also attempt to universalize Eurocentric insights. Both traditions have been insensitive to cultural differences, failing to explain the role of media and culture in the process of vast and rapid social transformation in the non-Western world.

The past decade has seen sporadic efforts to "de-Westernize" or "internationalize" communication studies; several core members of our team have published articles and books as active participants. Further, Professors Chin-Chuan Lee and Jonathan Zhu have served as the founding and sixth presidents of the Chinese Communication Association, respectively. We would like to take advantage of the critical mass in the newly established Center for Communication Research to articulate an intellectual voice from a cross-point between East and West.

Several projects are being developed to (a) redefine communication research from the vantage points of Asia, especially those of Greater China, in dialogue with the dominant scholarship; (b) set certain research agendas for our intellectual community; and (c) enrich research degree education in communication as a strategic area of development at the CityU; and (d) strengthen CityU's links with professional communication sectors.

Among these projects are

1. Redefining the field of "international communication"

What is the current status of "international" communication? What is the role of "the cultural" in the landscape of international communication research? What theoretical, epistemological, and methodological contributions Chinese and Asian contexts are likely to make toward "internationalizing" communication research?

2. Cross-cultural conception of "public opinion"

How were various categories of "min" (民)"the public," "people's opinions" and "public opinion" developed and transformed in relation to the historical process of sociopolitical struggle? How can we understand and articulate "public opinion" in the comparative China (ancient-Confucian, Republican, and Communist), Asian (Korean, Japanese and Singaporean), and Western (Anglo-American vs. German-French) contexts-and with what theoretical and empirical implications?

3. Transnational Flow of Asian Popular Culture

What are the specific structures and modalities of popular culture production, circulation/marketing, and consumption among youth across Greater China and East Asian societies? We will focus on the forms of identification available for the different urban youth consumers, implications for media policy, as well as political, economic, and ideological effects of this "pan-Asian" cultural sphere on the region's cultural development.

4. Input, process, and outcome of getting published in mainstream communication journals by scholars in Greater China, Asia, and beyond.

What motivates non-Anglo-American scholars to get published in mainstream English-language journals on communication? What special issues arise during the decision-making process in these journals?