This study examines how Vietnamese journalists' perceptions of online surveillance are related to fear of reprisal and self-censorship. Using a cross-sectional online survey of 588 working journalists, we tested the hypothesized relationships using structural equation modeling with bootstrapped indirect effects. The results indicate that perceived online surveillance positively predicts fear of reprisal and journalistic self-censorship, and that fear of reprisal partially mediates this relationship. Additional analyses show higher self-censorship among journalists with greater seniority and more experience. These findings suggest that perceived monitoring can generate anticipatory restraint both directly and via fear-based pathways in tightly regulated media environments. From a theoretical perspective, the findings reveal that the fear-based silencing mechanism at the core of the Spiral of Silence theory (SOS), whereby anticipated negative consequences suppress expressive behavior, operates in a structurally analogous manner among journalists confronting state surveillance. We position our contribution as a contextual extension of the SOS mechanism to an authoritarian journalism setting, rather than a full replication of the model. This study contributes to the literature by specifying fear of reprisal as a measurable mechanism and situating it within broader debates on constrained expression in contemporary media systems.
This study tests a moderated sequential mediation model to offer evidence for a theoretically derived hypothesis that exclusive use of domestic media (parochialism) in China leads to support of internet censorship, while the opposite is true for avid consumption of non-domestic media (cosmopolitanism). The hypothesized relationships have three distinct and yet interlapping intellectual roots: (1) authoritarian orientation; (2) institutional trust; and (3) need for cognition. Using the 2020 data from the Chinese Internet Users' Social Awareness Survey of 1,840 Chinese netizens, we found empirical support for all hypotheses. Specifically, the connection between media use and censorship support is sequentially mediated by authoritarian orientation and institutional trust regardless of use patterns. In the process, need for cognition conditions these indirect effects in opposite directions: among parochial users, higher need for cognition strengthens the indirect pro-censorship pathway, while among cosmopolitan users, it bolsters the pathway toward reduced censorship support. These findings show that deeper cognitive engagement does not have a uniformly liberalizing role; instead, it magnifies the downstream consequences of the information environment to which individuals are habitually exposed.
Taiwanese women negotiate menstrual tracking apps at the intersection of algorithmic systems, cultural expectations, and embodied experiences. This study harnessed qualitative digital methods combining diary studies and in-depth interviews with sixteen participants to develop intimate data performativity as a conceptual lens. Three interconnected dimensions emerged. First, algorithmic negotiation in embodied knowledge production: users embrace predictive systems while maintaining interpretive agency. Second, integration of tracking into self-optimization practices exposes contradictory dynamics of empowerment and control. Third, data sharing reconfigures intimate relationships as menstrual apps mediate gendered dynamics of care and surveillance. Women actively co-constitute bodily knowledge, regulatory norms, and relationship dynamics through everyday engagement with menstrual tracking technologies. These performative practices exceed binary frameworks of empowerment or discipline.
This article examines how the news audience in an autocratizing society judges the efficacy of the news media to carry out its normative roles and functions. When a society undergoes autocratization, the news media are subjected to increasing political control and may frequently self-censor. Unwillingness to report on sensitive information and viewpoints can limit the media's ability to facilitate deliberation and inform the public. However, citizens with different political values and attitudes may understand self-censorship differently, leading to varying relationships between perceived media self-censorship and perceived news efficacy. Analysis of survey data from Hong Kong shows that perceived media self-censorship leads to lower levels of perceived news efficacy only among people with low levels of political trust and weak beliefs in law and order. For people who trust the political system and value law and order, perceived media self-censorship relates positively to perceived news efficacy. General theoretical implications are discussed.
This study examines the intersection of gender, fandom, and nationalism within contexts of digital authoritarianism. With a focus on a female-led nationalist movement, this study explores the operational mechanisms of digital authoritarianism through the subjective experiences and digital practices of social actors, utilizing actor-network theory and gender performativity as analytical lenses. The study employs participant observations and semi-structured interviews to investigate a meme war - the 930 Online Expedition. In doing so, it highlights how diverse actors, including 'fanquan girls' (young female fans), cyber-nationalist communities, and digital platforms, negotiate and align their interests to form cohesive networks in support of pro-China narratives, illustrating the phases of problematization, interessement, enrollment, and mobilization. It advances scholarship on digital authoritarianism by theorizing 'governance through non-action' as a feminized, networked process. It shows how fanquan girls' gendered fandom practices diffuse control through sociotechnical infrastructures, connect micro-level participation to macro-level nationalist mobilization, and foreground ordinary netizens' lived experiences in co-producing authoritarian resilience beyond overt repression and surveillance.
This study examines embedded governance in China's private television drama industry. We analyze how the Central Propaganda Department (CPD) and the United Front Work Department (UFWD) coordinate to steer this commercialized sector through the Grand United Front ((sic)(sic)(sic)) at the micro level. Through institutional analysis and a two-mode network map of 59 key elites and 58 organizations - linked to 131 National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA)-backed private dramas (2013-2024) - we identify a three-stage process of elite co-optation. We argue that the Party-state builds a sophisticated control network by deploying 'Red Capitalist' insiders, mobilizing their kinship networks, and absorbing outsiders through institutional approaches. This process transforms guanxi ((sic)(sic), interpersonal ties) into a media governance infrastructure for transmitting political signals and normalizing compliance. We identify three patterns of relational control - Relational Infiltration, Relational Co-optation, and Regime Co-optation - that demonstrate a shift from external co-optation to deeply embedded governance by insiders. The case of Macao's 'Aollywood' ((sic)(sic)(sic)) suggests a possible extraterritorial extension of the model. Our findings contribute to the political economy of communication, specifying how an authoritarian regime institutionalizes embedded governance to maintain ideological control within a marketized media system.
AI agents have emerged as prominent alternatives in mental health service delivery. However, users consistently express a preference for human agents over their AI counterparts. This study examined the factors influencing users' intentions to switch from AI agents to human agents in mental health contexts. Grounded in the expectation disconfirmation theory, we developed a theoretical model examining the effects of user expectations and AI agent performance on disconfirmation, satisfaction, and switching intention. The model was empirically validated through a 2 & times; 2 (user expectations: high vs. low & times; AI agent performance: high vs. low) between-subjects experimental design (N = 200). The results suggested that AI agent performance emerged as the primary determinant of user satisfaction and switching intention in mental health contexts. In contrast, user expectations, while influencing disconfirmation, exhibited a relatively limited direct influence on satisfaction and switching intention. Intriguingly, the impact of AI performance on satisfaction was moderately strengthened under conditions of high user expectations. These findings both validate the applicability of expectation disconfirmation theory in human-AI interaction research and offer practical recommendations for developers of AI-based mental health interventions.
This study, based on media richness theory and social cognitive theory, explores the materials, processes, and perceived effects of virtual reality (VR) therapy in the treatment of depression and anxiety in China. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 30 patients, results indicate that participants perceived VR therapy as enhancing their sense of immersion through real-time interaction, multisensory signals, and the integration of Chinese cultural elements. By examining patients' experiences from the perspectives of modeling, self-efficacy, and outcome expectancies, most patients reported perceiving emotional relief. However, a few patients also reported limitations, including simplistic VR scenes, insufficient interactivity, and a decline in perceived effectiveness over time. This study suggests that future VR therapies should focus on cultural adaptation by designing treatment scenarios that resonate more deeply with local cultural characteristics, and on integrating VR therapy with other forms of treatment to support longer-term engagement through regular follow-ups and ongoing support. In addition, exploring multi-user interaction modes that allow patients to communicate with other patients or healthcare professionals in virtual environments is recommended.
Analyzing data from the 2014-2022 Netizens Social Consciousness Survey (NSCS), this study finds that politically oriented and commercial media news consumption generally enhances trust in both central and local governments, although the trust-enhancing effect of politically oriented media weakens over time. In contrast, alternative information sources on social media and foreign media are generally associated with lower trust in the central government, but these negative effects attenuate across years. Overall, politically oriented and commercial media exert stronger and more stable influences on political trust than social and foreign media between 2014 and 2022. These findings highlight the asymmetric and dynamic nature of media effects on political trust in China, providing longitudinal support for conditional media effects and suggesting that such effects are embedded in the broader institutional media environment of networked authoritarianism in the Chinese context.
This study examines how recalling product-harm crises generates spillover from corporate failures to domestic publics' country identity at both the micro level (product-based perceptions) and the macro level (general perceptions of national strength and development). Drawing on the accessibility-diagnosticity framework, crisis spillover is conceptualized as a conditional process in which recalled crisis information shapes national judgments when it is cognitively accessible and perceived as informative. Using data from an online survey in China (N = 596), the results show that crisis recall is negatively associated with both micro- and macro-level country identity, indicating domestic vertical spillover. Social media engagement strengthens these negative associations, while political cynicism amplifies spillover only for macro-level country identity. In contrast, collective efficacy mitigates spillover for both dimensions. By shifting attention from country image to country identity and identifying conditions that intensify or attenuate recall-based spillover, this study offers a more conditional and internally oriented understanding of crisis spillover dynamics.
Traditional culture has become a salient symbolic resource in contemporary Chinese advertising, yet evidence remains limited on whether and how traditional value oriented imagery in advertising texts shapes consumer responses. Drawing on cultural embeddedness theory, this research introduces Traditional Cultural Harmony Imagery (TCHI), the extent to which advertising texts evoke harmony-oriented traditional meanings through identifiable linguistic cues, and examines its effects on brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Across three experimental studies (N = 521) using multiple product categories and operationalizations, embedding TCHI in advertising texts systematically enhances brand attitudes and purchase intentions, even after controlling for demographics, prior cultural exposure, and cultural orientation. Both explicit and implicit TCHI cues outperform non-TCHI texts, while explicitness provides no additional benefit. Parallel mediation analyses show that TCHI increases brand attitudes and purchase intentions via subjective norms and brand cultural identification, indicating socially and culturally grounded pathways. These findings operationalize a text based cultural meaning cue and suggest that in the intelligent era characterized by increasingly standardized content, harmony oriented cultural meaning cues can remain effective resources for strengthening consumer responses.
This study extends the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by integrating utopian and dystopian perspectives, utilitarian and hedonic values, trust, and AI literacy to examine acceptance of Generative AI (GAI). Using data from 400 South Korean users analyzed through PLS-SEM, the results identify the utopian perspective as the dominant driver of adoption, exerting both direct and indirect effects on behavioral intention via perceived ease of use (PEOU) and trust, whereas the dystopian perspective shows no significant influence. While utilitarian value positively predicts behavioral intention, hedonic value exhibits a negative direct effect, highlighting a tension between experiential enjoyment and sustained adoption. Notably, perceived usefulness (PU) does not directly influence intention, underscoring the limited explanatory power of efficiency-based evaluations in early-stage adoption. Trust and PEOU emerge as central mediators in the acceptance process. Furthermore, AI literacy directly enhances GAI acceptance and moderates value-based pathways: users with lower literacy rely more heavily on utopian expectations, whereas higher literacy amplifies the positive influence of hedonic value. Overall, these findings extend TAM by incorporating sociocultural perspectives and user competencies, offering insights for trust-building strategies and literacy-sensitive design in the Korean context.
With the widespread integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into health information seeking, the prevalence of AI hallucinations necessitates effective verification behaviors. Grounded in the digital divide framework, this study investigates heterogeneous verification patterns for AI-generated health information. We surveyed 597 Chinese adult residents and identified four verifier profiles through the latent profile analysis: verifiers preferring internal verification, verifiers preferring institutional sources, verifiers preferring interpersonal sources and verifiers emphasizing multiple sources. Further analyses suggested that demographic and socioeconomic factors (gender, age, education and income) significantly predicted profile membership. Additionally, the study revealed significant outcome divides associated with individual differences in verification patterns. Specifically, verifiers emphasizing multiple sources reported the highest levels of self-efficacy in identifying AI-generated health misinformation and superior health management outcomes. Notably, verifiers preferring interpersonal sources exhibited weaker self-efficacy and worse health management outcomes compared to verifiers preferring institutional sources. These findings highlight the structural barriers underlying verification divides, offering empirical implications for designing targeted interventions to promote public verification behaviors and narrow associated digital divides.
In social media influencer (SMI) marketing, brands typically assess the value of SMIs based on quantitative metrics such as follower count, overlooking the qualitative factors in influencer-follower relationships. Drawing on Social Identity Theory, this study explored the qualitative dynamics in relationships between racial/ethnic minority individuals and their identity-matching versus non-matching influencers. In-depth interviews with Asian Australian young adults, including those with mixed heritage (N = 22), unveiled critical insights regarding their self-determined identity, the reasons for following identity-(non)matching influencers, the nature of relationships with those influencers, and their reactions to sponsored product/brand endorsements by those influencers. Informants described identity-matching influencers across four different, but interconnected, dimensions and reported higher engagement with them. They believe identity-matching influencers curate and share highly relevant information with followers. Additionally, they perceived brand/product endorsements by identity-matching influencers as more tolerable, authentic, and trustworthy than those by identity-non-matching influencers. These findings challenge the current SMI valuation model and underscore the importance of qualitative factors to assess SMI effectiveness.
