Communication Pattern and Network Structure

A communication pattern specifies the source, destination and other parameters associated with the connection.

A perfect system will have 100 percent detection effectiveness and 0 percent false positives, but this is not always possible.

Annual review of communications, vol 59, p.559

For communication scholars, we are all longing for a perfect communication pattern, which will make our world a better place. But this is not always possible in the real world. So we try to find out the important determinants or obstacles within communication patterns. Sometimes we find that gender, age, and other demographic attributes are important. Sometimes we find that people are embedded in a structure and we are manipulated by invisible hands. Which one is right? Maybe there is not absolute right or wrong. But I still want to know which one is more right?

Although the new science of network study is very popular in many fields, I am not convinced by the premise that communication patterns are heavily affected by network structure sometimes. How heavy is "heavy”? When is the "sometimes”?

Three Faces/Phases of Chinese Civil Society

Yesterday I attended a lecture at Hong Kong Baptist University. The speaker was Professor Shi anbin from the School of Journalism and Communciation of Tsinghua University, which was my old school.

Here is a brief introduction about his lecture: 

In Chinese, the term "civil society" has been translated to "gongmin shehui" (i.e., citizen's society), "shimin society”(i.e., urban residents' society) and "minjiian shehui" (i.e. folks' society). These three "faces" or "phases" of "civil society" serve as the prism to help understand how the concept is reinvented and reconstructed in a totally different socio-political and cultural context. The present study aims to recontextualize "civil society" against the backdrop of the emergent "internet politics" in contemporary China. This research will also delineate the emergence of the Western-imported concept of "civil society" via the Internet in contemporary China, and analyze the implication of "internet politics" by way of reconstructing the interrelationship between the Party-state and the Chinese people.

This is not the first time I hear the idea of three phases of Chinese civil society. In fact, sholars in this field like Professor Wang Ming of Tsinghua University claimed that the main body of Chinese civil society was NGOs. Since 1980s, the development of NGOs in China can be divided into three decades, which led Chinses civil society go through three phases.

The new idea of this lecture is the notion of three faces of Chinese civil society. Faces here refer to mass media like BBS, blogs, microblogs that people use in three phases. Professor Shi mentioned that mass media functioned differently in each phase, according to the distinct civic needs of each stage. The evolvement of media function followed the way : self-protection --- social surveillance --- social reform. Although I may not agree with him on specific media functions, I approve his warrant that there is a interaction between civil society and media function. But how to specify the interaction needs to be further discussed.

Objectivity as Strategic Ritual

In the paper Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity, Gaye Tuchman claims that "objectivity" may be seen as a strategic ritual protecting newspapermen from the risks of their trade, because professions like lawyers and doctors have their operational definitions towards objectivity to protect themselves from the critics. So, as a profession, journalists also have their routine procedures to defend their objectivity. The evidences supporting the claims are analysis on ten news stories that Tuchman collected from his fieldwork in a newspaper and from a book on news practices, which are generalized into three factors that help newsmen to define an “objective fact”.

There are eight parts in the paper. The first part (Para.1-Para.5) is the introduction. Tuchman introduces various definitions of objectivity of different professions. He tries to say that the word “objectivity” is fraught with meanings. Not only the newsmen, but also other professions like lawyers and doctors do have their operational definitions towards objectivity. Despite the differences in definitions that are subject to different essence of business, lawyers, doctors, and newsmen all have some “rituals” and “strategies” to protect them from the risks of their trade. Here, Tuchman quotes Everett Hughes and other big names to justify his attempt, taking objectivity as strategic ritual.

In the second part (Para.6-Para.10), Tuchman tries to say newsmen are “men of action”; they only need some operational definitions of objectivity, rather than some epistemological examination. In the hierarchical structure of a newsroom, newsmen “second guess” the potential criticism from superiors and consumers. Superiors practice social control through “scolding and blue pencil” in the newsroom, according to Warren Breed. Tuchman suggests two factors, or two pressures/risks newsmen have to face: to meet the deadline and to avoid the libel suits.

In the third and fourth parts (Para.11-Para.34), Tuchman presents five strategic procedures enabling newsmen to claim objectivity. They are verification of facts, presentation of conflicting possibilities, presentation of supporting evidence, the judicious use of quotation marks, and using the inverted pyramid structure. These are the strategies related to news content, one of the three factors Tuchman mentions in the introduction. The fifth and sixth parts (Para.35-Para.49) deal with the other two factors, form and interorganizational relationships. The two factors lead to more strategies like using the label “news analysis” to separate “facts” from opinions, and three conventional procedures of news judgment. Meanwhile, Tuchman also mentions some problems of these strategies.

In the seventh part (Para.50-Para.53), Tuchman discusses newsmen’s “common senses”. He quotes Alfred Schutz to define common sense as “the knowledge taken for granted”. It is the fundamental determinant of “fact”. It is what makes the news judgment as sacred knowledge that lead journalism to a profession. It is always the target for critics. It is also the weakest link in Tuchman’s warrant.

The last part (Para.54-Para.61) is conclusion and discussion. Tuchman reckons that his readers would question he only examine newsmen’s use of the word “objectivity”. So he suggests that further studies in other professions should be carried out.

What is Chinese Media Scholars Reading?

Netizens are interesting, and the people who study them are also great fun. They may do not know each other personally offline, but they do know each other well online. They meet on the Internet, get onto each other on the Internet, and creat an e-magazine on the Internet, which reminds me of the sory of Louis Rossetto establishing Wired in March 1993.

Here is the e-magazine named Reading Reports in the Digital Age. 

The first two articles are about Albert-Laszlo Barabasi's Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means, and Kevin Kelly's Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World. Both of the authors are my colleagues.

The third article is about a new book on Chinese Internet marketers who stand to earn big money by thrusting the clients - and sometimes victims into the limelight. One of the authors are my classmates. The young lady is brave enough to work with some even illegitimate Internet marketers to collect the firsthand stories. I have not read this book yet, but I believe it must be excellent.

Others articles involve various topics, such as news objectivity, cloud computing, microbloggings,culture criticism, Internet policies and consumer behaviours.

Here are the download links.

Reading Reports in the Digital Age vol.1
Reading Reports in the Digital Age vol.2
Reading Reports in the Digital Age vol.3
Reading Reports in the Digital Age vol.4(new)