International Communication Association Prague 2018
PRECONFERENCE: CONCEPTUALIZING THE NEW SILK ROADS AS COMMUNICATION: TOWARDS A NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER?
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
2018 Conference Venue: Hilton Prague
Co-organizers:
Yu Hong, College of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University, China
Daya Thussu, Westminster School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster, UK
The Committee of Global Communication and Public Diplomacy, the Chinese Association for History of Journalism and Communication, China
Draft Programme | |
9:00-9:10 | Lu Wei, Dean of College of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University, Opening Remarks |
9:10-10:00 | Opening Plenary Chair: Daya Thussu Anbin Shi, Tsinghua University,China,"Constructing a Mediated Community of Shared Future:China's Agenda of Remapping Global Communication Xin Xin, University of Westminster, UK, “From the “Going Out” Project to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): What Does the BRI Mean for State-owned National Media?”
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10:00-11:10 | Session 1: BRI and Global Communication |
Chair: Yu Hong | From Blockbusters to Infrastructure: Changing Conceptions of Communication in China’s Official ‘Soft Power’ Strategies
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Communication Effect Research of the Belt and Road Them under the Global Vision- A Case Study of Social Media Users’ Attitude Yunfang Cui, Jia Shang, Yi Zhang, Fei Zhang, Communication University of China, China | |
The rise of BAT and its facilitation of Belt and Road Initiative Chunmeizi Su, Queensland University of Technology, Australia | |
Belt & Road Studies –an Outgrowth of Global Connectivity and Communication Studies Wenshan Jia, Chapman University, USA and Distinguished Adjunct Professor, Renmin University, China; Lu Fangzhu, Renmin University, China | |
11:10-11:25 | Break |
11:25-12:35 | Session 2: Discourses of BRI |
Chair: Terry Flew | The Pursuit of the ‘Other-ed’ Voice of Globalization: Remapping the Genealogy of ‘Silk Road’ Discourse Weihua Wu and Yinfeng Gao, Communication University of China |
Official and unofficial discourses on China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ Comparing Chinese and European conversations Olivier Arifon, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; Zheng Yue, Jinan University, China; Huang Zhao, University of Paris East, France and Anna Zyw Melo, Asia Centre, Paris, France | |
The Belt and Road Initiative in the Economist: A critical analysis of media discourse from 2014 to 2017 Yang Yaqin, Communication University of China, China | |
The Belt and Road Initiative (2013-2017): A Systematic Review with bibliometric and text mining Xuewei Chen, JiLin University and Yuchun Zhu, Tsinghua University, China | |
12:35-13:35 | Lunch |
13:35-14:45 | Session 3: Global Impact of BRI |
Chair: Shi Anbin | Implications of Cultural Exchange between China and India: Construction of Alternative Modernity Tabassum Khan and Wendy Su, University of California Riverside, USA |
Any Strings Attached? Examining Aid Flows from China to African Countries Rong Wang, Northwestern University, USA; Francois Bar, University of Southern California, USA and Yu Hong, Zhejiang University, China
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Effects of Belt & Road initiatives in Europe: Understanding the Chinese strategy for European Integration/Disintegration
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How does Europe fit in the BRI? Understandings in China and the EU Li Zhang and Jia Lu, Tsinghua University, China | |
14:45-15:00 | Q & A (Break) |
15:00-16:10 | Session 4: Regional Perspectives |
Chair: Xin Xin | Framing the Belt and Road Initiative as ‘Win-Win’ or ‘Divisive’? The Western Balkans Perspective Aleksandar Mitic, Center for Strategic Alternatives, Serbia |
A Study on Image of China in Bangladesh Media: Taking the United News Bangladesh as a Case Jie Gu & Nan Sun, Communication University of China, China | |
Framing, psychological distance, and audience perception: An experiment on the perception of BRI by Chinese and UAE college students Shujun Jiang, United Arab Emirates University, UAE and Jing Song, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong | |
Television Collaboration Between China and the UK in the Era of Post-Globalisation: From Planet Earth II to Dancing On Ice Lisa Lin, Royal Holloway, University of London | |
16:10-17:00 | Concluding discussion – Moderated by Daya Thussu
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Description and Objective
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI - formerly called One Belt, One Road), known as the New Silk Roads in the West, is China’s ambitious developmental and foreign policy initiative unveiled in 2013. It is aimed at creating dense connectivity of capital, goods, and people across the Eurasian surface, with a possible effect of rewiring global economic networks while further centralizing China in the global economy as a regional and even global power.
The rise of parochial and anti-globalization tendencies on the international scene, exemplified by Brexit, Trump’s presidency, and the ascent of terrorism, are complicating BRI but also giving China an unprecedented opportunity to redefine the territoriality, power formation, and political economy of globalization. Experts from area studies and International Relations have begun to engage with BRI as a crucial and grandiose China-centric project. They ask, will BRI facilitate a new international order or buttress the existing capitalist world order? With China’s rise, BRI as a state-led global intervention extends traditional inquiry about globalization and encourages closer attention to contestation, international order, transformation of states, and new requirements of global capitalism.
The communication perspective, however, has been largely missing from the discussion, although communication, as business, systems, discourses, and practices, permeates the programs and ramifications of BRI. For example, concepts such as connectivity, circulation, people-to-people exchange, and, above all, building a ‘Community of Common Destiny’ have set the tone for the official narrative; transport and communication infrastructures have spearheaded the formation of a China-centric socio-economic space; and the expansion of cyber business, cultural ties, and political influence hinges not only on techno-financial prowess but also on the capacity of consensus formation.
Thus conceptualizing BRI as involving new communication processes and formative communication spaces encourages scholars to delve more deeply into intersecting dynamics of a possible new international order, which include but are not limited to states and capitals, subnational and transnational regions, interstate relations and social formation, master narratives and social imaginations.
This preconference is intended to encourage focused discussion of BRI from the communication perspective, broadly defined. We welcome empirical studies from multiple conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and levels of analysis. Papers selected will document and characterize BRI as historical processes in relation with globalization, capitalism, and international order and, theoretically, reveal communication’s constitutive role in globalization as contested processes, in power formation amidst the changing dynamics of capitalist international relations, and in social formation across fractured national spaces.
About Zhejiang University as the Co-host
Zhejiang University was founded in 1897 and is one of the earliest modern academies of higher education in China. Its College of Media and International Culture was established in 2006, of which the Department of Journalism was set up in 1958 and is one of the oldest journalism departments in China. Currently, the college has four departments and several research institutes, covering a wide range of robust and outstanding programs such as communication studies, journalism studies, new media and critical theory, international culture and social thought, and so forth.
