• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.15-39
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• 2014

This research conducted a before/after naturalistic field experiment, with the early Arab Spring as the treatment. Compared to before the early Arab Spring, after the observation period the associations became stronger among the Web terms: 'Jihad, Sharia, innovation, democracy and civil society.' The Western concept of civil society transformed into a central Islamist ideological component. At another level, the inter-nation network based on Jihad-weighted Web hyperlinks between pairs of 46 Muslim Majority (MM) nations found Iran in one of the top two positions of flow betweenness centrality, a measure of network power, both before and after early Arab Spring. In contrast, Somalia, UAE, Egypt, Libya, and Sudan increased most in network flow betweenness centrality. The MM 'Jihad'-centric word co-occurrence network more than tripled in size, and the semantic structure more became entropic. This media "cloud" perhaps billowed as Islamist groups changed their material-level relationships and the corresponding media representations of Jihad among them changed after early Arab Spring. Future research could investigate various rival explanations for this naturalistic field experiment's findings.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.147-175
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• 2018

Under authoritarian regimes, citizen-led NGOs such as environmental NGOs (ENGOs) often operate under close scrutiny of the government. While this presents a challenge to a single ENGO, we propose here - in line with existing research on network effects - that there are opportunities for multiple ENGOs to coordinate and thus work in ways that supersede government controls, affect public opinion, and contribute to policy revision and/or creation. In this paper, we specifically examine the possibility that the gamut of citizen-based ENGOs in China are coordinating. Based on network analysis of ENGOs web pages as well as interviews with more than a dozen ENGO leaders between 2014 and 2016, we find that ENGOs have few direct and public connections to each other, but social media sites and personal connections offline provide a crucial function in creating bridges. A closer examination of these bridges reveals, however, that they can be substantive to the environmental discussion or functional to the dissemination of web page information but typically not both. In short, ENGOs in China are not directly connected but rather are connected in a way that responds to the available social media and the government's censorship practices.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.728-739
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• 2020

Using webometric big data, this study examines the diversity of online information sources about the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, it focuses on some 28 countries where confirmed coronavirus cases occurred in February 2020. In the results, the online visibility of Australia, Canada, and Italy was the highest, based on their producing the most relevant information. There was a statistically significant correlation between the hit counts per country and the frequency of visiting the domains that act as information channels. Interestingly, Japan, China, and Singapore, which had a large number of confirmed cases at that time, were providing web data related to the novel coronavirus. Online sources were classified using an N-tuple helix model. The results showed that government agencies were the largest supplier of coronavirus information in cyberspace. Furthermore, the two-mode network technique revealed that media companies, university hospitals, and public healthcare centers had taken a positive attitude towards online circulation of coronavirus research and epidemic prevention information. However, semantic network analysis showed that health, school, home, and public had high centrality values. This means that people were concerned not only about personal prevention rules caused by the coronavirus outbreak, but also about response plans caused by life inconveniences and operational obstacles.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 2023

The focus of this research is the practice of journalism in relation to the Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship (JFPP) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Journalists and curators who are participants in the Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship received fundings from the state. The Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship is a unique model because it is the only one in the world in journalism practice that involves state's financial assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. These fundings from the state for the media lead to dilemmas and controversies. This research uses a qualitative approach and a single holistic case study method. The Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship was held from May to December 2021, involving 7,276 journalists from 857 media (print, television, radio, and online media) and 26 curators. This study found that during the Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship, journalism experienced a crisis and lost its function as a control overpower. Giving cash to journalists and curators during the fellowship makes journalism lose its independence and objectivity. The Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship has degraded or eliminated the function of the press as a watchdog. Incentives for journalists while participating in the Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship is a long-term investment by the government to co-opt Indonesian media and journalists in the future. On the other hand, the Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship raises another aspect; the crisis of journalism. Journalism work produced in the Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship does not reflect the values and principles of journalism. Journalism values, such as independence and impartiality, are absent from the Behavioural Change Journalism Fellowship product.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.35-47
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• 2013

This study aims to understand haiku phenomena from the viewpoint of communication, which emerges from reciprocal relationships among haiku poets, haiku societies, media on haiku, and other establishments relating to haiku. Such an analytic point of view, which tries to consider both the operation of each autonomous agent and that of the whole system consisted by the agents, is included in the realm of second-order cybernetics. The operation of a system cannot be reduced completely to a system's individual components, which is why such a viewpoint is required. Fundamental informatics, which is employed as a theoretical framework, and two haiku movements, which include shin keiko haiku ("new-trend" haiku) and dento ha haiku (Hototogisu-school haiku), forming an important part of modern haiku history, are the focus of this study. As a result, modern haiku history is considered to be an evolution of a haiku system, whose main incentive is an awareness of the production mechanism of haiku communication occurring through second-order observations in the system. This study also illuminates how haiku poets, haiku societies, and media covereage of haiku play roles in the evolution of the haiku system.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.118-141
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• 2019

In South Korea, as awareness of gender equality increased since the 1990s, policies for gender equality and social awareness of equality have been established. Until recently, however, the gap between men and women in social and economic activities has not reached the globally desired level and led to social conflict throughout the country. In this study, we analyze the content of online news comments to understand the public perception of gender equality and the details of gender conflict and to grasp the emergence and diffusion process of emerging issues on gender equality. We collected text data from the online news that included the word 'gender equality' posted from January 2012 to June 2017 and also collected comments on each selected news item. Through text mining and the temporal semantic network analysis, we tracked the changes in discourse on gender equality and conflict. Results revealed that gender conflicts are increasing in the online media, and the focus of conflict is shifting from 'position and role inequality' to 'opportunity inequality'.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 1969

Conidio spores of Aspergillus niger (strain No. NRRL 330) cultured on potato dextrose agar media were studied by electron microscopy, using the thin sectioning techniques. Conidio spores to be sectioned were fixed by triple methods with $K_2Cr_2O_7$, Glutaraldehyde and $OsO_4$. After dehydrated with alcohol, the specimens were embedded in metacrylate and epon resin media, and thinly sectioned by Porter-Blum MT-2. After sectioned these specimens were negative-stained with uranyl acetate and observed. by Hitachi HS-6 electron microscope. The results of this experiment were summarized as follows. 1. The structures of spore ,wall system seem to be formed 4 layers; exosporium, basal layer, spore coat and unit cell membrane. The protuberance of spore surface that was looked like hair appears to be protrusived from the basal layer. 2. The 3 layers of unit cell membrane was constituted outer layer membrane, inner layer membrane and inter-mediate light layer. 3. The structures of intra cytoplasmic membrane appear as spiral form which was consisted of 3 layers membrane system; outer membrane, inner membrane, and intermediate layer, which has pits. 4. The cement substance of spore coat and cortex may be changed quantitatively by physiological state in cell. 5. In some cases, we observed that the ribosome was transformed into poly ribosome group, and the storage materials and the protein crystals were changed variously. It. has been suggested that the morphological change of some cytoplasmic materials may be caused by some specialized function of the physiological stage.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.189-216
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• 2019

The frequent occurrence of overwhelming disasters necessitates risk communication systems capable of operating effectively in disaster contexts. Few studies have examined risk communication networks during disasters through social networking services (SNS). This study therefore investigates the patterns of risk communication by comparing Korean and international networks based on the social amplification of risk communication in the context of the Sewol ferry disaster (SFD). In addition, differences in language use and patterns between Korean and international contexts are identified through a semantic analysis using KrKwick, NodeXL, and UCINET. The SFD refers to the sinking of the ferry while carrying 476 people, mostly secondary school students. The results for interpersonal risk communication reveal that the structure of the Korean risk communication network differed from that of the international network. The Korean network was more fragmented, and its clustering was more sparsely knitted based on the impact and physical proximity of the disaster. Semantic networks imply that the physical distance from the disaster affected the content of risk communication, as well as the network pattern.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.125-147
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• 2020

On the World Refugee Day in 2017, Yao Chen, a Chinese actress, philanthropist, and social media influencer, posted messages in her Weibo in support of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Yet, social media users quickly interpreted this supportive message of the refugee program as encouraging people to "accept and receive refugees" (jieshou nanmin) into China. Particularly, the category of Middle Eastern refugees elicited most criticism in China's cyberspace. As the inclusion of refugees is an integral part of immigrant multiculturalism, this article examines the limits of multicultural imagination of refugees―particularly those from the Middle Eastern and North Africa―in contemporary China. I argue that the limits of multicultural imagination in contemporary China is profoundly shaped by an intricate interweaving of domestic policies and global imaginaries toward refugees. By deploying a mixed methodology, such limits are examined from legal-institutional, ideological, and sociocultural perspectives. More specifically, three interrelated aspects will be highlighted in the article: (1) the global circulation of right-wing populism imaginaries, and their entanglements with the anti-Muslim sentiments in contemporary China; (2) the current insufficiency of the legal-institutional framework regarding refugees and asylum-seekers, which needs to be contextualized in China's modern history of dealing with refugee issues; (3) population politics, the rise of Han-centric nationalism, and their constraining impact on the interpretation of historical events related to cultural diversity. In conclusion, this article also offers potential implications for further examining the different yet potentially intersected genealogies of multicultural imaginaries beyond the Middle Eastern and North African refugees in Asia.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.19-34
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• 2013

Previous research assessed media reporting on nuclear accidents and risks, whilst studies about the Fukushima accident focused on the impact of the Internet on coverage of the incident. However, little research has addressed news framing or comparisons of the perceptions of journalists in relation to reporting nuclear accidents. The aim of this study is to apply framing analysis to news content in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today about the Fukushima accident. It explores the question of how journalists view reporting on complex events. Content analysis of these three newspapers shows that conflict, responsibility, and economic consequences were the most frequently used frames. According to the journalists interviewed, the biggest problem was the inability to assess information due to contrary positions held by experts. It is argued that the Fukushima accident was framed as a conflict of experts and officials' opinions, utility and government officials' responsibility, and economic consequences for the United States. Adherence to professional norms of objectivity and impartiality was signified as the best approaches to risk reporting.