Religion and New Media: A Uses and Gratifications Approach

This research examines specific relationships between new media and religion. While prior research has focused on the question of whether a relationship exists, we explore technology usage as a predictor of specific religious behavior. Using a sample (N = 423) comprising a cross-section of religious and cultural backgrounds, results indicate that attitudes toward technology and use of social media contribute to how people view religion as a mechanism for meeting needs. Applying uses and gratifications theory in a unique way, three needs related to religion emerged: religion as a means of passing time, religion as a mode of meeting self needs, and religion as a catalyst for learning. We discuss implications of our findings.     

Global Nomads' Network and Mobile Sociality: Exploring New Media Uses on the Move

This paper explores the convergence of communication and travel and the emergence of a mobile and network sociality, through investigating new communication practices based on the internet and mobile phone enacted by backpackers while on the move. These global nomads produce and maintain mobile spaces of sociality, founded on a complex intersection of face-to-face interaction and mediated communication, co-presence and virtual proximity, corporeal travel and virtual mobilities. Personal communities become a mobile phenomenon, relocalized in a plurality of online and offline social spaces. It is thus argued that network relationships are reshaped and mobilized through reconfigurations of co-presence, proximity and distance in relation to the use of new media. Exploring new media uses on the move can thus provide a useful insight into the emerging social model of the network and mobile society.     

A New Focus on Nonprofit ­Entrepreneurship Research

One distinctive contribution nonprofit entrepreneurship research brings to the broader domain of nonprofit studies is an explicit focus on the process of new nonprofit organizational emergence. This article asserts that in order for nonprofit entrepreneurship scholarship to continue to evolve, it is necessary to focus more on what happens before a new nonprofit is formally founded, during the so‐called nascent phase. Using conceptual as well as empirically derived arguments, this article illuminates why nascent nonprofit research is necessary and valuable to nonprofit entrepreneurship scholarship and highlights promising areas for future research.     

A Cross-Cultural Study of the Psychosocial and Spiritual Impact of Natural Disaster

We report a cross-cultural comparison of coping with natural disaster involving two populations—survivors from the 1999 earthquake in Turkey and from the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California. The research project was explorative in design and included 222 people—123 individuals from Turkey and 99 from California. A main focus of the study was how age, gender, marital status, and cultural differences impact on levels of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Concomitantly, the association of many other variables was explored including cultural education, presence and degree of loss, extent of damage to one's home, whether individuals did or did not receive assistance, etc., and how these impacted their coping. Statistical analysis revealed strong associations between PTSD and age for both studies. It was found that the highest level of PTSD in the California sample occurred among individuals at least 60 years old. In the Turkey sample, those in their fifties showed the highest level of PTSD. The article highlights similarities and differences between the post-earthquake coping responses in California and Turkey and concludes by discussing forms of assistance to earthquake victims.     

International Disaster Compensation Fund: A New International Financial Aid Mechanism

In May 2008, two consecutive disasters shocked the whole world. Both the China earthquake and the Myanmar cyclone forced people all around the world to realize how harsh and merciless the power of nature is. The massive devastation influenced not only the two countries but also the whole world. The world today is highly interdependent. One country’s disaster can spill over to other countries through political and economic channels. There is no disaster limited to one country, and human beings cannot solve the issue of living without mishap when facing a disaster. Therefore, no country can escape by sheer luck from disaster and solve the problem alone. Indeed no country lives in absolute safety. In this case, the whole world should unite together to share the risks. Human beings should work together to face, resist and eliminate risks. But unfortunately, such a kind of system which can effectively deal with natural disaster has never existed. In this situation, we have designed the International Disaster Compensation Fund (IDCF) to give a new idea of how to manage the risk together.     

人肉搜索:道德舆论的新形式——兼论当代青年社会参与之公共空间的构建

自进入21世纪以来,人肉搜索在互联网上日益成为一股不可忽视的新生力量,并对人们的现实生活产生了一定的影响。人肉搜索现象颇受争议,反对派认为其侵犯了人们的隐私权、名誉权,而且充满了网络暴力,支持派则认为人肉搜索事件是公共事件,网民享有知情权,并不侵犯事件当事人的隐私权、名誉权,更不是网络暴力。事实上,人肉搜索在本质上是一种新的道德舆论形式,它直接指向具有善恶、正邪、荣辱等道德评价性质的道德现象,促进当代青年社会参与的公共空间的构建。这些在互联网上公开的道德现象往往挑战人们的道德底线,人肉搜索机制有利于查清它们的真相,并形成相对一致的道德共识,通过对该道德现象进行道德评价,从而实现谴责、制约、监督和引导当事人实施道德行为。     

Studying the New Media

Studies of the impact of the media on people have not produced stable results, because they operate with an unrealistic view of audience members as an inert mass of passive recipients of what is aimed at them. Observation of television viewers in France, and the examples of amateur photography and pornography, show the importance of a more realistic view, taking account of the active participation of people in the creation of communication works and the worlds of arts that are not conventionally studied.     

Trends in New Media Research: A Critical Review of Recent Scholarship

Trends in new media research are examined. These trends revolve around four dimensions, including citizen engagement, organizational innovation and adaptation, mobility and content computerization. The following article critically examines this shifting terrain in new media research and its implications for future scholarship.     

New Fields Deserve New Pedagogies: Using Drama in the Basic Course on Media and Religion

This essay discusses drama or how a play is used to teach fundamental concepts of the media-religion interface. Drama, as a participative learning technique is similar to the case study method, but has additional benefits. Using the play, Ghosts of Galileo, the author describes actual experiences with students as they learn from a story, and deal with dilemmas by projecting themselves into the roles of characters in the narrative. While students are often ambivalent about discussing sensitive issues related to religion in the conventional classroom format, they are more comfortable doing so in the context of a story. How to use the play as a readers' theater or fully staged play is explained.     

新媒介环境下传媒与青少年社会化研究

本文对近十几年来国内有关传媒与青少年社会化问题的文献进行了系统回顾,归纳出研究现状和特点:网络和电视等电子媒介是研究的主要内容;研究集中于社会化的结果,缺乏对于青少年的认知机制如何影响其处理传媒的信息的过程研究;研究对象存在着明显的不平衡现象,且概念使用混乱;研究方法日趋多样,但缺乏大型、系统的实证研究。在此基础上,对今后研究的发展方向进行了预测和分析。     

阿尔及利亚原教旨主义组织研究

自20世纪八十年代末以来，阿尔及利亚饱经内乱和内战之苦，由伊斯兰原教旨主义势力挑起的这场空前浩劫，已夺走了该国10多万无辜的生命。进入新千年以来，阿尔及利亚国内和解进程曾一度取得了令人瞩目的成就，但近两年来，该国安全局势再度严重恶化，恐怖袭击时有发生，特别是2007年4月11日和12月11日发生在首都阿尔及尔的恐怖爆炸事件，总伤亡人数近300人，引起了国际社会的高度关注。阿国内安全局势的动荡与反复，从一个侧面反映了阿政府和人民与伊斯兰极端势力斗争的长期性、艰巨性和复杂性。本文试图从历史、现状等多个角度，来透视阿伊斯兰原教旨主义势力的发展轨迹。     

阿尔及利亚原教旨主义组织研究

自20世纪八十年代末以来，阿尔及利亚饱经内乱和内战之苦，由伊斯兰原教旨主义势力挑起的这场空前浩劫，已夺走了该国10多万无辜的生命。进入新千年以来，阿尔及利亚国内和解进程曾一度取得了令人瞩目的成就，但近两年来，该国安全局势再度严重恶化，恐怖袭击时有发生，特别是2007年4月11日和12月11日发生在首都阿尔及尔的恐怖爆炸事件，总伤亡人数近300人，引起了国际社会的高度关注。阿国内安全局势的动荡与反复，从一个侧面反映了阿政府和人民与伊斯兰极端势力斗争的长期性、艰巨性和复杂性。本文试图从历史、现状等多个角度，来透视阿伊斯兰原教旨主义势力的发展轨迹。     

Anti-War Activism: New Media and Protest in the Information Age

This starts out by distinguishing between communication and communication mediums when examining social movement-powered formations of collective identity and collective action. We then focus on communication mediums to examine the different ways that old and new media are utilized in urban social movements under neoliberal capitalism. Based on shifts in the political economy and correspondingly in the contemporary composition of the working class, we focus on the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia to argue that contemporary urban social movements and networks utilize a multi-media platform to further class-based politics. The respective use of old or new media depends on important contextual questions, regarding technology access and geographic aspects of movement building work.     

Political Polling and the New Media Culture: A Case of More Being Less

Changes in journalism—including newsroom cutbacks, anemphasis on repackaging secondhand material, and the demandsof 24-hour news—have expanded the reliance on polls asnews, including polls of a sort once considered not reliablefor publication, and led to a more superficial understandingof the 2004 presidential race. The proliferation of outletsoffering news, which has resulted in greater competition foraudience, has also intensified the motivation of using pollsin part for their marketing value rather than purely their probativejournalistic value. The more "synthetic" style of contemporaryjournalism has increased the tendency to allow polls to createa context for journalists to explain and organize other news—becomingthe lens through which reporters see and order a more interpretativenews environment. A greater dependence on horse race trackingpolls by the media has reinforced these tendencies and furtherthinned the public’s understanding toward who won andaway from why. Growing audience skepticism and political polarizationhave created an environment of distrust about the methodologyand integrity of polling. All of these factors, in turn, arefrustrating the efforts of academic and commercial pollstersto maintain standards and deepen understanding among journalistsabout public opinion research and how to use it as journalism.     

新媒体环境下“杰斗文化”的发展探析

杰斗文化是当前流行的亚文化的一个分支,它展现了新一代成年青年人追求童趣童真的价值观。新媒体的普及为杰斗文化注入新的血液,依托新媒体平台的优势,杰斗文化表现出诸如多样化、话语权回归成人等不同以往的新特征。     

新形势下我国出国留学现状分析

本文在广泛搜集出国留学相关数据和文献的基础上,采用实证分析和文本分析方法,对我国出国留学活动基本情况、主要特点及突出问题进行深入研究,通过分析现阶段出国留学尤其是自费出国留学火热发展的原因与动机,从政策、管理层面出发,对如何趋利避害、顺应形势、促进我国出国留学教育健康发展作了探讨,并从政府机关、留学机构和社会民众三个维度提出了相关建议。     

The Impact of Social Media Activity on Nonprofit Donations in China

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Social media platforms have gained wide attention in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors as an effective way to reach...