Exposure to news about the South China Sea, nationalism, and government evaluation: examining the mediation roles of third-person effects and online discussion

The South China Sea Dispute and War/Peace Journalism: A Framing Analysis of a Malaysian Newspaper

“…Given the fact that China has emerged as the largest trade partner of Malaysia since 2009, while Malaysia is the largest trade partner to China among ASEAN countries, it is only natural that The Star devoted more coverage that undertook a neutral valence towards China. In addition, these findings are consistent with previous studies, in which scholars (Balakrishnan, 2006;Chinvanno, 2015;Finkbeiner, 2013;Lim 2009, Liu & Lim, 2019 remarked that Malaysia has been adopting a "playing it safe" approach in the South China Sea dispute. This means that Malaysia is pursuing a combination of diplomatic, legal, economic, and security initiatives that can secure its interests as a claimant state while being careful not to disrupt its vital bilateral relationship with China.…”

“…Kreuzer (2016) succinctly pointed out that the fundamental aim of such a bilateral relation between Malaysia and China is to achieve a reciprocal relationship resulting in long-term stability. Significantly, scholars (e.g., Johnston, 2013;Li & Guo, 2018) also argued that China, preoccupied with upholding stable relationships and minimizing future uncertainty, is willing to make compromises even with weaker opponents and to negotiate short-term interests for the sake of long-term benefits.…”

“…China has become a major global power with its multidimensional growth ranging from economic, military, education, scientific to technological. Intellectuals from a variety of backgrounds emphasize that the rise of China will inevitably change the structure of world politics and the global economy (Bing, 2025;Li, 2016). It was also pointed out that Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea reflects China's effort to dislodge the US as the hegemonic power in the East Asian region and establish a Chinese sphere of influence instead (Cotillon, 2017;Golan & Lukito, 2015).…”

Who should apologise: Expressing criticism of public figures on Chinese social media in times of COVID-19

“…Previous studies on Weibo opinion expression focus on users' discussions of highly political events which are subject to censorship. These relate to China's domestic and overseas affairs, examples of which include the East China Sea dispute with Japan (Cairns and Carlson, 2016;Schneider, 2016), the South China Sea dispute (Dixon, 2014;Li and Guo, 2018), and the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election (Zhao and Lin, 2020). Hot topics in the Chinese mainland have also gained mounting attention online.…”

A discourse analysis of critical commenting online: A study of comments on a self-mockery event

“…This is especially true in Chinese social media where mediated communication is distinct from other countries because Chinese social media is ‘embedded within and a product of the intersections of a unique environment of political, social, economic and technological forms’ (Fitzgerald et al, 2022: 1). This in turn inspired scholars to approach online critiques within the topic of highly political-relevant events, most of which are China’s international affairs, including the East China sea dispute with Japan (Cairns and Carlson, 2016; Schneider, 2016), the south sea dispute (Dixon, 2014; Li and Guo, 2018), and domestic affairs which nevertheless has implications for cultural meanings, for example, the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election (Zhao and Lin, 2020), the Tianjin chemical explosion in 2015 (Wu and Fitzgerald, 2021; Zeng et al, 2019). However, compared to comments under political topics, comments under different topics such as humorous videos, have been analyzed less as sites where hate speech and critique can occur, ‘various, mostly implied, ways in which hateful messages could be conveyed’ (Castaño-Pulgarín et al, 2021: 1; see also Parvaresh, 2023: 65).…”