HANGZHOU—A paper by Prof. Hongtao Li from the College of Media and International Culture has been published in the Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communicationin issue 3 of the year 2020. The research paper entitled Domesticating media sociology: Traveling theories, cultural intermediaries and the local academic practice is co-authored byProf. Hongtao Li and Prof. Shunming Huang from Sichuan University. The paper was also funded by a major project under the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSFC) (Grant No.: 19ZDA325).

Abstract

Drawing upon the idea of “traveling theory” and the concept of “cultural intermediaries”, the current study seeks to understand the processes by which the Chinese academic community introduces, incorporates, transplants, and finally domesticates media sociology. By analyzing empirical data derived from surveys and in-depth interviews, as well as archival and textual sources, the paper argues that the domestication of media sociology unfolds along both a vision centering about classics and a set of practices oriented toward the present. In the end, western media sociology has been transformed into a sociology of news, with its ideals and the theories being mobilized as discursive resources and local knowledge for the emancipation of journalism studies and journalistic practices.

About the author

Dr. Hongtao Li is a professor in the Dept. of Journalism & Communication and the director of the Institute of International Culture & Social Thought at Zhejiang University. His research mainly focuses on air pollution and environmental politics, global communication, sociology of news, and media and cultural memory. His works are regularly featured in major English and Chinese journals.