Dismantling Cultural Borders Through Social Media and Digital Communications

The editor offers a summary of the contents of this book and reviews trends in social media influences on the geopolitical, economic, sociolinguistic, and diplomatic relations among nations and communities connected in cyberspace. It discusses global media flows and popular culture and reactions and addresses the long-drawn debate over the winners and losers of the New World Information and Communication Order that has not only called to question the largely but diabolic impact of cyber communications on poor consumers.

The public’s perception of the identity of the online celebrity has gradually been de-stigmatized along with the rise of the online celebrity economy, and the public has gradually accepted the more neutral concept of “online celebrities.” Online celebrities (i.e., “Wanghong” in Chinese) refer to famous people by gaining the attention of Internet users on social media platforms. This chapter focuses on the phasic development and changes characteristics of online celebrity image after the rise of the Internet. It applies a descriptive analysis of the image changes of online celebrities. One of its findings is that the de-stigmatization of online celebrities has become an economic phenomenon and commercial product, not just a cultural symbol.

This chapter examines how environmental civil society organizations in China construct their accountabilities through social media use. Through case studies of three environmental civil society organizations in Beijing, China, this research explores the impact and potential of social media to change the conceptualization of accountability and finds that information technology has been an instrument for organizations to demonstrate their accountability and transparency, lacking the engagement and direct input from the public and the community. This chapter argues that civil society organizations’ current underutilization of social media mainly focuses on resource-based accountability.

This chapter analyzes early race thinkers and describes how the media promotes Caucasian nationalism in the Global North by packaging hate messaging. Using principles of reverse psychology and group communication, especially the Johari Window—a communication model used to understand self-disclosure and feedback and to improve a group’s relationship with other groups)—this chapter analyzes the characteristics of hate speech. It shows how social media data and IT platforms advance anti-other sentiments and an egocentric pro-nationalist agenda among Caucasian groups in the Global North, especially Germany and America. Citing television news networks and newspaper coverage of public demonstrations in Europe and America, this chapter portrays the news media establishment as leading agents of hate messaging and suggests eliminating hate speech. The chapter is inspired by the notion that harmful speech leads to lasting harm. Power structures such as the U.S. government can expedite the spread of hate speech and violence against minority populations, endorsing the movement for Caucasian Nationalism in the Global North.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) hit the news headlines as a pandemic bound to affect millions of people worldwide, and news media took responsibility to warn people, country heads, businesses, and private and non-governmental institutions about the virus. However, stories swirling on social media platforms about the origin and nature of COVID-19 and questionable reporting by established news networks have left the public questioning the integrity of the natural causes of the virus, how it spreads, what the facts are, how they are communicated, and whether treatment standards equate the hoopla about the genesis of the “pandemic.” This chapter reviews various narratives about the mystification and demystification of COVID-19. It attempts to depart from the premise that the media frames how people consume and use news and examines the media’s character (operations). The chapter then suggests how stakeholders should manage news flows on COVID-19, how consumers should screen news, and how journalists should process and report COVID-19.

Drawing on a 17-month ethnography in a multicultural neighborhood in Santiago, Chile, and a content analysis of news media coverage, the authors focus on two news pieces about migrants that emerged as relevant by research participants, examining how the media and the local response framed them. The authors discuss how migrants’ portrayal in the media has contributed to and reinforced racialized and negative representations of certain migratory groups. Furthermore, this chapter explores how it has reinforced and validated the state’s racist politics and discourse against those migrants who are considered “undesired,” hindering, at the local level, migrants’ everyday lives in different ways.

This chapter, however, examines the role of social media in a cultural context. It looks into Afghanistan as a case study to understand if social media have dismantled or challenged culturally sensitive and socially dominant norms—taboos. Afghanistan may have numerous taboos as a traditional and conservative society; we have considered women’s dressing—precisely showing off their face—in public for this study. A recent survey shows that burka is the most popular and chosen dress in the country. Social media as a platform have been used for voicing concerns and challenging the status quo. However, a question remains: to what extent, if any, this platform contributed to dismantling the status quo. This chapter tries to answer this question based on questionnaires distributed to Afghan female online bloggers. After applying the frequencies function of SPSS, the result reveals minor, chiefly attitudinal changes among female netizens. The socio-cultural aspect and why the status quo remains unchanged, and why the minor change is significant are discussed.

The mismanagement of the diversity and accompanied interventionist arrangements in Nigeria has resulted in a series of inter-ethnic and ethnoreligious violence that have threatened the nation’s unity. In each of these conflicts, all sides (antagonists and protagonists) usually struggle for media space to influence public opinion, build support, mobilize people, and influence public policy. Here, the media have been significant in the framing of these conflicts. Against this background, this chapter, anchored on the social responsibility and development media theories, examines the implications of the intersectionality of ethnicity, cultural, linguistic, religious, and political diversity on human capital development (H.C.D.) in Nigeria. Also, it explores how the media have professionally operated within the complex plural-ethnic configuration arrangement without taking sides with any groups or contravening the law. Using secondary data, government statistics gleaned from the Central Bank, media, and other agencies, the study reveals that two prominent ethnic groups (Hausa and Yoruba) have been in control of the central government. Hence, the lopsided application of affirmative action policies like the Quota System, Catchment Area, and Federal Character principles. The ethnic hegemony resulting from the above is also responsible for a series of crises that have threatened Nigeria’s corporate existence and developmental efforts since its independence in 1960. In conclusion, the study establishes that the Nigerian media find reporting affirmative action policies and inter-ethnic conflicts very problematic (due to ethnic connections, ownership influence, as well as political and religious affiliations) as they attempt to differentiate between genuine concerns about deficiencies in national policy implementation and self-serving ethnic agendas.

While mostly perceived as humorous and sometimes even disturbing, memes are not just trivial and insignificant humor as ordinary laymen’s perception. This chapter focuses on the motivations behind using image-macro memes in intragroup communication on social media and explores how young Vietnamese people construct and perform their cultural identity by using memes in online group chats. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with four university-age Vietnamese on meme sharing and their meanings/intentions behind this practice. The authors use thematic content analysis of the interview data and semiotic analysis of the memes to identify how Vietnamese cultural identity is produced, transformed, maintained, and compromised. Findings indicate that besides the banality of everyday humor, memes help express participants’ common personal issues, facilitate their political and civic engagement, and enable Vietnamese youth to appropriate global cultural resources to negotiate and perform their cultural identity creatively.

This chapter aims to examine the role of social media in building cosmopolitan dispositions of individuals living across borders by comparing the experiences of migrants’ communities in London and São Paulo. These two cities represent the contrasts between one global city in the Global North, London, and one in the Global South, São Paulo. Specifically, it exposes how social media enables cosmopolitan dispositions for migrant communities in the two cities.

This chapter presents case studies to examine how American companies consolidate their foothold in China through brand building among the younger generation, deploying mobile marketing strategies and popular culture appeals such as influencer power, digital reward programs, and promotion campaigns highlighting authentic, unique experiences. Specifically, it analyzes the strategies of KFC China and Airbnb China, representing pioneer transnational companies and latecomers to the country, respectively. It illustrates their varied marketing approaches to build brand loyalty among smartphone-guided young consumers, seeking to cultivate their identities and follow new trends simultaneously. This chapter discusses how global trends of consumer culture and consumption practices are mediated by emerging social media communities and national political and socioeconomic factors.

Networked communities are frantically replacing traditional community networks in every corner of the world. The research collected in this book reveals differences in the operation of media products and tools worldwide. For example, the way the media operates in the Southern Hemisphere has more implications for business growth than in the Northern Hemisphere. Indeed, such themes as media representations, North Digital, public cultures and the Global North, social media and ethnic identities negotiated, media representations in Global South, geopolitics and cyber-mediated communication initiatives as tools of ethnicity and diversity, media representations, North Digital Public Cultures and the Global North, social networking, ethnolinguistic connotations, and interpretations of identity are among the factors responsible for compromising ethnic, individual, and national identities. This chapter reviews the content of research and case studies. Elsewhere, we have learned of the power and ubiquity of the Internet and how ICTs transform culture’s meanings in the contemporary world with implications for mental health and illness (Barak, A., Psychological aspects of cyberspace: Theory, research, applications. Cambridge University Press, 2008; Silver, D., & Massanari, A., Critical cyberculture studies. New York University Press, 2006). What next?