China Media Centre

RCUK Academic Fellow, China Media Centre
E-mail: X.Xin1@westminster.ac.uk

Biography

Dr Xin began her RCUK Fellowship in Chinese media and culture, and their relationship to the wider world in 2006. She also teaches graduates and undergraduates in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of the University of Westminster. Xin is an Associate of the Higher Education Academy and holds the Postgraduate Certificate of Special Study in Supporting Learning.

Xin has just won a prestigious UK-China Fellowship for Excellence 2008-2009 and will spend four months in early 2009 at Communication University of China (CUC), Beijing. She will work closely with Dr Hu Zhengrong, China’s distinguished communications scholar, the director of the National Center for Radio & TV Studies (NCRTS) and a professor of CUC, for advancing her research on China’s media and cultural influence on the wider world. Xin will also play a leading role in enhancing research collaboration between CAMRI and NCRTS in the field.

Xin obtained her PhD in Media and Communication in 2006 and her MA in Journalism (international) in 2003, both from Westminster. She received her BA in Russian Language in Beijing in 1994. Before starting her academic career in London, Xin worked as a journalist in Beijing for several years and spent a year (1999-2000) as a visiting research fellow in Moscow. From January to May 2008, she was a visiting scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Centre of East Asian Studies of the University of Pennsylvania.

Xin is a member of the editorial board of the journal Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (WPCC), where she edited the issue Media in China, and a member of the editorial board of Interactions: Studies in Communications & Culture (Intellect, forthcoming, 2009)

Research Statement

Xin has completed two book projects, the first of which examines the impact of marketization and globalization on Chinese media institutions in general, and the national news agency, Xinhua, in particular. This project builds on and expands her doctoral research into Xinhua. The second project contextualizes the impact of China’s rise from communication, cultural and public diplomacy perspectives. It focuses on the most recent cultural initiative – Confucius Institutes based in the US and the UK as well as the international expansion of the most influential Chinese national media organizations, such as CCTV, China Radio International, China Daily, Xinhua News Agency and Shanghai Media Group. The research outcomes will include two monographs: “How the Market is Changing China’s News?” and “Enter the Dragon: China Presents itself to the World”.

Currently, Dr Xin is developing three new collaborative research projects: (1) the project about “New Media Politics in Mainland China and Their Impact upon Journalistic Practices” (in collaboration with Dr Anthony Fung of the Chinese University of Hong Kong). A grant proposal based on it has been submitted to ESRC in March 2008. The outcome is pending. (2) Comparing media systems and journalistic practices of China, Russia and Brazil. (3) To what extent have new communication technologies, such as mobile phones and the web 2.0 technology, changed the way in which ‘politically sensitive’ news is produced and transmitted in China? For the latter two projects, potential research collaborators are welcome.

Research interests

Media, culture and society in transitional societies, particularly in China and Russia; international communication; impact of marketization and globalization on media institutions; impact of new technology on journalistic practices, journalism ethics; propaganda, public diplomacy and international relations.

Selected publications

Xin, X. (2008) Structural Change and its Impact upon Journalistic Practices: Xinhua News Agency in the Early 2000s, Journalism Practice, 2(1): 46-63.

Xin, X. (2008) Research into Chinese Media Organizations: The Case of Xinhua Shanghai Bureau, Javnost – The Public, 15(5): 39-56.

Xin, X. (2007) How to Do Fieldwork? In Nico Carpentier, et al (eds) Media Technologies and Democracy in an Enlarged Europe. The intellectual work of the 2007 European media and communication doctoral summer school. Tartu: University of Tartu Press.

The whole publication can be downloaded from the Summer School website.

Xin, X. (2006) ‘A Developing Market in News: Xinhua News Agency and Chinese Newspapers’, Media, Culture & Society, 28(1): 45-66.

Xin, X. (2006) ‘Xinhua News Agency and Globalization: Negotiating between the Global, the Local and the National’, in Boyd-Barrett, O. (ed.) Communications Media, Globalization and Empire, pp.111-128, Eastleigh, UK: John Libbey.

Xin, X. (2006) ‘Editorial’ in the issue Media in China, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 3(1): 1-10.

de Burgh, H. and Xin, X. (2006) ‘News Probe: What Does It Tell US about Chinese Journalism Today?’, Medien Journal, ‘Media, Culture and Modernization in China’ (double issue), 2/3: 52-66.

Selected conference papers and presentations

(2008) ‘Xinhua News Agency’s Presence in Africa’, CAMRI-CMC round-table conference on China in Africa: What does it mean for the media? 17 September, London. (See attached PowerPoint presentation)

(2008) (Co-authored with Christopher J. Finlay) ‘Soft Power and the Management of Nationalism at the Beijing Games’, SOAS workshop on Documenting the Beijing Olympics, 12 September, London.

(2008) ‘“Exporting” Chinese Media and Culture in the Age of Globalisation’, IAMCR conference, 20-25 July, Stockholm.

(2008) ‘Confucius Institutes: Their Role, Activities and Implications’, China Media Centre conference, 12 June, University of Westminster, London.

(2008) ‘Chinese Media and Beijing Olympics’, presented at the workshop for high school students organized by the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, 1 May, Philadelphia, USA.

(2008) ‘How is the Market Changing China’s News in the Age of Globalization? The Case of Xinhua News Agency’, presented at the university-wide forum, 11 February, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, USA.

(2008) ‘Investigative Journalism, Citizen Journalism and Social Justice’, presented at the symposium ‘Towards a Harmonious Information Society in China? Technology, Tensions and Observations’, 25 January, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.

(2007) ‘Positioning Chinese Media Studies’, presented at the conference ‘Media Studies and Cultural Studies in Arab Higher Education: Mapping the Field’, 4-5 September, University of Westminster, London.

(2007) ‘How to Do Fieldwork?’ Workshop delivered for the PhD students at the European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School, 19-31 August, Tartu, Estonia.

(2007) ‘Internationalization of Chinese Media under the “Going Out” Strategy’, presented at the QUT-CMC Conference, 4-5 July, Brisbane, Australia.

(2007) ‘From Communist Propaganda Machine to Global News Agency? Xinhua 1980-2005’, presented at the ICA 2007 Preconference ‘Methodologies of Comparative Research in a Global Sphere’, 23-24 May, San Francisco, USA.

(2007) ‘Structural Change at Local Level and its Impact upon Journalistic Practices: Xinhua News Agency 1980-2005’, presented at the ICA 2007 conference (Journalism studies division), 24-28 May, San Francisco, USA.

(2007) ‘Understanding the Complexity of Journalistic Practices: the Case of China’, presented at the symposium ‘Minding the Gap”: Reflections on Media Practice and Theory. Postgraduate & Early Career Researchers Training Day’, 12 May, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, UK.

(2007) ‘Chinese Media after the Country’s Accession to the WTO’, presented at the conference ‘Defining the Field: Themes in Contemporary China Studies’, 12–15 April, CRASSH, University of Cambridge, UK.

(2006) ‘News and Sovereignty: from National to International’, presented at the CMC conference ‘Modernization, Modernity and the Media in China’, 15-16 June, London.

(2005) ‘Rethinking of Implications of Political Economy of Media: the Case of Mainland China’, presented at the IAMCR conference, 26-29 July, Taipei.

(2004) ‘Exploring the Impact of SARS on Chinese Journalists and the Media Ecology’, presented at the conference ‘Epidemics and Transborder Violence: Communication and Globalization under a Different Light’, 17-18 December, Hong Kong.

(2004) ‘The Transition from ‘Bi-directional Dependency’ to Agency-client Relationship between News Agencies and Newspapers: The Case of China’, presented at the conference ‘Transnational Media Corporations and National Media Systems: China after Entry into the WTO’, 17-21 May, Bellagio.

Funding Awards

UK-China Fellowship for Excellence (2008-2009)

RCUK Fellowship (2006-2011)

British Academy Small Research Grant (2007-2008)

UCCL Research Grant (2007-2008)

British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (2007)

CAMRI Scholarship (2003-2006)

Teaching in the Autumn term 2008:

MA in Communication

2COM7H1.1 Theories of Communication (led by Colin Sparks)

MA in Journalism (International)

2MJI 701 Issues in Journalism, Human Rights, Ethics and Democracy (led by Colin Sparks)

PhD Supervision

Yuan Yan (co-supervised with Dr. Roza Tsagarousianou).  Yuan is working on a research project on the identity construction of rural migrants in China and media consumption