Road to international publications: an empirical study of Chinese communication scholars

ABSTRACT

This paper examines factors motivating Chinese communication scholars to publish in international journals and how these factors shape their knowledge production. We also investigate these scholars’ treatment of particularity, which is central to debates on Asian approaches to communication scholarship. Based on in-depth interviews with 22 Chinese communication scholars, this study finds that Chinese scholars choose to publish overseas both as a result of institutional incentives and an attempt to relieve themselves from institutional and sociopolitical constraints in China. While promoting international publications, these institutional and sociopolitical factors also markedly influence the knowledge production process, leading to the segregation of international and local knowledge production; scholars’ active self-censorship; and their efforts to subject to perceived international biases. The study also demonstrates that while adopting an eclectic and pragmatic attitude toward particularity, Chinese communication scholars are generally cautious of advocating particularity. The attitudinal and behavioral eclecticism and institutional and sociopolitical constraints jointly result in a fragmented particularity in the international publication of Chinese communication scholars. The findings’ implications for Asian approaches to communication studies are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• International publication
• institutional constraints
• particularity
• Asian approaches to communication
• Chinese communication studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Hepeng Jia is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and guest research fellow in the Center for Internet and Governance, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. He was former editor-in-chief of Science News Magazine of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include science and risk communication, sociology of science and studies on communication scholarship.

Weishan Miao (Ph.D., Tsinghua University) is an assistant professor in the Institute of Journalism and Communication Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China. His research focuses on the interaction between media, politics and social change in China.

Zhi'an Zhang (Ph.D., Fudan University) is a professor and dean in the School of Communication and Design at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. His research interests include media sociology, investigative journalism and Internet governance.

Yanhui Cao is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Communication and Design at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. Her research interests include political communication and new media studies.

ORCID

Hepeng Jia http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8681-394X

Notes

1. Hereafter we refer to communication scholars who are currently employed full time in mainland China as ‘Chinese communication scholars’ or ‘Chinese scholars’ unless overseas Chinese researchers, such as those from Hong Kong and Macao, are involved. This paper largely refrains from discussing international publications by scholars based in Hong Kong and Macao due to the different academic systems in operation there. Note, however, that Web of Science’s classification of ‘China’ does include Hong Kong and Macao.