.: Research Publications

As a multi-disciplinary department, CNM faculty have published articles on a range of topics in relation to the media, information and communications and science and technology in a wide variety of international journals. They have also presented papers at international conferences around the world. Abstracts from various articles and conference papers on different themes are provided here. For further information on specific articles, do click on the individual faculty member’s pages:

• Communication and Culture
• Computer Mediated Communication
• E-commerce
• Information society
• New media and social change
• Policy and governance
• Political Economy of the Media
• Public perceptions of science, technology and risk

Shim, D. (1998) From Yellow Peril through Model Minority to Renewed Yellow Peril (1998). Journal of Communication Inquiry, 22 (4), 385-409.

ABSTRACT: Why have Asian Americans recently been depicted as villains in films? Why were Korean Americans depicted mainly as merciless gun-toting vigilante shopkeepers in the Los Angeles riot news? These initial questions led me to pursue this study. In a time when Asian Americans are more and more aware of their portrayals in white-dominated mass media, one is led to ask where these stereotypes came from. To have a deeper understanding of those current stereotypes, this study of the history of Asian stereotypes in the media will show how they have been controlled by the ruling bloc in this society.

Shim, D. (forthcoming) Hybridity and the Rise of the Korean Media in Asia.
Media, Culture & Society.

ABSTRACT: What have recently developed in East and Southeast Asian media markets provide an opportunity to revisit the common assumption of media globalization. A newly-coined phrase Korean wave, which refers to the Korean media culture enjoying popularity across East and Southeast Asia, is a metaphor for thinking about this recent regional media development. This paper, by examining the recent big leap of the Korean media industries, argues that the U.S. dominance thesis of the globalization is not entirely justified. Although popular entertainment forms such as film and television are Western invention, Koreans have provided their own twists to the media by blending indigenous characteristics and adding their unique flourishes in often innovative ways.

Cho, H., Stefanone, M., and Gay, G. (2002). Social information sharing in a CSCL community. In Proceedings of 2002 ACM CSCL Conference, pp.43-53. Lawrence Elbaum Associates. Boulder, USA. Best Paper Award.

ABSTRACT: This study is designed to clarify important features of social network analysis for analyzing community-based activities in a CSCL setting. The theoretical and methodological background is social/communication network analysis, which is employed to identify and understand students’ communication and interaction patterns when collaborating through wireless computer networking tools. Thirty-two students were given high-end laptops with access to the wireless Internet, and their use of and communicative patterns via these systems were gathered through a proxy server. Findings show that social influences, in the form of network prestige effects, strongly affected the likelihood and the extent to which information posted in the CSCL environment was shared by peers in this learning community.

Lee, J. and Cho, H. (forthcoming). Applying Network Analysis to the Analysis of Web Traffic. In Proceedings of 2004 WWWC Conference.

ABSTRACT: This study tests the utility of social network analysis to examine roles and positions of Web sites in user click-stream networks. We attempted to visualize how Web sites were connected to each other by user click-streams using network analysis. Some important structural properties of Web sites acquired from network analysis were discussed. Using network analysis, we were able to explain how males and females formed distinctive Web surfing patterns.

Lee, J., Cho, H., Gay, G., Davidson, B., and Ingraffea, T. (2003). Technology acceptance and social networks in distance learning, Educational Technology & Society, 6(2), 50-62.

ABSTRACT: This study is based on a project where a new collaboration technology system was developed and introduced to a distance learning class. The system was an integration of a web-based communication portal for a distributed collaborative engineering design class. We examined students’ attitudes toward the new technology with two different approaches. First, we utilized the technology acceptance model to investigate the attitude formation process. Then, to investigate how attitudes changed over time, we applied social information processing model using social network analysis method. Using the technology acceptance model, we were able to examine how students’ initial expectation affected the perceptions of, attitudes toward, and use of the system. With social network analysis, we found that one’s attitude change was significantly influenced by other students’ attitude changes. We discussed the uniqueness of distance learning environments in the context of social influence research and how studies of distance learning could contribute to the research on the social influence of technology use.

Lim, S. S. (2002) “The Self-Confrontation Interview: Enhancing our Understanding of Human Factors in Web-based Interaction”, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, August: 162-173. Full text.

ABSTRACT: An in-depth understanding of human factors in web-based interaction requires a methodology which enables researchers to chart online actions, understand the cognitive processes guiding these actions and the mental dispositions governing them. In this regard, the self-confrontation interview is an extremely effective method. In this article, the self-confrontation interview method, its history, design and execution are explained. This method was utilised in a study on online shopping behaviour. Selected findings from this study are analysed using theoretical precepts from consumer psychology and action psychology. Design principles which will enhance the usability of online store interfaces are proposed based on these findings. The article concludes with an assessment of the strengths and limitations of the self-confrontation interview method and its efficacy vis a vis other methods of assessing website usability.

Lim, S. S. (2002) “The experiential dimensions of online shopping: An ethnographic analysis of online store websites”, Asian Journal of Communication, 12 (2): 79-99.

ABSTRACT: While shopping is a practical act of purchasing products and services, it is also recognised as a recreational activity with experiential dimensions. Online shopping is no exception. This study focuses on the experiential dimensions of online shopping by conducting an ethnographic analysis of online store websites to identify website features which can provide online shoppers with sensory stimulation and social gains and invoke affective responses. Websites of four product and service categories will be studied - books, CDs, travel-related services and apparel. The findings suggest that some website features have potential for developing parasocial relationships between online shoppers and online stores and for heightening consumer affect and fostering store loyalty.

Rivera, M., Hichang Cho and S. S. Lim, Online Privacy: Consumers’ Concerns and Policy Implications for E-commerce. Presented at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation E-commerce Steering Committee Meeting, February 26-27, 2004, Santiago Chile.

ABSTRACT: Many countries in Asia are full participants of the information revolution. Korea is the number one country in the world in terms of broadband connectivity, while India is a leading producer of software. Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, to name the most important ones, are at the same level or way ahead of many Western countries in terms of Internet diffusion, wireless infrastructure, and IT connectivity. But while e-commerce is flourishing in some Western countries, Asia seems to be lagging behind with less than 10% of the projected hypergrowth between 2000 and 2004 coming from business to consumer e-commerce (Meehan 2000). In some Asian countries the issue may actually boil down to poor infrastructure or the lack of adequate regulatory initiatives, but the truth is that scholars know very little about the attitudes, perceptions and concerns that Asian online users have about online privacy and their impact on e-commerce. Thus, our study is an attempt to shed some light on the concerns of the heretofore neglected Asian online consumer and compare their concerns with those of “Western” consumers in the U.S. and Australia.

The study sought to answer the following questions:

1. What factors affect privacy concerns among online consumers in Sydney, Singapore, Seoul and New York?
2. What are the attitudes of online consumers in Sydney, Singapore, Seoul and New York about providing personal information online and how they feel about the information gathering practices of most online vendors/commercial websites?
3. What types of privacy protection practices do online consumers in Sydney, Singapore, Seoul and New York engage in? And,
4. What are the attitudes of online consumers in Sydney, Singapore, Seoul and New York about the need for laws protecting personal information?

Lim, S. S. and Tan, Y. L. (2003) “Old People and New Media in Wired Societies: Exploring the Socio-Digital Divide in Singapore”, Media Asia, 30(2) : 95 – 102.

ABSTRACT: Singapore is often touted as a highly wired society, where Internet and mobile phone penetration ranks amongst the highest in the world. Yet, there still exists in Singapore a ‘socio-digital divide’ which refers not to the conventional digital divide caused by inequalities in access to ICTs. Instead, it refers to a socially-charged digital divide within the family unit, where older family members suffer from social exclusion due to their unfamiliarity with newer technologies. This study found that traditional family relations have been strained by the adoption of newer ICTs, as a result of which inter-generational communication is hampered and older members of the household find themselves increasingly alienated.

Rivera, M. and P. H. Ang (2003) Effective Regulators: A Response to the International Telecommunication Union’s Case Study on Singapore. Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal, 4(1), Spring 2003. Full Text

Sriramesh K and Rivera, M. (2004) Corporatism and Communitarianism as Environments for E-governance: The Case of Singapore. Presented to the International Division, 2004 Broadcast Education Association Convention, Las Vegas, Nevada, April. (Second Place Award, Debut Category).

ABSTRACT: This paper seeks to assess the development and current structure of e-governance in Singapore. In conducting this analysis, the paper will focus on two government initiatives that have contributed significantly to the establishment and growth of e-governance in the country. Singapore 21, which began in 1999, has a primary aim of promoting several core values that would help maintain the city-state’s prosperity and global competitiveness. Reinventing Singapore, introduced in February 2002, seeks to promote a more active citizenry. In addition, the paper borrows the concept of symmetrical and asymmetrical communication from public relations and communication management literature to offer a critique of these initiatives and links the government initiatives with two theoretical concepts—corporatism and communitarianism.

Shim, D. (2002) South Korean media industry in the 1990s and the economic crisis. Prometheus, 20 (4), 337-350. Abstract

ABSTRACT: The Korean economy in the 1990s is characterized by the following. First, liberalization of financial markets and foreign trade. Second, promotion of the information technology and communications sector. This is exemplified by the fact that large South Korean family-owned conglomerates, or chaebol, have massive investment in the media and entertainment industries. By examining chaebol’s business practices in the film industry, this paper finds a clue to understanding the Korean economic crisis in the late 1990s.

Lim, S.S. and Chung, L.Y. (2004) "The Dance of Life (Digital Remix) - The Impact of Mobile Communication on Time Use", Media Asia, 31(1):37-43

ABSTRACT: This paper studies how the time perceptions and lifestyles of Singaporeans have been influenced by the growing ubiquity of the mobile phone. It also examines the impact of mobile communication on the norms and attitudes pertaining to time management and social interaction in Singapore . In so doing, this paper explores the continued relevance of the monochronic/ polychronic conception of time proposed in Edward Hall's The Dance of Life (1983). It suggests that a hybrid, "mobilechronic" temporality appears to be emerging, where people in predominantly monochronic cultures are engaging in more polychronic behaviour facilitated by mobile communication, and have to nimbly navigate between two temporal modes.

Scherer, C. W., and Cho. H. (2003). Testing social network contagion theory of risk perception. Risk Analysis. 23 (2), 261-267.

ABSTRACT: Risk perceptions have to a great extent been studied exclusively as an individual cognitive mechanism in which individuals collect, process and form perceptions of risk as atomized units unconnected to a social system. Competing and complementary theories may also explain risk perceptions, knowledge and perhaps risk related behaviours using a very different set of mechanisms. One such approach is based on a contagion theory or convergence model of communication. This approach, emerging largely from network studies in organizations, suggests that it is the relational aspects of individuals and the resulting networks and self organizing systems which should be the units of analysis rather than the individuals and their isolated cognitive structures and processes. These social units, it is argued, behave as attitude, knowledge or behavioural structures. The study reported in this paper tests one aspect of this theoretical perspective. The central hypothesis proposes the existence of risk perception networks--relational groupings of individuals who share similar risk perceptions. To test this idea, data were collected from individuals involved in a community environmental conflict over a hazardous waste site cleanup. The statistical analysis used a matrix of relational social linkages to compare with a matrix of individual risk perceptions. The analysis confirmed the hypothesis suggesting that the alternative theory of social contagion needs to be investigated further. The findings suggest that particularly in environmental risk conflicts, the relational strengths or cohesiveness of the community may play an important role in focusing community risk perceptions and reactions.

Lim, S. S. (2002) “The role of the media in shaping public debate on science and technology”. In Proceedings of the SEAFASE Science and Technology: Issues for the Society Seminar, pp. 175-182. French Embassy, Singapore

ABSTRACT: In this era of mediated communications, issues of public interest are articulated and discussed in a host of print, broadcast and electronic media. Given the concurrent opportunities and risks which scientific and technological advancements bring, new developments in science and technology invariably arouse public interest. This paper analyses the various approaches which news media employ in presenting issues on science and technology and assesses the role which the media play in shaping public debate on this issue.