Full Description
Media Realities is an intellectual intervention into today's most urgent debates about truth, perception, and power.
Including essays by journalists, artists, philosophers, and theorists, this interdisciplinary volume exposes how mass media—old and new—shape not just what we know, but what we believe to be real. From Ukraine to China to Africa, from journalism to art to propaganda, this book asks: Who gets to define reality—and who gets left out?
Edited by scholars based in China, it challenges dominant Western portrayals of global politics and gives voice to perspectives too often dismissed or discredited. Contributions from the Global South, China, Germany, and beyond confront a simple truth: we don't all see the same world, and the media don't just reflect society—they perform it. Media Realities is not just a book about media. It is a book about reality itself—and how it is made, sold, and believed.
With contributors from across the fields of media, sociology, journalism, philosophy, political theory, and art, this volume will appeal to scholars and upper-level students with interests in the sociology of media and global political dynamics.
Contents
1. The West is the East of the East 2. This Side of Good and Evil: Towards a Sociology of War 3. The Cat of Borodjanka: An Attempt at Media's Real Symbol in War 4. Media and Reality. Luhmannian Perspectives on Identity, Objectivity and Truth 5. Ecological Communication Revisited: Unveiling the Role of Media in Luhmann's Systems Theory 6. The End Game of Media Realities? Some loosely connected considerations 7. From Tabloid Sensations to Political Battleground The Rise and Fall of Lai's Media Empire 8. China Different 9. "This is China!" - The Story That Sells The Politics of Rebranding National Images in the News Media 10. Western Media Unmasked - Biases, Perversions, Hypocrisies and Harm 11. East vs. West Soft Power Tussles Understanding the Co-Construction of Media Realities in Sino-African Relations 12. Shifting Realities in Development and Social Change Theories The Role and Place of Media and Communication 13. From the Soil "Return to Dust" 14. "Solo Sunny" A Story of Solitude 15. The 2nd Interrogation 16. A New "Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere"? Seven Theses against the Widespread Assumption of an All-Powerful Internet 17. Concealment and Freedom A Study of Youth Self-Empowerment through Pseudo-Anonymity in the Douban Momo Group 18. The Evolution and Logic of China's Propaganda Model in a Global Context 19. Domestic Propaganda in the People's Republic of China 20. The Hegemony of Linguistic Landscape Mediated Communities and Ideological Influence 21. Cute Authoritarianism
