Observations in a number of developed countries have shown a stagnating or declining trend in the level of car use and sparked a heated debate on whether such trend would persist into the future. While arguments over the potential causes of this trend remain largely unsettled, the crucial implications of the long-term trends on the strategic development of transport infrastructure as well as the long-term planning schemes in the transportation sector are generally agreed upon. This study aims at providing evidence of the changing trends in an under-researched area with historically limited car dependence and distinct cultural and social characteristics through disaggregate analysis on several large-scale datasets. Three separate case studies were carried out to identify the changes in car ownership, activity-travel behavior, car use, and personal attitudes towards cars in different Chinese cities, namely Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Beijing. Statistical modeling approaches were applied for the disaggregate analysis at the household and individual levels. Findings in the case study of Hong Kong suggest that the level of car ownership and car use has shown indications of levelling-off and even a certain degree of decrease in the past decade, despite the low level of car dependence for the entirety of the city's history. Results in the case of Shenzhen, on the other hand, indicate a surging car ownership rate in recent years, which is in contrast with the situation in its neighboring city of Hong Kong. The interactions between built environment and travel behavior have also changed significantly in Shenzhen, a city undergoing rapid expansion. The third case study reports that the level of auto-mobility has increased significantly during the past decade in Shenzhen and all age groups and cohorts experienced similar uptrends in car ownership and car use. In addition, analysis on the dataset from Beijing suggests that young adults do not evaluate private cars and their functions as favorably as the middle-age adults. Findings in this study contribute to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on the recent changes in car ownership, activity-travel behavior, and attitudes towards private cars in the Chinese context. This study also highlights the importance to expand the range of research attention out of the developed and motorized countries in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics in travel behavior and auto-mobility around the world. Findings also have important policy implications in curbing auto-dependence in daily travel and planning and managing future transportation.

The advent of digital media has affected the nature of global communications, amplifying the interaction between populations and massively expanding the information load that an audience may be forced to consider. The Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) has proposed a digital strategy for the 2008 Olympics, which will open up a wide range of challenges for information gathering and dissemination. My research project has two related components: The first is an exegesis which sets the context for the project, identifies its main issues and presents a background research plan that, on the one hand, focuses on journalists and their likely orientations to a Digital Media Centre such as the one I propose, and, on the other, seeks to discover in other digital media centres the elements of best practice and innovation that might be adopted for Beijing. The second is a development project to explore and present innovation in Internet-based digital media operations, as exemplified by the challenges presented by the 2008 Olympic Games.

The advent of digital media has affected the nature of global communications, amplifying the interaction between populations and massively expanding the information load that an audience may be forced to consider. The Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) has proposed a digital strategy for the 2008 Olympics, which will open up a wide range of challenges for information gathering and dissemination. My research project has two related components: The first is an exegesis which sets the context for the project, identifies its main issues and presents a background research plan that, on the one hand, focuses on journalists and their likely orientations to a Digital Media Centre such as the one I propose, and, on the other, seeks to discover in other digital media centres the elements of best practice and innovation that might be adopted for Beijing. The second is a development project to explore and present innovation in Internet-based digital media operations, as exemplified by the challenges presented by the 2008 Olympic Games.

This dissertation explores the news making process at CCTV-9, the Beijing-based global English language service of China Central Television (CCTV). My interest in this topic was triggered by the strange manner in which so much debate about media reform in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) elides any real discussion of the contribution of journalists themselves to reform, which is almost invariably treated as something that happens to media from outside of, or regardless of, what journalists do. My aim in this research was to address this lapsus and foreground the work of journalists to show how it contributes to the changing institutional framework in which their work is embedded and therefore contributes to media reform. Drawing on ground-breaking work on bounded innovation and resistance by Pan Zhongdang and Lu Ye in this emerging field, I utilize concepts derived from their use of Michel de Certeau and discuss these concepts in light of the works of Antonio Gramsci, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault to show how journalists at CCTV-9 exercised control over their work, despite their function as mouthpieces of the news and publicity system operated by the Communist Party of China and PRC government. I am not suggesting that PRC journalists are dissidents. However, my research did suggest that the mundane practice of journalism, even in so constrained a media environment as that of the PRC news system, can alter the manner in which news is made and thereby contribute to media reform. Utilizing participant observation of the CCTV-9 newsroom in 2004-2005, interviews with a range of news makers, in-house documents and a survey of content, I construct a picture of news making at CCTV-9 that foregrounds what to more macro-oriented analyses of media reform in the PRC has remained inaccessible, the minutiae of everyday life in the newsroom, and the tiny, but not inconsequential changes brought about by the ordinary work of journalists. / text

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong Baptist University, 1998. / Thesis submitted to the Dept. of Government and International Studies. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-82).

Univ., Diss.--Hohenheim, 2003.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Also available in print.

The increasingly significant role played by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurship in national economies has attracted growing attention. Recent trends have increasingly emphasised the value of knowledge. The challenge within the 21st century is the importance of the productivity of service and knowledgeable workers, as well as strategic flexibility and innovation. It is suggested that high level of innovation, R&D and productivity are positively related. Technology-based SMEs are specifically selected as the object of this thesis since they exhibit most of the characteristics of the three terms, “SMEs”, “innovation” and “entrepreneurship”. SMEs may come across significant constraints because of their own limitations, such as financial constraints, human capital shortages, and weak market power. These constraints are even more serious for technology-based SMEs due to their industrial nature. As a consequence, technology-based SMEs tend to have a higher failure rate than non-tech SMEs and large firms. However, the benefits brought by them cannot be neglected. For example, the return of R&D on a social level is higher than the private level, which highlights the importance of technology-based SMEs for national development. Therefore, it motivates governments to increase support for technology-based SMEs. This thesis aims to examine the effectiveness of government policies on technology-based SMEs and entrepreneurship in Beijing, China. Some researchers have studied and examined the policies, but mainly focussed on the description of policy frameworks and policy dynamics. There is a lack of studies examining the effectiveness of policies from the perspective of entrepreneurs in this context. This thesis fills this gap. This thesis makes both a theoretical and methodological contribution to the entrepreneurship studies literature through the holistic case study approach. A mixed-method approach of document analysis, interview and a questionnaire are used to understand the interaction between policies and technology entrepreneurs. The key findings of this thesis are that policies have strong positive effects on the promotion of entrepreneurship and SMEs. But there are still some negative points when implementing policies, such as uneven filter criteria and supervision system between new and established firms.

viii, 89 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / The Olympics games are not only a sport but also a media event. In 2008, China hosted the Olympics Games for the first time. The coverage of the Beijing Olympics Games in the Chinese media can reflect the characteristics of media and societal development in today's China. The study examines qualitatively the use of frames in coverage of the Beijing Olympics Games in 11 dailies and 2 weeklies in China. Four new issue-specific frames are found in the Chinese newspapers. The use of the existing six generic and five issue-specific frames are discussed in the Chinese context. The study finds that the Chinese media get more freedom in some areas that do not have direct links with politics. In the areas related to politics, the government is still controlling the media. / Committee in Charge: Patricia Curtin, Chair; John Russial H. Leslie Steeves