University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

The rapid penetration of the Internet and the prevalence of various social media facilitated by new technologies provide new opportunities for how marketing techniques are developed and refined. The creation of viral marketing has been driven by technological innovations and cultural changes. Responding to marketing trends and catering to consumers’ psychological demands and behavioral changes, viral marketing represents the latest online customer-centric marketing (Shukla, 2010). Extending the advertising effects of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication and Internet marketing, viral marketing has demonstrated considerable success and utility in a promotional phase and development process of a product and/or service. This study intends to illustrate the benefits and challenges of viral marketing. The effects and concerns with the adoption of viral marketing are reinforced by previous research and findings from marketer and consumer focus groups. This thesis will contribute to building a theoretical and empirical foundation for viral marketing research and professional practice.

Even with its opposition to “fast” and “globalization,” the Slow Food movement has embraced new media and speed to disseminate information to a worldwide audience. The organization’s use of new and social media is the focus of this ethnographic study to examine the online discourse of the movement through the theoretical lens of international political economy of media and globalization theory. Online interviews via social media and supplemental textual analysis of Slow Food-related online discourse reveals themes concerning time, education and community and shows that participation in the dialogic discussion surrounding Slow Food online varies widely across groups and new media platforms.

Facebook’s status as the world’s largest social networking platform is well documented. However, studies focusing on Facebook are largely limited to how individuals and businesses use the platform and not on how Facebook expands globally and affects markets and competition in foreign countries. Although international communication scholars have scrutinized the international expansion of major media corporations like Time Warner, Disney and News Corp., analysis on Facebook remains scarce. This thesis seeks to fill in the gap in scholarly research by conducting a meso-level (i.e. organizational level) analysis of Facebook’s expansion into developing countries through the theoretical lens of networks. The network perspective was chosen because it has previously facilitated the most comprehensive analysis of the globalizing strategies of media corporations. This paper simultaneously serves as a test of the applicability of theories of networked globalization and the Network Society to the global expansion of ICTs, and in particular, social-networking websites.

This thesis explores ways evangelical Christian communicators remediate traditional ministry functions and community formation onto new media platforms. This exploration is framed by a discussion of literacy and digital composing reflecting Stuart Selber’s multiliteracy approach to teaching digital composition. The author positions evangelical churches’ approaches to texts, community, education, and communication as components of a distinct literacy that is often at odds with values, controls, and cultures found on the Internet and in new media. Discovering how church communicators use new media, how their education prepares them for effective digital communication, and how external sources, such as expert authors, aid the transition from print to new media helps us understand the gap between Selber’s ideal multiliteracy and the reality of new media literacy for this group. This also expands our understanding of digital composition, and the role it plays in both the classroom and in all students’ greater lives.

This thesis – Online Parody Videos and the Enactment of Cultural Citizenship – examines the enactment of the practice of cultural citizenship in new media contexts. Through a cultural study approach, it seeks to find how citizens enact the practices of cultural citizenship, participate in public deliberation, engage in politics and construct identities as citizens in an informal way through digital creativity. In this thesis, “JorKawTeun,” an online news parody program, is selected as a case study. The main research question is, “based on the case study of “JorKawTeun,” how are the practices of cultural citizenship and popularization of politics enacted through online parody videos in Thailand? Specifically, how is humor utilized in the videos, and what rhetorical strategies/tactics are used to make political points?” The theoretical framework is comprised of monitorial citizenship and cultural citizenship. In addition, the concept of “parody as genre” is also employed in order to be implemented in the analysis of the techniques used in the videos. The methodology is critical discourse analysis. The findings of the study reveal the complex and paradoxical dimensions of citizenship, the tendency towards individualized political participation, and the subversive potential of parody: a vernacular form of political communication that is remediated in a media convergence environment. Finally, the thesis aims at contributing to an understanding of the relationship between popular culture and politics in contemporary mediated contexts, as well as the rethinking of the notion of citizenship, political participation and civic engagement based on a culturally-oriented perspective.

Internet and mobile wireless as emerging content distribution platforms have not only redefined the traditional media market, but also influenced the business strategies of the transnational media corporations (TNMC) that are expanding their operations into the ¡§new-media¡¨ system in another country. The purpose of this study is to explore how global media move from the traditional television distribution channel to the Internet and mobile wireless platform in the country of China and what strategic patterns of alliance they engage to obtain sustainable competitive advantage. Applying a resource-based view (RBV) framework of analyzing strategy and employing a case study approach, this study investigates the formation and evolution of strategic alliances for the U.S.-based TNMCS in the marketplace of China and discusses how their resources were aligned with their local counterparts¡¦ resources in marketing their content products. The alliance involving Time Warner, News Corporation, Disney, and Viacom were examined. Cross-case analysis identified six alliance patterns, including the importance of content-distribution resource alignment, the acquisition of local knowledge resources, the strategic alliances between TNMCs, the decrease of equity-based alliances, the complementary role of property and knowledge resources, and the necessity of uniting resources that enable the local responsiveness of video-related products.