Publications

Publication details [#63241]

Jia, Hepeng, Weishan Miao, Zhi'an Zhang and Yanhui Cao. 2017. Road to international publications: an empirical study of Chinese communication scholars. Asian Journal of Communication 27 (2) : 172–192.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Routledge

Annotation

This article explores factors motivating Chinese communication scholars to publish in international journals and how these factors mold their knowledge production. It also examines these scholars’ treatment of particularity, which is central to discussions on Asian approaches to communication scholarship. Based on in-depth interviews with 22 Chinese communication scholars, this inquiry finds that Chinese scholars choose to publish overseas both as a result of institutional incentives and an effort to relieve themselves from institutional and sociopolitical constraints in China. While fostering international publications, these institutional and sociopolitical factors also markedly affect 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 inquiry also shows that while adopting an eclectic and pragmatic attitude toward particularity, Chinese communication scholars are generally cautious of upholding 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 debated.