2013.5 Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Journal of Literature and Art Studies
Volume 3, Number 5, May 2013 (Serial Number 18)
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Publication Information: Journal of Literature and Art Studies is published monthly in hard copy (ISSN 2159-5836) and online (ISSN 2159-5844) by David Publishing Company located at 9460 Telstar Ave Suite 5, EL Monte, CA 91731, USA. Aims and Scope: Journal of Literature and Art Studies, a monthly professional academic journal, covers all sorts of researches on literature studies, art theory, appreciation of arts, culture and history of arts and other latest findings and achievements from experts and scholars all over the world. Editorial Board Members: Eric J. Abbey, Oakland Community College, USA Andrea Greenbaum, Barry University, USA Punam Madhok, East Carolina University, USA Carolina Conte, Jacksonville University, USA H. S. Komalesha, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India Mary Harden, Western Oregon University, USA Lisa Socrates, University of London, United Kingdom Herman Jiesamfoek, City University of New York, USA Maria OConnell, Texas Tech University, USA Manuscripts and correspondence are invited for publication. You can submit your papers via Web Submission, or E-mail to literature.art@davidpublishing.org, art.literature@yahoo.com. Submission guidelines and Web Submission system are available at http://www.davidpublishing.org, www.davidpublishing.com. Editorial Office: 9460 Telstar Ave Suite 5, EL Monte, CA 91731 Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 323-410-1082 Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457 E-mail: literature.art@davidpublishing.org, art.literature@yahoo.com Copyright2013 by David Publishing Company and individual contributors. All rights reserved. David Publishing Company holds the exclusive copyright of all the contents of this journal. In accordance with the international convention, no part of this journal may be reproduced or transmitted by any media or publishing organs (including various websites) without the written permission of the copyright holder. Otherwise, any conduct would be considered as the violation of the copyright. The contents of this journal are available for any citation, however, all the citations should be clearly indicated with the title of this journal, serial number and the name of the author. Abstracted/Indexed in: Database of EBSCO, Massachusetts, USA Chinese Database of CEPS, Airiti Inc. & OCLC Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, P.R.C. Ulrichs Periodicals Directory LLBA Database of ProQuest Summon Serials Solutions Subscription Information: Price (per year): Print $420 Online $300 Print and Online $560 David Publishing Company 9460 Telstar Ave Suite 5, EL Monte, CA 91731 Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 323-410-1082. Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457 E-mail: order@davidpublishing.com
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Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Volume 3, Number 5, May 2013 (Serial Number 18)
Contents
Art Studies
Educational Practices in the Model of Music Learning Theory of E. Edwin Gordon: An Observational Research Antonella Nuzzaci 263
Special Research
Empathic Design: Understanding User Experience Through Schema Changes and Innovative Design Shu-huei Wang, Shyh-huei Hwang, Ming-chyuan Ho The Lack of Afterlife and Its Effects on Chinese Economic Behavior ZHANG Qing-jin Adaptable Processing: Stage Development Dumitru Todoroi The Representation of Foreign Politics Through Media Prism: A Case Study of 2008 U.S. Presidential Election Campaign in Mainland Chinese Newspapers CUI Yan 312 305 288 278
Literary Criticism & Appreciation

Sartys Initiation in Faulkners Barn Burning LIU Ke-dong, LIN Shi-rong 327
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836 May 2013, Vol. 3, No. 5, 263-277
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PUBLISHING
Educational Practices in the Model of Music Learning Theory of E. Edwin Gordon: An Observational Research
Antonella Nuzzaci
University of LAquila, LAquila, Italy
This paper analyzes the supervision activity, to which educators and teachers enrolled with AIGAM (Gordon Italian Association for the Musical Learning) are subject to every year and intends to verify the application of those principles expressed in the learning model of the MLT (Music Learning Theory) developed by educational psychologist E. Edwin Gordon (1989, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2007) and promoted internationally by various institutions and organizations specifically accredited. It describes the influence of the videotaped supervision on the process, functions of monitoring, and evaluation of educational practices, starting with an empirical model that has guided the interventions in a study of supervision on training aimed at consolidating and developing professional skills in music education in early childhood. This paper sought to understand: the kind of practices, interactions, communications developing during an educational actions, the existence of a consistent relationship between the principles expressed in the MLT and their application, the type and benefits of supervision performed by of video recording on stakeholders in terms of change in professional behavior, and finally whether the active supervision could be comparable with other kinds of approaches. Keywords: music education, MLT (Music Learning Theory), empirical research in music education, observational tool
Introduction
The paper here proposed is about a study conducted on the educational practices during early childhood using the videotaping technique that assumes an evaluation function of the activities, actions, and practices, starting from a learning model deriving from the MLT (Music Learning Theory) developed by the developmental psychologist E. Edwin Gordon (1989, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2007), that has guided the interventions of educators and teachers registered to the AIGAM (Gordon Italian Association for the Musical Learning). This paper has analyzed the supervision activity to which professionals working in this field are subject to on a yearly basis through a direct and indirect observation that allow verifying the implementation of the general principles expressed into action by the MLT model, in order to understand: the kind of practices, the interactions, the level of connection with the proposed educational course, the existence of a coherent relationship between the MLT principles and their application, the type and advantages of the control effected on the subjects through videotaping in terms of professional behavior change, and finally the compatibility of the supervision compared with other types of approaches. This model is promoted worldwide by various institutions and organizations specifically accredited, even though it has been found that in those countries where Gordon associations or institutes do not carry out adequate
Antonella Nuzzaci, associate professor, Department of Human Sciences, University of LAquila.
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EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES IN THE MODEL OF MUSIC LEARNING THEORY
supervisions, the implementation of the gordonian requirements is not homogeneous: This is resulting in important differences in the musical education practices and in those realities, sometimes causing distortions of the original model. This is not happening in the Italian context where the straightforward and close collaboration between the educators management committee and the theorys author allows a continuous enrichment for the AIGAM Training School (Apostoli, 2008). And realizing the presence of different educational styles in applying the MLT in the USA and other European countries, it basically connected to the presence of the supervision activity or its absence, lead the AIGAM Management to propose a research which allows focusing on dimensions and problems of the same kind also in an Italian context. Observing and analyzing the supervision activities have offered the chance to verify the implementation of the general principles expressed in the MLT and expressed into the action. Far from being intended as way to control by the educators the conservation of a rigid model, the supervision should be seen as an action to promote each professionals growth and independence, as educator and musician. Therefore, trying to study this dimension within a precise interpretative model means understanding, in a comparative perspective, the variety of the methodological forms sustaining the educational proposals made starting from the same reference theory. Giving directions is important to understand and guide the education activity conducted by AIGAM in the best possible way, and to compare the use of the gordonian model by the different institutions and organizations accredited worldwide.
The Research on the Musical Educational Practices in the Early Childhood: Purposes and Methodology
Why and how to analyze the relationships and the educational-musical practices within the gordonian model and whose meanings should be attributed to them? This is the question from which we started when AIGAM had been requested pedagogical support to understand the interpretative system developed by the education psychologist E. Edwin Gordon in the MLT (Gordon, 2005, 2007) and its implementation in an Italian context (Apostoli, 2008, 2010). To adequately reply this question, it was necessary to carry out a research centered not only on the models theoretical principles, that is well known all over the world (Gordon is actually one of the main theoretical reference points within the musical learning psychology in the United States), but also especially on the meanings of practices, processes, actions, and connections developed around the MLT in our country and their implementation, in a period when they expand more and more in this field without precise directions. Such a study could not therefore avoid to consider the kind of education and supervision developed and prepared by AIGAM for its associates to build professional competences with the educational-musical field and to verify what kind of actions are carried out by each educator more or less in line with the MLT model. The continuous education activity that AIGAM provides for its associates, includes not only course, seminars, and laboratories, but also the participation to two supervision meetings for the first three years of their activity. The supervisions help educators and teachers to define their goals more clearly and their work modalities better responding to both addressees and gordonian principles, as well as increasing the efficacy of the interventions deepening specific aspects of the professionalism, e.g., the methodological competences. This contribution makes us consider the role that videotaped supervisions have had in the consideration of a training institution such as AIGAM and on the results and consequences of the educators training on the work conducted with children within a specific interpretational model. It certainly represents a further step towards the improvement of the educational practices which have given to the associations school important
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validations to positively re-orient their interventions, showing how it could be possible, even within new educational contexts, to find new research forms able to improve the quality of the interventions. The supervision in the MLT model is conceived as a way of improvement and not as an attempt to control or tie educators to rigid forms of action, supporting the growth and autonomy of every single professional in accordance with the peculiarities of his/her educational and musical professionalism. It indeed is characterized as a form of control of the supervisors interventions quality in respect to the educators activity, excluding any kind of sanction. The supervisor and the supervised group work together on common aims to be obtained through a transfer of competences, knowledges, and educational practices among the various subjects under supervision and those of other groups (Apostoli, 2010). Also, we expect that with supervisions, an osmotic process takes place such that the supervisor, following some educational practices puts to use spontaneously by a professional, acknowledges and shares them with the supervised present and the educators, intervening on some aspects regarding both the distribution modalities of the educational proposals and the quality of training. The research activity, of which we will analyze only some aspects here, has connoted itself as an instrument capable of supplying important indications to better adjust the further training activity developed by AIGAM. In this direction, the contribution offers an account of the main characteristics of the research, guidelines, and methodological criteria implemented in the videotaping, as well as of the main observational instrument created ad hoc to analyze the videos. Using the data coming mostly from a both direct and indirect observation of the supervision activity, the research has used videotaping of complete educators interventions in specific moments and educational contexts as the favored technique. Even if based on different levels of analysis and with the use on mixed techniques, it is aimed to study the fundamental effort to support the efficacy of the educators at work and the variations of their professional, personal, and working conditions through the various phases of their professional activity. It is widely known that educators and teachers do not necessarily learn through experience and their skills are not always gained in an incremental manner, i.e., they are exposed to a higher efficacy risk in the subsequent phases of their professional life and not only at the beginning; it is also known that the contexts of professional learning to whose educators working within training institutions or childhood organizations are particularly exposed to are, by definition, different for those working in the school, as teachers concentrate mainly on the basic literacy processes. The educators capacity to effectively employ their professional activity in these contexts is referred to their ability to manage positive and negative scenarios through different phases of their professionalism. The research takes into account the variety of contexts when focuses on the professional practice that, to be effective, must be designed in accordance with the contexts where it is expected to be carried out and recall the external scenarios that call it into discussion, in terms of responsibilities, resources, and main purposes. The videotaping procedures are allowed to measure the quality of the interactions produced between participants and addressees (children of 0-5 years old) of the educational action, both in contexts such as the childhood institutions and other informal situations, including small, family-like groups. Identifying the variety of contexts has been a focal point of the research, but also a critical one, that to be examined has requested a classification of the locations diversity and applications conditions of the method relative to MLT, also depending on the age of the interested subjects. Objectives and tasks of the research first of all considered three central routes:
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(1) The MLT theory by E. Edwin Gordon from the point of view of its constructions, i.e., the identification of the underlying interpretative model, its decentralization and explanation, centered on how to learn when apprehending music, based on a vast research corpus and experimentations carried out by the author and on a complete method for the musical teaching that is passing through the audiation concept, term created by the author and representing the main prerequisite of his theory; (2) The kind and role of the training offered by AIGAM, that most interests the associates (who they are, from where they come from, what education they have, what kind of educational path is proposed them, etc.); And (3) the function of the annual supervisions, i.e., of the control of the competences use by those who are musically trained by AIGAM and are evaluated every six months through videotaping on their implementation of the gordonian theory. Secondly, the objectives are to: (1) describe the profile of educational-musical actions system where the AIGAM educator works; (2) study the models concordance depending on its application; and (3) redefine the actions system depending on some quality descriptors. For this reason, the researchs goals had been: (1) verifying efficiency and efficacy of the interpretative model of the MLT actions system, in terms of relations, actions, procedures, instruments, and methodologies employed; (2) analyzing the forms and types of educational relations present in the MLT interpretational model; (3) identifying strengths and weaknesses of activity, communication, and educational relationship; (4) examining the validity of the conceptual apparatuses and principles within the action system adopted by MLT; and (5) defining the efficacy of the gordonian logic adopted through the identification of specific descriptors. The methodology used has therefore considered various levels of analysis at the same time: (1) the MLT; (2) the interventions on the education going on over the national territory; and (3) the sampling analysis of the visual material regarding the supervisions affected during the last five years by AIGAM. Main instruments used: (1) interviews; (2) observational grid; and (3) analysis instrument of the visual material. The videotaped supervision allowed to observe the level of comprehension of the interpretative model used, and it is for that reason that it has been conceived as a form of external evaluation. In line with what has been said so far, it has been employed in two different meanings: on one hand, as control of the perspective where the action is directed to, i.e., for the role that the expert guide (qualified) exercises on the less expert (supervised); on the other hand, as meta-perspective, where the supervisor helps the supervised to cover the distance between what he/she does and what should be done tracing, at the same time, new dimensions in the action (processing and reflecting with the supervisor and the internal or external group). It has been therefore intended as a real recognition process of the path started by the supervised with reference to the educational path, to facilitate the reflections strengthening. It seems actually that, exercising this function, i.e., combining practical execution and reflection, a professional competence develops cementing principles and practices and the explicit knowledge of the implicit knowledge pragmatics is structured. Therefore, the relationship between practice and supervision can be described as a potential dialectic tension among educational process, competence and sector of relevance, which may allow the educator to be an actor and to ponder with the supervisor about the meaning of being an educational-musical mediator in the early childhood. This is also due to the fact that the musical education in the pre-school phase is characterized by a high degree of complexity, not always attributable to linear strategies to solve the problems set by the context of action, but sometimes it assumes forms of integrated intervention making clearly possible the management of hindrances and difficulties. This requires a
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multidimensional approach to the educational action phenomenon and to the variety of possible solutions it implies. The supervision action through videotaping, in accordance with the models previsions would help sustain the professional and individual learning of the AIGAM educators during the different conditions and phases of the training process, as well as strengthening the diligence and efficacy of their interventions, allowing: (1) understanding the level of internal coherence of the model; (2) improving the internal coordination; (3) increasing the critical evaluation; (4) supporting the decision-making process; (5) delivering the feedback; (6) procuring a guidebook for the chosen model; (7) allowing the educator to extend the interventions inventory; (8) improving the interventions; and (9) stimulating the development of the supervised. The research showed that the supervisor behavior, intended to improve the musical intervention situations compared to the educational practices, is aimed to: (1) evaluate the nature of the performances; (2) evaluate first-hand observations; (3) use a positive approach from the point of view of the improvement of educators interventions efficacy in different contexts; (4) combine the measurement of progresses both of children and educators in the training and evaluative programs proposed by AIGAM; (5) maintain an evaluation intervention sufficiently flexible to satisfy the erratic conditions of the actions contexts; (6) consider the supervision as a fundamental action on the way to achieving the objectives and not for itself; (7) become familiar with specific educators and teachers abilities and backgrounds all over the national territory; (8) supply an immediate videorecording and allowing an accurate organization of the reflection to make it possible for educators and teachers to discuss and analyze the results both individually and collectively; (9) reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the performances and defining clear plans for correction and improvement; and (10) promote an environment where educators and teachers feel free in the educational offer to explore, experiment, and evaluate methods, methodologies, techniques, processes, and materials. The basic supervision principles make it possible to focus on all those elements intervening in the educational situation expected by the model: (1) improving the interventions; (2) allowing every educator to give tangible and objective foundations to the improvement; (3) helping the supervisor to sustain the supervised in undertaking self-evaluation forms and measures; (4) making it possible for the supervised to feel free to discuss problems and receive suggestions and for the supervisor to respect opinions and points of view of the educational group and the training-supervision staff; (5) promoting the use of specific methodologies and creating a satisfying environment; and (6) allowing the supervised to freely behave, opening up the planned interventions to individual initiatives and explorations within the usage contexts of the gordonian method.
The Role of Videotaped Supervision Technique

It is now necessary to describe and examine the importance assumed by the videotaped supervision through control and evaluation process in the educational practices, starting from a clear, empirically supported model that has guided the supervision interventions in a research conducted on training actions aimed to develop professional competences in the field of early childhood musical education (Nuzzaci, 2010, 2012a; Nuzzaci & Pagannone, 2008). Videotaping is one of the most common ways to supervise (Romans, Boswell, Carlozzi, & Ferguson, 1995), even if not always the available literature gives rigorous guidelines to those asked to examine the conceptualization and use modalities for the videotapes in this field. Historically, 1940 has seen the use of videotaping in the psychotherapy training (Schnarch, 1981), becoming later on (during the 1960s) a standard practice progressively introduced in the most part of the educational programs (Glatthorn, 1997) adopted in several countries, both in Europe and elsewhere, and subsequently
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become a popular research instrument (Gelso, 1974). The videotaping capacity is widened thanks to the video function and it has been more and more present in studies about teachers training (Boudreau, 1999; Carr, Reeves, Meditz, & Wyatt, 1999) developing in relation with tutoring and conducts, behaviors and attitudes revision, and the general improvement of the educational practices (Beach & Reinhartz, 1989). Nevertheless, the examination of the current literature discloses the existence of specific tendencies about how to use this technique for the methodological point of view in the supervision activities, because the current technologies allow saving time and improving methods and instruments to be adopted in the teachers training, especially during the initial phase where they learn to teach. In recent years, the videotaped supervision in education field has been examined in a systematic way (Ebmeier, 2003), also from an empirical point of view, even though it is clear that, as in all the techniques used for research reasons and implying a specific contextualization and significance of the scientific research to be carried out, there are advantages and disadvantages using it. Apart the specific methodological implications of it, we should bear in mind that first of all it is: (1) a means for the collection of information, memorization, and diffusion; (2) a means to work on the developing and professional sense of self; (3) an instrument to boost the self-analysis processes of those undergoing training; (4) a way to precisely understand, analyze, and evaluate conducts, behaviors, etc., of experts and non-experts; (5) a way for non-experts and experts to relive and revisit the interventions and the educational action; (6) a way to understand contexts, situations, and educational relationships; and (7) a way for the supervisors to understand the own characters of the supervision. The videotaped supervision therefore can be intended basically as a modality to get a series of information regarding the quality of the educational action, the reactions and relationships between addressee and educator, among the various actors operating within the space of the interventions used into specific contexts and action systems, the capacity of revision and evaluation of the third parties (Apostoli & Nuzzaci, 2010) as well as the observation of non-verbal behaviors. From the general point of Lessing and Schulze (2003, p. 162), they referred to two aspects of the supervision quality, one is the process (from the supervisors) and the other is researchs results (from the researchs experts); it is an instrument implying precise procedures and operational schemes able to adequately respond both to exploratory needs of the educational phenomena, characterized by events not always foreseeable and given difficulties, i.e., built from specific material conditions defined by the contingent situation, and to those of the educations professional, who is dealing with a job where his/her competences are not always clearly codified and he/she must transform a situation in a problem to be solved, which is appearing vague and complicated at first (Schn, 1983). In this direction, the videotaped supervision can be literally meant as an activity which superintends and recalls four different perspectives: The first one is informational and of the control, where the expert guide adopts an exploration from which derives a precise intervention on a less qualified and expert subject; The second is the meta one, where the supervisor helps the supervised to set a distance between himself/herself and his/her professionality, contributing in amplifying his/her conceptions or finding new interpretative paths; The third one is the research one, where the supervision is investigated from a methodological and technical effectiveness point of view, as an instrument to allow an adequate data collection; The fourth one is of the self-evaluation and research quality, where the supervision is used to control the procedures and the research methodologies adopted. The supervision begins with an acknowledgement process from the subject, who is acting together with the educational path, to simplify the development of a reflective practice about the observations goal. It seems that the combination of the practices executive power and the reflection on it helps in boosting the professional
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competence that is founded on the explicit, pragmatic, creative knowledge on the implicit knowledge (Schn, 1983). The relationship between practice and supervision can be described as a dialectic tension that allows the educator to be an actor, and subsequently reflect with the supervisor about the meaning of being an actor. It is characterized by a high degree of complexity, which cannot be reduced to linear-type strategies to solve the problems, but presume a precise interpretative (H. L. Dreyfus & S. E. Dreyfus, 1986). This demands a reflective awareness inducing to step into the problem, which could contain several possibilities and solutions. It actually seems that there is a close connection between supervision and logic of the educational intervention, as a modality to effectively respond to the needs of the addressee based on a reflective dialogue (Frawley-ODea & Sarnat, 2001). In this direction, the primary task of the videotaped supervision seems to be dispersing the ignorance and updating the competences, as well as encouraging the exploration of work in order to help the supervised to become more aware about the reactions they produce and the answers they provide to the addressees of the educational action, to understand the dynamics regarding their interactions, to examine the ways they intervene and the consequences deriving from the logic used to structure their interventions, and to examine the new forms of communication structuring themselves with the addressees in similar situations (Hawkins & Shohet, 1989, p. 42). In substance, qualifying itself as a reflective, learning, verified, and evaluative path developing between an expert professional and one or more subjects during the educational path or during the professional activity aiming to find connections and relationships, it can better meet the fundamental principles of the professional process revision, in accordance with the principles stated by Hawkins and Shohet (1989) that can be found summarized in Tables 1-2. It should be noted that in the past few years the supervision in the educational field has received a lot of attention, even though only recently it has been examined sistematically and empirically. In this study, the supervision (Van Kessel & Haan, 1993, pp. 5-27) is displayed as a kind of practice permitting to notice the level of comprehension of the interpretative model used and it is conceived as a kind of external evaluation. Thus it refers: in part to a control of the perspective towards the action points, i.e., to the role that the expert guide (qualified) exercises on the less expert ones (supervised); in part to a meta-perspective, where the supervisor helps the supervised to cover the distance between what he/she does and what he/she should do, tracking at the same time new dimensions in the action (processing and reflection with the supervisor and internal or external group). It is therefore to be seen as a recognition process of the path taken by the supervised with regards to the educational process, in order to expedite the reflection. It seems that in the combination between practical execution and reflection a professional competence develops, cementing the principles to the practices and founding the explicit knowledge of the pragmatic implicit in the knowledge (Schn, 1983, 1987). The relationship between the educational practice ad supervision can be described as a potential dialectic tension between education and sector, which transforms the educator into an actor able to ponder along with the supervisor about what being a mediator for the childhood musical learning means. Preschool musical education is in fact characterized by a high degree of complexity that cannot always be lead back to linear strategies to solve the problems, but assumes peculiar forms and strategies of intervention. This requires a multidimensional approach to the action phenomenon and the multiple solutions possible. Supervision is substantially a practice helping to sustain the educators professional learning in the varying professional and personal conditions within the different phases of the educational process, as well as the commitment and the effectiveness of their professional path (Day & Qing, 2007, pp. 397-401; Burn & Edwards, 2007, pp. 397-401).
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Table 1 Supervision Principles

N 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Category To procure a space to the supervised subjects to think about the content and the process of their work To develop understanding and professional competences To get information and work on alternative points of view To obtain contents and to comment the process To be recognized and supported both as an individual and worker To ensure that the supervised as an individual and worker is not left alone facing unnecessary difficulties, problems, and projections To have a space to explore and express his/her own discomfort, obtain a re-stimulation, affect a transfert or a counter-transfert, and that can be proposed for the work To plan and use in the best possible way the personal and professional resources To be proactive, rather than reactive To ensure the quality of the work Significance P < 0.010 P < 0.001 P < 0.010 P < 0.001 P < 0.050 P < 0.001 P < 0.000 P < 0.010 P < 0.010 P < 0.010
Table 2 Categories of Analysis

Exemplification of some of the categories considered Elements Conditions Behaviors Interactions Criteria What to do Recording the situation and circumstances under whose behavior happened, with whom, with what, where, when, etc. (suggest the complexity and ensure that the situation can be reproduced: given situation) Recording what the individual have to do (observable and measurable): (name) (verb) Recording the interactions (educator-child, child-child, etc.). Recording the level of performances if acceptable as the interventions result (quantifiable standards for the evaluation) What the model expects (level) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Analysis of the Supervision Material

Video shootings effected amounts to a total of 60 and they have processed through two ad hoc instruments. The main instruments have been both the analysis grids to examine the supervisions footages to find aspects related to the routines used by AIGAM educators and those for the collection of supervisors statements on this experience, as well as the first-hand experience. Due to lack of space, we will not examine here either the statements or the first-hand observation of devices and action on the education, whilst we will briefly look at the recordings recognition and the analysis carried out on the videotaped meetings. For the codification and sequential as well as functional and contents analysis of the footages, an instrument has been created able to classify some behavioral traits expressible in interaction models to determine characteristics and limits of the various types of interaction and communication, obviously bearing in mind the results produced by similar research contexts. The descriptive analysis has been arranged on specific descriptors and carried out by two external observers on the same product; it has been addressed to defining the educational contexts of (Ralph, 1994, 1998) and the specific types of intervention activated. All the meetings examined were about the educational-musical action addressed to the 0-3 years segment. The descriptive instrument used for the analysis of the videotaped meetings is made of: (1) a structural section collecting the pivotal variables (e.g., from where the material is coming from); (2) a descriptive section
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regarding the visual material observed (research profile); (3) a section devoted to the MLT needs; and (4) a section for the concurrence between educators actions and MLT principles. From the methodological point of view three main behavioral categories are observed: (1) the type of communication and musical relationship created between educator and children; (2) the degree of functionality, design, and coherence of the actions adopted; and (3) the degree of adequacy and relevance of the actions and musical practices compared with the addressees characteristics. The actions profile is attributed to some central nuclei: (1) Identification of the actions systems: (a) types of actions, (b) types of practices, (c) problems related to the educational action, (d) proposals execution modality, (e) involvement level of the main and secondary addressees; (2) Description of the operations forming the action systems: (a) brief description, (b) acting subjects, (c) kind, location, and circumstance they take place; (3) Educators description: (a) educational, musical, and MLT competences, (b) means used, (c) obstacles, oppositions or conflicts; And (4) identification: (a) actions organization, (b) actions system and logics, (c) duration, (d) actions description, (e) procedures description, (f) strategies description. What elements delivered guarantees to the models adoption? There are: (1) the virtuous action strategies adopted; (2) the efforts made in terms of behaviors and practices realized within the MLT logic; (3) the use of principles and devices supplied by educators; (4) a system of coherent actions; (5) the production of appropriate vocal instruments and musical methodologies; (6) the educational actions defining precise musical incentives, spaces, and means; (7) the fields refine the relationship strategies and increase the efficiency; (8) the analysis of the relations and the educational practices and testing how their work leads to the definition of quality indicators; (9) the analysis of the professional competences of people involved; (10) the description of roles and tasks at different levels; (11) the analysis of the practices leads to the definition of specific quality descriptors; and (12) the analysis of processes leads to the description of an educational practice. All this led to a structural examination of the relations and educational practices and an assessment of how they work in relation to the definition of possible quality indicators of the activity. The most interesting aspect to be noted is what has been realized about the guidelines produced for the use of these instruments, whose categories allow the external evaluator (researcher in this case) to work on the material only in respect to clearly identified aspects: (1) interventions effectiveness; (2) techniques used; (3) educators performance; (4) childrens performance; (5) educators responsibility; (6) interventions, activities and action implemented; (7) relations among educators, children, and adults; (8) peculiarity of the interventions contexts; and (9) professional activities carried out in connection with the model. The use of videotaping caused some considerations about the meaning of the reflective observation as an instrument to help non-expert educators in becoming qualified professionals, above all encouraging the examination of the observed behavior by the supervised and supervisor, and the planning of the future one. The results show that videotaping stimulates interesting reports for the reflection (< 0.01), not only because it encourages a more appropriate and objective comment from the educators side (< 0.001) mainly relative to the principles and norms supported by AIGAM, but also for the fact that, thanks to its eliciting technique (< 0.01), it enables to carry out a wider and deeper evaluation of the educational performances against those that could be affected with a more traditional observation based, for example, on the reports. Also, in line with the results of the international research, the supervisor in the interaction with the
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non-expert educator is positively influenced when the deduction is used (< 0.01) to support the traditional observation methods based on other types of orientation (Leong, 2010; see Table 3). Table 3 Categories of the Supervision Activity
Type of supervision Scale Supervision Climate Competences Context Supervisor Aim Expectations Satisfaction N 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Minimun -50 -50 -50 -50 -50 -50 -50 -50 Maximum +50 +50 +50 +50 +50 +50 +50 +50 Mean 49.00 20.22 48.32 -20.98 38.00 29.34 54.28 58.42 SD 46.21 34.65 22.76 38.27 32.65 34.98 28.58 49.00
Readers should refer to other researches (Apostoli & Nuzzaci, 2010; Nuzzaci, 2010, 2012a) about the conclusions concerning the research contents, here we just state the AIGAM educator seems to be acting and more or less respecting the MLT principles, the central focuses of which regard mainly some aspects such as: the use of the highly musically efficient voice, the respect of the childrens response time, and the scanning of the musical turns, that is expressing itself mainly towards the individuals rather than the group. It has been recorded a not always appropriate reaction of the type of intervention, the speed of the execution and reaction times in respect to the childrens behaviors and musical emissions; a pressing anticipation from the educator towards the childrens responses. Among the main action characters, we recall that the musical communication transmitted by the MLT appears basically re-interpreted and strongly dependent from the contexts where it is produced, even though the action is resulting generally sustained, from the structural point of view, by the fundamental gordonian principles that are in most cases respected. Even if on this respect, it is recorded a lack of action and musical functions steadiness, a musical interaction emerges accompanied by a strong childrens and educators involvement, from which a mostly collective communication shines through. An action not always coordinated and fluid as far as the movement-sound relationship is concerned, a not always appropriate use of the discriminating processes/sounds recognition and a not always appropriate use of the patterns, rhythms, and musical sequences. Whilst a more complex statistical analysis shows how the different contexts emerged responses not always relevant or adequate feedback, nevertheless a continuous and meaningful attention towards children, actions, interventions characteristics has been observed, an use of the childrens sound emissions for new productions, a guide to the discrimination of the base note, the similar/different discrimination, the control of the productions sing with children, etc.. But above all emerges in a significant way for MLT are adequate: (1) free, continuous flow use of limbs and bodys movements (0.01); (2) use of the movement to carry out imitation and assimilation patterns (0.06); and (3) use of the movement in the space (0.001). It is not possible to detail here the articulated data collection and analysis work and show well organized results to report on the entire process appropriately, so we just underline that from a methodological point of view the use of videotaping in supervision seems to boost: the perceptions of the subjects in respect to their performances (Gelso, 1974; Poling, 1968; Walz & Johnston, 1963), the self-consciousness about the behaviors
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adopted (Chodoff, 1972; Star, 1977; Walz & Johnston, 1963), the objectivity concerning their work (Anderson & Brown, 1955; Goldhammer, 1969), and efficacy and commitment (Ebmeier, 2003). Also, the study reveals how the activity of videotaped supervision boosts the supervisors involvement (Aveline, 1992), because a wide spectrum of information is supplied based on an impartial reading of facts and progresses of the supervised (Worthington & Stern, 1985), allowing in such a way an objective evaluation of both (Chodoff, 1972; Yenawine & Arbuckle, 1971). It must also be noticed as it reduces the effects (Taubman, 1978) exclusively connected to the observation through written reports from the supervised and supervisors that are considered to be not reliable, as they may have strong perceptive distortions in the events interpretation and a much too positive impression about their work (Noelle, 2002). On the other hand, there could be the potential disadvantage to increase anxiety for the evaluation by the supervised that could result into a worsening of their performances; this is confirmed for example by the studies effected by Roulx (1969), who has registered a physiological anxiety increase (translated into an increase of the heartbeat frequency and temperature) among students practicing teaching, informed that their activity was going to be videotaped and then assessed by supervisors, against those who had been told that the session was not going to be videotaped and assessed. These experiments, as well as those carried out by Niland, Duling, Allen, and Panther (1971), regarding the incidence of some factors acting as inhibitors in the activity of videotaped supervision compared with, for example, those affected through videotaping, traditionally considered less blocking, should be, as already stated by Schnarch (1981), better examined, as video-taping cannot induce in itself anxiety or fear, that should be reactions probably of a more generalized type (Yenawine & Arbuckle, 1971). Despite the short description showed here may be considered merely indicative of the path travelled and requires therefore additional follow-ups about the methodological apparatuses, the fact remains that, as witnessed by this research, the videotaped supervision is still a very effective technique, producing undeniable advances in the educational research practices when arranged through a rigorous conceptual apparatus, particularly on those regarding the early childhood: and this makes it possible to look into the future with optimism for the creation of a good research culture (Nuzzaci, 2012b, 2012c).
The Project and the Analysis of Supervision Material

In brief, the main research data regarding the direct observation of the supervision activity, which technique has been the videotaping of entire interventions made by the educators in action without censorship and with sophisticated equipments, even if focusing on different levels of analysis and contemplating the adoption of diversified techniques, consider the effectiveness of the educators in action and the variation of their professional, personal, and working variations through the various steps of their professional path. In this sense, it has been found that the educators do not necessarily learn through experience and that the know-how is not always gained incrementally (0.01), i.e., that the subjects are exposed to a higher risk of being not effective at a later stage of their professional activity and that the variety of the contexts where the AIGAM operators work (various istitutions or childhood organizations, kindergartens, small private groups, etc.) essentially remind us modalities influencing the use of the gordonian model being, by definition, different from the teachers who, working within the school, adopt the same model, since the latters are essentially busy in an activity centered on the instructional processes mainly codified and formalized. And the possibility to carry out the professional activity in diversified contexts refers to the capacity of the educators to manage positive and negative environmental and cultural scenarios in different moments of the professional path, which are
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directly linked to the background, the basic education, the socio-cultural origin, the professional development, and the quality of the experiences they had been exposed to. This shows once again the influence of the context peculiarities on the educators capacity to develop efficient educational proposals that cannot be designed considering the specific multiplicity of the environments where the interventions are carried out, and the cross references to the external scenarios that call tasks, resources, and educational goals into question. The supervisions video footage was necessary to get some aspects about the practices of the AIGAM trainees, then followed by a comment on the experience given by the supervisor, in line with the literature. (Putney, Worthington, & McCullough, 1992; Worthington, 1984, 1987; Worthington & Roehlke, 1979; Worthington & Stern, 1985; Ebmeier, 2003). The use of videotaping (Adams & Biddle, 1970; Marsh, Mitchell, & Adamczyk, 2010, pp. 742-748; Smith, 2009, p. 124) provokes some considerations on the meaning of the observation as an instrument helping the non-expert educators to become qualified professionals, because it allows the examination of the observed behavior and the planning of future behaviors. The results show that the video caused interesting reports about the reflection, encouraging the educator to make a more reflective and appropriate comment regarding principles and norms provided by AIGAM. Also, what made possible an in-depth evaluation of the educational performances with the help of videotaping as an eliciting technique compared with other kinds of more traditional observation techniques (Sewall, 2009, pp. 11-30); let us consider the written accounts. The results of the international research show that the supervisor, in the interaction with the non-expert educator, is positively influenced when the deduction through videotaping is used to support the traditional forms of observation based on other approaches. Among the conclusions that can be drawn, we could say that the AIGAM educator seems to be acting and broadly respecting the MLT principles, and that as far as the fundamental focuses under observation are concerned, so far some important data emerge about the usage of the voice with a high musical efficiency, a respect for the childrens response time, and a scanning of the musical rotation that is expressed mainly towards the single subjects rather than the group; a not always appropriate reaction instead of the type of intervention, the speed of reaction timings compared with the behaviors and the childrens musical emissions; and a strong expectation of the AIGAM educator towards the childrens responses (see Table 4). Table 4 Characters of the Action in the MLT Practices
Some characters of the action Strengths Weaknesses Consider Consider (1) A musical communication transmitted by MLT, but (1) A mostly collective communication substantially re-interpreted (2) An action not always coordinated and fluid as far as (2) An action coordinated from the point of view of the gordonian movement-sound coordination is concerned principles (3) An action not always steady as far as intervention (3) A poor steadiness in the action duration is concerned (4) A poor firmness in the musical functions expressed by MLT (4) An use not always appropriate of the discrimination (5) A strong musical interaction maintained by a relational one processes involving both movement and sound (5) Acknowledgement (6) Definition of a favorable setting (6) A poor attention at the moment of vocal production (7) A pertinent use of the musical tempos (7) Not always appropriate use of musical patterns (8) Imbalance in the use of the inspirations (8) Use not always pertaining to musical rhythms (9) A high degree of involvement of the children (9) Use not always relevant of the musical sequences (10) A substantial involvement of the educators (10) Feedbacks not always appropriate
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Some of the aspects still to be appropriately investigated are: (1) relevant replies or adequate feedbacks; (2) attention paid to children; (3) attention paid to actions; (4) attention paid to the intervention; (5) mirroring adequacy; (6) communicational style and clear instructions to the child; (7) production of replies to childrens requests; and (8) definition of a favorable setting. The following supporting elements are under observation: (1) the use of limbs and body movement in a free and continuous way; (2) the use of movement to carry out imitational and assimilation patterns; (3) the use of movement in the space; (4) the use of the childrens sound emissions for new productions; (5) the guide to the discrimination of the basic note; (6) the guide to the discrimination same/different; and (7) the control of the production sing with children. This initial description still needs not only further in-depth analysis, but above all more refined statistical applications to establish the sustainability of the statements given so far: It also make us put faith in the possibility to contribute to the improvement of the preschool musical education knowledge.
Conclusions
Although the activity of data collection needs further studies, the research shows how educators of the AIGAM in applying MLT are heavily influenced by the context in which they operate. The analysis shows on the wall that the videotaped supervision technique plays a significant role in monitoring the teachers training and in the way they progressively adapt their educational activity to the principles of MLT. During the application of the theory, however, a very significant role plays the context in the phase in the implementation of the interventions, which is crucial in the management of educational processes and training, in the application of the theory in action. Preliminary analysis of research results about the educational setting revealed as the MLT principles may be applied in ideal conditions. Tables presented describe these results, leaving open the question of the specific elements (such as the use of tonal pattern) and articulation and variety of activity in the contexts.
References
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DA VID
PUBLISHING
Empathic Design: Understanding User Experience Through Schema Changes and Innovative Design
Shu-huei Wang
MingDao University, Changhua,Taiwan
Shyh-huei Hwang, Ming-chyuan Ho

National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan
As administration of blogs is one of the most popular activities on the Internet currently, topics related to blogs have also become a favorite subject in daily life. Questions like what ways can be used to show end-users or designers internal knowledge to find out their needs, what methods can be applied to analysis of the process, etc., have not been answered yet. Therefore, how to analyze the tacit knowledge and grasp the true demand of users is one of the major issues to be solved in empathic design. The purpose of this research is to examine the difference of whether the comparison table of schema changes for users at three points of time was taken into consideration or not in an empathic design brainstorming meeting. The tests consist of the experimental group and the control group. The former did not refer to the comparison table; however, the latter used it for discussion. The result indicates this comparison table helped the control group significantly in presenting an ultimate blog design of innovative ideas. Keywords: empathic design, design methodology, schematic changes, user experience, innovative design
Introduction
Empathetic design is an emerging field in the topic of managing strategy and marketing investigation. Traditionally, marketing investigation incorporates quantitative research and questionnaires to present the research results in numeric. Empathetic design which employs the flied study originated from anthropology to investigate the daily life of research participants. Researchers personally have to observe and keep a record of the creative designing process for developing a product, service, or innovative concepts consumers need. Empathetic design was usually used in the early product development period or in the designing process to generate innovative concepts. Dorothy and Jeffrey (1997, p. 104) provided five steps of empathetic design and asked what ways can be used to show end-users or designers internal knowledge to find out their needs and what methods can be applied to analysis of the process. Such questions have not been answered to potentially critical customer needs. Therefore, the main problem to be solved of empathetic design is to analyze the users inner knowledge and to realize their need. Therefore, how to analyze the tacit knowledge and grasp the true demand of users is one of the major issues to be solved in empathic design.
Shu-huei Wang, assistant professor, Department of Digital Design, MingDao University. Shyh-huei Hwang, professor, Graduate School of Design, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology. Ming-chyuan Ho, professor, Graduate School of Design, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology.
EMPATHIC DESIGN: UNDERSTANDING USER EXPERIENCE
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For finding out the potential need of the users, there are two parts in this research. In the first part, the research interviewed bloggers about the issue of blog design for three times every five weeks. The qualitative research and narrative research were employed to interpret the process of the schema changes. There are four participants. The research lasted for three months. The results, based on the grounded theory and the comparison of the schema changes, were discussed and analyzed for further design of blogs (Wang, Chuang, Fang, & Ho, 2008, pp. 197-208). This research is a subsequent study for the second phase to verify and analyze the comparison table of schema changes for users at three points of time1 as the experimental variable. It was presumed that reference of the comparison table provided significant help to innovative design concepts on an early stage in an empathic design brainstorming meeting. The result reveals reference to the comparison table not only helped significantly, but also motivated innovative ideas for an ultimate blog design.
Literature Review
Empathic Design Recently, it was proposed that empathy was the origin of cultures as well as a second social value. Human civilizations would be impossible without it (Rifykin, 2001). Empathy, a bridge for communication, establishes a common consensus even in different cultures. Just as Rifykin (2001) indicated that mankind is capable of understanding others and search for a common view through empathy. Empathy is a feeling that helps social trust grows. The so-called empathic sympathy depends on whether you can put others into your own imaginative space or not. It is one of the deepest emotions of human beings as well as the creator of cohering a close relationship and modesty among people (Rifykin, 2001). Empathic design uses cultures and imagination as the motive force for creation. Dorothy and Jeffrey (1997), professors of Harvard Business School, presented their perspectives of empathic design (observed from the environmental conditions of the consumers themselves). They considered that sometimes consumers took the products and service offered for granted that they did not think of a new solution even when their real requirements were not met. They have noted that five steps are involved in empathic design, including: (1) customer observation; (2) data gathering through visual, auditory, and sensory cues; (3) analysis of data; (4) brainstorming; and (5) the development of prototypes of possible solutions (Dorothy & Jeffrey, 1997, p. 104). These research methodologies can provide designers and researchers a few ways to observe and understand users. Also, asked what ways can be used to show end-users or designers internal knowledge to find out their needs, what methods can be applied to analysis of the process, etc. Empathic design is based on empathy, which occurs in every phase of the design process. For instance, empathy is required when observing users and five empathic senses are exercised for data collection and analysis. Empathic methods are created by storyboard, storytelling, narrative matters and scenarios, and so on.
The comparison table of schema changes at three points of time is called the comparison table for short.
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Schema Theory Piaget (1954) considered that adaptation can be divided as assimilation and accommodation. The process of accommodation was that an individual who assimilated or absorbed things based on its cognitive structure and schema. The process of accommodation required the change of an individual to accommodate outside world or environment (Su et al., 1995). The concepts of assimilation and accommodation were the basis of the cognitive development. That is, the cognition developed based on assimilation and accommodation (Chang, Hsu, Cheng, Lei, & Ksuo, 2004). The basic assumption of schema provided by Adams and Collins (1979) was that the articles (oral or written articles) which were meaningless only provided listeners or readers a way to use their own knowledge and to construct meanings. The process involved the data directed and concept directed process. According to the cognitive development theory provided by Piaget (1954), the basic unit of cognitive structure was schema, which also represented a name of things and the principle to make a conclusion (Su et al., 1995). Schema was the event, situation or well organized cognitive unit (Moates & Schumacher, 1980). Fiske and Taylor (1991) pointed that schema was an important psychological mechanism when human beings processed a message. Schema was formed by human beings based on the understanding of an individual and the knowledge structure of former experience. The structure contained the related and inter-related concept of the individual. The origin, concept, function, and operation of schema were described. However, schema was a unique knowledge system and people received different information even when they read the same article and input. User Experience User experience is a term to test product satisfaction and use and usually applied to software or marketing testing. Norman (1999) described that there are product development to starts with users and their needs rather than with technology. Then, Kuniavsky, a founding partner at Adaptive Path, in his book Observing the User Experience (2003), considered it a comprehensive how-to reference to more than a dozen highly effective user research techniques. Rubinoff (2004) said: The user experience is primarily made up of four factors: branding, usability, functionality, content. All four elements provide the basis for success. Paluch (2006) had been noted in his web user experience is the characterization of what a user feels while using any product, this can extend from a car to a mobile phone to a magazine or a childs toy. It means how users feel about and describe the product or service after use. Recently, Reiss (2009) in his blog gave a definition of user experience: User experience (UX) = the sum of a series of interactions (Reiss, 2009). The expectation and need of the users matter the most when designing a new product. If no investigation about the expectation and need of the users is made before design, it goes without saying that the product might have poor selling or be unwanted when launching, which will be a nightmare for every company and designer. As a result, it is critically important to know the expectation and need of the users, before creating and marketing a new product in particular. Designers cannot rely on their own experience and knowledge merely. They may obtain more relevant information from the consumers in various ways. For example, designers can ask users to try a new product and give their opinions about it for reference. Users are like partners of designers, which is unprecedented. Such ways of data collection are user-centered design
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approaches. Frequently asked questions are like what does the user want, why does the user want this, what does the user expect, etc.
Methodologies
This exploratory research is a more effective way in determining correlations. The experimenters usually attempt to create an artificial situation to get necessary and specific information and assess the information obtained in a correct manner. There are different categories for experimentation methods. Laboratory experimentation and field experimentation are divided according to the features of experimental settings. The former refers to experiments conducted in an artificially arranged laboratory and the latter means experiments performed in a natural setting (Chou, 2002). Research Method For a clearer causality among variables, laboratory experimentation was adopted due to its optimum internal validity. Though the external validity of this approach is lower; however, the correlation between independent and dependent variables concerned in this research can be explored precisely through control of variables. The main purpose of this experiment is to verify if potential demands of customers and innovative ideas can be located more easily by referring to the comparison table of schema changes for users at three points of time (see Table 1). The independent variable is defined as the comparison table and the dependent variable means the result of with or without reference to the table. Dependent samples are included. Four participants joined a two-part experiment respectively. The first part is a brainstorming meeting without referring to the comparison table and the second part is a brainstorming meeting with the comparison table considered. The whole experimental process was recorded in five different ways, including videotaping, tape recording and picture taking from various angles by four video recorders in the observation room, and answers and plots provided by the participants themselves. Research Structure This research is a follow-up on the thesis titled Exploring Schema Changes for design blog. The same four respondents were interviewed at three points of time, t1, t2, and t3, separated by five weeks respectively. The process of schema changes perceived by the respondents was analyzed from the perspective of time. Two of the respondents have a design background and the other two do not. All four of them have experience of maintaining a blog for one to two years. Common views and personal ideas of four respondents at t1, t2, and t3 were analyzed, compared and presented in a table. Design issues and suggestions were provided based on the function, value, privacy, communication, and future development of blogs. Business-oriented values, future function, and privacy of blogs were also recommended. Table 1 is the first stage study on tracking and analysis of potential demands of users with a research structure depicted as follows (see Figure 1). Answers to what approach can be used to exactly analyze the potential needs of customers in empathic design are not completely clear yet. The objective of the experiment in this research is to probe the difference of whether the comparison table of schema changes for users at three points of time is referred to or not in an empathic design brainstorming meeting. Thus, whether tracking of schema changes perceived by blog users is
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helpful for the internal knowledge of end-users and how to discover demands of customers will be examined. The network commercialization feature provided by blog design on the brainstorming stage in empathic design is explored here. This research is the second phase of the whole project to examine the difference between referring to and not referring to the comparison table in a brainstorming meeting. The research structure is as follows (see Figure 2). Table 1 Comparison Table of Schema Changes for Users at Three Points of Time
The The The functi Blog experie Time content on of web nce of of blog blog blog The Techno logy of blog The Disadva ntage of blog The The advant sharing age of of blog blog The commun ication of blog The The The future values Privac functio of y of n of busines blog blog s The other Blog ways of softwa commun re ication The spendi ng of blog
* * * t1 * * t2 * * t3 * Notes. Code-I: personal cognitive schema; code-: the overlapping of two participants; code-: the overlapping of three participants; and code-: the overlapping of four participants.
Figure 1. First phase research structure (mapped by this research).
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Figure 2. Second phase research structure (mapped by this research).
Participants Purposive sampling was conducted in this qualitative research with dependent samples for an understanding of a causal relationship between these two parts. Two of the participants have a digital media design background and the other two have a visual communication design background. The major reason for purposeful sampling is, because all four of them have experience of design and blog use with three to five years of blog management (refer to the Table 2 for details). Table 2 Basic Information of Participants
Number Sex Grade Background Age Platform Blog experience Design experience P1 Female Graduate grade P2 Female 3rd Graduate grade P3 Female student 2nd Graduate student 2nd grade Visual communication Digital media design design 23 27 Fc2 Wretch Five years Three years Two years Three years P4 Female Graduate student 2nd grade Visual communication design 27 Wretch/yahoo Five years Three years
student
Digital media design 24 Google Three years One year
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Data Collection Four participants attended the brainstorming meeting for blog design together and the whole meeting in the laboratory was divided into two stages. The researcher video taped, tape recorded, and took pictures during the whole process in addition to the answers and plots provided by participants themselves (see Figures 3-4).
Figure 3. Computer records from four monitors.
Figure 4. Four participants at brainstorming meeting.
Results and Discussion

Description of the experiment: (1) date: May 7, 2009; (2) time: 1:45-3:30 p.m.; and (3) place: Human Factors Engineering Lab., NYUST (National Yunlin University of Science and Technology). The blog design brainstorming meeting attended by four participants was divided into two parts described as follows. Questions for the first part experiment (without referring to the table) are: Q1 personal knowledge of blog; Q2 feelings of using blog; Q3 re-design a new blog; and Q4 brainstorming for blog design suggestions or design originality (opinions expressed by sketching). The duration of the first part experiment was from 13:45 to 14:15 separated by five minutes of explanation (13:45-13:50) and 25 minutes for brainstorming (13:50-14:15). Questions for the second part experiment (referring to the table) are: Q1 discussion of participants about the comparison table; Q2 creative thinking; Q3 sketching time; and Q4 discussion of sketches and determination of the final drawing (on the whiteboard). The duration of the second part experiment was from 14:35 to 15:30 separated by five minutes of explanation (14:35-14:40) and 50 minutes for brainstorming (14:40-15:30).
EMPATHIC DESIGN: UNDERSTANDING USER EXPERIENCE Results
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Limited to the space, only the contrast table of paper-based answers and the final blog design sketches are discussed here. Besides, tape recording results and comparison table of paper-based drawings are also contained (including Q4 of the first part and Q3 and Q4 of the second part). These results will be used for further analysis later. The experimental results are listed as follows (see Table 3). Table 3 Contrast Table of Paper-Based Answers Provided by Participants
First part experiment (not referring to the comparison table) NO. Q1: Knowledge of Q2: Impression on blog blog P1 Public daily record on the net, a platform of sharing and a good tool for information exchange Advantages: not many hardware and software requirements, only a browser required Disadvantages: no privacy on blogs, confusion of posting articles P2 A speaking Advantages: not too platform on the many hardware and net for software requirements individuals, Disadvantages: groups and non-instinctive types organizations, real of editions, change time and problems among interaction different systems features P3 Blog: easy, public, Advantages: only a browser conveniencebuilt-in and online picture and features required, description features limited hardware Disadvantages: and software various editions demands (different interfaces for the same platform) P4 Share photos, Convenient, diaries and interesting, may do favorite messages, whatever you like, express yourself incompatibility and make friends among platforms with others Q3: Re-design Hand drawing and animation features Second part experiment (referring to the comparison table) Q1: Discuss the Q2: Creative thinking comparison table Features, Tape recording, a personal broadcasting contents and station, 3D screen, involvement of sharing of blogs situations
Interface, new tools, system, drawing diary system (inspiration: chart by Apple Daily), a video of Who comes to my house?
Blogs can provide features, contents, sharing and entertainment.
Keep a diary with voice, keep a diary with video, more lively editions, interface similar to second life, addition of situations
Basic requirementsphotos, blogs, videos are sufficient, minor software for future demands, ex: (1) drawing (painter); and (2) real time video communication New features required, Painter will help addition of non-text images, applicable software may be added, ex: animation, video, real time communication
Business (1) Broadcasting station (personal) values, future (2) 3D, simulation of citysituational features of blog (3) Playful, ex: Blog e-pet can have features of doing a job and sending flowers, etc. (4) Gift giving: My Treasure Box can collect and display virtual treasures. (5) Professional (featured games), general (easy), ex: a burning software Features, web Record your day with voice, converted to sites, 3D, flash, changeable 3D settings, impressions, addition of situations communication, contents, and sharing of blogs
Discussion Blog design issues were used to explore if schema changes helped interface design on an early stage in this research. Schema results analyzed in the first phase were served as the parameters of the experiment. The second phase, all participants have design experience. Both of them are students of digital media design department and the other two are from the visual communication design department. All four attended the brainstorming
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meetings and discussed how to design blogs freely. The same participants took part in this two-section experiment. Dependent samples were taken for an understanding of a causal relationship between these two parts. The experiment consists of the experimental group and the control group. The former did not refer to the comparison table of schema changes for users at three points of time, but the latter did. The result indicates the experimental group of the first part did not have particular issues for discussion and a conclusion reached was they expected to have features of animation, a video system, real time communication, a drawing diary system, and drawing. These demands were more conservative and could be satisfied by present software. In the beginning, the control group of the second part experiment did not consider the data provided useful; however, four participants discovered the data revealed users and suppliers positions after in-depth discussion and future functions and business values of blogs were located. Then, viewpoints of users and suppliers were discussed. They were totally involved and personal experience (e.g., blog + games), interests, situational awareness, and future design (imagination of future life) were integrated for the final draft. Innovative ideas totally different from the result in the first part experiment were obtained. This two-part experiment provides evidence that useful information offered in the blog design brainstorming meeting on an early stage results in new and interactive concepts for blog design. The results are summarized as follows: (1) new interactive ideas of integrating voice, pet keeping and games for future blog development; (2) integration of current applicable multimedia skills and games; (3) diary and sharing features video feature 3D virtual world (ambient experience) with basic and professional advanced features; (4) applying product placement to merchandise to create business opportunities for infinite and interesting advertisements; (5) futuristic shopping patternindividual blog virtual world and more convenient; and (6) Blog may become a second life of an individual. It is thus expected blog design may develop in the direction of providing better business service, a situational awareness shopping, user-centered design, and new interactive concept (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Final blog design sketch discussed by four participants on the whiteboard (a co-designed blog).
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Conclusions
The purpose of this research is to verify the tests that potential customer needs and innovative ideas can be located more easily by referring to the comparison table of schema changes for users at three points of time. The result obviously reveals that the control group got better innovative ideas after referring to the comparison table and discussing. Viewpoints of the research are summarized as follows: (1) Four participants incorporate or absorb external things through assimilation and accommodation at the brainstorming meeting causing schema changes in two experiment parts (refer to Table 3). (2) Four participants who attended the brainstorming meeting for empathic design have experience of maintaining a blog for three to five years and design for one to three years. Affected by user experience, they have a common experience of blog use and try to bring their design creativity into full play. Thus, a common consensus was reached easily. (3) A series of experimental interactions like influence of experience indicate the importance of blog management and game experience manifested by imaginations of the future life and entertainment of situational awareness. (4) There are interactive interface for ideal blog design was presented (an innovative design was presented).
References
Adams, M. J., & Collins, A. (1979). A schematheoretic view of reading. Norwood: Ablex. Chang, H. W., Hsu, C. H., Cheng, H. W., Lei, K. L., & Ksuo, C. H. (2004). Developmental psychology. Taipei: National Open University. Chen, L. C. (1992). Cognitive development and guidance. Taipei: Psychological. Chou, W. C. (2002). Research methodEmpirical study approach. Taipei: Psychological. Dorothy, L., & Jeffrey, F. R. (1997). Spark innovation through empathic design. Harvard Business Review, 75(6), 104. Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York: Don McGraw-Hill. Kuniavsky, M. (2003). User expectations in a world of smart devices (Online PDF). Retrieved from http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/essays/archives/000272.php Moates, D. R., & Schumacher, G. M. (1980). An introduction to cognitive psychology. Belmont: Wadsworth. Norman, D. A. (1999). Invisible computer: Why good products can fail, the personal computer is so complex and information appliances are the solution. Cambridge: MIT Press. Paluch, K. (2006). What is user experience design. Retrieved from http://www.montparnas.com/articles/what-is-user-experience-design/ Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books. Reiss, E. (2009). A definition of user experience. Retrieved from http://www.fatdux.com/blog/2009/01/10/a-definition-of-user-experience/ Rifykin, J. (2001). The age of access: The new culture of hypercapitalism, where all of life is a paid-for experience. (Y. H. Huang & Y. Liou, Trans.). Taipei: Yuan-Liou Publishing Co., Ltd.. Rubinoff, R. (2004). How to quantify the user experience. Retrieved from http://www.sitepoint.com/article/quantify-user-experience/ Su, C. W., Cheng, H. W., Ke, H. W., Lin, M. C., Wu, M. E., Hsing, M. L., Chen, L. C., Lin, H. Y., & Chen, S. M. (1995). Developmental psychology. Taipei: Psychological. Wang, S. H., Chuang, T. L., Fang, K. T., & Ho, M. C. (2008, December). Exploring schema changes for design blog. Journal of Science and Technology (Humanities & Sociology), 17(3), 197-208.
DA VID
PUBLISHING
The Lack of Afterlife and Its Effects on Chinese Economic Behavior*

ZHANG Qing-jin
Shandong Academy of Social Sciences, Jinan, China
It is widely recognized that each culture has a specific effect on the economic development. Based on Chinese culture which can be characterized as lack of afterlife, the pattern of Chinese economic development has distinctive features relative to the economy of the Western world, even to that of Japan and Korea. This paper argues that culture influences economic development through two paths: One is that some cultural factors, as certain institutions, have effects on cost, especially transaction costs. Another point is that culture forms peoples preferences and influences peoples choices. With the influences of Chinese culture, Chinese have a weak sense for legal obedience and strong inclination for free riding, this would increase social transaction costs. The family centered tradition of Chinese society results in Chinese features such as being good at individual struggles but poor at cooperation, the alienation between civil society and government, a strong sense for competition and a weak sense for legal obedience, seeing material wealth as important and neglecting scientific innovation. Traditional Chinese culture also has effects on the developmental pattern of Chinese enterprises. Keywords: utility of afterlife, transaction costs, family firm, trust
Introduction
What is the relationship between economic performance and its cultural background? It is not easy to give a definite answer, for many cultural factors are very intricate and unmeasurable, even though this relationship can be felt. However, this problem has been probed by many scholars. The earliest investigation of the relationship between culture and economic performance may be Webers The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism (1961), which ascribes the formation of capitalist society to Protestant ethics 1 . Following this work, the relationship between religion and economic development received substantial attention in the literature. The study of the economics of religion was thus born (for a review on economics of religion, see Iannaccone (1998). Recent literature includes Kuran (2004a), who ascribed the underdevelopment of the Middle East to some elements of Islam, such as inheritance law, avoidance of interest, and the deficient perception on corporations; Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales (2003) compared the economic attitudes of different religions (Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslin, Hindu, and
*
The author would like to thank Curtis Andresen for his help in perfecting the paper and improving language and YANG De-xin for his suggestions in improving some ideas. ZHANG Qing-jin, professor, Institute of Economics, Shandong Academy of Social Sciences. 1 Weber also shows the economic significance of Chinese culture, see Weber (1995), Confucianism and Taoism, p. 289.
THE LACK OF AFTERLIFE AND ITS EFFECTS ON CHINESE ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
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Buddhist) towards cooperation, the government, working women, legal rules, thriftiness, and the market economy, but they do not include Confucianism in their analysis; Lipford and Tollison (2002) studied the relationship between religious participation and income level and argued that there are two kinds of treasure: treasure in heaven and treasure on earth. The relationship between culture and economic development is also probed in the literature. Berger (2002) agreed with Weber and admited that there is a crucial link between culture and the economy. Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales (2006) argued that culture has effects on economic growth through its influence on peoples preference and beliefs. Greif (1994) believed that cultural beliefs are significant for the formation of different social organizations and for the distinction of different trajectories of institutional structure in the Muslim world and Latin world. Kuran (2004b) thought that culture plays a role in economic development, even if the roles are different in different environment. Greif and Tabellini (2010) examined the different historical developing paths between China and West with the distinct patterns of culture and institutions arrangement and shows the significance of culture and institutions. Literature on new institutional economics should not be ignored in studying the relationship between culture and economic development, for the concept of culture and the definition of institution is quite similar2 (North, 1994b; Guiso et al., 2006). North (1994a) investigated the link between ideology and economic performance. He showed that a good ideology can reduce free riding and thus decrease transaction costs. Chueng (2002) believed that there is a link between economic performance and its environment; he also tried to connect western Christianity and Chinese filial piety with the concept of transaction costs. Obviously, the concept of transaction costs is useful in studying the economic effects of culture. Q. J. ZHANG (2006) believed that institutions can be classified into two kinds: institutions based on strong preference and those on weak preference. Strong/weak preference is defined as the preference closely/less related with competition efficiency. As the concept of culture is similar to the concept of institutions in economics, we can also sort the cultural components into two parts: one part is the cultural components having (significant) effects on economic development and the other part, having little effect on economic development. There has been a continuous reflection on traditional Chinese culture among Chinese intellectuals since western culture invaded China. LIANG Qi-chao criticized the Chinese personality as being servile, hypocritical, selfish, and timid, and he regarded these collective blemishes of the Chinese personality as fundamentally responsible for the weakness and poverty of the country (Y. LEI, 2006). LIANG (1990a, 1990b) and Y. T. LIN (2000) had a similar argument with LIANG Qi-chao, LIANG (1990b, pp. 38-43) believed that the features of Chinese economic development is formed by Chinese culture. The rural reconstruction done by YAN Yang-chu in Dingxian, Hebei, which is aimed to cure the main chronic illness of Chinese ignorance, poverty, weakness, and selfishness (Y. CAO & N. XU, 2006). However, none of them articulate the direct link between traditional Chinese culture and Chinese economic performance. Recently, some analysis of Chinese culture has been done by economists like LIN Yi-fu and WEI Sen. For example, Y.
2
North (1994b) classified institutions as formal rules and informal constraints. Formal rules include political rules, economic rules, and contracts; informal constraints include conventions, norms, and codes of conduct. See North, Privatization, incentives and economic performance. Retrieved from http://econwpa.wustl.edu:8089/eps/eh/papers/9411/9411002.pdf. Guiso et al. (2006) defined the concept of culture as those customary beliefs and values that ethnic, religious, and social groups transmit fairly unchanged from generation to generation, see Guiso et al (2006).
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F. LIN (2003) admited that there are some factors among the components of Chinese culture that hinder economic growth. But he insisted that economic growth is dominant relative to culture and cultural progress could be achieved with economic growth. However, he neglected the argument that cultural progress is relatively slow, and existing culture has effects on economic growth, either positive or negative. He also failed to show which cultural factors need improvement. With the comparison of the trajectory of institutional change between the Western world and China, S. WEI (2005) believed that China stagnated in conventional society and failed to evolve into a modern society characterized by legal constitutionalization. But he also lacked detailed articulation on the link between Chinese economic growth and cultural factors. Interesting enough, the relationship between traditional Chinese culture and Chinese economic performance receives attention from entrepreneurs. LI Dong-sheng, the chairman of TCL Group, believed that the phenomenon that the integration of Chinese enterprises is not as good as foreign enterprises can be traced as far as to the Chinese culture (J. DENG, 2006, p. C22). The pattern of Chinese economic development has distinctive features relative to the economy of the western world, even to that of Japan and Korea. For example, most successful Chinese firms are family based; the path of economic reform taken by China is very different from that taken by Russia and other eastern European countries. China is a country with a long history and unique culture, and Chinese have unique behavior; these have been widely recognized3. But systematic and theoretical analysis is still in short supply. For example, almost everyone knows that Chinese are good at struggling individually and poor at cooperative actions, but there is no analysis to show these effects on economic growth. This paper intends to interpret some important phenomena of Chinese firms and Chinese economic development by discussing some important features of traditional Chinese culture which have a significant influence on economic growth. This paper argues that culture influences economic development through two paths: One is that some cultural factors, as certain institutions, have effects on cost, especially transaction costs. A good institution within a firm could directly reduce production costs, and a good ideology could decrease free riding incentives and thus reduce social transaction costs. Chinese have a weak sense for legal obedience and strong inclination for free riding; this would increase social transaction costs. Another point is that culture forms peoples preferences and influences peoples choices. For example, the broad economic success of east Asia is partly a result of peoples strong preference for saving; the family centered tradition of Chinese society results in Chinese features such as being good at individual struggles but poor at cooperation, the alienation between civil society and government, a strong sense for competition and a weak sense for legal obedience, and seeing material wealth as important and neglecting scientific innovation. The structure of this paper is as follows: The second part sets out the main features of traditional Chinese culture which have economic significance; the third part analyzes these features with respect to economic ideas; the fourth part shows Chinese preference in economic behavior; and the fifth, the distinctive features of Chinese firms. The last part is the conclusions.
For example, there are many articles appearing in Readers, which may be the most popular magazine in China, to discuss or criticize Chinese behaviors. Among them, see XING Zhus Another National Condition (2005); LIU Su-lings Our Credit World (2005); ZHANG Jie-hais Why You Are So Indifferent (2005); ZHANG Jie-hais How Far Is the Distance Between Us and Developing Countries (2006); and ZHANG Jie-hais Unserious and too Clever (2006).
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The Main Features of Traditional Chinese Culture

To discuss Chinese culture, we need to distinguish two different parts: elite culture and mass culture. The difference of these two parts can be seen from the following examples: first, god and ghost exist in mass culture, but not in elite culture; second, although loyalty and filial piety are regarded as the core of Chinese culture, but loyalty has significance only in elite culture, not in mass culture. Filial piety is the only core value of the latter4. Because the mass is the main body of economic activities, the more relevant content here is mass culture. To articulate the features of traditional Chinese culture, comparison of culture between China and other countries is unavoidable. From the idea of Zhong Ti Xi Yong (Chinese culture is the core and western culture is technique) to the combating tradition (Z. H. LI, 1994, pp. 311-341) in the May Fourth Movement in 1919, and then to the recent popularity of national culture studies (Guoxue Re)5, the comparison between Chinese culture and Western culture has never stopped in modern times. Though we have no clear answer about which is better between the two kinds of cultures, but the difference and the gap between China and Western countries can not be ignored, and the effects of cultural difference on different economic patterns should not be denied. As the first step, we want to show the main features of Chinese culture, which have influenced the economic development of China. Ethics Centered on Blood Relationships and the Weakness of Socialization No one would disagree that traditional Chinese culture is centered on the ethics of blood relationships whose core is the family. LIANG (1990b, p. 193) believed that the difference between Chinese culture and Western culture is as that Western culture is a social one and Chinese culture values nothing except family and clan, and it is religion that results in this difference, for religion has the function of keeping people coherent (LIANG, 1990a, pp. 76-77). But in China, because of the lack of a dominant religion and the lack of group life, family becomes the center of Chinese social life (LIANG, 1990b, p. 20). Y. T. LIN (2000, pp. 29, 148, 151) also had a brilliant exposition on the lack of socialization. Nakamura (1990, p. 223) showed that the only difference between Chinese altruism and altruism in other nations is that, for Chinese, the awareness of being a member of a state or a nation is very weak. Z. H. LI (1994, p. 297) believed that the most important social foundation of Chinese ancient ideological tradition is the strong power and long continuity of the patriarchal clan system and blood relationships. Chinese culture is centered on the family. This is the conclusion not only coming from the comparison to Western culture, but also to Japanese culture. L. P. ZHANG (1993, pp. 22-23) argued that the concept of the Chinese family contains of three levels: family, clan, and patriarchal clan, and they are combined together by blood relationships. But one character of Japanese family system is the weakness of blood relationships. He argued that while Chinese family is an association of blood relationship, Japanese family is an institute with some characteristics of a financial group (p. 27). The family is a group that is operated by different generations
4
As for the difference of the core value between elite culture and mass culture, see ZHANG Lv-ping (1993), The Confliction and Integration of Civilizations: Studies of Japanese Modernization, p. 43. 5 It is regarded that the sign of the popularity of national culture studies is that such institute or class were established separately in Beijing and Qinghua University. See ZHANG Yi-xuan (2005, December 15), National Culture Studies is Popular in Chinese (Guo Ren Xingqi Guoxue Re), Peoples Daily (Overseas Edition), p. 2.
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in an industry. It offers services for payment. It is like a company. Therefore, we could say that Japanese family is an epitome of the organizational structure of Japanese society. From the above, we can know that valuing family only is a unique feature of traditional Chinese culture. The Local Autonomy of Traditional Chinese Society Conforming with family centered Chinese ideology, traditional Chinese culture was strongly autonomous. LIANG (1990b) argued that, in China, different from the Western countries in which people used to ask help from the government when facing difficulties like unemployment, the sustaining of the social order and the operating of society depend on society itself rather than the state (pp. 72, 84), the communication between the civil society and the government is very sparse (p. 158). He believed that in traditional Chinese society, there was only the idea of the world, no idea of state. Weber (1995, pp. 145-150) also argued that traditional Chinese society is autonomous. Historically, the economic function of Chinese governments was confined to keeping the market order and monopolizing some profitable or significant industries, like salt and iron (DING, 2001; Y. B. DENG, 2003, 1999). The economic role of the Chinese government is something similar to that promoted by liberal economists. In fact, governmental power extended only to the county level in traditional China; its main function was for tax collection and juridical judgment. Even for criminal cases, the government would not intervene without lawsuits. Civil affairs were completely autonomous (S. WEI, 2005). LIANG Qi-chao described the autonomous situation in his hometown as the following: with the autonomy in countryside, lawsuits rarely happen; people have almost no communication with local government (LIANG, 1990, p. 73; TONG, 1999). Duaras (2004, p. 2) research showed that, until Yihetuan Movement was repressed, the government of the QING Dynasty began to extend its power to the township level so as to levy more tax to pay huge indemnities. The interesting thing is that, up to now, local autonomy is still effective in some rural areas in China. According to a report in the Legal Report Daily, a TV program from CCTV, ZHOU Yu-zhong, a farmer in Guangxi Autonomous Region, was accused of sexual harassment by a woman. He had to accept a clan punishment decided by elders of his village rather than a legal punishment6. Another case from the Southern Weekly (Nanfang Zhoumo) shows the same story: When reporter asked a man named LI Ping, whose daughter was beaten and killed in primary school, whether or not he would ask for help from the policeman, LI replied that people used to seek help from Elders Association in his village when having difficulties (Y. W. CAO, 2005, p. B09). Lack of Afterlife and Utilitarianism Weber (1995, p. 280) regarded Confucianism to be the most secular ethics in the world. About the way of thinking, Nakamura (1990) believed that Chinese nationality is usually based on the thinking way of generally known utilitarianism (p. 206); because Chinese only concern about the ethics and politics needed in daily life, some aspect of Chinese ideology could be called realism (p. 207); He also believed that Chinese people concern carnal desire and material desire more than spiritual things. Even the Buddhism, which is from India, was changed by Chinese utilitarianism after it was introduced into China (p. 209). With cultural comparisons among China, India, and the Western world, LIANG (1989, p. 396) showed that
6 See Legal Report Daily (Jin Ri Shuo Fa), CCTV, December 9, 2005. See also the website of CCTV: http://www.cctv.com/program/lawtoday/20051212/101120.shtml.
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Chinese culture is very weak in religion and pays less attention to knowledge; almost all its philosophy is about life and secular things. Confucius had a well-known saying: How can we understand death before we understand life. LIANG (1989, p. 248) also believed that living is the most important idea for Confucianism. The lack of afterlife in Chinese culture can been seen from the following table. When asked with the question how important is the God in your life, only 4.7% of Chinese people answer very important (see Table 1). Table 1 How Importance is God in Your Life (Valid Percentage)
Country China (2007) Japan (2005) India (2006) Thailand (2007) Malaysia (2006) US (2006) Brazil (2006) Scale (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) 1 39.5 13.1 8.7 0.1 0.8 5.3 1.0 2 12.7 11.6 0.3 1.5 0.3 3 8.2 10.1 0.2 0.8 2.3 0.1 4 3.7 5.1 0.5 2.1 2.4 0.3 5 9.4 10.7 33.9 4.4 9.5 5.8 0.9 6 7.0 20.3 8.0 12.6 5.6 1.0 7 4.7 10.5 22.9 10.2 4.7 1.5 8 6.0 8.8 28.8 13.0 6.9 3.5 9 4.2 4.1 16.9 10.3 7.6 4.3 10 4.7 5.8 57.4 18.2 30.3 57.8 87.1 Mean 3.6 5.0 7.5 8.0 8.1 8.2 9.6 Note. 1-10 is the scale of the importance of the God, 1 = not all important, 10 = very important. Source: WVS 2005-2008, corresponding to the fifth wave of the World Values Survey. Retrieved from http://www.wvsevsdb.com/wvs/WVSAnalizeSample.jsp.
For Thailand, answer for scale 2 is in short; for India, answers only for scale 1, 5, and 10 are available. Q. J. ZHANG (2005) pointed out that, while the behaviors of people in religious societies are constrained by dual utilities: afterlife utility and secular utility, Chinese people are only constrained by one kind of utility: secular utility, because there is no religious tradition in China.
Economic Analysis of Traditional Chinese Culture

LIANG (1990b, p. 52) insisted that the major difference between Chinese and Western culture is religion: Religion is really the watershed between Chinese and Western culture. Actually, religion is the watershed not only between Chinese and Western culture, but also between Chinese and all religious cultures. Therefore, only through comparison to religious cultures can we truly understand Chinese culture. In religious societies, people have two utilities: afterlife utility and secular utility7. One needs to input in religious activities to gain afterlife utility and input in market activities to gain secular utility. We assume that time input is identical in all kinds of activities, whether they are secular or spiritual. The total resource constraint is the total amount of an individuals available time. We also assume that both secular utility and afterlife utility are a positive function of time. The reason that secular utility is a decreasing function of time input is easy to understand, for the assumption of diminishing marginal utility of income is regarded by most people as reasonable (Ng, 2004, p. 178). The decreasing marginal utility of religious input comes from the idea that
7
The two kinds of utilities were regarded as wealth in heaven and wealth on earth by Jody W. Lipford and Robert D. Tollison (2002).
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religious utility cannot be deposited: Utility of one worship or consecration cannot be used throughout a whole lifetime; an individual is required to participate religious activities continuously. Peoples utility function must therefore be the sum of afterlife utility and secular utility. But for Chinese people, no afterlife utility is meaningful, so peoples total utility only consists of secular utility. The difference of the different functions between Chinese and religious people is very important, for different utility function may result in different consumption preferences and behavior preferences. The unity of the Chinese utility function means that Chinese people value secular consumption only, and this preference can also be seen in the developing pattern of Chinese enterprises. Since afterlife utility is spiritual, the gain of this utility is in the cost that one has to subject to some religious doctrines and moral constraints. However, Chinese people do not have such a cost. Q. J. ZHANG (2005) decomposed the values of afterlife utility and secular utility. According to Q. J. ZHANG, secular utility can be decomposed into values like material consumption, entrepreneurship, risk taking, creativity, selfishness, and incentives for committing crime; afterlife utility can be decomposed into values such as spiritual happiness, altruism, legal obedience, cooperation, and expansion. Now, one more value must be added to the afterlife utility: trust. Guiso et al. (2006) compared the degree of trust among different religions. Unfortunately, they did not include Confucianism in their analysis. The trust level in Chinese culture might be very low compared to that in other religious cultures (see the detailed discussion in the following section). Some values of afterlife utility have the effect of offsetting the negative aspects of secular utility. For example, altruism and legal obedience could decrease the inclination towards committing crime or free riding. Because of the lack of afterlife utility, we will argue that the inclination towards crime and free riding is relatively strong among Chinese. Furthermore, when the increase of secular utility is limited by such issue as technology stagnation, the total utility of Chinese people might be less than religion believers in other societies. This was confirmed by an investigation by Ng (2002), who found that people in east Asia enjoy less happiness.
The Behavior Preference of Chinese

Social values in society certainly include economic attitudes. Guiso et al. (2006) compared the different economic attitudes between the different religions of Catholic, Protestant, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. It is a regret that Confucianism is less analyzed. This paper tries to make up for this omission. Determined by the distinct features of traditional Chinese culture, such as the lack of afterlife, we believe that the distinctive economic attitudes embodied in traditional Chinese culture include the following: (1) preferring individual struggle and belittling cooperation; (2) the alienation of civil society from government; (3) ideology strong in competition but weak in institutional obedience; and (4) valuing wealth accumulation and overlooking scientific innovation. The following sector provides the details. Preferring Individual Struggle and Belittling Cooperation On this preference of Chinese economic attitude, B. YANG (1985, pp. 25-26), a Chinese writer, argued that if putting Chinese together, they would be as weak as a reptile, because what Chinese are good at is internal conflict. There will be internal conflict in wherever Chinese are as Chinese are always disunited; it seems that there is no unity cell in Chinese bodies.
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Nakamura (1990, pp. 222-225) believed that Chinese culture promotes inclination to egoism, and Chinese have a weak awareness of both nation and state. With the comparison between Chinese and Japanese culture, L. P. ZHANG (1993, p. 37) showed that the life-attitude and life-philosophy of Chinese is based on individualism, but that of Japanese is based on collectivism. This feature comes from the ethics centered on blood relationships and the weakness of sociality. Just as LIANG (1990b) criticized, the lack of religion and organization is prevalent in traditional Chinese culture. Without religious faith, there is no social value beyond the family or clan. Because of the shortage of sociality and social organization, there is no custom for social cooperation in traditional Chinese society. Actually in traditional Chinese society, there is no need for social cooperation. Almost all businesses can be done by family or clan members, and all problems can be solved within the clan. Another reason accounting for Chinese preferring individual struggle and belittling cooperation is institutional. Institutionally, the concept of social equality is very helpful for social cooperation. But this concept is very weak in traditional China. Even though the clan is a kind of organization, people could not enjoy equality within the clan. The individuals position within a clan was determined by blood relationships, which were fixed by birth. Furthermore, cooperation needs legal protection. But the legal system in traditional China was not good enough for cooperation beyond the family or clan. Traditional China is more autonomous than legally administrated. Chinese people used to trust others less, especially strangers. This was confirmed by Weber and Y. T. LIN. Y. T. LIN (2000, p. 161) said that Chinese used to treat familiar people with friendship, but used to be hostile to strangers. Weber (1995, p. 284) said that the distrust among Chinese people is visible everywhere, which is in striking contrast with Puritans sincerity. Without a good legal administration, there was a high risk in cooperating with strangers. To reduce risk, cooperation was usually limited to local areas. A good example is that the Shanxi commercial firms that prospered in the MING and QING Dynasties only hired employees from local areas (see WANG & Ma, 2001, especially pp. 276-280). The Alienation of Civil Society From Government Loyalty and filial piety are generally regarded to be the core values of Chinese culture. But actually, being loyal to emperor is only meaningful in elite culture, whereas in mass culture the only core value is filial piety. Though government always promotes loyalty, common people generally regard filial piety to have priority, except at the time that the country was invaded by foreigners (L. P. ZHANG, 1993, p. 43). Just for this reason, LIANG (1990b, pp. 157-188) believed that what is significant for Chinese is the concept of the world, rather than the concept of state or country. This can also be shown by the idiom: The old frontiersman losing his horse8. In this story, the leg of the frontiersmans son was crippled in riding a horse and thus the son escaped from being recruited to fight for the country, the old frontiersman thought this is a lucky thing. Obviously he did not think that he needs to take duty of being loyal to the ruler and devoted to the country. Why is loyalty meaningful in elite culture? The reason is that the elites could gain utility from loyalty to the emperor, but the masses could gain nothing from this kind of loyalty.
8
See Huai Nan Zi-Renjian Pian, in Collection of Various Schools of Thought (Zhu Zi Ji Cheng) (2006). Chinese Publishing House.
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THE LACK OF AFTERLIFE AND ITS EFFECTS ON CHINESE ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR Traditional Chinese government followed the principle of governing by noninterference (Wu Wei Er
Zhi) , which is something similar to the minimalist government advocated by liberal economists10. Historically, Chinese government, except for monopolizing some important industries, provided only necessary public goods and services, such as excavating or dredging rivers, establishing or maintaining post stations. However, according to Duara, the public goods provided by the government amounted to very little in the period from the end of the QING Dynasty (1644-1911) to the Republic of China (1912-1949)11. The cooperation between civil society and government was rarely visible. Though, in the time of the Westernization Movement, some private firms sought protection from government with the name of being sponsored by government and run by businessmen, but this protection was obtained at significant cost (ZHOU, 2001, pp. 112-113). Conversely, officials work used to appear negatively in society: either to pressgang conscripts or to levy taxes, which was popularly resented. For example, Duara (2004, pp. 2, 32, 35, 166) found that the extension of government power to the countryside in the period from the end of QING Dynasty to the Republic of China, was aimed at increasing revenue. The officials responsible for tax levies were often resented. The countryside elite and villagers often united to resist expropriation by the government or its agents. Ideology Strong in Competition but Weak in Institutional Obedience Social sense is in very short supply in traditional Chinese society, just as Y. T. LIN (2000) said: What China is short in is movements, political association, religion, which constitute social life in Britain and America (p. 148), for Chinese, social work is often seen as interference to others. People committing to social reformation and other public affairs seem ridiculous (p. 150). In traditional China, people did not have experience in social movement or social activities, so the equality concept was not popular. Y. T. LIN argued that equality was often replaced by a hierarchical system12. On the other hand, Chinese society is quite open, In China, no fixed boundary exists between different classes, no fixed nobles exist too, what exists is the rise and fall of different families, measured by the decrease and increase of family wealth (Y. T. LIN, 2000, pp. 164-165). China had a hierarchical system but it was not fixed, so each family had an incentive to obtain a better relative standing13. The standard of relative standing for a family is determined by the level of family wealth. So there is a natural competition for a better relative standing between different families. This makes Chinese people very adaptable to competition, and the family is a natural economic unit which is good at competition.
LU Xin-wu (in MING Dynasty) said: The principle of governance must be: safety comes from non-disturbance, giving comes from non-expropriation, benefit comes from non-harm, non-interference means promoting beneficial things and abolishing harmful things, in Shen Yin Yu of Zhi Dao Pian (as cited in LIANG, The Gist of Chinese Culture, Collected Works of Liang Shuming (1990a), p. 158). 10 Friedman argued that the duties of government should be limited. The main task of government must be protecting peoples freedom from be invaded, that is to protect legal system and order, to guarantee the performance of private contract and to assist the competitive market. See Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chinese edition) (2004), p. 5. 11 On the role of Township Public Department (Xiang Gong Suo), Duara said, as a bigger grass-root department, Township Public Department was expected to provide some public service, but the only achievement we can found is that a well was dug in Wu Dian Village for irrigation. See Duara, Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942 (Chinese edition) (2004), pp. 161-162. 12 In traditional China, everyone got a fixed identity from the hierarchy system: Common people must be obedient to the rulers, elders must be kind to and respected by youngsters, elder brothers must treat younger brothers friendly and the younger brothers must be modest to the elder brothers, etc. See LIN, Yu-tang, My Country and My People (Chinese edition) (2000), pp. 159, 161. 13 On the importance of relative standing, see Yew-kwang Ng, Welfare Economics: Toward a More Complete Analysis (2004), pp. 266-268.
9
THE LACK OF AFTERLIFE AND ITS EFFECTS ON CHINESE ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR However, institutions were not well developed to constrain individual competition in Chinese society.
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For Chinese, only when related with some individual relationships, such as the relationship between father and son, the monarch and his subjects, or husband and wife, could morality be significant, so Chinese are rarely concerned about public rules pertaining to ethics and laws which are found in other countries or societies. (Nakamura, 1990, p. 223)
It is said that the Western legal system originated from religion (Berman, 1993; Hayek, 1997, pp. 204-207). The weakness of religion in China must be responsible for the weakness of law or institutions. One of these results is that Chinese has a strong inclination for free riding. One businessman in Wenzhou, Zhejing Province, even said: Nothing is correct or wrong in Wenzhou, the only meaningful thing is to try (XIAO, 2005, p. C22). Another example is the poor development of Chinese credit market. According to one survey, up to the end of November, 2003, the debt default only among certain scaled enterprises (sale income above five million RMB) amounted to 1,862.4 billion RMB14. Some debt default is on purpose, rather than a shortage of finance. For example, ZHENG Bing, a farmer in Yongji City, Shanxi Province, established a store selling fertilizer and pesticide in 1997, but up to 2000, she was defaulted by villagers to the amount of about 110,000 RMB. She also guaranteed for one farmers loan of 150,000 RMB, but the debt fell on her because of the farmers default. The farmer saved money in the bank, but did not pay her (MA, 2006). The high rate of law violation among Chinese people can be shown by the following case. According to the Southern Weekly, The cases of rule violation in Russia made by Chinese people are much more than that made by other nationalities. In 2004, 8.66 million foreign people entered Russia and the number of cases of violating administrational rules was 104,000, the ratio of rule violation to the total entry is 1:83. But for Chinese entering into Russia, the cases of rule violation are 32,886, the ratio of being punished to the total entry is 1:23. As for the Chinese people staying Russia for more than three days, the ratio of violating administration rules to the total population is 1:13 The cases that Chinese people violating Russian administration rules are higher than other nationalities15. Valuing Wealth Accumulation and Overlooking Scientific Innovation Chinese have a reputation for accumulating wealth, but this feature comes from the competition for better relative standing between families. Because the test measuring the relative standing is the amount of wealth, Chinese have a strong incentive in terms of wealth accumulation. Because to increase market income is the only way to increase utility, it is a natural thing that Chinese value material wealth above all. Therefore, Chinese are well known as hard working people. Another way for wealth accumulation is to be thrifty besides working hard, so Chinese are also known to be frugal. Being hard working and thrifty are popular faith in China, a business could be established and maintained with this (LIANG, 1990b, p. 196). If a person is famous for hard work, thrift, wealth accumulation, and stinginess, it can be found that family awareness acts on him (Y. T. LIN, 2000, p. 151). Wealth accumulation is also helpful for economic development. The peoples untiring pursuit of wealth is a great impetus for Chinese economic growth.
See Analysis on the Seriousness of Debt Default Problem Among Big Enterprises in Contemporary China, written by Investigation Group of Credit Management, Industrial Economic Association of China, cited from the Web of Global Manufacture (Quanqiu Zhizao Wang): http://law.easyeb.com/weihai.jsp. 15 Gonqialov (2006, January 5). It is not true that Chinese population expanding in Russia, Southern Weekly (Nanfang Zhoumo). Note: Chinese people referred here may be Chinese travelers or businessmen in Russia, not Chinese residents in Russia. The difference between residents and non-residents is that the former is better adapted to the local rules than the latter.
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THE LACK OF AFTERLIFE AND ITS EFFECTS ON CHINESE ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR According to institutional economics, institutions play a significant role in terms of economic development.
A good economic performance depends on good institutions. However, the institutions in China are far from being perfect. For example, property rights are not well specified so far, but Chinas economy has been growing rapidly in the past twenty years. One reason accounting for this is that the strong desire for wealth of Chinese people somewhat offsets the disadvantages of Chinese institutions. However, Chinese people do not have a good sense in scientific innovation. Y. T. LIN (2000, pp. 71-73) ascribed the lack of scientific spirit in China to the way of thinking innate in traditional Chinese culture. LIANG (1990b, pp. 267-276) argued that Chinese culture values human too much and neglects objects, and this is why science could not develop well in China. Weber (1995) thought that Chinese lack both rational thinking and technological experiment which is supported by business, thus China lacks rational sciences (pp. 201-202); they reject and even have no such knowledge as that cannot be directly useful (p. 284). Even Richard Lynn, who argued that east Asians IQ is higher than Europeans, showed that traditional Chinese culture does not encourage innovation and even throttles new ideas or new creations, and the Chinese educational system lays more stress on existing knowledge and on the training of obedient followers, rather than original innovators (C. WEI, 2006).
The Effects of Traditional Chinese Culture on Firm Management

The Popularity of Family Firms Family firms exist in many economies, but it is much more popular in Chinese circles than in other societies (W. LI, 2003, pp. 62-67). Anhui firms (Hui Shang), which had a long established reputation in China, based their business on family firms; and Shanxi firms (Jin Shang, they enjoy an equal historical reputation with Hui Shang), while not limiting their business within family, based their business within regions, they even only hired employees born within Shanxi (WANG & MA, 2001, pp. 22, 94, 276-280). Almost all the successful Chinese firms in Taiwan and Hong Kang are family firms, such as WANG Yong-qings Tai-Tsu Group, Da Hua Bank Group in Singapore, and San Lin Group in Indonesia. Seventy percent corporations in Hong Kong are family firms (Cookson, 2011). Though in different environments, overseas Chinese similarly take the same organizational pattern of firms, i.e., the family firm (D. LEI, 1993, p. 4). Furthermore, the Chinese family firm is different from the Western family firm. From appearance, the new transnational groups run by overseas Chinese are similar to other corporations, such as their establishment: They have a board of directors and staff, but their operating style is completely different from anything else in the world economy, the best way to describe them is to see them as families operating together (Drucker, 1999, p. 157). Almost all the private firms in Mainland China are family firms. According to one article, in the present non-publicly-owned economies in Mainland China, the ratio of family firms is no less than 90%; the ratio even is higher in coastal areas like Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The article also argues that the key positions in these firms are usually occupied by family members, even if they are corporations judged by appearance and hire professional managers16. Another article insists that the only reason for private firms in Mainland China to reform is family management. The owners often distrust managers and come into conflict with managers, even if the managers are usually professional (LU, 2001).
16 The article is titled Chinese Family Firms Are Taking Mean Way, in Contemporary Finance and Economy in Xinhua Web. Retrieved from http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2002-10/11/content_592716.htm.
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The popularity of the family firm in Chinese circles may come from the Chinese preference for individual struggle and distrust of others and thus they have bad performance in cooperating. For example, CHEN Jiu-lin, the former CEO (chief executive officer) of China Aviation Oil Holding Co., who was arrested in Singapore for illegal operations, expressed the view that Chinese overseas firms are not well integrated and thus are very weak as individuals. Japanese overseas firms tend to be well united, but Chinese firms are just like a plate of sand. When one firm faces difficulty, it could hardly seek help from other Chinese firms (HAN, 2006, p. B14). However, family firms have special advantages in management. Because family members share common interests, they usually like to make their contribution to firm development and thus to decrease free riding behavior within the firm; family firms do not need to cost for the relationship between principal and agency; family firms can make quick decisions and change their strategies rapidly, and so on. The economic success in Chinese circles, to some degree, is gained from the advantages of family management. In particular, the economic prosperity in Mainland China since the end of the 1970s is closely related to the rapid development of family firms. However, family firms have apparent disadvantages. For example, the knowledge and capability of professional managers are used insufficiently; they suffer losses in scale economy; and they are less capable in technological innovations. The advantages and disadvantages may depend on particular industries. They may enjoy advantages in industries suited to small scale, such as service industries, and suffer disadvantages in industries good for large scale production, such as automobiles. The Alienated Relationship Between Firms and Government The relevant firms here are private ones; state-owned firms are too special to be included. Undoubtedly, governments have played an important role in the economic development of east Asia, though there continues to be controversy about whether their role is positive or negative.17 However, this paper argues that governments economic interference in Hong Kong and Taiwan played much less a role than that in Japan and Korea. Government in Mainland China is, of course, an exception. The role played by the Japanese government in economic development is well known. Obviously, the Japanese economy is not a laissez-faire one, and the interference of the Japanese government not only changed industrial resource distribution, but also influenced the production activities of private firms (P. XU, 2003, p. 14, and footnote 2). According to L. P. ZHANG (1993), throughout the industrial revolution, Japanese government played a significant role and this is a typical feature of Japanese industrialization. Because of the weakness of the (Japanese) bourgeoisie, it is government, rather than the bourgeoisie who promoted Japanese industrialization (L. P. ZHANG, 1993, p. 195). The state, like a shield, carefully fostered and protected the growth of capitalism; in turn, all of the protected large financial groups and firms attached itself to state power (L. P. ZHANG, 1993, p. 196). In the modern economy, it is the Regulation of Important Industries, which was implemented in 1931 in Japan, that best reflects the role of the Japanese government, Important industries were decided by government, the choice of specific objects depended on the judgment of governmental departments, and did not need to go through legal procedures. On one hand, firms had to
See WU Jing-lians Chinese preface, Aoki Masahikos English preface, Aoki Masahiko, Kevin Murdock, Okumo Masahiro, ZHAO Chen-ning, and ZHANG Lu (1998), New Interpretation for the Government Role in Economic Development in East Asia: Market Enhancement Theory, and other papers in The Role of Government in Economic Development in East Asia, edited by Masahiko Aoki, Hyung-Ki Kim, and Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara.
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operate according to the orders and supervision of government; on the other hand, they received benefits from the government such as tax exemptions and finance. After World War II, though Japan was forced by US to implement political and economic reform, many governmental functions were retained and some were even enhanced (P. XU, 2003, pp. 77-129). While tycoons play a significant role in Korean economic life, they do so in cooperation with government. YIN (1993) insisted that, in the relationship between firms and government, government keeps authoritative power to regulate and command firms, and this is typically important to Korean economic development (YIN, 1993, p. 185). The government formed a relationship with large firms, that is, government pursued a developmental plan, and firms pursued profits. Large private firms played a major role in export oriented production, therefore they received more support from government in loans and technological imports (YIN, 1993, p. 180). The Park Chung Hee regime managed to force firms like Samsung to be consistent with state plans through investigating but not punishing those firms which accumulated wealth illegally under the Rhee Syngman regime (YIN, 1993, pp. 178-179). The habit that peoples obedience to and fear of officials which was produced by Confucianist tradition helped the government to achieve its goals (YIN, 1993, p. 176). To regulate business, the Korean government not only used economic measures like taxes and loans, but also used administrative decrees. Park Chung Hee often regulated large projects himself, he chaired the Promoting Association for Expanding Exports once a month, He may be the only one in the world that stressed production directly as a President (YIN, 1993, pp. 74-75, 175-176). Relative to Japan and Korea, the relationship between firms and government is not so close in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Hong Kong is known for its laissez-faire development (LIU, 1998). The government regulation of firms in Taiwan is not as effective as that in Japan and Korea, for the main body of Taiwan business is small and medium firms, and the monopoly of industries or products is relatively low. It is difficult for government to regulate many firms when pursuing a development plan. This can be shown by that the public sector in Taiwan is stronger than that in Japan and Korea. In the early 1950, the ratio of property value in the public sector amounted to 90% (LIU, 1998, p. 54). In 1976, the products of the public sector in Taiwan accounted for 22.1% in terms of the total product, but the products of public firms only accounted for 8.0% in total GDP in Korea (YIN, 1993, p. 173). In the 1980s, the product ratio of the public sector was still as high as 15% (LIU, 1998, p. 54). The public sector in Taiwan covers many profitable industries such as electricity, oil, sugar, fertilizer, iron and steel, machinery, shipbuilding, building, salt and electronics, and so on, so it is very obvious that the government competes with the private sectors for profits (YIN, 1993, p. 173). From here we can see that, while governments could pursue development goals through the private sector in Japan and Korea, the Taiwanese government had to do so through the public sector. This shows that the relationship between government and private firms in Taiwan is not as close as that in Japan and Korea. From appearance, the relationship between government and firms in Chinese circles is somewhat similar to that in Western countries where people used to be skeptical about government actions, but actually, they are very different. With the awareness that the excess of state power would be harmful to individual freedoms and civil society, effective institutions, like constitutions, were developed to limit the power of the state in Western countries. Therefore, the relationship between government and firms has been institutionalized in Western
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countries. But in Chinese societies, the institutions are so imperfect that it is a common thing that private domain is invaded by the state. As discussed above, the Taiwan government monopolized many important and profitable industries for a long time, and private firms had to keep away from these industries. The unfairness suffered by private firms is even more serious in Mainland China. With government monopolies, the private sector not only has to stay out of many important and profitable industries such as electricity, telecommunications, banking, shipping, and air transportation, but is also discriminated in tax and credit areas. For many times, the interests of private firms are not well protected by government18. Moreover, civil society cannot benefit from the social security provided by government, for the tradition that government provides social security for civil society, which is prevalent in western countries, does not work in Mainland China. Sometimes, even state owned firms failed to seek help from government. For example, after CHEN Jiu-lin, the former CEO of China Aviation Oil Holding Co. was arrested in Singapore for illegal business operations, Han Fangming stated that:
When Americans commit crimes in Singapore, the US government pleaded with the Singapore government; Australia did the same when Australians were charged in Singapore. But when Chen Jiulin was accused by the Singapore government, the Chinese government never tried to do anything for him. (HAN, 2006, p. B14)
Strong in Imitation and Weak in Innovation It is said that the success of Jewish business is normally based on innovation and the success of Chinese business is normally based on imitation. While we have little chance to testify if the above statement is true for Jewish people, we know that imitation is really popular in China. The main evidence is that there have been so many cases where Chinese do business akin to swarming bees. When a firm is successful in a product or with a technology, thousands of firms imitate it and eventually make the product or technology valueless. The phenomenon of swarming bees production occurred many times in Chinese agricultural production in the 1980s. A typical case is in haw production. When some areas made money from growing haws, many other areas learned to grow haws and finally made the haw unsalable. The same phenomenon also happened in industrial production. A typical case is the development of the television and refrigerator industries. When some firms were successful in these areas of production, such as Hisense in TV production and Haier in refrigerator, many factories were built to produce TV sets and refrigerators and almost every province had its own factories for producing these items. The consequence is that over-production of televisions and refrigerators continues even today. Swarming bee production has even occurred in high tech areas. Within one year after the photovoltaic industry landed in China, Chinese firms involving in photovoltaic production number no less than 30 (Z. XU, 2006, p. C23). While the electronic industry was built up quickly in China through technological imitation, the industry is now suffering the weakness of technological innovation. For example, thanks to successful technological imitation, the Chinese television industry has become the largest one in the world. TV sets made in China enjoy
18
The property right in private firms not only could not be effectively protected by government, but also hurt directly by government. For example, in order to exaggerate the economic achievement, the administrative leaders in Lu Long County, Hebei Province, tried to change a private firm into county-state owned firm. After be refused, the county leaders arrested YAO Qing-shan, the main leader of that private firm, with a charge framed up. See Legal Report Daily (Jin Ri Shuo Fa), CCTV-1, July 10, 2003.
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advantages in price in competition with TV firms of advanced countries. However, for the weakness in technological innovation, the advantage enjoyed by Chinese TV firms is only limited to traditional technology. Many TV firms in developed countries have withdrawn from the production of traditional technology and turn to the production of liquid crystal TVs, which need higher technology and is more profitable. Chinese TV firms are troubled by the lack of flat panel technology and the consequence is that although 70% TV sales is of Chinese national brands, 80% of profits are taken by foreign firms producing liquid crystal flat panels19. Another case is DVD production. Chinese DVD products almost monopolies the world market, but the firms producing DVDs are troubled by huge patent fees for they lack core technologies (A Survey on DVD Patent Fees, 2004). The same thing also happened in the cell phone industry. China is the biggest producer of cell phones, but Chinese firms cannot develop core technology and have to buy such technology from foreign firms (FENG, 2006, p. C24). The weakness of Chinese firms in innovation has been noted by a number of entrepreneurs. For example, LI Dong-sheng, the Chairman of TCL Group, believed that Chinese education lacks developing innovation capabilities, and Chinese culture does not encourage innovation (J. DENG, 2006, p. C22). X. K. YANG (2000) made the criticism that China only pays attention to technological importation but neglects institutional imitation. Obviously, X. K. YANG is also correct for Chinese firms.
Conclusions
As a rational entity, company has a strong motivation to maximize its profits. At the first sight, the rational character will make a company give up its outdated culture and adopt a new culture that could maximize its efficiency. But, in the real world, cultural change is much slower than technological change. Because of the adoption of new technology, a company could improve its technique level overnight. But, cultural change will need unremitting effort of a whole generation or even a few generations. At the initial stage of globalization, because of relative isolation, even for the culture that has influence on companys efficiency, there are still obvious difference among different countries. And the uniqueness of Chinese culture is proverbial. Just because of the unique characters of Chinese culture, Chinese firms show a different character from Western firms, like the popularity of family firms, the distant relationship between government and business, the recognition of imitation and the neglect of innovation, and the weakness of institutional consciousness. All of these characters have a different influence on a Chinese firms competition efficiency. As for the family firms, although they have the advantage of small size, quick feedback, and free commission fee, when they compete with large stock companies in the world market, these family firms always show their weakness in innovation and economic power. In the Asian financial crisis in the late of the 1990s, why could the Chinese circles escape by the skin of its teeth? There is no doubt that the small size of firms and the distant relationship between government and businesses contribute to that to some extent. Although Chinese do not have enough conscious of science and innovation, according the authors opinion, a main driving force for the rapid growth of Chinas economy is that Chinese desire wealth. In international competition, there is also an optimizing process for the culture which has an influence on competition efficiency. So there should be the
This is the words of WANG Dian-fu, who is from Chuangwei, a TV firm. Here is cited from ZHANG Chun-weis Price Competition in Crystal Liquid TV, Local Firms Stay Aside (Yejing Dianshi Jiage Zhan, Bentu Changshang Yibian Kan (2006, January 26), p. B15.
19
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timing adjustment of company characteristics which are determined by cultural characteristics those companies are facing. As we have seen, many family firms in Taiwan and Mainland China have been trying to adjust their operations way after they became aware of family firms weaknesses. And although imitation of existing technology could help Chinese firms and promote Chinas economic development, sustainable progress in the future will only come from the improvement of Chinese firms innovation ability.
References
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D
Dumitru Todoroi
DA VID
PUBLISHING
Adaptable Processing: Stage Development
Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
The development and evolution of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows shells are based in general on the special methodology of software creation and implementation such as macros, subroutine, custom commands, and specialized features. Microsoft Office for Mac has for long been criticized for its lack of support of Unicode and BiDi languages, notably Arabic and Hebrew. This has not changed in the Office 2008 version. Microsoft Office 2010 (also called Office 2010 and Office 14) is the current version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite for Microsoft Windows, and the successor to Microsoft Office 2007. With Office 2010, users are in control, getting things done and producing amazing results however and wherever they work best. Ms Office 2010 is the last version of Microsoft Office with support for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 due to Office 2013 requiring Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, or Windows RT. Adaptive hardware (Ugurdag, 2006) reflects the capability of a system to maintain or improve its performance in the context of internal or external changes. Adaptation at hardware levels increases the system capabilities beyond what is possible with software-only solutions. Algorithms, techniques, and their implementation in hardware are developed over a diverse variety of applications. The methodology of the On-Off-Line adaptable processors (Todoroi & Micusha, 2012) support development of adaptable software and hardware. Automatic creation of the Off-Line adaptable processors are proved. Development of the On-Line and On-Off-Line adaptable processors based on Off-Line processing creation method is proposed (Todoroi, Micua, & Todoroi, 2009; Todoroi, 2008a, 2008b). Keywords: adaptability, adaptive, processor, language, adaptable processor, adaptive hardware, adaptable software
Introduction
The development and evolution of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows shells is based in general on the special methodology of software creation and implementation such as macros, subroutine, custom commands, and specialized features. A major feature of the last decade of Ms Office suite development consists in the ability for users and third party companies to write add-ins that extend the capabilities of an application by adding custom commands and specialized features. Developers Microsoft Office have underlined that in Ms Office 2007:
The entire user interface has been redesigned to be more intuitive, easier to navigate, and better suited to the task at hand Now the command you need come to you, depending on the type of object you select and the application you are using. (Ugurdag, 2006, p. 1)
Dumitru Todoroi, professor, Information Technologies Department, Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova.
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ADAPTABLE PROCESSING: STAGE DEVELOPMENT Adaptive hardware (Ugurdag, 2006) reflects the capability of a system to maintain or improve its
performance in the context of internal or external changes. Adaptation at hardware levels increases the system capabilities beyond what is possible with software-only solutions. Algorithms, techniques, and their implementation in hardware are developed over a diverse variety of applications. The methodology of the On-Off-Line adaptable processors supports development of adaptable software (Todoroi, 2008a, 2008b). Automatic creation of the Off-Line adaptable processors has been proved (Todoroi, Micua, Todoroi, & Spataru, 2007). The adaptable tools as base for creation, application, and development of adaptable software are characterized by a set of advanced linguistic and processors features (Todoroi, Micua, & Todoroi, 2006). Adaptable languages, as part of adaptable software and hardware, integrate such linguistics features as: multilanguageability, universality, speciality, extensibility, dialect-ability, compatibility of basis, reductability, effectivity of modification, continuity of human, machine experience, and touchability to the formal natural language level of human-machine interactions. Adaptable processors as part of adaptable software and hardware integrate such translation features as: universality, mobility, transferability, cognisability, specializability, minimizing of processors quantity, and raising the level of adaptable software to the level of problem formulation.
Difficulties in Porting Office

Microsoft develops Office for Windows and Mac platforms. Beginning with Mac Office 4.2, the Mac and Windows versions of Office share the same file format. Consequently, any Mac with Office 4.2 or later can read documents created with Windows Office 4.2 or later, and vice-versa. Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac drops VBA support (MS Office, 2008, 2010). Microsoft has replaced VBA (visual basic for applications) with support for AppleScript. As a result, macros created with Office for Windows will not run on Office for the Mac, and vice versa. In addition, Microsoft has also ceased development on Microsoft Virtual PC (personal computer) (MS Office, 2007). There were efforts in the mid 1990s to port Office to RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) processors such as NEC (Nippon Electric Company)/MIPS (Microprocessor Without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) and IBM (International Business Machines Corporation)/PowerPC, but they met problems such as memory access being hampered by data structure alignment requirements. Difficulties in porting Office may have been a factor in discontinuing Windows NT (New Technology) on non-Intel platforms.
Criticisms of Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is commonly criticized for its security issues and infections from macro viruses. Secunia reports [Wikipedia] that out of the 15 vulnerabilities reported in 2006 for Microsoft Office 2003 (standard edition), 20% are unpatched, 33% are marked as extremely critical, and 53% are marked as highly critical. Another common criticism of Microsoft Office is its preference of proprietary formats over open standards to store data, which is often intended to be shared with other users, hence forcing them into adoption of the same software platform (Stallman, 2008). However, Office Open XML (Extensible Markup Language), the document format for the latest versions of Office for Windows and Mac, is an ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association) standard and open for implementation to anyone. Microsoft has freely published the complete format documentation under the Open Specification Promise (MS Office, 2010) and has made available free
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downloadable converters for previous versions of Microsoft Office including Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000, and Office 2004 for the Mac. Implementations of Office Open XML exist on the Mac platform and Linux. Microsoft Office for Mac has for long been criticized for its lack of support of Unicode and BiDi languages, notably Arabic and Hebrew. This has not changed in the 2008 version.
AEH (Adaptive and Evolvable Hardware)

Adaptive hardware reflects the capability of a system to maintain or improve its performance in the context of internal or external changes, such as uncertainties and variations during fabrication, faults and degradations, modifications in the operational environment, incidental or intentional interference, different users and preferences, modifications of standards and requirements, trade-offs between performance and resources, etc. The first NASA/ESA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration/European Space Agency) Conference on Adaptive Hardware and Systems (Ugurdag, 2006) was to bring together leading researchers from the adaptive hardware and systems community to exchange experiences and share new ideas in the field. The conference expands the topics addressed by the precursor annual series of NASA/DoD (National Aeronautics and Space Administration/ Department of Defense) Conference on Evolvable Hardware held between 1999 and 2005. This meeting was provided a forum for discussion on the generic techniques of adaptive hardware and systems, with a focus on communications and space applications, with view to its expansion and exploitation in other applications such as consumer, medical, defense and security, etc. The paper (Stoica & Andrei, 2007) was one of the most important papers at the Second NASA/ESA Conference on Adaptive Hardware and Systems. It explores AEH solutions from three essential perspectives: (1) technology; (2) economics; and (3) system architecture. The growing field of mobile robotics produces various types of robot systems for different applications (Merten & Gross, 2008). What was underlined that the development of new robots often requires the design of new hardware systems which is time consuming and susceptible to errors. Adaptation at hardware levels increases the system capabilities beyond what is possible with software-only solutions, and a large number of adaptation features employing both analog and digital adjustments are becoming increasingly present in the most elementary system components. Algorithms, techniques, and their implementation in hardware are developed over a diverse variety of applications, such as adaptive communications (adapting to changing environment and interferences), reconfigurable systems on a chip and portable wireless devices (adapting to power limitations) or survivable spacecraft (adapting to extreme environments and mission unknowns).
Adaptable Software
Adaptable tools represent a set of meta-system methods, models, algorithms, and procedures (Todoroi, 1992) used in the process of the software and hardware systems creation and its implementation. They support human-machine interaction processes to be developed by various kinds of software and hardware systems at different stages of information, knowledge, and conscience based Societies ascending evolution. Adaptors as adaptable meta-system tools represent the union of methods, models, algorithms, and procedures to be used for adaptable languages and processors creation and application. They are based on
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definition and usage of new or modified data, operators, statements, and controls. Adaptable tools are represented by the set of adaptors of different types (see Example 1): Example (1) Adaptable language New data Extension definition AD AP T OR Adaptable processor New actions (operators, statements, controls) Extension call
The adaptor as a meta-system tool supports adaptable software (language and processors) and hardware flexibility (extension and reduction). Language adaptor as part of adaptable language which is composed from the pragmatic, syntactic, semantic, environment, and examples of new or modified elements component parts (see Example 2): Example (2) _BL_ <elements pragmatics> _SY_ <elements syntax> _SE_ <elements semantics> _CO_ <elements usage context> _EX_ <elements examples call> _EL_ Adaptors component parts support flexibility of languages and of processors as component parts of adaptable systems. Adaptors permit the process of software and hardware adaptation to the home-machine interface needs. Adaptor is represented by the corresponding extender and reducer. The adaptors permit the bottom-up, top-down, and horizontal adaptable (flexible) softwares and hardwares development.
On-Off-Line Adaptable Software

The On-Off-Line adaptable software is composed from adaptable language and from corresponding On-Off-Line adaptable processors. Adaptable language is composed from the adaptable basic language, languages adaptors, and derivative (adaptable) elements (extensions). On-Off-Line adaptable processors are represented by the set of Off-Line, On-Line, and On-Off-Line adaptable processors, which implement adaptable languages. Evolution of On-Off-Line adaptable processors is based on the evolution of Off-Line adaptable software (Todoroi & Micusha, 2012). Adaptable translation methods and models (Todoroi, 2008a, 2008b) are used to demonstrate Off-Line adaptable processors automatic creation. The last one is composed from the Off-Line adaptable softwares basis and Off-Line adaptable software levels. Adaptable Softwares Basis Adaptable softwares basis is represented by the adaptable basic language, languages adaptors, and derivative elements in community with the adaptable basic system. The last one is represented by the definition, fixation, calling, and reduction adaptable sub-systems. The definition sub-system implements the extension definition. The fixation sub-system fixates the extension definition in the adaptable software. The calling sub-system implements the extension call in the adaptable software. The reduction sub-system creates the individual adaptable software.
ADAPTABLE PROCESSING: STAGE DEVELOPMENT The First Level of Adaptable Software
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There are distinguished three different types of the first level of adaptable software (the first level of translation complexity On-Line, Off-Line, and On-Off-Line adaptable processors). They are based on the next three types of invented adaptable softwares creation methods: (1) the E-T-I-M (Extensions Time Implementation Method); (2) the E-L-I-M (Extensions Level Implementation Method); and (3) the P-T-I-M (Processors Type Implementation Model). With the help of E-T-I-M were created adaptable pre-, inter-, and post-processors. The E-L-I-M was used to create L-L (level-level), L-D (level-direct), and L-L-D (level-level-direct) adaptable processors. Were demonstrated the theorems of automatically creation of adaptable processors by the help of the E-T-I-M and E-L-I-M processors creation methods. On-Line and Off-On-Line first level adaptable processors can by created by the help of the P-T-I-M using Off-Line adaptable processors developed on the base of E-T-I-M and E-L-I-M processors creation methods. The Second Level of Adaptable Software There are distinguished three different types of the second level of adaptable software: the ELIM-PTIM type, the ETIM-PTIM type, and the ELIM-ETIM type. The second level ELIM-PTIM type of adaptable software, for example, is represented by the L-L-Preprocessors, L-D-Preprocessors, and L-L-D-Preprocessors. The second level ELIM-PTIM type of adaptable software is created on the base of Extensions Level Implementation and of Processors Type Implementation Methods. The second level ETIM-PTIM type of adaptable software is created on the base of Extensions Time Implementation and of Processors Type Implementation Methods. The second level ELIM-PTIM type of adaptable software is created on the base of Extensions Level Implementation and of Processors Type Implementation Methods. The adaptable processors of the ELIM-ETIM type, for example, is represented by the L-L-Preprocessors, L-D-Preprocessors, and L-L-D-Preprocessors. Was demonstrated the possibility of automatically creation of Off-Line adaptable processors of the second level of translation complexity: Off-Line Pre-, Off-Line Inter-, and Off-Line Post-processors and of Off-Line: Off-Line L-L-, Off-Line L-D-, and Off-Line L-L-D-processors. It is demonstrated (Todoroi & Micusha, 2012) the possibility to realize the second levels adaptable software on the base of translation interactions of the first levels adaptable software. It is need to demonstrate the process of automatically creation of On-Line and On-Off-Line adaptable processors of the second level of translation complexity. The Third Level of Adaptable Software Third level of adaptable software is represented by such types of Off-Line adaptable software as Off-L-L-pre-processors, Off-L-D-inter-processors, and Off-L-L-D-post-processors. They are represented by such types of adaptable processors as Off-Line-L-L-Pre-, Off-Line-L-L-Inter-, Off-Line-L-L-Post-, Off-Line-L-D-Pre-, Off-Line-L-D-Inter-, Off-Line-L-D-Post-, Off-Line-L-L-D-Pre-, Off-Line-L-L-D-Inter-, and Off-Line-L-L-D-Post-processors. It was demonstrated (Todoroi et al., 2007) the process of automatically creation of these Off-Line adaptable
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processors of the third level of translation complexity. The demonstrations of automatically creation of adaptable software of the third level is based on the corresponding demonstrations of automatically creation of the adaptable software of the first and of the second levels of translation complexity. It is need to demonstrate the automatically creation of On-Line and On-Off-Line adaptable software of the third level of translation complexity. Adaptable Software Advantage It is demonstrated (Todoroi & Micusha, 2012) that adaptable tools as basis for creation, application, and development of adaptable software are characterized by a set of advanced linguistic and processors features. It is demonstrated that adaptable languages as part of adaptable software integrate such linguistics features as (see Example 3): Example (3) -Multilanguageability -Universality -Speciality -Exensibility -Dialectability -Compactibility of Basis -Reducability -Effectivity of modification -Continuity of Human and Machine experience -Touchability to the Formal Natural Language level of Human-Machine Interactions It is demonstrated that adaptable processors as part of adaptable software integrate such translation features as (see Example 4): Example (4) -Universality -Mobility -Transferability -Cognisability -Specializability -Minimizing of Processors Quantity -Raising the level of adaptable software to the level of Problem Formulation
Conclusions
The Ms Office and Ms Windows Systems are developed by Software shell methodology. Microsoft Office for Mac has for long been criticized. Adaptation at hardware levels increases the system capabilities beyond what is possible with software-only solutions. The methodology of the On-Off-Line adaptable processors support development of adaptable software and hardware. On the basis of adaptable processors of the first level of translation complexity Off-Line adaptable processors it is possible to demonstrate the process of automatically creation of the first and the second levels of translation complexity On-Line and On-Off-Line adaptable processors. The demonstrations of automatically
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creation of On-Line and On-Off-Line adaptable software of the third level of translation complexity can be obtained on the base of first and second levels of translation complexity of adaptable processors. It was demonstrated that adaptable tools as the base of creation, application, and development of adaptable software are characterized by a set of advanced linguistic and processors features. Human social and economic demand and supply for adaptable software in the Information and Knowledge Based Societies is too important. Adaptable methodology and technology in creation and application of adaptable software permit to develop in the future the research process of applicability of each of the first, second, and third levels of adaptable processors. Different types of adaptable software will have different domains of its applicability in the process of computerized human-machine intelligent interaction. This process conducts to develop Natural Language Processing Adaptable Software of human-machine interaction. The adaptable software forms new industry branch of informational technologies of the information and knowledge based societies.
References
Merten, M., & Gross, H.-M. (2008). Highly Adaptable Hardware architecture for scientific and industrial mobile robots (pp. 1130-1135). IEEE Conference on Robotics, Automation and Mechatronics. Chengdu, China. Microsoft Kills Virtual PC, VB for Mac. (2007). Microsoft kills virtual PC, VB for Mac. Retrieved from http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/08/07/ms.kills.virtualpc/ Microsoft Office 2010. (2010). Ms office 2010. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2010 Microsoft Office. (2012). Ms office. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office#_note-13#_note-13 Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ. (2010). Microsoft: Help and support. Retrieved from http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy Office 365 Home Premium. (2010). Ms office 2010 features and benefits. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/office-2010-features-and-benefits-HA101812297.aspx Stallman, R. M. (2008). We can put an end to word attachments. Retrieved from http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html Stoica, A., & Andrei, R. (2007). Adaptive and evolvable hardwareA multifaceted analysis (pp.486-498). Adaptive Hardware and Systems, Second NASA/ESA Conf., 5-8. Todoroi, D. (1992). Computer science: The adaptable programming: The basic conceptions. Chisinau: ASEM Press. Todoroi, D. (2008a). Adaptable software shells versus Microsoft Software shells (pp. 84-96). Journal of Applied Quantitative Methods (JAQM), 3(1). Retrieved from http://jaqm.ro/volume-3,issue-1.php Todoroi, D. (2008b). The softwares adaptable shells creation models (pp. 50-53). Proc. of 32nd Annual Congress of ARA. Boston, M.A., USA. Todoroi, D., & Micusha, D. (2012). Adaptable software. Chisinev: ASEM Press. Todoroi, D., Micua, D., & Todoroi, Z. (2006). Adaptable systems linguistic and processing properties (pp. 14-24). Informatica Economica, 4(40). Bucharest: ASE Printing House. Todoroi, D., Micua, D., & Todoroi, Z. (2009). Some problems of Ms Office, Adaptive Hardware and On-Off-line Adaptable Processors development (pp. 615-621). Proceedings of the 9th Int. Conf. on Informatics in Economy Education, Research & Business Technologies. Bucharest: ASE Printing House. Todoroi, D., Micua, D., Todoroi, Z., & Spataru, . (2007). From recursive programs to the adaptable processors construction (pp. 445-448). Proc. of 31th An. Congr. of ARA Pro-Active Partnership in Creativity for the Next Generation. Quebec, Canada: Presses Internationales Politechnique. Ugurdag, H. F. (2006). 1st Conference on Adaptive Hardware and SystemsAHS 2006 June 16-18, 2006. The First NASA/ESA Conference on Adaptive Hardware and Systems. Retrieved from http://ehw.jpl.nasa.gov/events/ahs2006/ahs2006-1st-call4participations.pdf
DA VID
PUBLISHING
The Representation of Foreign Politics Through Media Prism: A Case Study of 2008 U.S. Presidential Election Campaign in Mainland Chinese Newspapers
CUI Yan
Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, Zhuhai, China
As the most powerful nation in the world, the U.S. presidential election campaign drew a lot of attention from the media around the world. This study examines how party-orientation and market-orientation newspapers in China presented 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign to their audience, and how the news serve for the reproduction of domestic dominated ideology and safeguarding domestic political needs. It adopted content analysis and textual analysis as research methods. The results show that Party newspaper tends to serve domestic political ideology, while market-oriented newspapers showed mixed attitude toward political demand. Although market newspapers, out of the concern of political safety, employed some tactic to comply with the demand of dominated ideology to some extent, their cooperation was limited since their main purpose was commercial success and their presentation even destroy the aim of linkage politics for the reasons include acquiring market profit and/or pursuit of professional value. This study is a positive effort to make up the current research gap of studies on international news in Chinese media. Keywords: linkage politics, presidential election campaign, Chinese newspapers
Introduction
As the most powerful nation in the world, the result of U.S. presidential election has recognizable influence on the other nations particularly for those nations with different ideology. Thus the 2008 presidential election campaign drew a lot of attention from the media around the world. For the Chinese public, Western democratic system has often been interpreted in an abstract manner, while presidential election gives a concrete example to understand how U.S. political system works. During this process, the news media play a crucial role in generating and shaping public opinion on U.S. political system. This study attempts to examine how party-orientation and market-orientation newspapers in China presented the event to their audience and in what sense their presentation embodies the linkage politics of international news, i.e., international news works together with domestic news to serve for the reproduction of domestic dominated ideology and safeguarding civil political needs.
CUI Yan, assistant professor, Chinese Language and Cultural Center, Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College.
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Literature Review
Background of Chinese Media System In the late 1950s, the mass media in China was generally placed within a system of state propaganda. The orthodox Chinese Marxist theory of journalism claims that the primary value of news is to help to form and cement public opinion in line with partys line, so journalism was perceived playing an important role of throat and tongue (hou she) of the Party (B. ZHAO, 1999). As noted by Akhavan-Majid (2004), all media in China were subsidized by the party-state prior to economic reforms. The press consisted of two types of papers: the party organs newspapers and specialized papers. The former were officially the mouth-pieces of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and operated under the supervision of its propaganda departments, and the latter is associated with Chinas various mass organizations, government entities, and social and scientific associations. The media was allowed to accept advertising in 1979, which is a significant media policy opening in China. This policy was intended not to increase media subsidies with economic development (Lynch, 1999). After the early 1980s, Chinese media embraced the market and went through successive phases of commercialization along with the economy development in general (B. ZHAO, 1999). Since the mid-1980s, the throat and tongue theory has been shifted to serve for the people, while B. ZHAO (1999) criticized it as a ready-made official rhetoric. The number of non-party papers published began to multiply rapidly, and non-party papers dominated the media market in China during the 1990s (Akhavan-Majid, 2004). The marketization reform reshaped the structure of the Chinese media. Except for major mouthpieces of the Party such as Xinhua News Agency and Peoples Daily, more and more Chinese newspapers had to undertake financial responsibility for their own and thus operate according to market mechanisms (YU, 1994). Chinese media reform is seen as an extensive commercialization process. The market is seen as a powerful force in news production (Chan, 1993; Pan & Chan, 2003; Y. Z. ZHAO, 1998). This entails reporting soft news, using a personable, intimate, short, and highly readable style of writing. As observed by B. ZHAO (1999), Chinese media as the Partys mouthpiece has been increasingly eroded by increasingly driving force and pressures for commercial success. The resulting tension between state control and market dynamics has become a striking problem. At the process going, the state apparatus managed to accommodate new commercial environment without disturbing social and political stability and have relaxed ideological control in some topic areas. With the success of Jiaodian Fangtan, an officially sponsored critical journalism, the authority realized that critical journalism does not always do damage to the states authority and legitimacy. Rather, it can make propaganda more sophisticated and effective with carefully managed and directed. However, the party-state still held some political control on the media to some extent. Some areas, such as television journalism, have been considered as having political importance and are still tightly gripped. Thus the market-oriented newspapers have been carefully keeping the party line in its content, but they serve the party state differently from party-oriented papers (Pan & Chan, 2003). This interesting mix of ideological orientation aroused quite a number of discussion. Some researchers suggest that the party-state have been successful in keeping the commercialized media within its orbit, while others argue that state has lost some of the control over the mass media system (see summary by
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Akhavan-Majid, 2004). Unsatisfied with the dual conceptual frame of the state and market, Akhavan-Majid (2004) argued that there were multifaceted and complex dynamics of change in Chinas mass media system; in particular, non-state actors (e.g., citizens, journalists, and entrepreneurs) have made many of the changes in Chinas mass media system during the post-MAO period. Akhavan-Majid (2004) argued that social actors creatively renegotiate and expanded of new policy openings initiated by the state and thus push the initial boundaries of reform. Related to the tension between the state and market, the debate also exists in the development of professionalism. The influence of professionalism is on the rise. Some researchers argued there is a division between professional journalism, which emphasized on the disseminator role of the media, and party-journalism paradigm, which is characterized with the interpretive and popular advocacy roles (Pan & Chan, 2003). YU (1994) noticed that the general social environment is contemplating material well-being, and paid news, advertisements in the form of news stories, and sponsored columns and pages have rampant in the Chinese press. Therefore, YU argued that professionalization of journalism was no guaranteed in China. In contrast, HUANG (2007) emphasized market competition constitute the base of more professional media system. Having introduced the background and ongoing arguments on Chinese media system, followed is the discussion on linkage politics which is the focus of this study. Linkage Politics of International News U.S. presidential election is an international event. Researchers found that the production of international news usually go through a domestication process. Cohen, Levy, Roeh, and Gurevitch (1996) suggested the idea of domestication, which refers to the phenomenon that local journalists turn foreign events into international news by adopting domestic ideology. Some researchers emphasized that contextual factors are important for the production of international news. For instance, WANG (1992), and Pan, Lee, Chan, and So (1999) analyzed political ideology, and YANG (2003) suggested that national interest is the most critical factor in framing international news. Further, Lee, Chan, Pan, and So (2000) defined domestication as the way by which domestic journalists strengthened the relevance between foreign events and local audience and put international news into the narrative of a nation state. They also found that the main factors affected domestication are political authority in international stage, mainstream ideology and cultural backgrounds, and some minor factors include media types, market location, organization constraints, and the understanding of the place in which events happened also affect domestication. Nevertheless, researchers indicated that although considerable research has demonstrated that news coverage of international events tends to favor government voices, not all of the news media consistently support the governments foreign policy (Fahmy & Kim, 2008). Besides, B. H. ZHOU (2010) argued that the concept of domestication has not explained how international news becomes the means of reproduction the ideology of a specific nation state. Adopting the concept of linkage politics from politics, B. H. ZHOU (2010) questioned the assumption that local news and international news exist independently, while he suggested they are linked and interaction. Thus, he proposed that researchers should go beyond studying local news and international news separately, and analyze how they are constituted by each other. In the case of China, he thought that news people have to timely report the important events around
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the world on the one hand, and serve for domestic stability instead of playing the role of a destroyer, challenger, or potential menace of civil political system on the other hand. There are a large number of studies that discussed how Western-led English-language media reporting Chinese events or issues (e.g., Leung & HUANG, 2007; X. ZHOU, 2008), but surprisingly little systematic attention to examine international coverage in Chinese news media except for some cross-national studies mentioned earlier. B. H. ZHOUs (2010) study is one of the exceptions. He conducted a content analysis of CCTV (China Central Television) Network News Broadcast (Xinwen Lianbo) and found that there are three tactics existed in the coverage of international news from Chinese TV programs. These three tactics include: (1) self-prioritization. It means putting self in a privileged position in term of the number, space, and time length of news reports; (2) comparison between inside and outside. It refers to the vivid contrast between the positive situations inside presented by domestic news and negative situations outside presented by foreign news; and (3) minimization of sensitive news. It concerns the limitation of certain topics in international news which may influence on domestic politics. The democratic election system is one of the topics he mentioned. In sum, international news with above tactics worked together with local news to undertake the common function of serving for party nation dominated ideology, consolidating of legality of established regime and promoting national identification and society unitary. Although B. H. ZHOU (2010) suggested that most of journalists in mainland China complied with the operational requirements of linkage politics in their daily practices, he also mentioned it might be possible that alternative type of linkage politics exist, i.e., the purpose of international coverage is to promote foreign advanced ideas and practices in order to pursue the local system transformation and social progress. He explained that the appearance of alternative linkage politics is a result that some of market-oriented newspapers subscribed professionalism values, and they are willing to serve for public benefits and to promote the development of civil society in China. He suggested that Oriental Morning Post in Shanghai and Southern Metropolitan Daily in Guangzhou are two of the examples. B. H. ZHOUs analysis of linkage politics suggests a new perspective on exploring international news; however, his observation needs more support from empirical evidence with different types of media. Moreover, one thing missed in B. H. ZHOUs analysis is that news production is not only under political pressure, but is heavily influenced by the power of market as well. It is seen that his discussion on linkage politics draws little attention to the differences between political-oriented media and market-oriented media. Moreover, it is often seen that researchers (e.g., Chiang & Duann, 2007; FANG, 2001; PENG, 2008; YANG, 2003; YIN, 2007; B. H. ZHOU, 2010) tend to employ Party news organ, Peoples Daily and CCTV in particular, to examine the characteristics of Chinese newspaper in the study of comparative research or international news. Though Peoples Daily is representative example of the authoritative media system of China, it hardly embodies the market-oriented newspapers in China. Above all, this study identifies the research gap of little attention on international news and limitation of type of newspaper to party-oriented newspaper, and examines the interaction between political and market factors in the coverage of 2008 U.S. presidential election in two different type of newspaper. That is to say, the research object is both market-oriented and party-oriented newspapers. The following discussion shifts to account of framing analysis, the analytic frame employed in this study.
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Framing Analysis Frame analysis is widely adopted by communication researchers to analyze news content. As pointed out by YANG (2003), the concept of framing is proposed on the basis of the fact that all news is subjected to ideological, political, socio-psychological influences, which has been well identified by previous research (e.g., Shoemaker & Reese, 1991; Gans, 1979). The literature of framing analysis is considerable rich. Goffman (1974), an early researcher, proposed that a frame is schemata of interpretation, which consists of a specific set of expectations that are used to make sense of a situation. Differently from Goffmans perspective, Gitlin (1980)s definition shifted the focus from the function of frame to the process and purpose of framing. He stated that frames are principles of selection, emphasis, and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters (p. 6). That is to say, framing means a process of inclusion and exclusion, and this process implies news values as well as news bias. Later, Entman (2004)s explanation further clarified the purpose of framing as he put: Framing is selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution (p. 5). In addition, Entman (1993, 2004) proposed frames can perform four functions: define problems, specify causes, convey moral assessments, and endorse remedies. Some research discussed the process of framing. For instance, Entman (1993) suggested that framing was generated during the initial interactions between sources and journalists in breaking news. Researchers (McQuail, 1992; Wanta, 1997) indicated that sources play an important role in framing process of the news media and influence the information flow, particularly when the source is powerful. Iyengar and Kinder (1987) argued that news frames reflect and sustain the official view as subscribing the perspective of officials. Reese and Buckaleys (1995) study supported pro-officials point as showing that the media used frames to support administration policy. The presentation of content is recognizably important in term of framing. Entman (1991) argued that salience is closely related to sizing; that is, to give more space to talk some aspects of an event or an issue while drawing less attention to other aspects. Entman (1993) suggested another way to increase salience is to place or repeat certain information or association with familiar symbols in a story. Moreover, skipping certain information also implies frame salience, and these omissions can be associated with receivers responses in some way (Chyi & McCombs, 2004; Entman, 1993; Sniderman, Brody, & Tetlock, 1991). In case that the media do not provide certain angles or frames of stories or evaluate related events or issues, audience members will be framing the news with their own understandings (Entman, 2004). Thus, the same event could be covered in different news frames. Furthermore, researchers emphasized that how to frame is based on the issue relevance with domestic society. For example, Gordon, Deines, and Havices (2010) research indicated that since Mexicos high vulnerability to the consequences of global warming, Mexicos coverage deviates from the international relations as the most popular frames. Instead, Mexicos newspaper more employs ecology/science and consequences of frame. In conclude, agreed with YANG (2003), the framing perspective can help to illustrate the influential factors of media text with more conceptually solid and empirically systematic method and then to analyze the reasons for the presentation of media texts. The following literature review further discusses framing analysis in the studies of specific political news.
THE REPRESENTATION OF FOREIGN POLITICS THROUGH MEDIA PRISM Framing Analysis of Political News
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Political news refers to news that provides political information related to public interest and has important social implications. For instance, the attitude of future U.S. president, noted by Thorn (1971), may affect the politics of other countries around the world. In election research, noted by Oates and Roselle (2000), important issues are about societal concerns, such as providing useful information for the voter on party platforms, ideology, or policies. In addition, legal cases, general campaigning, candidate characteristics, the role of the media in the campaign, and electoral financing can be viewed as important electoral issues as well. The news that focused on presentations for voting is classified as minor presentation. Frame analysis was employed to investigate the election coverage in different media types in a number of studies (e.g., Stromback & Luengo, 2008; Stromback & van Aelst, 2010). There are two metaframes, namely game and issue, identified by Stromback and Dimitrova (2006) in political news stories. Game frame refers to treat political activities as a kind of game, reporting personal contest, strategies, or personal relationship in political actions which may not be relevant to the standpoint of issues. Issue frame which refers to the focus of a story is on an issue or the standpoint of an issue (Stromback & van Aelst, 2010). Though political news is viewed as hard news, previous research (e.g., Jamieson & Cappella, 1997; de Vreese, 2003; Stromback & Kaid, 2008) showed that a common tendency toward political news is to employ game frame rather than issue frame among different media systems in various countries. Patterson (1980) found in the research of U.S. election coverage that the main frame employed is strategic racing horse. A later study showed that more and more soft news took place traditional hard news, i.e., news tends to sensitiveness, character centered and human interest oriented (Patterson, 2000). Patterson (2000) pointed out that there is a causal relationship between game frame and media commercialization. Some comparative study of cross-county also showed that commercialization is a driving force of adopting game frame (Stromback & van Aelst, 2010).
Research Questions
Based on the above literature, three research questions are formulated as below: RQ 1 (Research question 1): What are frames employed in mainland Chinese newspaper?; RQ 2 (Research question 2): How is linkage politics in relation to different type of newspaper in mainland China?; and RQ 3 (Research question 3): Why is the way that linkage politics in relation to different type of newspaper in mainland China?.
Method
Research Method This study employed content analysis and textual analysis to identify the specific frames in the news content of party-oriented newspaper and market-oriented newspapers in China. Framing analysis is to identify the salient aspects of the event in news stories. When discuss the frame employed by a news story, the author read the whole story and then decided the dominant topic in the reporting. In Stromback and Dimitrova (2006)s study, they defined the following six specific frames: (1) Sensationalism frame refers to a news story with breathlessness quality; (2) Horse-racing frame focused on winning or losing in election campaign; (3) Politicians as individuals frame are that the news story is about politicians as persons with different attributes, characters, and behaviors
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rather than as spokespersons for political issues; (4) The political strategy frame is about how the parties or candidates act in order to win the election; (5) The news management frame refers to that the news story focused on how parties or candidates manage their media image; and (6) The conflict frame is that the news story is mainly about conflict. This study took this literature as a reference but identified the frames adopted in these newspapers based on the texts. Two tactics proposed in B. H. ZHOUs (2010) study is discussed. These two tactics refer to setting foreign news as comparison and minimization of sensitive news. Since another operational tactic (i.e., self-prioritization) is measured by comparing the international news and domestic news, which is not applicable to this study. The reason is that election news is a specific type of coverage while there is no counterpart coverage in domestic news. The tactic of minimization of sensitive news was examined at first in order to see if this strategy is embodied in different media types. It is to test whether this tactic can be found not only in TV program but also in newspaper as this study concerned. This tactic is measured by comparing the number of coverage of four representative newspapers respectively in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Tainwan. These three areas are cultural and geographic approximation but they are situated in diversified political and media systems. Based on the result of number of coverage in different newspapers, this study examined the percentage of sensitive frames employed, which includes three issues: (1) election as important practice on democratic politics, (2) money cost of election campaign; and (3) image-building of U.S. with regard to race, foreign policy, and domestic public opinion. Since the topic of U.S. presidential election per se is neither negative nor positive, the tone of coverage embodies the tendency of individual newspaper. The tone of newspapers was analyzed with three categories: positive, neutral, or negative. The tone is analyzed in term of the attitude toward the above three sensitive issues. If the article does not touch above issues, then this paper was seen as neutral. Thus, for the tactic of setting foreign news as comparison, the comparison means the general difference in term of domestic news with positive tone and international news with negative tone. In addition, news headlines were used to give examples in need. The reason is that newspaper headlines can effectively summarize the content and tone of the stories (Haskins, 1966) and thus can avoid lengthy discussion. Data Description Four representative newspapers in mainland China were selected for this study. These newspapers include: Peoples Daily, The Beijing News (Xin Jing Bao), Oriental Morning Post (Dongfang Zaobao), and Southern Metropolitan Daily (Nanfang Dushi Bao). Peoples Daily is a Party-organ paper, serious and quality newspaper in China. It is generally seen as the most representative of Partys mouthpiece newspaper and political wind vane. The other three newspapers are respectively located in three media highlands in China: Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. All these newspapers survive well by market competition, and they enjoy a noticeable huge circulation and influences on local citizens and even gain considerable popularity in the whole country through online news editions. These newspapers are representative examples of market newspaper in mainland China. Besides, four Hong Kong newspapers and Taiwan newspaper respectively were chosen for the purpose of comparing the number of coverage of the same topic. The chosen Hong Kong newspapers include: Ming Pao
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Daily News, Oriental Daily News, Sing Tao Daily, and Apple Daily. The chosen Taiwan newspapers are: China Times, Taiwan Apple Daily, The Liberty Times, and United Daily News. The above newspapers all enjoy considerable high popularity and influence in the societies they are situated. The time frame of this study is January 3, 2008 when the initial election began (Bejing time) to November 10, 2008 when the election result was announced after one week. Stories from the above four newspapers were all located by searching the WiseNews database with the keywords of U.S. presidential election (meiguo zongtong xuanju) or The biggest election in United States (meiguo daxuan). Repeating reports and reports which did not focus on election are deleted after data cleaning. This procedure yielded a total of 1367 stories, with four from The Peoples Daily, 54 from Beijing News, 31 from Orient Morning Post, and 57 from The South News. Since electronic data search may generate a considerable number of articles containing the search keywords while these keywords are just mentioned casually. The authors initial search displayed many articles touch upon U.S. election campaign but do not focus on the topic, particularly in the editions on entertainment, physics, stocks, and finance. To deal with this issue, the samples are collected from news or international news, editorials, analysis, and comments, and special topics on 2008 U.S. presidential election while other articles containing the keywords from other editions were excluded. Secondly, articles with little relevance with election were discounted in order to have a more accurate picture of the election coverage.
Results and Findings

With regard to RQ 1, two metaframes, game frame and issue frame are identified with these news stories. It should be noted that this study does not incorporated the news stories into predefined frames; rather, they were classified based on fitness after carefully reading the texts and for the purpose of keeping in line with research tradition. As Kuhn (1970) indicated, we can make progress with current research by convergent efforts. Compared with Stromback and Dimitrovas (2006) research, this study found that the news management frame and the conflict frame are not well applicable to the texts of Chinese newspapers. In terms of the news management frame, there is no certain news story particularly focused on this topic. In term of the conflict frame, it is seen that this frame is overlapping with political strategy frame which is more salient. Nevertheless, the other four frames (the sensationalism frame, the horse-racing frame, the politicians as individuals frame, and the political strategy frame) are fit for describing the new stories. In addition, while the sensationalism frame emphasizes on the effect of news content, this study replaces it with human interest frame. The change was made, because human interest frame is consistent with other frame in terms of focusing on the news content and better covered this kind of news stories. In brief, game frame is one of main metaframes adopted by the coverage of mainland Chinese newspapers, and four often employed frames under this metaframe include: (1) horse-racing frame; (2) the politicians as individuals frame; (3) the political strategy frame; and (4) human interest. On the other hand, issue frame is quite often employed by mainland Chinese newspapers as well. Five specific frames are identified based on carefully analyzed the texts of news stories. These frames include: (1) the election analysis frame. The news stories focus on analyzing the political interests reflected in the election campaign process; (2) the election influence on Sino-US relationship frame. The news stories mainly talk about
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how the election result can affect Sino-US relationship; (3) the election influence on international relationship frame. The story theme is about how the election result can affect Sino-US relationship; (4) the democratic politic frame. The news stories focus on the election as a kind of democratic practices including financial sources and expense of the election; and (5) the election process/knowledge frame. The news coverage provides knowledge and rules of U.S. presidential election. In order to answer RQ 2 that how linkage politics is in relation to mainland Chinese newspapers, the author compared the four mainland Chinese newspapers with four Hong Kong and Taiwan newspapers respectively. The result is displayed in Table 1. Table 1 The Number of Election Coverage in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
Location Mainland Name Southern Metropolitan Daily The Beijing News Orient Morning Post Peoples Daily Total Number 80 65 43 14 202 Hong Kong Name Apple Daily Ming Pao Daily News Oriental Daily News Sing Tao Daily Number 96 50 45 31 222 Taiwan Name Apple Daily China Times United Daily News The Liberty Times Number 130 58 18 7 213
As the result shows, there is no evident difference among newspapers in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in terms of the number of reports on U.S. presidential campaign. However, comparing party-oriented Peoples Daily with other three market newspapers in mainland China, the number of coverage in the first newspaper type is much less than the second newspaper type individually. This result suggests that party-oriented newspaper tend to minimize the number of coverage of sensitive topic. To see whether linkage politics can work in party-oriented newspaper, we need more observations other than the number of coverage. Another tactic, making a contrast between domestic and foreign situations is examined in the study. Since this study doesnt include domestic news, the discussion focuses on the tone of Peoples Daily presented in the coverage. It shows that six (43%) reports are neutral while the rest eight (57%) news stories are all negative. Thus, the negative image of United States implies the social superiority of China which always enjoys more positive national image in domestic news. The tactic of self-prioritization is not tested in the study since the study focuses on a specific event. Instead, a tactic, namely opinion-leading, is identified in the coverage of 2008 election campaign in Peoples Daily. First of all, Peoples Daily plays an interpretative role rather than information-provider. In its coverage of sampling, only two (14%) are straight news in contrast with 12 (86%) analysis articles. Secondly, the dominated topic in its coverage is that change is not only an important but also urgent issue. Five (35.7%) news stories are directly related to the topic, and two of them are embodied in titles as The Choice of Change (November 10, 2008) and Looking Through the Change Topic in the Election Campaign of United State (June 3, 2008). The reasons accounted for the necessity of change including the dissatisfaction of general public with present economic situation in United States, the Iraq War, neo-conservatism foreign policy, and bloated federal government. In brief, Peoples Daily avoids the sensitive democratic politics topic on the one hand, and leads the audience to understand this event from a critical perspective on the other hand.
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In addition, a tactic of self-value expression is also found in the coverage of Peoples Daily. For instance, in an article titled Obama, Walking Out of Hawaii on November 4, 2008, the day when the election result was disclosed. The author wrote:
This is the place where he learned how to cooperate with the others. The experience of lonely island in Hawaii was exactly compromise and cooperation. The strong way of Entering Westwards in Continent of United States was not applicable. (November 4, 2008)
The message implies here is the concern of Chinese national ideology. The appeal of compromise and cooperation expressed Chinas wish rather than the thought came from Obama himself. This similar appeal can be seen in other news stories as well. Therefore, this tactic also serves for the need of domestic politics. Different from Peoples Daily, market-oriented newspaper represented by Southern Metropolitan Daily, The Beijing News, and Orient Morning Post cannot support the hypothesis of minimization of sensitive news in term of the number of coverage. As showed in Table 1, the number of coverage is close to newspapers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. This result can be explained with two reasons: First, the political control of news topic is not very rigid in Chinese newspapers particularly for market-newspapers. Secondly, linkage politics does not solely influent newspapers performance, and market could exert counterproductive force with regard to the number of coverage. Nevertheless, it will simplify the question by concluding the linkage-politic does not work in the market-oriented newspapers. We need to take a close look at how these newspapers presented the election campaign. As showed in Table 2, the most adopted tone in market-oriented newspapers is neutral (more than 90% respectively), which makes an obvious contrast with Peoples Daily (43% neutral and 57% negative news reports). Since the tone analyzed focuses on three issues directly related to linkage politics including presidential election as democratic politics, the waste of money in election campaign, and public unsatisfactory with U.S. government, this result suggests that market-oriented newspapers tend to go around the sensitive or opinion-leading topic of presidential election campaign. Thus a new tactic of linkage politics, called minimization of domestic political-relevant news frame, can be proposed. Table 2 The Distribution of Different Tones in Four Newspapers (%)
Newspaper/Tone PD BN OMP SMD Positive 0(0) 1.5(1) 2.3 (1) 6.3 (5) Neutral 43(6) 90.7 (39) 90 (72) 98.5(64) Negative 57(8) 0 (0) 7 (3) 3.7 (3) Note. PD refers to Peoples Daily, BN refers to The Beijing News, OMP refers to Orient Morning Post, and SMD refers to Southern Metropolitan Daily.
Though the percentage is quite low, it is interesting to note that three market newspapers have positive tone with the above linkage politics issues (see Table 2). For instance, a comment article acclaimed the well-developed civil society in United States (The Civil Society in U.S. Presidential Election, Southern Metropolitan Daily, November 5, 2008); an analytic article discussed why the money spent in election campaign is a necessary condition for democratic practice (Why Burning Money in Presidential Election, The Beijing News, February 23, 2008).
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THE REPRESENTATION OF FOREIGN POLITICS THROUGH MEDIA PRISM Two characteristics are seen in his kind of news: First, the title of news articles tends to be neutral or
ambitious. As showed in the above two titles, the stands are not evident from the perspective of titles. In addition, some title is seen with unclear meaning. A title Come Back, Those Disappeared Young People (Southern Metropolitan Daily, November 8, 2008) is an example. However, in the article, the author admired for democratic right of U.S. citizens and called for political passion of Chinese young people. Secondly, these news articles were carefully put on the edition of personal comment, which implies individual author instead of the newspaper is responsible for the stand in the articles. As suggested by B. H. ZHOU (2010), these news articles represent an alternative linkage politics, i.e., news coverage is to report foreign advanced political theories and practices in order to promote domestic systematical change and social progress. However, the number of coverage of 2008 U.S. presidential election is considerable large in market-oriented newspapers. And these newspapers have enjoyed a high popularity among the local citizens and beyond. The large number surely has an effect on the audient of these newspapers at least, and an expected influence through further personal communications. In a news article, an author called the presidential election of United States as a political blockbuster, by which he indicated that the election played a role of national propaganda and achieved such good effect that no propaganda activity was comparable. He continued:
The eyeball contest is just the contest of the popular sentiment. Like a film, when the camera repeatedly focused on a character, the character turned to be the protagonist. The audience then tends to understand and accept the logic of this protagonists actions. Thus turning one into the protagonist may cause the positive effect. Similarly, even all the value judgment is excluded, election will become the popular sentiment when it occupies the focus of more eyeballs. (LIU, 2008, p. A31)
Furthermore, the author argued that large number of reports on presidential election will lead to the result that general public favors U.S. political system and then the political culture around the world can be changed as well. When we follow this argument, it is seen that large number of coverage causes a negative effect on linkage politics. It is hard to say this is the original intention of these newspapers, and this effect is more likely to go back on their intention for the purpose of political safety. The most possible reason is the driving force of the market-profit. The market is highly competitive, while U.S. presidential election is still a fresh topic as a considerable limited sensitive topic and an abnormal topic compared with Chinese political system and a significant topic in term of the influence of election result on the global politics. In these market-oriented newspapers, a striking feature is the news headlines with soft tendency or sensational expression. It can be seen from some news stories that employed human interest frame or game frame. Below are three of the representative headlines: (1) Their Celebrity Fans (Southern Metropolitan Daily, February 1, 2008); (2) The Contest of First-lady (Southern Metropolitan Daily, May 23, 2008); and (3) It doesnt Mean Awarded Mark for the Pretty Girl to Join in the Camp (The Beijing News, August 31, 2008). In above headlines, it is seen that fans was borrowed from entertainment to refer the politicians supporters, the topic of first lady is out of private interest instead of public issues and calling vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as pretty girl has nothing with political meanings except the purpose of eye attract. Some new stories covered the topic with issue frame or political strategic frame, but the headlines seem to be too unclear for the audience to get the idea about the inside of the stories. Here are three examples from: (1) How
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Much Love May Come Back (Orient Morning Post, February 28, 2008); (2) Obama Intend to Grab Bushs Dearly Loved Person (The Beijing News, October 27, 2008); and (3) Love and Grievance of a Yiwu Merchant to U.S. Presidential Election (Orient Morning Post, November 5, 2008). The repeatedly appeared words of love, dearly loved, and love and grievance in the headlines make the news very sensational. These news stories actually concerned with certain issues, but one is likely getting lost until he or she read the text particularly for the first and the third headlines. Then it turns out that the first news is an analysis of voters attitude change and the third news is about the possible influence of election result on Chinese foreign trade. What the sensational headlines in relation to linkage politics are both sides. On the one hand, these headlines draw audiences attention from rational issues to emotions and feelings. The political concerns were weakened and thus have a positive effect on the purpose of linkage politics. On the other hand, the sensational feature can arouse audience interest in the Western election system, and came to know and understand democratic practices. That may lead to a negative effect on the aim that linkage politics intend to realize. The third research question is about the reasons for linkage politics in relation to different type of newspaper in mainland China the way they are. This question has been explained in details. To summarize the points above, Table 3 illustrates the relationship between newspaper type and linkage politics is further summarized as below: Table 3 The Relationship Between Newspaper Type and Linkage Politics
Newspaper type Tactic adopted Direct Indirect Direct Market-oriented newspapers Indirect Minimization of sensitive news Opinion-leading Self-value expression Comparison between inside and outside Minimization of political-stand frame A small number of pro-democratic coverage A large number of sensitive news Adoption of sensationalism frame headlines Driven forces Political needs Political needs Political needs Political needs Political safety Pursuit of professional value Market profit Market profit & political safety Effect on linkage politics Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive Negative Negative Positive & negative
Party-oriented newspaper
The two considerably different distributions of dominant topics between the U.S. newspapers and the Chinese newspapers suggest topics had a significantassociation with the papers.
Conclusion Remarks
In conclude, this study extended the discussion of linkage politics between domestic and international news from Chinese TV newscast to Chinese newspapers. Furthermore, this study compared different type of newspaper, which goes beyond previous research on Chinese media on a whole which limited the research object to party-oriented media. The result shows Chinese newspapers in relation to linkage politics is more complicated than simply focusing on party-oriented newspaper. Party-oriented newspaper tends to meet the demand of linkage politics because of political needs. Compared with party-oriented newspaper, market-oriented newspapers showed mixed attitude toward linkage politics. Although market newspapers,
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out of the concern of political safety, adopted some tactic to comply with the demand of linkage politics to some extent, their cooperation was limited since their main purpose was commercial success and their presentation even destroys the aim of linkage politics for the reasons include acquiring market profit and/or pursuit of professional values. This paper can be regarded as a case study in the discussions of international news around the world. Since there is little research on international coverage in Chinese media, this study can be seen as a positive effort to make up this research gap. With the findings in this study, further insights may be gained by comparing cases in different social systems. For instance, the shift of news value from information to entertainment is not solely embodied in election coverage. HONG, LIAO, and LIN (2008) observed that Taiwan media coverage about WTO (World Trade Organization) often employed tabloidization strategy. Wang, Chow, and Lo (2010) pointed out that tabloidization is a noticeable tendency in international coverage. With more and more empirical evidence, we can develop a complete explanation of the influence of commercial factor on media in different societies. There are some interesting points identified in this study for future research. One is the organizational factors of media on the presentation of same topic. Though The Beijing News, Orient Morning Post, and Southern Metropolitan Daily are all market-oriented newspapers and share many similarities in term of the relationship with linkage politics, the favorite frames they employed in their coverage are diversified instead of the same. Such research will advance our understanding of content differences within certain media type. Another point is related to how the domestic social cultural factors exert function in domestication of international news. Though this point has been discussed generally in previous research (e.g., Pan et. al, 1999), more focus and deeper analysis of particular cases are expected. And this kind of study may advance the research of cultural influence on international news from a macro-perspective. Last but not least, today news coverage, international news in particular, are situated in a larger context of globalization. Discussion on globalization factor on the production of international news may gain new insights.
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Sartys Initiation in Faulkners Barn Burning*

LIU Ke-dong, LIN Shi-rong
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China
Barn Burning (1939), one of William Faulkners outstanding short stories, is not only about the struggles between different classes, but also depicts the boys initiation into manhood after he sees his fathers rash and irrational revenge activities. The boy protagonists constant dilemma is between whether to protect his fathers authority due to the old fierce blood tie or to disclose his fathers quasi-criminal attempts according to his own standard of justice. Based on close reading of the text, this paper aims to make a detailed analysis of the different factors (paternalism and his own idea of justice) that influence the boys choices at different stages. After the long-time struggle, the boy finally chooses to follow his own standards of right and justice, which signifies his gradual initiation into manhood. Keywords: Barn Burning, justice, blood tie, initiation
Introduction
William Faulkner was the winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize of Literature for his power and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel (MEI, 2011, p. 1). He is a writer of the south, whose experiences of living there influence him a lot and provides him with a large number of source materials of writing. His special interests lie in his probing into the life of the south under the influence of the corrupt traditional ideology. Told from the third person point of view of Sarty, Barn Burning (1939) is a good story showing life of the south. In addition, it presents the reader with a boys gradual psychological growing up after a harsh dilemma. On the one hand, Sarty wants to stay loyal to his family; on the other hand, Sartys sense of justice begins to grow up (PI, 2010, p. 104). Experiencing the three stagesblind conformity to fathers authority, struggle between his cognition of justice and blood tie, and resolution about justiceSarty matures into manhood and chooses to stick to his own standards of justice.
Sartys Blind Conformity to Fathers Authority

In the early stage, the protagonist, Sarty, is always in blind respect to any of his fathers behaviors, whether they are right or wrong. In Barn Burning, the story unfolds with the situation in the court. Mr. Harris accuses Abner Snopes for burning his barn. To testify for his fathers crime of burning the barn, the boy is asked to come to the court. In order to keep his fathers dignity and reputation, the boy says nothing. He never agrees with his
*
This paper is a gradual achievement in the research project A Study of Modern and Contemporary Short Stories Through the Lenz of Defamiliarization supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. HIT. HSS. 201132). LIU Ke-dong, professor, English Department, School of Foreign Languages, Harbin Institute of Technology. LIN Shi-rong, M.A. candidate, English Department, School of Foreign Languages, Harbin Institute of Technology.
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SARTYS INITIATION IN FAULKNERS BARN BURNING
fathers primitive revenge activities, but in order to obey the religious teachings and be an obedient son, he has to stay mute and blind. His early conformity results from the two major aspects. Individually, as an immature little boy, Sartys early blind conformity is because of his own standards of right and justice having not been formed. In this period, the boy is only a timid small child and is awed by his fathers authority. The little son, Sarty, idolizes his fathers authority on account of the fathers taking part in the Civil War. Faulkner does not provide us with any details about how brave the father behaves in the war in this novel. However, the boy respects his father beyond question. He was brave! He was! He was in the war! He was in Colonel Sartoris cavry! (Faulkner, 1990, p. 517). Due to Sartys respect, he is taught to be a man in the light of his fathers criteria. His father attempts to teach his son to be a man in the postbellum South by revealing to him the injustices of the sharecropping system (Joiner, 2010, p. 31). The wealth achieved by the dominant class is through immoral means, such as exploiting the poor farmers. The farmers at that time suffered from the pressure both mentally and physically (B. LIU, ZHAO, & J. LIU, 2012, p. 62). In order to express the fury towards the rich, the boys father, Abner, threatens to violate others legal rights and property. Though the fathers alleged barn burning activity has significance in fighting against the inequality in society, it is rough and extreme. He dares not speak out the truth that his father has burned Mr. Harris barn. His father is also quite confident that his son will not betray him so that his father does not even look at him in the court. The boy thinks that: He aims for me to lie, he thought; again with that frantic grief and despair. And I will have to do hit (Faulkner, 1990, p. 504). He treats all those who may bring harm to his father as the potential enemies. He thinks that to be loyal to his father means to be mute. On the contrary, speaking out the truth in the court means to betray his father. He is manipulated by an invisible hand that compels him to be obedient even when facing his fathers alleged violation of others legal rights. What is ridiculous here lies is that the boys father names him Colonel Sartoris Snopes, a symbol for justice and courage, but the boy dares not utter truth that he has seen the burning. His cowardice and silence lie in his fear towards the authority of his father. Socially speaking, Sartys early blind loyalty to blood tie is shaped by the pervasive influence of Puritanism and paternalism. Puritanism and paternalism were the two dominant ideologies in American South from the 17th century to the 19th century. The American South is looked upon as the bible belt. The doctrine and ideology of Puritanism are deeply rooted in peoples mind. In accordance with the basic spirit of the doctrine, puritans should respect fathers absolute authority, and other members must be submissive to the head of the family, as to God. Paternalism stemmed from the economic pillar in the south of America where the economy was highly reliant on the plantation. Cash (1941) once said that paternalism grew out of the necessity to justify and perpetuate the plantocracy on which the economic system of the south was based (p. 211, as cited in MEI, 2011, p. 27). Since fathers are the main breadwinners and labor force of the whole family, they are the center and able to set down rules according to their own will, though some of them might be a little bit paranoid, as in this case. No matter what they do or how they behave, their words are so powerful that others must obey without weighing them being right or wrong. Taking the decay and corruption of the South after the American Civil War as a background, Faulkner portrayed the inevitable tragedy when the traditional values meet the individual standards of right and justice (MEI, 2011, p. 1). Faulkner is reliant on biblical themes in dealing with the relationship between father and son. Anyone that is against the authority of the father and betrays the family would suffer greatly and be punished due to their grave sin. Abner is a
329
representative of the bigoted Southern father. In the 1920s and 1930s, different from the industrial society in the north, the American South was mainly an agricultural society whose economic foundation is plantation economy. Based on this kind of social structure and economic style, it is not hard to understand fathers, as the main labor force, are the indispensable part of the family. The duty of teaching the boy to be a man also falls on the fathers shoulder. Strong emphasis is put on the family blood tie by the father. Nothing is more important than a solid and steady family. The main didactic teaching of Abners moral lessons lies in the reinforcement of the idea of being loyal to family blood tie. Abner often says: You are getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you aint going to have any blood to stick to you (Faulkner, 1990, p. 506). It is obvious that when Sarty is young, what fills his mind is the typical puritan and patriarchal ideas. At that time, Sarty thinks that his father is helping him to understand the family responsibility and he agrees with what his father says. Under this ideological suppression and due to his own immaturity, Sarty chooses to keep quiet at first. Sarty admires his fathers authority and respects his fathers core status in the family. He sees more shining points in his father, such as his courage in fighting against the imbalance of social class. Though Sarty finds something wrong with his fathers behavior, it is impossible for a tractable little boy to question and challenge the fathers decision. Sartys blind conformity, at this stage, to the fathers power is under the impact of traditional ideology, such as Puritanism and paternalism. In addition, the conformity is also due to his own lack of criteria of judging. The relationship between the father and the son still remains to be absolute obedience.
Sartys Struggle Between His Own Cognition of Right and Justice, and the Fierce Blood Tie
In the second stage, Sartys sense of social responsibility and human integrity is gradually awakened. For the first time, the boys gradual growing-up conscience as an independent human being meets the the societys pressure of judging a good son. Though Sarty still lacks firm resolution in stopping his fathers barn burning activity, his own cognition of right and justice sprout in this stage. This cognition firstly sprouts in his complex inner activities. Though he defends for his father in the court, he is eager to get rid of the sense of crime. Psychologically, he is somewhat like cheese, which is a metaphor indicating that he is stuck between the two different standards and unable to jump out of the harsh dilemma. The fluid world, rushed beneath him again, the voices coming to him again through the smell of cheese and sealed meat, the fear and despair the old grief of blood (Faulkner, 1990, p. 504). This description is in fact about the psychological activity of boy. The complex inner feelings of Sarty are presented. All these inner activities pave way for his later real action of trying to persuade his father. His sprouting cognition also lies in his positive action. He begins to persuade his father to stop the cruel and primitive behaviors of burning the barns of the rich. Nevertheless, his father does not accept the boys advice. The father still acts according to his own will. He is still nonchalant about the fact that he has soiled Major de Spains rug. He places his dignity upon a small material ruin, disregarding his family having to clean the deluxe rug again and pay a high price for what he has done:
Watching him, the boy remarks the absolute undeviating course which his father held and saw the stiff foot come squarely down in a pile of fresh droppings where a horse has stood in the drive and which his father could have avoided by a simple change of stride. (Faulkner, 1990, p. 508)
330
SARTYS INITIATION IN FAULKNERS BARN BURNING The boy protagonist Sarty wishes and believes that his fathers could drop his habit:
Maybe this is the end of it. Maybe even that twenty bushels that seems hard to have to pay for just a rug will be a cheap price for him to stop forever and always from being what he used to be. (Faulkner, 1990, p. 512)
In this stage, the boy does respect his fathers authority in the family, but meanwhile he starts to feel that he can not be blind towards the fathers impetuous and even criminal means of hurting others. He is not absolutely sure whether his father could stop the behavior, but one could easily tell that after the inner torture, the boy starts to take actions to persuade his father according to his own standards of justice.
Sartys Resolution and a Contemporary Look at Justice

In the final stage, Sarty takes firm action to end his fathers barn burning activity. His own standards of right and justice finally conquer the old fierce blood tie. Facing his fathers constant ruthless behavior, Sarty cannot stay mute and be loyal to his father; on the contrary, he sticks to justice and becomes rebellious towards the old tradition. When he is aware that his father would initiate a new round of barn burning activities, he informs the tenant Major de Spain with the word barn, which serves as the direct cause of the final conflict. From the surface, one may say that Sartys telling the truth to the Major de Spain leads to his fathers death. In fact, what he aims for is to protect his father. He wants his father to end the bad habits and leads a stable and legal life. However, what exceeds his expectations is that when he informs Major de Spain, the major is ferocious. He not only wants to catch the boy, but also wants to put his father to death. Sarty then crazily goes to find his father, but it is too late. He hears the gun shoot which is an indication of his fathers death. After his betrayal towards his father, he leaves his family. Undoubtedly, it is extreme for Sartys father to burn barns in retribution to the wrongs he receives, but the law is not against prejudice and does not stipulate any punishment for the rich who scorn and exploit the poor. The sheer gap between the rich and the poor would led to a hatred toward the rich (ZHENG, 2006, p. 72). Justice in the then southern society needs to be questioned. Since the colonial period, the Southerners have established the plantation-oriented economic system. Within this sort of economic system, southerners firmly believe that the rich are the ruling class of the whole society, for the tremendous wealth they achieve. It is natural for the impoverished group of southerners to accept that they are inferior to the rich. The impoverished condition of the family pushed them to struggle hard to survive in a rich-dominant society (FENG, 2006, p. 75). All the social norms and even laws are made according to the wills of the rich group. The beginning of the story is in the so-called justice of the Peaces court. The justice asks Mr. Harris, who claims that his barn is burned by Abner, to provide the evidence. However, the evidence Mr. Harris gives is not truthful or convincing. Nobody can judge for sure the barn burning activity is done by Abner, but Abner is sentenced to leave the country and not to come back. In addition, the old rug of the Major de Spain is said to be worth of 100 dollars. The justice asks him to charge 20 bushels of corn. In fact, the old rug is not worth that much. Twenty bushels of corn can only add to the burden of an ordinary family that is reliant on farming. When asking him to pay for the rug, the justice is quite scornful. You never had a hundred dollars. You never will (Faulkner, 1990, p. 511). At last, the boy informs the Major de Spain that his father may start a new round of barn burning activity. The intention of the boy is to lighten the fathers guilt. However, the
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result turns out to be a totally violation against the boys will. The Major de Spain even wants to catch the honest boy who actually has nothing to do with the crime. Meanwhile, the boy hears two shots that indicate the fathers and brothers death when he is running away. All the above provides evidence to say that justice in the south only guarantees the benefit of the rich, and meanwhile it is the violation of the poor. It is not the integrity in real sense, but again it mocks the inequity of the society. All these happenings mirror the lack of justice in the then American South. The so-called peace and justice are largely in accordance with the rich and authority.
Conclusions
Barn Burning successfully depicts the process of a boys initiation into maturity. It seems that there is not a final compromise between blood tie and justice in that specific historical period. Through the work presented by Faulkner, the life of the southerners who live under the influence of corrupt traditional ideology and family power is vividly mirrored. The relationships between family members are off the right path of harmony and warmth. Instead, both fathers and sons become the victim of the inhuman and unconcerned southern society. It is a habit for fathers to conform to the old fierce blood tie blindly and impose his own idea on his son, hoping that the sons could pass on the so-called tradition but obviously dregs of the southern society. Sons fall into the constant struggles between his own standards as an independent person and the thoughts rooted by fathers and society. Nobody will be happy and peaceful in such a society. Due to the suppression and neglect of individual conscience, great gaps are formed between the new generation and the traditional family. What is worse, these gaps can not be bridged in a short time and can only end up with a tragedy. On the one hand, to stick to the former, it means to be blind towards the fathers extremeness and meanwhile to violate Sartys own consciousness. On the other hand, to pursue the awareness of mild justice, Sarty has to betray his family. After a long period of mental torture, the boys maturity and consciousness finally breaks the bounds of the traditional fierce blood tie. A man is never taught to be, instead, it is the human nature of right and integrity that works. Sarty finally grows from innocence to experience and also from immaturity to maturity. It is never known how many steps a man must take before he becomes a man in the real sense.
References
Cash, W. J. (1941). The mind of the south. New York: Vintage Books. Faulkner, W. (1990). Barn burning. In R. V. Cassill (Ed.), The Norton anthology of short fiction (4th ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. FENG, B. (2006). A novel and a nation: The change of the production relations and Abners barn burning. Journal of Ocean University of China (Social Sciences Edition), (6), 75-77. Joiner, J. J. (2010). Constructing black sons: William Faulkners Barn Burning and Flannery OConnors The Artificial Nigger. Flannery OConnor Review, (8), 31-47,166. LIU, B., ZHAO, S., & LIU, J. (2012). A multi-perspective interpretation of the father-son relationship in a Yoknapatawpha [story]. Barn burning. Journal of Xian University of Architecture and Technology (Social Science Edition), 31(2), 61-67. MEI, D. (2011). Father-son relationship in Faulkners major works (M.A. thesis, Suzhou University). PI, A. H. (2010). The struggle between justice and blood tie. Journal of Central South University of Forestry and Technology, 4(2), 103-105. ZHENG, L. Z. (2006). Requirement of reducing the gap between rich and poor in a harmonious society. Journal of Yunnan School of Administration, (2), 72-75.

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Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Volume 3, Number 5, May 2013 (Serial Number 18)

David Publishing Company www.davidpublishing.com

David Publishing Company www.davidpublishing.com

Journal of Literature and Art Studies

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