Asian Studies Commons^™

Aesthetically Designed Maps: Development And Perception, Catherine Wang

Graphic Communication

This research explored the creative element of subway map creation in light of its effectiveness. Printed subway maps, used often for metropolitan cities and areas, are limited in physical dimension and scale, carrying minimal information. The New York, San Francisco Bay Area, Tokyo, Paris, London and Moscow subway maps highlight similar design and abstraction that fulfill the basic necessary elements for subway patrons. Over the years since the first metro map for each city was created, maps have become more simplified by removing physical land features and reference points to make way for expanding and new subway lines, stations, and …

Strategic Deployments Of ‘Sisterhood’ And Questions Of Solidarity At A Women’S Development Project In Janakpur, Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

Linguistic uses of ‘sisterhood’ provide a window into disparate understandings of relationality among virtual and actual interlocutors in women’s development across vectors of caste, class, ethnicity and nationality. In this essay, I examine the trope of ‘sisterhood’ as it was employed at a women’s development project in Janakpur, Nepal, in the 1990s. I demonstrate that the use of this common signifier of kinship with culturally disparate ‘signifieds’ created a confusion of meaning, and differential readings of the politics of relationality. In my view, ‘sister,’ as used at this project, was a multivalent, strategically deployed, and divergently interpreted term. In particular, …

Changing Views On Media Ethics And Societal Functions Among Students In Singapore, Benjamin Hill Detenber, Sonny Rosenthal

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This panel study assessed changes in ethical ideology and beliefs about the societal function of media over the course of undergraduate communication education in Singapore. First, students' agreement with the ethical principles of truth telling, independence, and accountability increased. Second, change in agreement with the ethical principle of minimizing harm was negatively related to change in justification of contentious newsgathering methods. Third, belief that the media should function as a watchdog increased and that it should serve national development decreased. Change in these variables was inversely correlated. We relate these findings to global contexts and make recommendations for curriculum development.

Breaking The Mold: Four Asian American Women Define Beauty, Detail Identity, And Deconstruct Stereotypes, Allison Ginwala

Honors Theses and Capstones

The experiences of four women reveal how notions of outer beauty touch ideas of personal ethnic identity, racism, media-imposed pressure, and social stereotypes; shaping the lives of Chinese, Chinese American, and Asian American women.

Social Sensing For Urban Crisis Management: The Case Of Singapore Haze, Philips Kokoh Prasetyo, Ming Gao, Ee Peng Lim, Christie N. Scollon

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Sensing social media for trends and events has become possible as increasing number of users rely on social media to share information. In the event of a major disaster or social event, one can therefore study the event quickly by gathering and analyzing social media data. One can also design appropriate responses such as allocating resources to the affected areas, sharing event related information, and managing public anxiety. Past research on social event studies using social media often focused on one type of data analysis (e.g., hashtag clusters, diffusion of events, influential users, etc.) on a single social media data …

From Hearts And Roses To Gore And Ghouls: Student Engagement At Li Ka Shing Library, Priyanka Sharma, Joseph Kennedy

Research Collection Library

The Li Ka Shing Library at Singapore Management University, SMU, employs various techniques for student engagement. SMU students are required to attend a compulsory orientation session at the library. A large number of SMU freshmen then attend an intensive library training session as a part of their Academic Writing course. Students also get to know us within the classroom environment – where librarians go to conduct ‘in class’ library training sessions focused on the very specific information and research needs of individual courses. This interaction – even though it is formal and regulated – sets the tone for the more …

For Wp, The Challenge Of Great Expectations, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

SMU Assistant Professor of Law Eugene Tan commented on the Workers’ Party’s (WP) rapidly rising political stock and analysed its future. In many ways, the WP has been able to capitalise on the fading lustre of one-party dominance, as well as on a growing demand for a healthy opposition parliamentary presence as an enabler of good governance and to make the Government more responsive. But now, flush with success, the WP has wasted no time in deftly managing growing expectations. Also, WP has to carve out its own brand in politics to win votes in its own right. It needs …

K-Pop Live: Social Networking & Language Learning Platform, Thomas Chua, Chin Leng Ong, Kian Ming Png, Aloysius Lau, Houston Toh, Feida Zhu, Kyong Jin Shim, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

K-Pop live is a social networking and language learning platform developed by an undergraduate student team from Singapore Management University. K-Pop live aims to combine social media together with gamification to promote Korean culture. It consolidates all relevant Tweets from Twitter as well as videos from YouTube. The platform allows the user to connect with his friends who share similar interests in terms of K-pop artists and music.

Ua35/4 2012-2013 Annual Report, Wku International Programs

WKU Administration Documents

2012-2013 report of WKU International Programs & Study Abroad & Global Learning.

The Demand/Withdraw Communication Pattern And The Success Or Failure Of Marriage Where One Partner Is From A Traditionally Non-Confrontational Culture, Marty Ray Rush

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this research is to take foundational theories on demand/withdraw, StellaTing-Toomey’s Face Negotiation Theory, and conflict management, and analyze how these factors impact a relationship when one partner is from a traditionally non-confrontational culture such as Japan, Korea, or the Philippines. Through the use of online surveys and interviews with couples in intercultural relationships, this study seeks to breakdown the successes and failures in exogamous relationships and how the cultural eccentricities can help or hinder marital satisfaction. This research merely scratches the surface of the issue of demand/withdraw, but opens the door to more focused studies dealing with …

Do Household Cable Tv Viewing Patterns Demonstrate Efficiency And Concentration?, Rae Chang, Pulak Ghosh, Gwangjae Jung, Robert J. Kauffman, Peiran Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

Can We Say More Now? A Closer Look At Online Public Opinion Change In China, Ran Duan

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

This study examined the pattern of online public opinion change in China by investigating the top one hit blog and its following commentaries of every day from July 2009 to March 2012 on a famous Chinese website, and then discussed potential factors that affected the formation of online public opinion. The extent of freedom of online public opinion during this period presented regular fluctuations. Whether criticisms were registered by commentators was influenced by four factors. First and most important, the negative tone of bloggers increased criticism and the positive tone decreased criticism, which shows that the news that flows from …

Individual And Collective Diaspora Remittances In The Philippines And Korea: An Interpretation Of Narrative Identity, Communicative Action, And Recognition, Janice Gow Pettey

Doctoral Dissertations

Research Topic

This study examines the practices of sending remittances from the United States to receivers in the Philippines, and collective and individual remittances supporting reunification of Korea with the intention of providing financial support for sustainable living and community projects. The research analyzes the narratives with reference to identity and culture of diaspora Filipinos and Koreans in the United States who are remitters and donors in the United States supporting humanitarian causes in North Korea.

Research Theory and Protocol

Through critical hermeneutic theory formulated by Paul Ricoeur (2005,1992,1991,1983) and Jürgen Habermas (1981,1987,1984) and the interpretive inquiry protocol developed by …

Four-Cornered Fight A Blessing In Disguise For Wp, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

SMU Assistant Professor of Law and NMP Eugene Tan said that much is at stake for the four political parties contesting the Punggol East by-election. Regardless of how the parties seek to characterise the by-election, it will be fought on both local and national issues. Although it is a four-cornered contest, the race will effectively be a two-horse race between the Workers' Party (WP) and the incumbent People's Action Party (PAP). The by-election is also a way station for PAP and WP as they move towards the next General Election, which promises to be the real watershed election. Assistant Prof …

Cultural Differences And Switching Of In-Group Sharing Behavior Between An American (Facebook) And A Chinese (Renren) Social Networking Site, Lin Qiu, Han Lin, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Prior research has documented cultural dimensions that broadly characterize between-culture variations in Western and East Asian societies and that bicultural individuals can flexibly change their behaviors in response to different cultural contexts. In this article, we studied cultural differences and behavioral switching in the context of the fast emerging, naturally occurring online social networking, using both self-report measures and content analyses of online activities on two highly popular platforms, Facebook and Renren (the “Facebook of China”). Results showed that while Renren and Facebook are two technically similar platforms, the Renren culture is perceived as more collectivistic than the Facebook culture. …

Taiwanese Willingness To Communicate In English: Can Watching American Television Programs Help?, Yu-Ting Chien

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study explored the relationship between Taiwanese audiences' use of American television programs and their willingness to communicate in English. Taiwanese participants filled out an online survey consisted of questions from uses and gratifications constructs and willingness to communicate constructs. In addition, different subtitle settings were also examined.

Results indicated that participants with high integrative motivation consuming information from American television programs, in addition, the setting of subtitles were associated with perceived communication competence, integrative motivation, language anxiety and social interaction motivation.

Both Sides Will Need To Raise Their Game, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Now that the Hougang by-election is over, the Workers' Party (WP) and the People's Action Party (PAP) will conduct their post-mortems. SMU Assistant Professor Eugene Tan wrote that ?Among the key questions would be how they campaigned and how they can deal with the issues that the hustings threw up. For the WP, how can it keep Hougang in its fold and grow the famed "Hougang Spirit"? How can it be less reliant on its charismatic leader Low Thia Khiang? For the PAP, how can it make significant gains and be more competitive in Hougang?? He concludes that what the …

Battle For Undecided Voters In Hougang, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

SMU Assistant Professor and NMP Eugene Tan commented on the battle for undecided voters in Hougang prior to the by-election this Saturday. He wrote that the political stakes are not so high in this by-election. Although the WP has more to lose this round, the stakes are calibrated differently in their first head-to-head contest since GE2011, and the parties must remember that this by-election is but a "battle" only. Instead, the PAP and WP would do well to stay focused on acquitting themselves well in the long haul before the next General Election. The priority for both parties is to …

Workplace Dignity In A Total Institution: Examining The Experiences Of Foxconn’S Migrant Workforce, Kristen Lucas, Dongjing Kang, Zhou Li

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its …

Tweets And Votes: A Study Of The 2011 Singapore General Election, Marko M. Skoric, Nathaniel D. Poor, Palakorn Achananuparp, Ee Peng Lim, Jing Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study focuses on the uses of Twitter during the elections, examining whether the messages posted online are reflective of the climate of public opinion. Using Twitter data obtained during the official campaign period of the 2011 Singapore General Election, we test the predictive power of tweets in forecasting the election results. In line with some previous studies, we find that during the elections the Twitter sphere represents a rich source of data for gauging public opinion and that the frequency of tweets mentioning names of political parties, political candidates and contested constituencies could be used to make predictions about …

Ancient Chinese Power, Modern Chinese Thought, Linsay Cunningham-Cross, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power is the latest publication to come from Yan Xuetong's ongoing research project that explores the interstate political philosophy of China's pre-Qin era. This book is interesting on many levels, and has already drawn attention from public intellectuals and scholars in the West. This essay thus first will examine the scholarly issue of how Yan and his colleagues are employing pre-Qin thought to make philosophical and political arguments about how China will rise. It will consider the relation of the ‘kingly way’ (wang 王) and the ‘hegemonic way’ (ba 霸) to critically analyze Yan's argument …

On Modeling Virality Of Twitter Content, Tuan Anh Hoang, Ee Peng Lim, Palakorn Achananuparp, Jing Jiang, Feida Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Twitter is a popular microblogging site where users can easily use mobile phones or desktop machines to generate short messages to be shared with others in realtime. Twitter has seen heavy usage in many recent international events including Japan earthquake, Iran election, etc. In such events, many tweets may become viral for different reasons. In this paper, we study the virality of socio-political tweet content in the Singapore’s 2011 general election (GE2011). We collected tweet data generated by about 20K Singapore users from 1 April 2011 till 12 May 2011, and the follow relationships among them. We introduce several quantitative …

The Performance Of Intercultural Communication: China's "New Face" And The 2008 Beijing Olympics, Patrick Shaou-Whea Dodge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores Chinese communication practices. I focus on the performance of intercultural communication and how the "New Face" of China was performed to the world and in day-to-day intercultural communication encounters during the 2008 Olympics. I analyze the Olympic Volunteer Training Manual as performative text as well as interviewed Beijing Olympic volunteers about their encounters with international visitors. Specifically, I discuss why the Olympics were a crucial moment for China to unveil its "New Face" to the world, what the "New Face" of China entails, and the reasons why China is in need of a new image on the …

Communicating Crisis: How Culture Influences Image Repair In Western And Asian Governments, Yvonne Siew‐Yoong Low, Jeni Varughese, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to seek to understand the differences in image repair strategies adopted by two governments that operate in the Western and Asian societies when faced with similar crises. Design/methodology/approach: Textual analyses are presented of communication of Hurricane Katrina and Typhoon Morakot by the Taiwanese and US governments, respectively. Findings: Faced with similar accusations of slow response, the Asian culture, represented by the Taiwanese Government, used predominantly mortification and corrective action strategies. The Western culture, represented by the US Government, used predominantly bolstering and defeasibility and a mixed bag of other strategies such as shifting …

A New, Post-Lee Kuan Yew Era, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Eugene Tan, asst prof of law at SMU writes a commentary on Minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew's departure and how it reinforces the belief that the Singapore systems is based on institutions, not personalities.

Different Means To The Same End: A Comparative Contingency Analyses Of Singapore And China’S Management Of The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) Crisis, Yan Jin, Augustine Pang, Glen T. Cameron

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

For months in 2003, the world lay under siege by a strain of virus that masqueraded as pneumonia but inflicted a far more lethal effect. By all accounts, the mystery of how the severe respiratory acute syndrome (SARS) virus came to be has remained largely unsolved (Bradsher & Altman 2003). What began as routine fever and cough in a Chinese physician, later identified as a super-carrier, rapidly spread to people who had cursory contacts with him, spiralling into a worldwide crisis that spanned Asia and the North Americas (Rosenthal 2003).

Nomadic Knowledge Of The Yak: A Case Study In The Khangai Mountains, Mongolia, Jesse Geary

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

It is extremely important to probe and preserve the knowledge of nomadic herders of Mongolia. There is no formal piece of literature that dictates how these clever humans survive. Their lifestyle requires a vast skill set spanning from construction knowledge, to navigational skills, to a deep understanding of their animals. One attains this knowledge through years of observation, listening, and attempting to mimic their parents. In this way, knowledge is passed on from one generation to the next. Investigating herder’s knowledge of the yak provides a window into the animal husbandry practices of Mongolian nomads. The herders in the central …

Caring Work: Opening A Space Of Possibility For Exploring Transnational Feminist Solidarity Between Privileged And Marginalized Women, Beverly Romero Natividad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neoliberalism, through its emphasis on personal responsibility and individual freedom in accelerating economic development globally, has only pushed women further into the margin of society. Structural adjustment programs (SAPs), which impose state budget cuts on healthcare and welfare programs, particularly have kept poor women and women of color in poverty and generally, have exploited women's labor. However, in this age of neoliberalism, women's solidarity becomes more significant. Because neoliberalism is founded on individualism, its downfall rests on alliance-building. Against this backdrop, I explore the possibility of fostering transnational feminist solidarity between privileged and marginalized women engaged in formal caring work. …

The Road To The Istana, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Assistant professor Eugene Tan highlights the vital importance of Singaporeans being given more time to know candidates who are aspiring to be the nation's next head of state.

Beyond Ethnocentrism In Communication Theory: Towards A Culture-Centric Approach, Eddie C. Y. Kuo, Han Ei Chew

Research Collection Office of Impact

The renewal of attention on ethnocentrism in communication theory in recent years suggests an impending tipping point in the research direction of the field. That Communication Monographs, a mainstream communication journal, has published an Issue Forum on “Cultural Bias in Communication Theory” (Vol. 74, No. 2, 2007, pp. 256–285) (Craig et al. (2007)) is itself a timely testimony to the increasing concern among communication researchers on the inadequacy of the Eurocentric (read Euro-American-centric) paradigm which still dominates the field. The scholars involved in the issue forum were unanimous in their assessment that existing theories are insufficient to explain global communication …