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Introduction: Media and Conflict Studies in the Social Media Age

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Media and Conflict in the Social Media Era in China
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Abstract

This chapter reviews academic literatures and debates surrounding mediatization of conflict and social media to situate the current research in context. It argues that even though many scholarly researches on media and conflict are existent, mediatized conflicts as a research field still requires theoretical and conceptual development. In addition, in the globalisation and digitalization era, more researches shall be conducted to de-center the Western accounts and to shed light on the social media and conflict relationship. Based on the mediatization of conflict and actor-network theory (ANT), the author proposes and theorizes a new analytical framework to study media-conflict relationship in the social media age. It also illustrates significance of research, research questions and gives a methodological note.

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Zhang, S.I. (2020). Introduction: Media and Conflict Studies in the Social Media Age. In: Media and Conflict in the Social Media Era in China. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7635-5_1

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