Privacy in Modern China

McDougall, Bonnie S.

doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00097.x

Cited by 20 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We also found that disclosure of private information showed a moderately problematic performance; almost half of the suicide reporting on the analyzed social media accounts exposed images of the person who died by suicide. This finding is concordant with the study of Fu et al [ 23 ] of Chinese newspapers (57.5%) [ 23 ]; one possible explanation is that, as prior studies showed, Chinese people may be generally insensitive to privacy issues [ 48 , 49 ]. This conclusion can also be supported by research conducted in India, where 21.5% of the reporting contained photos of the person who died by suicide [ 24 ].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Assessing Suicide Reporting in Top Newspaper Social Media Accounts in China: Content Analysis Study

Lai¹,

Li²,

Peng³

et al. 2021

JMIR Ment Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Previous studies have shown that suicide reporting in mainstream media has a significant impact on suicidal behaviors (eg, irresponsible suicide reporting can trigger imitative suicide). Traditional mainstream media are increasingly using social media platforms to disseminate information on public-related topics, including health. However, there is little empirical research on how mainstream media portrays suicide on social media platforms and the quality of their coverage. Objective This study aims to explore the characteristics and quality of suicide reporting by mainstream publishers via social media in China. Methods Via the application programming interface of the social media accounts of the top 10 Chinese mainstream publishers (eg, People’s Daily and Beijing News), we obtained 2366 social media posts reporting suicide. This study conducted content analysis to demonstrate the characteristics and quality of the suicide reporting. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, we assessed the quality of suicide reporting by indicators of harmful information and helpful information. Results Chinese mainstream publishers most frequently reported on suicides stated to be associated with conflict on their social media (eg, 24.47% [446/1823] of family conflicts and 16.18% [295/1823] of emotional frustration). Compared with the suicides of youth (730/1446, 50.48%) and urban populations (1454/1588, 91.56%), social media underreported suicides in older adults (118/1446, 8.16%) and rural residents (134/1588, 8.44%). Harmful reporting practices were common (eg, 54.61% [1292/2366] of the reports contained suicide-related words in the headline and 49.54% [1172/2366] disclosed images of people who died by suicide). Helpful reporting practices were very limited (eg, 0.08% [2/2366] of reports provided direct information about support programs). Conclusions The suicide reporting of mainstream publishers on social media in China broadly had low adherence to the WHO guidelines. Considering the tremendous information dissemination power of social media platforms, we suggest developing national suicide reporting guidelines that apply to social media. By effectively playing their separate roles, we believe that social media practitioners, health institutions, social organizations, and the general public can endeavor to promote responsible suicide reporting in the Chinese social media environment.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Assessing Suicide Reporting in Top Newspaper Social Media Accounts in China: Content Analysis Study

Lai¹,

Li²,

Peng³

et al. 2021

JMIR Ment Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…McDougall (2004 also named several compound words common in Chinese that consist of the character si and their derogatory meanings, including si xin (private mind), which can be easily associated with selfishness, and si tong, which means adultery. McDougall (2004) tried to explain the possible cultural and philosophical sources of the negative sense of the character si by tracing it back to Confucianism: the ancient Chinese Confucian classics Li Ji (Book of Rites), in which one of the chapters (The Great Harmony) begins with, "Tian xia wei gong," which can be literally understood as "under heaven (everyone/ everywhere) was (held in) common", notice the presence of gong here and how it is interpreted as "the common good," which might be interpreted to overshadow (Huang, 2000) whatever that is not gong, namely, si (p.2).…”

Section: Privacy In the Chinese Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Language and Intercultural Information Ethics Concepts: A Preliminary Discussion of Privacy

2021

Data and Information Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper introduces the perspective to understand privacy via language as an intercultural information ethics (IIE) concept. This research perspective carries two goals: to understand privacy as an IIE concept and to do so via natural language. The paper suggests that studying privacy through language answers the challenge faced by IIE work; in addition, studying privacy as an information ethics concept through language seems most appropriate considering that language both embodies and shapes meaning. Specifically, this paper briefly discusses privacy and some of its language expressions in the Chinese and English languages, through which it hopes to reveal the richness and possibilities of using natural language as a research instrument to understand privacy in intercultural settings, which is an area of researching privacy that has attracted little discussion so far.

show abstract

“…In a society where the concept of 'self' is tied more to the family this will influence how privacy is viewed. According to McDougall (2004). privacy in traditional China resides primarily in the family unit, which is distinct from the public sphere.…”

Section: Information Privacy As Design Requirement -Conceptual Explormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To get an understanding of how Chinese users look at the role of the self in information privacy, we need to look at great many factors of history, culture, economy, policy and law related to the higher level concept of general privacy. First, we have to acknowledge that most privacy studies “are based in the United States and are written in English, leading to language-based assumptions about privacy terminology” (McDougall, 2004, p. 1). In the western tradition, Li et al (2017) pointed out that the concept of privacy is said to arise out of an 1890 article by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, where privacy is described a right to privacy as the right of an individual to be left alone.…”

Section: Information Privacy As Design Requirement – Conceptual Explorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Privacy engineering for learning analytics in a global market

Hoel

Chen

2019

IJILT

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose Privacy is a culturally universal process; however, in the era of Big Data privacy is handled very differently in different parts of the world. This is a challenge when designing tools and approaches for the use of Educational Big Data (EBD) and learning analytics (LA) in a global market. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of information privacy in a cross-cultural setting to define a common point of reference for privacy engineering. Design/methodology/approach The paper follows a conceptual exploration approach. Conceptual work on privacy in EBD and LA in China and the west is contrasted with the general discussion of privacy in a large corpus of literature and recent research. As much of the discourse on privacy has an American or European bias, intimate knowledge of Chinese education is used to test the concept of privacy and to drive the exploration of how information privacy is perceived in different cultural and educational settings. Findings The findings indicate that there are problems using privacy concepts found in European and North-American theories to inform privacy engineering for a cross-cultural market in the era of Big Data. Theories based on individualism and ideas of control of private information do not capture current global digital practice. The paper discusses how a contextual and culture-aware understanding of privacy could be developed to inform privacy engineering without letting go of universally shared values. The paper concludes with questions that need further research to fully understand information privacy in education. Originality/value As far as the authors know, this paper is the first attempt to discuss – from a comparative and cross-cultural perspective – information privacy in an educational context in the era of Big Data. The paper presents initial explorations of a problem that needs urgent attention if good intentions of privacy supportive educational technologies are to be turned into more than political slogans.

show abstract

Privacy in Modern China

Cited by 20 publications

References 10 publications

Assessing Suicide Reporting in Top Newspaper Social Media Accounts in China: Content Analysis Study

Assessing Suicide Reporting in Top Newspaper Social Media Accounts in China: Content Analysis Study

Language and Intercultural Information Ethics Concepts: A Preliminary Discussion of Privacy

Privacy engineering for learning analytics in a global market

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About