Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Dr. Yun Xia will receive the Top Paper Award from the International Communication Association
by Emily Hart '16
Dr. Yun Xia, a professor in Rider's Department of Communication, Journalism, and Media, will receive the Top Paper Award from the Communication and Technology Division of the International Communication Association (ICA) during its 66th Annual Conference in Fukuoka, Japan, in June. ICA members include many top scholars in the communication discipline.
"I'm deeply honored to receive this award from one of the most prestigious communication associations," Xia says.
His paper, "Cultural Implications of Mobile Texting in China," examines the people of China's use of mobile texting for social interactions, which is an area many scholars focus on, as different countries use texting for various methods of communications. Xia's findings showed that in China, mobile texting is used primarily for "relationship maintenance, social network construction, social coordination, emotional support and business interactions."
His paper further explains the use of mobile texting in business and social contexts in China and looks at general patterns of usage, such as social coordination. Since Chinese cultural values place heavy importance on "collectivism, personal relationship, high context communication, and high power distance," according to Xia's paper, relationships between these values were found in most of the social interactions through mobile texting except for social coordination, which includes practical functions such as setting up appointments and event reminders.
Xia first became interested in this topic because he is intrigued by how cultural differences play into technology use in communications. While doing his research for this paper, he came across the pattern of people in China using mobile texting to talk about practically anything, even private matters. It is also used as a means of mass communications for things such as school cancellations, shopping coupons and even holiday greeting cards.
At Rider, Xia teaches courses that focus on communication technologies and digital media design. His research has addressed fields such as the social and cultural impact of internet communication, educational applications of communication technologies, and visual intelligence of graphic communications in digital media. He has written many works on these topics, including over a dozen articles published in various academic journals and books.
In 2003, he also received the Top Paper Award from the Human Communication Technology Division at the 89th National Convention of the National Communication Association.