Volume 64

This study investigates the influence of family economic capital on students' psychological development, with a particular focus on families from high and low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. With rising rates of mental health issues among students, including depression, family capital has become a crucial factor influencing psychological well-being and academic performance. While previous studies highlight the impact of SES on student development, this research delves deeper into the mechanisms through which family economic capital affects students' mental health. Using data from the China National Mental Health Development Report (2019-2020) and existing literature, this study analyzes the psychological development of students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. The study employs theoretical frameworks such as psychological capital, growth mindset, parental involvement, and the family stress model. It further draws on the Abecedarian Project as a case study to evaluate the effectiveness of early interventions for students from low-SES families, providing empirical evidence on the role of family economic capital in shaping socio-emotional skills. The results indicate that high-SES families foster greater self-efficacy, resilience, and socio-emotional abilities in students, while low-SES students face challenges due to limited resources. However, targeted interventions, such as parental involvement and educational support, can significantly mitigate these disadvantages and promote equitable psychological development.

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This study zeroes in on the impact of international disaster coverage on public environmental behaviors, employing the S-O-R (Stimulus-Organism-Response) theoretical framework to chronologically analyze how global in-depth disaster reporting at various time periods triggers shifts in public environmental awareness and actions. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative analysis with quantitative data, it compiles cases of major environmental disasters worldwide over nearly two decades, including wildfires, marine pollution, and extreme weather events, meticulously examining how media information acts as external stimuli, processed through cognitive mechanisms, leading to emotional responses and subsequent behavioral intentions. The findings reveal that high-frequency, high-quality disaster event coverage significantly heightens public recognition of the urgency for environmental protection, particularly during the initial stages post-event. Immediate and comprehensive disclosure can rapidly capture broad attention, activating feelings of empathy and responsibility, thereby catalyzing pro-environmental behaviors such as energy conservation, waste sorting, and participation in public welfare activities. However, without sustained follow-up reports and positive reinforcement, the public's focus tends to wane over time, diminishing environmental motivation and hardening behavior patterns. The research also observes the pivotal role played by social media platforms in amplifying the influence of disaster reporting, facilitating collective memory formation and consensus building through viral dissemination; yet, this comes with challenges like information overload and exaggerated emotional appeal, potentially leading to audience fatigue and reduced intervention efficacy.

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Indigenous peoples have long-standing connections to their lands, however, the establishment of protected areas has often led to their exclusion and marginalization. This review examines the complicated relationship between Indigenous peoples and protected areas, highlighting the thresholds during historical conflicts that intensified tensions. As the number of protected areas has increased globally, wildlife biodiversity remains at risk. The article argues that participatory efforts involving Indigenous peoples often play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity. It explores the challenges Indigenous peoples are confronted with - that their opinions are inadequately considered and economic profits are often prioritized over their rights - under the existing policy framework and market-oriented activities. The article advocates for a collaborative methodology that integrates indigenous knowledge and rights into protected area management, emphasizing the benefits of joint efforts. It calls for a reevaluation of current approaches to managing protected areas and a broader recognition of the importance of seeking for a balance between nature and culture, fostering a sustainable future for both biodiversity and indigenous communities.

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In 1955, the Chinese Classical Theatre Troupe toured Europe in two groups, attracting significant interest from local audiences and introducing the art of New Chinese opera to the European media. European newspapers and periodicals consistently reported on the performances of Chinese opera through news articles, special features, and drama reviews, thereby establishing an artistic image of China with distinctive characteristics and illustrating the methods and characteristics of shaping the image of New China. This study, utilizing collections from the troupe’s tour, oral histories, overseas digital newspapers, and archival sources, reconstructs the tour process and related media coverage. It not only provides a comprehensive evaluation of the achievements of the 1955 tour but also examines the construction of Chinese art abroad. Furthermore, it discusses the specific role of Chinese opera in China’s international cultural exchange, offering insights for the contemporary global promotion of Chinese opera.

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This study aims to explore the anthropomorphic elements represented in animal mukbang videos on Chinese social media (Douyin and Xiaohongshu), as well as the relationship between pet ownership and audience acceptance of various anthropomorphic elements. First, this study summarized the types of anthropomorphic elements in animal mukbang videos on two platforms through content analysis. Second, this study designed a questionnaire based on the content analysis results and investigated the audience acceptance of different anthropomorphic elements. The results showed that on both platforms, the anthropomorphic elements in animal mukbang mainly included “Clothing,” “Expression,” “Communication,” “Diet style,” “Use of tableware,” “Dining environment,” “Use of microphone,” “Feeling about food,” “Inner activities” and “Unique character and identity.” In addition, pet ownership has a different influence on audience acceptance of different anthropomorphic elements. Although this study illustrates the audience acceptance of anthropomorphism in the context of animal mukbang, the relationship between anthropomorphism and a wider category of audiences, as well as the rationality of animal anthropomorphism in various media, still needs further research.

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Despite steady GDP growth since the 1990s, extreme poverty in Africa remains prevalent due to environmental degradation and multidimensional inequality. This paper examines how inequality and climate change aggravate poverty in African countries, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Niger. This paper discusses the effects of the Gini coefficient and multidimensional poverty index on perpetuating a cycle of poverty in these underdeveloped countries. By implementing several varied scenarios, this paper demonstrates how severe weather events generate economically challenging situations for these countries to cope with. The high reliance on agricultural production led to increased migration and food insecurity, denying those below the poverty line access to resources. It underscored that both climate change and poverty hindered the propensity for these African countries to escape from the ‘poverty trap’, despite equilibrium GDP growth. This paper provides two additional contributions beyond existing literatures. First, it disaggregates inequality into different dimensions for the government’s economic decision-making. Second, through Africa’s extreme weather, it offers a focused examination of how climate change has constrained economic resources.

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In recent years, network culture and humor, particularly among young people, have exhibited distinct age-related characteristics. A notable and concerning trend within this culture is the increasing trivialization phenomenon of serious illnesses. Conditions such as depression, suicide, bipolar disorder, and Down Syndrome are increasingly being trivialized and used as subjects of “jokes” and “self-mockery” in online discourse and everyday conversation. While diseases are humorized and made light of, many patients and their families, who are deeply affected by these illnesses, continue to struggle not only with the challenges of the diseases themselves but also with the social stigma that results from such trivialization. This phenomenon of trivializing illness not only deepens the suffering of affected individuals, but also further erodes societal empathy in an era where interpersonal alienation is on the rise. Drawing on previous research in the field of Sociology, Psychology and Communication studies, this paper seeks to explore the underlying causes of young people’s tendency to trivialize serious diseases and to propose corresponding solutions to address this issue.

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In contemporary society, the portrayal of female image holds an increasingly significant role in cultural products. As a major entertainment medium, TV dramas reflect social values while subtly shaping viewers’ perceptions of gender and identity. With the increasing emphasis on gender equality in society, the re-imagining of women’s identities in the new era has become particularly critical. As a prominent television drama, The Story of Rose presents a spectrum of female images, capturing the nuances of women’s experiences across different social contexts and cultural frameworks. Through the theoretical framework of communication studies, the study analyzes the construction of multiple female characters and their interrelationships in The Story of Rose. These characters showcase a rich and diverse array of female experiences, reflecting gender performance within specific historical and social contexts. Using textual analysis, this study deconstructs the character traits and behavioral motivations of the female characters, as well as their interactions with the male characters in the drama. Meanwhile, the audience’s acceptance and identification with these female characters are explored, thus revealing how the drama shapes the audience’s gender perceptions and its potential impact. The results indicate that the female characters in The Story of Rose reflect the evolving characteristics of the times, and address the contemporary audience’s expectations and needs for female reconstruction. Their performance in different contexts highlights the multiple identities and challenges that people face in the workplace and in society.

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This exploratory study focuses on linguistic markers of existential distress in written suicidal ideation, examining suicide notes through the philosophical lens of the Camusian Absurd and proposing that suicidal communication reflects the existential tension between a search for meaning and an indifferent reality. By identifying recurring themes of despair, alienation, repetition and cognitive dissonance, the research suggests that the Camusian Absurd could be considered as a semantic universal in written suicidal ideation. Qualitative discourse analysis and quantitative semantic coding are combined to investigate three suicide notes from culturally diverse backgrounds: a young Chinese girl, an Urdu-speaking son, and an English-speaking woman. This study also lays the groundwork for developing the Camusian Absurd in Suicidal Communication Analyzer (CASCA), a proposed tool to analyze existential despair in written suicidal ideation. Future research may extend this approach with natural language processing to explore larger datasets, treating suicidal ideation as a genre to deepen interdisciplinary understanding of existential distress in suicidal communication.

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Depression has emerged as one of the most widespread health concerns in contemporary culture. In addition to pharmacological interventions, psychological counseling, physical therapies, and animal-assisted therapy (AAT), which frequently employs dogs, these modalities are commonly utilized in hospitals, psychotherapy centers, and social welfare agencies for the treatment of individuals with mental health issues. This research presents a systematic literature review on the utilization of dogs for the treatment of depression. The age range of the depressed patients examined in this article encompasses children, teenagers, and elderly adults. The result shows AAT in dogs has different impacts for diverse aged depressed patients, older adults have the most significant effect, through high frequency and stable period’s looking at, talking to, or playing or walking with them; conversely, children and adolescents have varied outcomes on depression from slight to significant. Future research should investigate the efficacy of dog-assisted therapy, especially for elderly individuals.

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