Recent Publications
Peer-reviews Articles
“US-China Soft Power Symbiosis,” in Min Jiang and Hongmei Li (editors), US-China Power Play: How Hard, Soft, Sharp, and Smart Powers Shape a Changing World Order (Michigan State University Press: under contract).
“Different Shades of Nationalism: Unpacking Chinese Online Narratives about the Russia-Ukraine War” (with Wendy Weile Zhou). The China Journal (July 2024).
“Russia’s War in Ukraine and the Fractures in Western Soft Power.” Special Forum on Ukraine, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. October 21, 2022.
“Asymmetrical Discursive Competition: China-US Digital Diplomacy in Africa” (with Keyu Alex Chen). International Communication Gazette 85:1 (2023).
“Rethinking China’s Soft Power: ‘Pragmatic Enticement’ of Confucius Institutes in Ethiopia.” China Quarterly 250 (2022): 440-463.
“Is China Competing with the US in Africa?” in The China Questions II: Critical Insights into the US-China Relationship (Harvard University Press: 2022).
“The Party and the Media: Unpacking the Dynamic Relationship and the Challenges Ahead,” in Jacques deLisle and Guobin Yang, The Party at 100 (Brookings Institute Press: 2022).
“The State-preneurship Model of Digital Journalism Innovation: Cases from China” (with Kecheng Fang), International Journal of Press and Politics 27:2 (2022): 497-517.
“Critical Journalists in China and Russia: Encounters with Ambiguity,” in Karrie Koesel, Valerie Bunce and Jessica Chen Weiss (eds.), Citizens and the State in Authoritarian Regimes: Comparing Russia & China (Oxford University Press: 2020).
“The State-preneurship Model of Digital Journalism Innovation: Cases from China” (with Kecheng Fang), International Journal of Press and Politics (2022).
“Digital Media Experiments in China: “Revolutionizing” Persuasion under Xi” (with Kecheng Fang). China Quarterly 239 (2019): 671-709.
“Contesting Authoritarianism: Critical Journalists in China and Russia.” Comparative Politics 51 (1) (2018): 41-60.
“Authoritarian Participatory Persuasion 2.0: Netizens as Thought Work Collaborators in China” (with Kecheng Fang). Journal of Contemporary China 27 (113) (2018): 763-779.
“Demystifying ‘Little Pink’: The creation and evolution of a gendered label for nationalistic activists in China” (with Kecheng Fang). New Media & Society (2017).
"Media Openings and Political Transitions: Glasnost Versus Yulun Jiandu." Problems of Post-Communism 64 (2017): 399-419.
“Thought Work Contested: Ideology and Journalism Education in China.” China Quarterly 230 (2017).
“Information Management During Crisis Events: A Case Study of Beijing Floods of 2012.” Journal of Contemporary China 26 (107) (2017): 399-419.
‘Why Chinese Print Journalists Embrace the Internet’ (with Jonathan Hassid). Journalism 17:7 (2016).
Migration between China and Russia’ (with Harley Balzer) Post-Soviet Affairs 26:1 (2010), pp. 1-37.
‘Looking Back on the Seventieth Anniversary of Japan's Surrender', The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 74, Issue 4, November 2015, pp. 797-820
Book Chapters
“Critical Journalists in China and Russia: Encounters with Ambiguity,” in Karrie Koesel, Valerie Bunce and Jessica Chen Weiss (eds.), Citizens and the State in Authoritarian Regimes: Comparing Russia & China (Oxford University Press: 2020).
“Social Media and the State in China,” in Sandra Gonzalez Bailon and Brooke Foucault-Welles (eds) Communication in the Networked Age (Oxford University Press: 2018)
“Investigative Journalists' Coping Tactics in a Restrictive Media Environment,” in Marina Svensson, Elin Sæther and Zhang Zhi'an (eds), Chinese Investigative Journalists' Dreams (Lexington Books: 2014).
Public Scholarship
“How Chinese Authorities and Individuals Use the Internet.” The Hoover Institute, October 29, 2018.
“Media Politics Under Xi: Shifts and Continuities.” SAIS Review 38:2 (2018). 55-67.
“Media Oversight in Non-Democratic Regimes: The Perspectives of Officials and Journalists in China,” PARGC Paper 3 (Philadelphia: PARGC Press, 2015).
“Domestic Factors in China's International Relations Discourse: Chinese Debates on the Role of Public Opinion,” The Asan Forum 2:2 (2014).
“China in Africa: A New Approach to Media Development?” (with Iginio Gagliardone and Nicole Stremleau) Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University (August, 2010).
“Chinese Migration to Russia: Missed Opportunities,” (with Harley Balzer) Eurasian Migration Papers 3 (2009), Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
To see a full list of research, please refer to Maria's Curriculum Vitate→