In the past 2020, global pandemic COVID-19 tremendously changed the world. Ulrich Beck terms reflexivity, a self-confrontation to risks and uncertainties produced by the modernity (Beck 1996, p. 10). State-centered solidarity diminished from globalization forces such as corporate and NGO power from post-modernity. New global solidarity originated from individualization among citizens. Now that risks like COVID-19 become globally shared and connect global citizens together albeit unwantedly, global reflexivity takes different forms. We have seen global interdependence on fighting against the virus in terms of sharing of information and global effort in research. However, we have also seen anti-reflexivity in the global public sphere, where global citizens are divided by victim-blaming and racism, misinformation as well as the refusion on wearing masks. Media’s role has become increasingly crucial to humankind’s solidarity during this globalized risk.

From TV production and podcast to personal biography, I was confident about my flexibility as a media worker in adapting to different styles and transnational environment. I created a biography of a Melbourne immigrant elder from China concentrating on his building of belongingness through helping others with his busking income: From helping his sick brother in China to helping the Victorian government to protect Melbourne’s river ecology. The elder grasped various local mandarin news agencies’ attention later on. While I only show my article to my class, I became the first to talk to the elder as a journalist; for a project that illustrate a story with a certain degree of professional knowledge, I decided to create an audio podcast to intrigue the audiences. On the topic of cleft lip children, a surgeon introduced me with some professional knowledge and a nurse told me the difficulties cleft lip children encountered growing up such as being bullied in school. I interluded sound effects and background music to facilitate a twist in the story. This audio project receives high praise from an ABC journalist. These skills made some problems visible to the public. However, it’s limited in a sense that some of these issues are better represented beyond national term.

Habermas terms the national public sphere as a space for individuals to discuss societal problem generate public opinions and enact political action nationwide (Habermas, 1991). In national public sphere, media has been the watchdog between state and citizens. When I interned at a provincial TV station in China and proposed a LGBT-themed episode to my superior, I was quickly rejected for political reason. To bypass the gatewatching process by official media, me like other citizens use social media to raise awareness of issues. I was in charge of the initial recruitment stage ‘citizen dialogue for the future of internet’ which takes place over 70 countries. Notwithstanding that I was only in charge of Australians’ recruitment, I reached out to the Communications Department dean at Nanjing University to work on China’s inclusion in the dialogue. However, it was rejected again for China’s political climate. Reflexivity to global issues cannot exist without state’s legitimising force. While the tightening control over Chinese media and NGOs in recent years have taken a toll on Chinese civil expression in global public sphere, UN and other subordinating organisations are among the most powerful legitimising force in China (Yuen 2015, p. 60).

Global public sphere provides citizens with agency beyond nation-state and traditional media. Citizens who act as right bearing subjects on one hand question state’s wrongdoing and neglection of certain rights, on the other hand seek rights that are not recognized by the state. Global citizens develop intergroup sympathy correlate themselves with duties to global issues. This provide incentive for them to take part in activism and become actors in global public sphere (Reysen and Hackett 2017, p. 133). International NGOs as gatekeepers in global public sphere act as either organizational force or initiator for global campaigns. For example, they organize the distribution of MeToo movement; For COVID-19, they focus on promoting communication technologies, transmission of trustworthy information about health as well as the facilitation to disadvantaged group worldwide.

Chinese public sphere hardly emphasises global identities as their subordinating position in relation to national civic identity. Notwithstanding the barriers imposed, Chinese citizens like me who are disadvantaged in national term found their way to ‘glocalise’ reflexivity and engage in certain degree of global activism such as the MeToo and LGBT movement (Kama 2017, p. 239). Courses in USC such as Advocacy and Social Change in Entertainment and Media in Social Services, Design and Evaluation of Campaigns enable me to develop and evaluate campaigns, even provoke activism to sway public opinions via diverse media, especially popular cultures and entertainment industry. Besides, I understand the power of discourse for celebrities to start a trend or provoke public opinion. UN organisations have always been cooperating with global celebrities to gain traffic. During my internship that interview Chinese celebrities, I composed an interview draft for a K-pop star centering on his bad drawing skill. Our interaction went up to the Weibo trending list next day despite how insignificant the thing looks.

However, global power inequality and western orthodoxy permeates in global public sphere. Western-based international corporate media as the other gatekeeper, impose self-serving western morality and political order on other societies. I was interviewed by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) for two times to speak as a Chinese international student influenced by COVID-19 travel restriction. When the day came for me to be interviewed live, three Australian specialists from different fields talked about their viewpoints on Chinese international students before I spoke. During the discussion, several stereotypes were frequently brought up by a sociologist: ‘Chinese international students are generally bad at English’, ‘Chinese students only hang out with each other’. This is the anti-reflexivity that perpetuates bigotry and impedes transnational audiences from generating solidarity against global pandemic.

That’s why I am fascinated by Dr Wendy Willems’ critiques on the global public sphere and the conveying of news by media. Her book Postcolonial Publics, Mediated Encounters and the Performance of Resistance argues that global media discourse is no longer merely about the conveying of ‘news’, but increasingly about the news itself and who deserves – or is entitled to – the visibility in public sphere. Instead of normative dewesternisation, she specifically uses the term Global South to better reflect the underrepresented regions of the world and to recover the agency of Third World in cold war (Willems 2014, p. 4). Her study criticizes the ‘global’ or transnational public sphere and argues for a conceptual shift from ‘flow of information’ to ‘mediated encounters’. The Second World represented by China is often seen as the ‘yellow peril’ opposing to western society. To understand how these ideologies are framed through global media industry, [University Name] course Representation in the age of globalization introduces how power plays out in global space and constructs meaning through representations in multimedia.

Studying in [University Name] and USC enables me to use media on both global and local setting. [University Name]’s Humanitarian Communication: vulnerability, discourse and power enable me to use communication in times of global crisis such as covid-19, particularly on the difficulties for organizations past and now to reach distant groups and provide visibility. Global industry professionals from NGOs and corporate media are invited to [University Name] as guest lecturers, allowing me to build connections and approach industry insights. I aim to be the communication officer at UNESCO China. I aspire to be the medium for global citizens to impose reflexivity on global issues. For example, UNESCO global campaign the Next Normal challenges global citizens’ perception of normality in light of covid-19’s emergence. It raises the epistemological question toward public that we have accepted the unacceptable for far too long even before COVID-19. Moreover, I aim to bring Chinese citizens agency in global public sphere through cultural communication and to bring global value into Chinese public sphere, developing both globalization and localization. This can be achieved by UNESCO’s cultural diversity campaigns such as Do One Thing for Diversity and Inclusion. I’m determined to create solidarity among humankind through media and communications.

See you in London.

Reference List

Beck, U 1996, ‘World Risk Society as Cosmopolitan Society?’, Theory, Culture & Society, vol.13, no. 13, pp. 1-32.

Habermas, J 1991,The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a category of Bourgeois Society. [University Name], Mass.: [University Name] Press.

Kama, A 2017, 'Glocalization trajectories of LGBT identities and politics in China: A review of Queer/Tongzhi China: New Perspectives on Research, Activism, and Media Cultures', Journal of LGBT Youth, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 237-240.

Reyson, S & Hackett, J 2017, ‘Activism as a pathway to global citizenship’, The social Science Journal, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 132-138.

Willems, W 2014, ‘Beyond normative dewesternization: examining media culture from the vantage point of the Global South’. The Global South, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 7-23.

Yuen, S 2015, ‘Friend or Foe? The Diminishing Space of China’s Civil Society’, China perspectives, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 51-56.