Anything But Ordinary

徐嘉

【Abstract】In the present era of accelerated technological development with its proliferation of new digital media, PC and Internet, the main questions concerning communication practices examine the patterns of interaction between these practices and the use of ‘old media, such as print, the electronic and audio-visual media, television, radio and VCR, which have all dominated the communication scene until fairly recently. Definitely we can say that the internet has become a family member that no one can live without it, especially the new types electronic products sale in the markets and the development of the wireless (wifi) ,whats more , the high click rates of facebook, youtube ,twitter and so on . This great change also have happened in China that you can see the first thing for everyone in the morning is connecting the internet so as to read weibo (micro blog, its function is similar to twitter, now it is the most popular and famous micro blog in China), youku (similar to ytube), xiaonei (like facebook) and so on. Therefore a great many ‘old media in China is now experiencing the large reform. CRI (China Radio International) cannot lag behind. In this paper, I am trying to introduce one website from CRI which is called “hebrew.cri.cn” as a landscape to state her “birth”, “grow up (development)” and her “future”.

【Key Words】new mediacommunicationwebsite designcultural exchanges

Thesis

Although “hebrew.cri.cn” is only one of the website among 61languages websites, but her appearance is not a coincidence, her high speed development attribute to her great contribution on introducing China to Israel for the two countries cultural exchanges. Furthermore from this new website, the recognition of CRI new media development is obvious and “hebrew.cri.cn” will play an important role in communication between China and Israel in the field of culture, economy and tourism and will enhance her influence on the media fields between China and Israel.

History: the birth of “hebrew.cri.cn”

China Radio International is the only overseas broadcaster in the Peoples Republic of China. CRI was founded on December 3, 1941 and is owned and operated by the state. CRI online is the branch China Radio International that began to operate at the end of the 90 years. Nowadays CRI has 61 different languages websites.

“hebrew.cri.cn” which belongs to “CRI online” came out on 23rd September 2009. This website contains various updated information and Chinese articles which are interesting to Israeli readers. The specific characteristic is that she is the only and the first and official Hebrew website in China. The aim of this website is to show the reports from Chinese media and also to open a window to Israeli readers with the information fit for their and Israeli medias tastes. Also Israeli netizens can try to understand on different perspectives on different problems. Therefore the main current issues in this website are economy and culture that are translated straight from Chinese original articles. Moreover, this website provides wide, useful and updated China tourism information and Chinese cultural information.

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This is a very new place, there are only eight members working in this department including three Israeli staffs. We cannot deny that this is a difficult but a meaningful job. “Communication has always been one of the most important human activities. Forced by the pressure living, people need to continuously acquire the information about environment change. Meanwhile for their own development, people also need to acquire, accumulate and share knowledge. All these needs can be met through communication activities. In a sense, we can say that the history of human is the history of communication evolution. In accordance with the development of mediums, we can divide the history of communication development into four stages, that is, oral communication, written communication, printing communication and electronic communication.”The invention of computer brought us into the internet communication age. Communication through the internet is the most important evolution in human communication history. Internet communication possesses nearly all advantages of previous human communication means, making both the scope and efficiency of communication have come a long way.

China and Israel both have long history and deep culture. The appearance of “hebrew.cri.cn” is also the production of cross-cultural communications. As a result, this website must be specially designed.

The design and the development

It is easy to see that developing websites to be used by people who speak different languages or come from different cultural backgrounds can be a difficult challenge. We can find out the ‘objective features of cultural differences, such as the scripts and fonts people use, date formats. And the ‘subjective features, such as how people react to color, the “busyness” of a website and so forth. I want to focus on the “subjective” aspects of cross-cultural website design. “Among the important models being developed are cultural dimension models, cultural marker models, cultural behavior models and models based on Activity Theory”.

The clean and clear homepage with red, blue, white colors that imply us the representative colors of China and Israel. And also we can find the auspicious clouds. In order to match with the calligraphy of Hebrew the scroll bar is designed on the left side, moreover the “focus photographs” is always updated quickly every day which is also called to photograph news . Beside these photographs there is the first column and necessary for every media website is domestic news and international news. Then we will find another four important columns are “economy and commerce”, “Travel in China”, “Culture and Society”, “China Encyclopedias”. On the top of this website locate titles that you can press to enter the subpage. In addition, there are some websites links and also including this websites facebook, twitter, youtube, m.google homepage link. All above is the basic frame of “herbrew.cri.cn”.

At first I mentioned about the “subjective” aspects of cross-cultural website design, from this website design we can associate with the aspect of “cultural marker models”. “Cultural attractions, as described by Smith, the interface design elements of the website that reflect the signs and their meanings to match the expectations of the local culture. The cultural attractions typically compromise of colors, color combinations, banner adverts, trust signs, use of metaphor, language cues, navigation controls and similar visual elements match together create a ‘look and feel to match the cultural expectations of the users for that particular domain.”

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Now we can come back to see the banners in this website. Every time if there will be a new event happen or will be held by CRI, this website will open a new page to describe this event and publish the update news and the progress of this event. “Jews in China”this banner received the highest click rates in 2012,which was the most important activity for this department ( hebrew.cri.cn) itself held in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Israel.

We confirm that website belongs to new media with vivid images, flashes, audios, video and long texts and also the high speed that any media field can not ignore its role. Does the design of hebrew.cri.cn can survive in the new media era or if there are still some other reasons that we have not considered affecting the development of this website? With this question we will try to “foresee this websites future”.

The Future

“Israels media environment is characterized by easily accessible, modern communications technologies, including home computers and desktop publishing systems, cellar phones, satellite dishes, the internet and a host of printing, photography and broadcasting equipment. Indeed the adult population has proved a highly active consumer of print and audio visual media while rapidly adopting the new digital media.” Because of the number of workers in hebrew.cri.cn, in the new media era, no one can ignore the effects of videos on the website.Now Hebrew Department has put plenty of excellent videos on her homepage and her facebook page. All the contents of these videos are based on the latest news, topics and words in China. But the shooting and editing are filled with Israeli style of humor. We can see her success by the likings on facebook, and also cooperation project from the channel 10 of Israeli television arrived in her email.

First and Foremost this website will improve itself to survive in the “battle”of the new media.

Conclusion

“Swidler invites us to think of culture “ as a ‘tool kit of symbols, stories, rituals, and world- views, which people may use in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problems. If the problem is making sense of the world of public affairs, media imagery provides many of the essential tools. Website as a new media has its own advantage to be this tool.”

“henrew.cri.cn” this landscape is not only an online website but also is “Hebrew department “belongs to China Radio International. She is a very new department that has been built only five years, however, her developing progress is obvious. According to her present, I just assume the developing trend of this website in the future. Unfortunately we can not determine that this website will continue her way as we expect.

“Communication — whether it is mass mediated, interpersonal or non verbal , is inseparable from culture, each shapes and is shaped by the other.” “hebreww.cri.cn” is coming out at the perfect time. She is now playing a crucial role in providing the most favorable and advantageous information of China not only for Israeli netizens but also for all the Hebrew speaking net citizens in the whole world.

References：

[1]Chang, W.H. (1989) Mass Media in China : The History and the Future. Ames Iowa: Iowa State University Press, pp.151-152.

[2]Hanna Adoni and Hillel Nossek. (2001). the New Media Consumers: Media Convergence and the Displacement Effect. Communications 26 (2001)1, pp.59–83.

[3]Paul Siu-nam Lee. (1994). Mass Communication and National Development in China: Media Roles Reconsidered. Journal of Communication 44(3), summer, pp.22 -37.

[4]Wengong Zhao, Brian Massey, Jamie Murphy, Liu Fang (2003). Cultural Dimensions of Website Design and Content. Critical Studies in Innovation, 21:1, pp.74–84.

[5]William A.Gamson, David Croteau,William Hoynes and Theodore Sasson.(1992).Media Images and the Social Construction of Reality. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol.18, pp.373-393.

[6]Will Fitzgerald.(2004).Models for Cross-Cultural Communications for Cross-Cultural Website Design. National Research Council Canada.

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