nation branding

Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has acquired Legendary Entertainment, the Hollywood production company behind “The Dark Knight,” “Jurassic World” and “Godzilla” movies. […] The deal represents the largest acquisition to date of a U.S. production company by a Chinese firm and the latest sign of the deepening ties between Hollywood and the world's most populous country.

Shila Amzah is a Malaysian pop star famed as much for her fashion sense as for her powerful voice […] These days, though, she sings primarily in Mandarin […] In a country wary of Islam — the Chinese government has a fractious relationship with its ethnic Uighur minority in the western province of Xinjiang […] her rise is attributable to […] a rapidly evolving cultural relationship between China and Malaysia.

Online activism is a frequently debated topic amongst journalists and researchers alike. What effect can a popular Twitter hashtag really have in achieving political or social change? Wasim Ahmed looks in depth at last year’s heavily tweeted #ThisIsACoup hashtag. While concrete outcomes may still be indeterminate, [...] social media is now a rich space for activism, expressions of solidarity and information sharing.

A Hungarian human rights lawyer and journalist who published a controversial series of portraits transposing her own face on to those of African women has been forced to remove her work after sparking widespread anger online […] But the photographs were taken down today after a series of satirical articles and angry blogs drew attention to the work described as offensive, patronizing and narcissistic.

Instagram is taking its photographs from phone screens to gallery walls, with its first-ever photography exhibition in India. Being held in Kolkata from Jan. 7 to 9, Bengal's Diversity in Pictures captures stories from the eastern Indian state through the lenses of local Instagrammers.

Arab students constituted nearly 10 percent of total enrollments of international students at U.S. colleges and universities during the 2014-2015 academic year […] While many Arab students study outside their home region, only a modest number of U.S. students study abroad every year—304,467 worldwide during the 2013-2014 academic year […]

All Coca-Cola wanted to do was to wish consumers a happy new year, but instead it ended up stirring anger in [...] Russia and Ukraine, over [...] Crimea […] In a new year’s message on VK, the most popular Russian social media network, Coca-Cola published a map of Russia that did not include Crimea. Faced with barrage of criticism [...], it published the map again on Tuesday [...] including Crimea, and apologized.

Almost a third of the international students were from China — which means that the country’s economic slump could hit U.S. institutions hard […] And while the numbers of Chinese undergraduate and graduate students in the U.S. increased last year by 13% and 4%, respectively, that pace was down considerably from the 18% and 12% growth of 2013-14. 

Pages