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    ItemOpen Access
    A Comparative Study of the Effectiveness of Pandemic Information Dissemination between Self-Media and Traditional Media in China and Kazakhstan
    (SDU Journal of Media Studies, 2025) WanhangYu
    In the post-truth era, emotions and positions gradually overtake objective facts and become the dominant factors in public perception. Taking China and Kazakhstan as case studies, this study compares and analyzes the differences in the information dissemination effects of self media and traditional media during theCOVID-19in the two countries through questionnaires. Through quantitative content analysis and audience surveys, it is found that China’s self-media rapidly spread information about the epidemic by virtue of immediacy and interactivity, but some of the content exacerbated rumor dissemination due to excessiveemotionality; traditional media, although subject to policy regulation and control, showed higher consistency, but dominated in terms of public trust. In Kazakhstan, due to the relative concentration of traditional media resources, the authority of traditional media was still dominant in the early stage of the epidemic, but the fragmentation and contradiction of information in the self-media due to lax regulation weakened the public’s recognition of official information. The study further reveals that differences in audience trust in media between the two countries are influenced by political culture, media ecology, and information governance model: the Chinese public is more institutionally dependent on traditional media, while the young population in Kazakhstan prefers to obtain pluralistic information through cross-border self-media. This study provides new perspectives for comparing the mechanisms of post-truth communication in transnational contexts and suggests ways to optimize information governance strategies in public health emergencies.
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    ItemOpen Access
    Social Media Humor and Loneliness during COVID-19 Quarantine: Experiences of Asian Students in Japan
    (SDU University, 2026) Serdaly D.
    The COVID-19 pandemic radically disrupted social life, intensifying experiences of loneliness for many university students. This qualitative study examines how Asian students studying at Japanese universities experienced loneliness during the pandemic, and how humorous content on social media supported their emotional coping. Drawing on a narrative approach and semi-structured interviews, this study included in-depth interviews with five students from Japan, India, the Philippines, Turkey, and Kazakhstan who were enrolled in Japanese universities between March and December 2020. Timelines of “a typical day in quarantine” and narrative sketches were developed for each participant, focusing on their everyday rhythms, social ties, and media practices. The findings show that loneliness emerged not only from physical isolation and closed borders, but also from disrupted routines, cancelled rituals, and uncertainty about the future. Participants turned to familiar humorous series, memes, and short videos as a way to “escape,” feel “lighter,” and maintain mediated togetherness with distant friends and family. Humor on social media did not remove loneliness, but helped participants reframe it, soften emotional overload, and sustain a sense of shared experience across distance. The article argues that social media humor can act as a form of affective companionship and low-threshold emotional support for international and domestic students in times of crisis.