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In this chapter, the author compares two representations of the child from two famous films by the Fifth Generation’s top director in China, Chen Kaige, Yellow Earth (1984) and Together (2002). The girl’s story in the former and the boy’s story in the latter show respectively the dissolution of the Party/state as an extended family home, and it being replaced by the atomized, fluid, and flexible family home in the new state-led neo-liberal order. Compared with the girl, the boy in the new century tries to convey an equally lyrical articulation of the family/home, but differently, with a strong sense of his subjectivity. Thus, the boy’s voice in Together, self-reflective, artistically innovative, and affective, becomes a voice of resistance against authoritarian neoliberalism in post-socialist China.

This volume explores the intersection of youth agency, media representation, and conflict, urging a reevaluation of the roles of youth in contemporary socio-political contexts. Media serves as a tool for and a site of resistance. Chapters in this volume highlight ways in which children and youth leverage digital platforms to reshape narratives around conflict and peace. The compilation draws from a wide range of contexts, from the Balkan Wars to the current conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, offering in-depth analyses of the transformative potential of the (re)imagining of youth experiences, thus shifting from passive subjects to active narrators. This reorientation emphasizes the role of new technologies, including digital media and artificial intelligence, in supporting these endeavors, especially in enhancing mental health and psychological resilience among children affected by conflict.

The study aims to propose a triadic interaction model to assess the effect of customer–customer (C2C), employee–customer and robot–customer interactions on customer voluntary performance in the context of smart dining.

An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was used. First, a quantitative study surveyed Foodom patrons to assess the impact of triadic interactions on customer voluntary performance. The mediating role of trust and social support and the moderating effect of the need to belong were also explored. A post hoc study (Study 2) analyzed online comments to validate and complement the survey findings.

While all interactions promote social support, the C2C interactions significantly correlate with customer trust. Moreover, customer voluntary performance is influenced by both customer trust and social support, while the need to belong remains as a moderator. Findings from Study 2 consolidate and enrich the relationships identified in Study 1.

This research reveals that patrons in smart dining still value interactions with employees and other diners. It enriches the stream of work on interaction quality by illuminating how different types of interactions could co-create value for customers, subsequently fostering voluntary behavior in smart dining contexts.

This research explores how patrons perceive interactions with robots in smart hospitality, highlighting their impact on trust and social support. It also sheds light on how interactions among robots, employees and customers influence customer voluntary performance, emphasizing the role of the need to belong in moderating relationships in this setting.

The profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the film industry has underscored the growing significance of online movies. However, there is limited research available on the factors that influence the viewership of online films. Therefore, this study aims to use the signaling theory to investigate how signals of varying qualities affect online movie viewership, considering both signal transmission costs and prices.

This study uses a sample of 1,071 online movies released on the iQiyi from July 2020 to July 2022. It uses OLS regression and instrumental variable method to examine the impact of various quality indicators on the viewership of online movies, as well as the moderating effect of price.

After conducting a thorough analysis of this study, it can be deduced that the varying impacts on online movie viewership are attributed to disparities in signal transmission costs. Specifically, star influence and rating exhibit a positive effect on the viewership of online movies, whereas the number of raters has a detrimental impact. Furthermore, there exists an “inverted U-shaped” relationship between the number of reviews and online movie viewership. Additionally, within the consumer decision-making process, both price-cost and price-quality relationships coexist. This is evident as prices negatively affect online movie viewership but positively moderate the relationship between rating, number of reviews and online movie viewership.

The research findings of this study offer valuable insights for online film producers to effectively leverage quality signals and pricing, thereby capturing market attention and enhancing film profitability.

Tourists with different cultural backgrounds think and behave differently. Accurately capturing and correctly understanding cultural differences will help tourist destinations in product/service planning, marketing communication and attracting and retaining tourists. This research employs Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory to analyse the variations in destination image perceptions of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking tourists to Xiamen, a prominent tourist attraction in China.

The evaluation utilizes a two-stage approach, incorporating LDA and BERT-BILSTM models. By leveraging text mining, sentiment analysis and t-tests, this research investigates the variations in tourists' perceptions of Xiamen across different cultures.

The results reveal that cultural disparities significantly impact tourists' perceived image of Xiamen, particularly regarding their preferences for renowned tourist destinations and the factors influencing their travel experience.

This research pioneers applying natural language processing methods and machine learning techniques to affirm the substantial differences in the perceptions of tourist destinations among Chinese-speaking and English-speaking tourists based on Hofstede's cultural theory. The findings furnish theoretical insights for destination marketing organizations to target diverse cultural tourists through precise marketing strategies and illuminate the practical application of Hofstede's cultural theory in tourism and hospitality.

The cold supply chain industry is still emerging and digital transformation is in the nascent stage in this industry. This paper argues that there are various barriers to implementing blockchain technology in the cold supply chain and aims to develop and validate a model for overcoming key barriers to implementing blockchain technology in the cold supply chain.

The adoption of blockchain technology was proposed through interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and further it is validated using structural equation modeling (SEM).

In this study, ten key barriers to implementing blockchain technology in the cold supply chain were identified, modelled and analysed. Poor leadership style of top management was found to be the most important barriers to implementing blockchain technology in the cold supply chain. The results of SEM indicate that all the paths are supported. The findings showcase the barriers responsible for the lack of blockchain technology infrastructure that ultimately impacts the cold supply chains.

This study highlights the fact that the fate of blockchain technology infrastructure development depends on the leadership style of top management. Demonstrating good leadership style by top management can help overcome the barriers. A good leader pulls the entire team instead of pushing the team. A good leader can guide the entire team to improve IT governance, financial investment, digital footprint, digital readiness, skills and collaboration with service providers to implement blockchain technology. Not only that, a good leader provides mental strength to the team and helps overcome the fear of implementing blockchain in the cold supply chain. A good leader demonstrates good administrative skills and focus on security and privacy policies.

This is a novel contribution towards analysing the key barriers to implementing blockchain technology in the South African cold supply chain using the integrated ISM–MICMAC and SEM approach.