research papers on culture media

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals

Cultural and media studies articles from across Nature Portfolio

Latest research and reviews.

Challenging gender stereotypes: representations of gender through social interactions in English learning textbooks

• Pingping Huang

Social structure and clan group networks of Afar pastorals along the Lower Awash Valley

• Bisrat Teklesilassie Yazew
• Getachew Kassa

Advanced modeling of housing locations in the city of Tehran using machine learning and data mining techniques

• Ali Asghar Pilehvar
• Arian Ghasemi

How to improve tourists’ trust in official tourism destination websites in China—an empirical research based on CV and PASP

• Yingmei Wei
• Yuqiang Feng

Making algorithmic app use a virtuous cycle: Influence of user gratification and fatigue on algorithmic app dependence

The reduction of netspeak in mandarin computer-mediated communication: a least effort motivation at the utterance level.

News and Comment

Cherishing slow living in lisbon.

Mila Burns, an Associate Professor of Latin American Studies and History at the City University of New York, illustrates the effects that Lisbon has over time itself.

Key points for an ethnography of AI: an approach towards crucial data

Recent years have seen an increase in calls for ethnography as a method to study Artificial Intelligence (AI). Scholars from diverse backgrounds have been encouraged to move beyond quantitative methods and embrace qualitative methods, particularly ethnography. As anthropologists of data and AI, we appreciate the growing recognition of qualitative methods. However, we emphasize the importance of grounding ethnography in specific ways of engaging with one’s field site for this method to be valuable. Without this grounding, research outcomes on AI may become distorted. In this commentary, we highlight three key aspects of the ethnographic method that require special attention to conduct robust ethnographic studies of AI: committed fieldwork (even if the fieldwork period is short), trusting relationships between researchers and participants, and, importantly, attentiveness to subtle, ambiguous, or absent-present data. This last aspect is often overlooked but is crucial in ethnography. By sharing examples from our own and other researchers’ ethnographic fieldwork, we showcase the significance of conducting ethnography with careful attention to such data and shed light on the challenges one might encounter in AI research.

• Roanne van Voorst
• Tanja Ahlin

How to love graffiti — learning from Bogotá

Most of what I know of street art and graffiti, I learned by walking the streets of Bogotá, Colombia. Like most people, I initially did not notice that my hometown was saturated with murals and pieces, as well as hastily executed stencils, tags and throw-ups. But just like a gestalt image, once you shift your gaze towards the street, you start seeing them, and then there is no turning back. My fascination with these strange letters and images, done mostly by anonymous artists, led me to start thinking through the tensions and contradictions embedded in our public spaces and eventually to writing my master’s thesis on Bogotá’s street art and graffiti culture.

• Gabriel Ortiz van Meerbeke

A challenge for the law and artificial intelligence

Borrowing the format of public competitions from engineering and computer science, a new type of challenge in 2023 tested real-world AI applications with legal assessments based on the EU AI Act.

• Thomas Burri

We need a decolonized appropriation of AI in Africa

• Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou

We need a culturally aware approach to AI

In Japan, people express gratitude towards technology and this helps them to achieve balance. Yet, dominant narratives teach us that anthropomorphizing artificial intelligence (AI) is not healthy. Our attitudes towards AI should not be bult upon overarching universal models, argues Shoko Suzuki.

• Shoko Suzuki

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

• Technical Support
• Find My Rep

You are here

Media, Culture & Society

Preview this book.

• Description
• Aims and Scope
• Editorial Board
• Abstracting / Indexing
• Submission Guidelines

Media, Culture & Society provides a major international forum for the presentation of research and discussion concerning the media, including the newer information and communication technologies, within their political, economic, cultural and historical contexts.

The journal is interdisciplinary, regularly engaging with a wider range of issues in cultural and social analysis. Its focus is on substantive topics and on critique and innovation in theory and method.

All issues of  Media, Culture & Society are available to browse on SAGE Journals .

Media, Culture & Society provides a major international, peer-reviewed forum for the presentation of research and discussion concerning the media, including the newer information and communication technologies, within their political, economic, cultural and historical contexts. It regularly engages with a wider range of issues in cultural and social analysis. Its focus is on substantive topics and on critique and innovation in theory and method. An interdisciplinary journal, it welcomes contributions in any relevant areas and from a worldwide authorship.

Crosscurrents is a dialogic space within Media, Culture & Society for debate, critique and reflection on current issues in media and communications research and aims to stimulate discussion around emerging questions, trends, themes and concepts in the field. This involves providing an arena for critical engagement with theoretical and empirical developments and trajectories in research on media and its social, political economic and cultural contexts.

• Academic Abstracts FullTEXT Elite
• Academic Index
• Academic Search Elite
• Academic Search Premier
• Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)
• Business Source Corporate
• CD-ROM - International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• CD-ROM - International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Lterature on the Humanities and Social S
• CD-ROM International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• CD-ROM International Bibliography of Periodical Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences
• ComAbstracts
• CommSearch CD-ROM
• Communication & Mass Media Complete
• Communication & Mass Media Index
• Communication Abstracts
• Communication Contents
• Cultures, Langues, Textes: La Revue de Sommaires (Prev. Science Culture)
• Current Contents / Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Current Contents/ Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Educational Research Abstracts Online - e-Psyche
• Expanded Academic Index
• Family Index
• Family Index Database
• Film Literature Index
• Human Resources Abstracts
• IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature
• IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Index to Journals in Communication Studies
• Index to Journals in Mass Communication
• International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
• International Index to Film/Television Periodicals
• International Political Science Abstracts
• Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
• MasterFILE Premier
• Online - International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Online - International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature on the Humanities and Social
• Online - International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Online - International Bibliography of Periodical Literature on the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Periodical Abstracts
• Public Administration Abstracts
• Research Alert
• Science Culture
• Science Direct Navigator
• Social SciSearch
• Social Science Source
• Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
• Social Sciences Index
• Social Services Abstracts
• Sociological Abstracts
• Sociology of Education Abstracts
• Violence & Abuse Abstracts
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
• e-Psyche (Ceased)

Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Media, Culture & Society

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mcs  to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Media, Culture & Society will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

• What do we publish? 1.1 Aims & Scope 1.2 Article types 1.3 Writing your paper
• Editorial policies 2.1 Peer review policy 2.2 Authorship 2.3 Acknowledgements 2.4 Funding 2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
• Publishing policies 3.1 Publication ethics 3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement 3.3 Open access and author archiving
• Preparing your manuscript 4.1 Formatting 4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics 4.3 Supplementary material 4.4 Reference style 4.5 English language editing services
• Submitting your manuscript 5.1 ORCID 5.2 Information required for completing your submission 5.3 Permissions
• On acceptance and publication 6.1 Sage Production 6.2 Online First publication 6.3 Access to your published article 6.4 Promoting your article
• Further information

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Media, Culture & Society , please ensure you have read the  Aims & Scope .

1.2 Article Types

Media, Culture and Society publishes main articles of between 6000 and 8000 words, including notes and references - Submissions which are outside this range will not be considered for refereeing until suitably revised. End notes, if necessary, should not exceed more than 6. Acknowledgement of receipt will be given and they will then be refereed anonymously. Articles should be in English. Authors are responsible for obtaining permissions from copyright holders for reproducing any previously published material.

For its Crosscurrents section, Media, Culture & Society also welcomes short pieces of no more than 5000 words in total (including all references). We particularly encourage articles which stimulate debate, reflect on current theoretical or empirical trends in the field, or respond in novel ways to issues, debates and developments in media, culture and society more broadly. Crosscurrents is open to contributions which do not adhere to a conventional article format.

Please note that we no longer publish book reviews. However, we occasionally publish review essays that involve the examination of a number of texts to provide a critical contribution to the subject.

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Please note that your manuscript must conform to our guidelines with regards to length (which depends on article type) and to our policy on anonymity; self-citations must not be included (the recommended procedure is to put “Author removed” before the date in the text citation and at appropriate points in the references section). Similarly, any acknowledgements and/or funding information must not be included in the main body of the text (this information can be uploaded in a separate text file or can be inserted at proof stage). Manuscripts that do not conform cannot be processed for peer review and will be returned to the author.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway:  How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online .

Back to top

2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

•  The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors

•  The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper

•  The author has recommended the reviewer

•  The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution). 

2.2 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools .

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

2.3.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves .

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

Media, Culture & Society encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the  Sage Journal Author Gateway .

3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors  and view the Publication Ethics page on the  Sage Author Gateway .

3.1.1 Plagiarism

Media, Culture & Society and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway  or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the  Sage Author Gateway .

3.3 Open access and author archiving

Media, Culture & Society offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage . For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access . For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies .

4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

4.1 Formatting

Preferred formats for the text and tables of your manuscript are Word DOC, RTF, XLS. LaTeX files are also accepted. The text should be double-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left and right hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or 12 point. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines  page of our Author Gateway.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines .   

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

4.3 Supplementary material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidel guidelines on submitting supplementary files .

4.4 Reference style

Media, Culture & Society adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard  guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

If you use EndNote   to manage references, you can download the  Sage Harvard EndNote output file .

4.5 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services  on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

5. Submitting your manuscript

Media, Culture & Society is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/MCS to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne  Online Help .

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID . ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

5.2 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

5.3 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the  Sage Author Gateway .

6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

6.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page  for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article  page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Media, Culture & Society editorial office as follows:

[email protected]

• Read Online
• Sample Issues
• Current Issue
• Email Alert
• Permissions
• Foreign rights
• Reprints and sponsorship
• Advertising

Individual Subscription, Print Only

Institutional Subscription, E-access

Institutional Subscription & Backfile Lease, E-access Plus Backfile (All Online Content)

Institutional Subscription, Print Only

Institutional Subscription, Combined (Print & E-access)

Institutional Subscription & Backfile Lease, Combined Plus Backfile (Current Volume Print & All Online Content)

Institutional Backfile Purchase, E-access (Content through 1998)

Individual, Single Print Issue

Institutional, Single Print Issue

To order single issues of this journal, please contact SAGE Customer Services at 1-800-818-7243 / 1-805-583-9774 with details of the volume and issue you would like to purchase.

Research in Journalism, Media and Culture

Main navigation.

Faculty in Journalism, Culture and Communication analyze emerging and enduring forms of public communication and the institutional and economic conditions that sustain them. They employ a range of research methods, including ethnography, textual and historical analysis, and political economic approaches to media industries. As digital technologies have transformed mediated practices, the faculty has opened a series of new areas of inquiry, including computational journalism, the study of algorithms in institutions, and the cultural history of Silicon Valley.

Angèle Christin  is an associate professor. She is interested in fields and organizations where algorithms and ‘big data’ analytics transform professional values, expertise, and work practices. In her dissertation, she analyzed the growing importance of audience metrics in web journalism in the United States and France. Drawing on ethnographic methods, she examined how American and French journalists make sense of traffic numbers in different ways, which in turn has distinct effects on the production of news in the two countries. In a new project, she studies the construction, institutionalization, and reception of analytics and predictive algorithms in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Ted Glasser  is an emeritus professor.  His teaching and research focus on media practices and performance, with emphasis on questions of press responsibility and accountability. His books include  Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies,  written with Clifford Christians, Denis McQuail, Kaarle Nordenstreng, and Robert White, which in 2010 won the Frank Luther Mott-Kappa Tau Alpha award for best research-based book on journalism/mass communication and was one of three finalists for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Tankard Book Award;  The Idea of Public Journalism , an edited collection of essays, recently translated into Chinese;  Custodians of Conscience: Investigative Journalism and Public Virtue , written with James S. Ettema, which won the Society of Professional Journalists’ award for best research on journalism, the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism, and the Frank Luther Mott-Kappa Tau Alpha award for the best research-based book on journalism/mass communication;  Public Opinion and the Communication of Consent , edited with Charles T. Salmon; and  Media Freedom and Accountability , edited with Everette E. Dennis and Donald M. Gillmor.  His research, commentaries and book reviews have appeared in a variety of publications, including the  Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Journalism Studies, Policy Sciences, Journal of American History, Quill, Nieman Reports  and  The New York Times Book Review .

James T. Hamilton  is a professor and the director of the Journalism Program. His work on the economics of news focuses on the market failures involved in the production of public affairs coverage and the generation of investigative reporting. Through research in the emerging area of computational journalism, he is exploring how to lower the cost of discovering stories about the operation of political institutions.

Xiaochang Li  is an assistant professor. She is broadly interested in the history of informatics, computation, and related data practices. Drawing upon media history, history of science, and STS, her work is concerned with how information technologies shape the production and circulation of knowledge and the relationship between technical practices and social worlds. Her current research examines the history of speech recognition and natural language processing and how the pursuit of language influenced the development of AI, Machine Learning, and contemporary algorithmic culture. Her work also touches on sound studies and the history of acoustics and she has previously worked on topics concerning transnational media audiences and digital content circulation.

Fred Turner  is a professor and cultural historian of media and media technologies. Trained in both Communication and Science and Technology Studies, he has long been interested in how media and American culture have shaped one another over time. His most recent work has focused on the rise of American technocracy since World War II and on the aesthetic and ideological manifestations of that rise in the digital era. Before earning his Ph.D., Turner worked as a journalist for ten years. He continues to write for newspapers and magazines and strongly supports researchers who seek to have a public impact with their work.

Like all Communication faculty, the members of the Journalism, Communication and Culture group routinely collaborate with colleagues from around the campus. The group enjoys particularly strong collaborations with sociologists, historians, art historians, and computer scientists.

Faculty — Journalism, Media and Culture

Doctoral Students — Journalism, Media and Culture

Selected Graduates

• Sanna Ali, Ph.D. 2023. AI Policy Analyst, Stanford Cyber Policy Center and RegLab
• Jeff Nagy, Ph.D. 2023. Assistant Professor, Communication and Media Studies, York University
• Anna Gibson, Ph.D. 2022. Postdoctoral Fellow, MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing
• Jihye Lee , Ph.D. 2022. Assistant Professor, School of Advertising and Public Relations, UT Austin
• Andreas Katsanevas, Ph.D. 2020. Technology Policy Researcher, Meta
• Sheng Zou,  Ph.D. 2020. Assistant Professor, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University
• Christine Larson , Ph.D. 2017. Assistant Professor, Journalism, University of Colorado, Boulder
• Yeon Joo , Ph.D. 2014. Associate Professor, Department of Digital Media, Myongji University, Seoul
• Morgan G. Ames , Ph.D. 2013. Assistant Adjunct Professor, School of Information, University of California, Berkeley
• Seeta Pena Gangdaharan , Ph.D. 2012. Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics
• Mike Ananny , Ph.D. 2011, Associate Professor, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California
• Daniel Kreiss , Ph.D. 2010, Associate Professor, School of Media and Journalism, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• John Kim , Ph.D. 2009, Associate Professor, Media and Cultural Studies, Macalaster College
• Erica Robles-Anderson , Ph.D. 2009, Associate Professor, Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University
• Isabel Awad , Ph.D. 2007, Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communication, Erasmus University (Netherlands)
• Cherian George , Ph.D. 2003, Professor, Associate Dean, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University
• Francis Lapfung Lee , Ph.D. 2003, Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, City University of Hong Kong

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection

In vitro plant tissue culture: means for production of biological active compounds

Claudia a. espinosa-leal.

Tecnologico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Ave. Eugenio Garza Sada 2501, 64849 Monterrey, NL México

César A. Puente-Garza

Silverio garcía-lara, main conclusion.

Plant tissue culture as an important tool for the continuous production of active compounds including secondary metabolites and engineered molecules. Novel methods (gene editing, abiotic stress) can improve the technique.

Humans have a long history of reliance on plants for a supply of food, shelter and, most importantly, medicine. Current-day pharmaceuticals are typically based on plant-derived metabolites, with new products being discovered constantly. Nevertheless, the consistent and uniform supply of plant pharmaceuticals has often been compromised. One alternative for the production of important plant active compounds is in vitro plant tissue culture, as it assures independence from geographical conditions by eliminating the need to rely on wild plants. Plant transformation also allows the further use of plants for the production of engineered compounds, such as vaccines and multiple pharmaceuticals. This review summarizes the important bioactive compounds currently produced by plant tissue culture and the fundamental methods and plants employed for their production.

Introduction

Plant cell and tissue culture uses nutritive culture media and controlled aseptic conditions for the growth of plant cells, tissues and organs. Since its first establishment by Haberlandt in the early twentieth century, this type of culture has evolved into an essential tool for plant research at both the basic and applied levels (Haberlandt 1902 ). In vitro culture techniques are now indispensable for the production of disease-free plants, rapid multiplication of rare plant genotypes, plant genome transformation, and production of plant-derived metabolites of important commercial value (see Fig.  1 ) (Debnarh et al. 2006 ; Altpeter et al. 2016 ).

Diagram of current methods employed for the large-scale production of bioactive compounds using plant in vitro tissue culture

Due to the diversity of the methods and applications of available culture techniques, the subject of plant cell/tissue culture is extensively covered in the existing literature. Some works have even focused on the use of in vitro tissue culture for the production of secondary metabolites (Verpoorte et al. 2000 , 2002 ; Smetanska 2008 ; Karuppusamy 2009 ). This work aims to provide an updated overview on the use of in vitro culture for the production of medicinally or commercially important plant metabolites and bioengineered products, nevertheless because of the ample range of information available not all works within the scope of the article could be included, we apologize to those authors. The objective of this review is, therefore, to summarize the main molecules currently being produced using plant cell/tissue culture, their applications in areas such as medicine and food technology, and the plant material cultured for their production. The review also covers new trends in in vitro cell/tissue culture and plant transformation.

Production of biologically active compounds

Secondary metabolites.

The term secondary metabolite refers to a compound produced by plants, microorganisms or animals that is not required for their growth (Pickens et al. 2011 ). Humans have long used the products of plant secondary metabolism to satisfy a multitude of different needs (Borchardt 2002 ; Patwardhan 2005 ; Cragg and Newman 2013 ). The primary use of these compounds has been as medicinal agents, first in an empirical way and subsequently, starting in the 19th century, in a more rational way following the advent of molecule isolation (Corson and Crews 2007 ; Zenk and Juenger 2007 ; Cragg and Newman 2013 ). Despite the extensive research into secondary metabolites over such a long period of time, current estimates indicate that only about 6% of higher plants (between 300,000 and 500,000 species) have been systematically studied for their pharmacological potential, and only 15% have been evaluated for phytochemicals in general (Fabricant and Farnsworth 2001 ; Cragg and Newman 2013 ). Therefore, enormous opportunities exist for continued studies in this field.

The identification and isolation of a useful bioactive compound immediately generates a need for a method for its continuous production. A secondary metabolite is typically characterized by its diverse and complex chemical structure, usually encompassing multiple chiral centers and labile bonds, and this makes its chemical synthesis challenging (Pickens et al. 2011 ). Therefore, biologically active molecules are more commonly extracted from their natural sources. However, since most of the source plants are wild rather than domesticated species, harvesting from their natural habitats presents a risk of overexploitation, as well as creating a bottleneck in the production of the compounds. Further complications include the slow growth rates of many source plants, the low concentrations of the active compounds of interest and, frequently, the need for biotic or abiotic stress to induce biosynthesis. All these factors make the extraction of secondary metabolites from source species highly inefficient (Atanasov et al. 2015 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ) and emphasize the need for novel approaches for secondary metabolite production.

The in vitro culture of plant cells and tissues under controlled conditions offers a well-founded technology platform for the production of plant natural products. The in vitro propagation (micropropagation) of plants or the in vitro culture of plant organs (usually roots) or callus can typically provide plant material capable of producing secondary metabolites (Atanasov et al. 2015 ; Morales-Rubio et al. 2016 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ; Espinosa-Leal et al. 2017 ). Micropropagation has, therefore, become a commercially lucrative enterprise and provides marked advantages over conventional horticultural propagation practices by facilitating the production of large numbers of homogenous plants year-round, the generation of disease-free propagules and a substantial enhancement of multiplication rates (Debnarh et al. 2006 ). Currently, a large number of protocols are available for the micropropagation of medicinal plants (Debnarh et al. 2006 ; Rizvi and Kukreja 2010 ; Sarasan et al. 2011 ; Kaul et al. 2013 ; Kun-Hua et al. 2013 ; Bhattecheryya et al. 2014 ; Chen et al. 2014a ; Atanasov et al. 2015 ), as well as some commercially important plants, such as Agave salmiana (Puente-Garza et al. 2017a ), artichoke (Pandino et al. 2017 ), Stevia rebaudiana (Ramírez-Mosqueda et al. 2016 ) and Moringa oleifera (drumstick tree) (Juan-jie et al. 2017 ). However, the high costs of micropropagation compared with its traditional counterpart (i.e., collection from the wild) and the unpredictability of the needs of the market have limited the use of micropropagation at a commercial level (Debnarh et al. 2006 ; Methora et al. 2007 ; Lubbe and Verpoorte 2011 ; Pence 2011 ; Sahu and Sahu 2013 ). Notably, however, recent micropropagation efforts have been aimed at the conservation of overexploited medicinal plants, with special emphasis in plants used for traditional medicines in China and India (Rizvi and Kukreja 2010 ; Verma et al. 2012 ; Bhattecheryya et al. 2014 ; Chen et al. 2016a ).

Recent advances in plant cell culture, brought about by the established experience with microbial and animal cell culture, has resulted in effective scale-up from the experimental stage to an industrial scale. Plant cell culture now represents an efficient way to produce several valuable natural products (Fischer et al. 2015 ). As shown in Table  1 , the range of commercially important products includes pigments (e.g., anthocyanins and betacyanins), anti-inflammatory agents (e.g., berberine and rosmarinic acid), and anti-cancer molecules (e.g., paclitaxel and podophyllotoxin).

Table 1

List of some secondary metabolites industrially produced by plant tissue culture (with information of Wilson and Roberts 2012 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 )

Plant-made pharmaceuticals and other bioengineered products

In the early 1990s, transgenic plants were endorsed as an alternative means of production of pharmaceutically important proteins. A transgenic system offers several advantages, including decreased costs, increased ease of delivery and scale-up, decreased risk of contamination with animal and human pathogens, and eukaryotic protein processing. Despite the potential of the method, the past 20 years since its introduction have seen transgenic biomolecules (mostly orally delivered, plant-made vaccines) continue to languish in Phase I of human clinical trials. Only in this current decade has a breakthrough been made, and plant-based products are now geared to proceed to Phase II trials and beyond (Pogue et al. 2010 ; Thomas et al. 2011 ).

Table  2 lists the first plant-made human recombinant therapeutic protein approved by regulatory agencies for commercial sale in 2014. Developed by Pfizer, Inc. and Protalix Biotherapeutics, the enzyme taliglucerase alfa (commercially known as ELELYSO-™) is a treatment for Type 1 Gaucher disease (Pfizer 2014 ; Pastores et al. 2016 ). More plant-based products are awaiting approval in one of the phases of clinical trials, and some companies, including Icon Genetics, Ventria Bioscience and Greenovation Biotech, now have the technologies available for the production of several pharmaceuticals derived from plants (see Table  2 ). This seemingly show growth of the field can be attributed to some of the challenges presented by the method, such as low yields, unwanted glycosylation of products, purification and downstream processing hurdles, and the challenges inherent in the creation of a new manufacturing industry (Tusé et al. 2014 ; Yao et al. 2015 ).

Table 2

List of some pharmaceuticals produced in plants

With information of Wilson and Roberts ( 2012 ) and Yao et al. ( 2015 )

Some of these problems can be resolved by judicious selection of the plant material. For instance, the use of maize or lettuce, which are both edible and free of harmful substances, can reduce the need for the intensive purification required for the preparation of parenteral pharmaceuticals, thereby reducing the downstream costs (Hayden et al. 2012 , 2014 ; Lakshmi et al. 2013 ; Czyz et al. 2014 , 2016 ; Sue et al. 2015). In addition, the appropriate selection of the desired transgenic phenotypes and the use of breeding methods such as backcrossing or inbreeding can lead to the preservation of valuable traits, including high expression of the desired pharmaceutical by the plant material (Pniewski et al. 2017 ). Other advances have been made in glyco-engineering of host plants, which allows the engineered plants to produce human and mammalian-analogous molecules that exhibit comparable activity to their equivalents produced by mammalian cells in culture (Castilho et al. 2011 ; Zeitlin et al. 2011 ; Gleba et al. 2014 ).

Other plant metabolites of interest, which can be bioengineered, are plant growth regulators. These are typically produced in miniscule quantities in plants, but are essential for the regulation of plant cellular processes (Wani et al. 2016 ). Growth regulators also have critical roles in controlling plant responses to the abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity and extreme temperatures, factors that limit crop productivity worldwide (Wani and Sah 2014 ). Due to these characteristics engineered plant growth regulators can be used for the improvement of crops from both nutritional and stress-resistance perspectives (Wani et al. 2016 ).

Plants employed for the production of biologically active compounds

An abundance of options, ranging from model plants and crops to wild-type plants, is available when selecting an appropriate plant material for the production of biomolecules. The selection of which plant to use will depend on a number of factors, with the chief considerations being the purpose of the study and the availability of the plant.

Most plants employed for the production of secondary metabolites are non-crop wild types, since these are the plants that already contain the metabolic tools for synthesis of many metabolites of interest (see Table  1 ). Some examples include Agave salmiana for saponins (Puente-Garza et al. 2017a ), Rhaponticoide mykalea for chlorogenic acids (Hayta et al. 2017 ) and phenolic compounds (Karalija et al. 2017 ), Leucophyllum frutescens for phenolic compounds (Espinosa-Leal et al. 2015 ) and Poliomintha glabrescens for luteolin (García-Pérez et al. 2012 ). All of these compounds are useful in the food, pharmaceutical or cosmetic industries (Perassolo et al. 2017 ). Other crop plants are used for the production of metabolites such as betalains, which are natural colorants as well as good antioxidants. The main sources of betalain metabolites are the cactus pear ( Opuntia ficus - indica ) and red beet ( Beta vulgaris ), and these metabolites are typically produced using hairy roots in bioreactors or by callus culture (Georgiev et al. 2008 ).

Other crop plants, or their parts, that are used for the production of bioengineered compounds, include carrot cells (enzyme replacement), rice (albumin serum) (both presented in Table  2 ), maize (vaccines, such as anti-HBV) and lettuce (vaccines and antibodies) (Hayden et al. 2012 , 2014 ; Lakshmi et al. 2013 ; Czyz et al. 2014 , 2016 ; Su et al. 2015 ; Yao et al. 2015 ). Model plants, such as Nicotiana benthamiana, are also transformed for the production of plant pharmaceuticals (Yao et al. 2015 ), as summarized in Table  2 .

Methods of plant tissue culture

Several methods are available for plant tissue culture; two of the most commonly used are presented in Fig.  1 . Organogenesis, which refers to the production of plant organs (roots or shoots), can be accomplished directly from meristems or indirectly from dedifferentiated cells (callus). The resulting cultures can later be used for the massive production of plants (micropropagation) or for the growth of particular organs (i.e., roots in hairy root culture). Callogenesis produces an amorphous mass of cells in response to exposure of explants to different growth regulators. The callus can then be used to regenerate whole plants, or it can be scaled up for the production of important metabolites in cell suspension cultures (Morales-Rubio et al. 2016 ).

All plant tissue culture methods follow a series of steps, as mentioned in Table  3 . First, the plant of interest needs to be selected; this is generally dependent on the aim of the study, but disease- and insect-free plants are preferred; if the plant requires it, some pre-treatments (fungicides and pesticides) can be applied. The next step is the initiation of the in vitro culture. The process requires the excision of small plant pieces (explants) or the use of seeds and their surface sterilization with chemicals. The explants are then placed in appropriate culture media and incubated for a short period of time; contaminated explants are discarded while the surviving ones continue to the next step. The following steps vary depending on the type of culture desired. In organogenesis, this is the propagation phase when explants are cultured on appropriate culture media for shoot or root multiplication, similarly in callogenesis the callus is multiplied. In the next step, callus and root cultures are scaled up for their culture using bioreactors, while the propagated shoots are transferred to root-promoting culture media, in the case of micropropagation. Finally, the micropropagated plants are hardened to grow individual plants capable of photosynthesis. The hardening is done gradually allowing the plants to acclimate to ex vitro conditions. Typically the plants are taken from high to low humidity and from low to high light intensity (Ahloowalia et al. 2003 ; Espinosa-Leal et al. 2017 ).

Table 3

List of in vitro tissue culture steps

With information from Ahloowalia et al. ( 2003 ) and Espinosa-Leal et al. ( 2017 )

The following sections cover novel developments in plant tissue culture that allow a more efficient production of bioactive compounds.

Improvements in traditional culturing techniques

Micropropagation has been the technique of choice for the production of whole plants for medicinal, conservation, reforestation and commercial purposes (Afolayan and Adebola 2004 ; Debnarh et al. 2006 ; Sarasan et al. 2011 ). Tissue culture of plants capable of producing important biomolecules offers a number of advantages over traditional field culture, including independence from geographical, seasonal, and environmental variations; uninterrupted production in uniform quality and yield; no need for pesticide and herbicide application; and comparatively short growth cycles (Rao and Ravishankar 2002 ; Debnarh et al. 2006 ). Production of secondary metabolites by plant tissue culture depends on a number of factors, chief among them are the nutrients provided for plant growth. The optimum nutrient concentration is a critical determinant in the growth of the explants and the accumulation of secondary metabolites (Rao and Ravishankar, 2002 ; Nagella and Murthy 2010 ; Murthy et al. 2014 ; Fargoso Monfort et al. 2018 ). The type of culture media used, the salt strength of the medium employed and the growth regulators, type and concentration used, are key factors that most be established for every culture (Rao and Ravishankar, 2002 ; Fargoso Monfort et al. 2018 ). The concentration of salts present in the culture media needed by a specific plant varies depending on the particular culture needs. The selection of a suitable medium is essential to establish cell and organ cultures (Nagella and Murthy 2010 ; Fargoso Monfort et al. 2018 ). Three of the most popular culture media employed are MS, B5 and WPM, as listed in Table  4 . MS basal media contains the highest total salts and nitrogen content. Nitrogen is an essential element that promotes explant growth, since it directly affects amino acid and nucleic acid production in the cells. MS basal media (1962) is the most commonly used plant culture media. As presented in Table  4 , it has a very high salt content, nevertheless, it is the preferred medium for the growth of several species (Alvarenga et al. 2015 ; Grzegorczyk-Karolak et al. 2015 ; Rahman et al. 2015 ). It has been demonstrated that different MS salt concentrations influence growth in several species (Assis et al. 2012 ; Martins et al. 2015 ; Shekhawat et al. 2015 ; Singh et al. 2015 ). Generally, lower salt concentrations stimulate rooting (Sorace et al. 2008 ; Golle et al. 2012 ; Shekhawat et al. 2015 ). Fargoso Monfort et al. ( 2018 ) found that in Ocimum basilicum volatile constituents diminished with higher salt concentrations. Plant growth regulators can affect the production of secondary metabolites, a recent review by Jamwal et al. ( 2018 ) presents a summary of the production of natural products by using different plant growth regulators.

Table 4

List of commonly used culture media used for in vitro plant tissue culture

With information from Fargoso Monfort et al. ( 2018 )

Nevertheless, one of the principal disadvantages of in vitro tissue culture is the high cost involved with the technique, particularly the expenses associated with culture media (mainly the carbon source, gelling agent and growth regulators), electricity and labor. Some studies have attempted to remedy the cost of culture media using alternative materials, such as household sugar or other sugars, as carbon sources and various types of starches and plant gums instead of agar. Other alternatives have included the use of liquid media and cell-suspension cultures, temporal immersion systems, and reusable glass beads as substitute support matrices (Etienne and Berthouly 2002 ; Goel et al. 2007 ; Thorpe 2007 ; Sahu and Sahu 2013 ). The cost of electricity can amount up to 60% of tissue culture production costs. The electrical energy is mostly employed for autoclaving, lighting of the growth room and air filtration in laminar-flow cabinets and air conditioning (Ahloowalia and Savangikar 2003 ; George and Manuel 2013 ). The use of artificial lighting in growth rooms is the most expensive and inefficient method on tissue culture technology. It generates heat that needs to be dissipated using air conditioning and it does not match natural light. Additionally, even though plants are capable of adapting to an ample range of conditions, once the adaptation occurs, re-adaptation to new conditions is slow and difficult (Ahloowalia and Savangikar 2003 ; George and Manuel 2013 ). The use of natural light is a low-cost option for tissue culture, it reduces electricity and capital costs as well as improves plant quality. There are several ways to achieve this, a simple option is to diffuse natural light under plastic or glass, this works best in temperate climates; some laboratories can be modified to adapt the use of ‘solatube’ which redirects daylight from rooftops through reflecting tubing (Kodym and Zapata-Arias 1999 , 2001 ; Kodym et al. 2001 ; Ahloowalia and Savangikar 2003 ) some laboratories can incorporate southwest facing windows in the growth rooms that allow for indirect diffused natural daylight, as is the case of bio-factories in Cuba (Baezas-Lopez 1995 ; Ahloowalia and Savangikar 2003 ) and finally some cultures have been successfully propagated using plastic bags as culture containers and hanging them in greenhouses thus eliminating the need of air-conditioned growth rooms (Ahloowalia and Savangikar 2003 ). Temperature regulation, another high electricity demanding feature of plant in vitro culture, can be mostly avoided since many plants can tolerate wide fluctuations in temperature (Kodym et al. 2001 ). Labor is another source of high in vitro tissue culture costs. Once the efficiency of labor in transferring number of propagules per hour has been achieved to the maximum possible, there is little room for improvement unless an automated or semi-automated system is implemented. For example, the use of bioreactors and mechanized handling of propagules, such systems have shown to reduce the cost of production by 50% (Ahloowalia and Savangikar 2003 ; George and Manuel 2013 ).

Another problem found in plant tissue culture involves the genetic stability of the plants. Different cases of micropropagation of in vitro-regenerated plants have shown that they are not always clonal copies of the mother plant (Devi et al. 2014 ; Bhattacharyya et al. 2017a ). In vitro culture conditions, especially some growth regulators and elicitors, act as stress factors that induce alterations in sensitive regions of plant genome, and therefore, generate instability in cultured cells, tissues and organs, an occurrence known as somaclonal variation (Larkin and Scowcroft 1981 ; Gyulai et al. 2003 ; Bairu et al. 2011 ; Stanišic et al. 2015 ; Govindaraju and Arulselvi 2016 ). The genetic changes experienced by the culture include: alternative DNA methylation, amplification, activation of transposable elements, polyploidy, changes in chromosome number or DNA sequence (Bairu et al. 2011 ; Stanišic et al. 2015 ; Govindaraju and Arulselvi 2016 ). Typically regeneration protocols involving a callus phase are considered the least reliable for clonal propagation, while plantlets regenerated by branching of the axillary buds or direct somatic embryos are considered to be, genetically, the most uniform (Rani and Raina 2000 ; Varshney et al. 2001 ; Bhattacharyya et al. 2017b ). The occurrence of somaclonal variations during in vitro propagation, industrial production of phytochemicals, or genetically engineered plants can lead to massive economic consequences and represents a serious obstacle in the practical utilization of plant tissue culture techniques for the production of active metabolites (Rahman and Rajora 2001 ; Bhattacharyya et al. 2016 ). Therefore, to screen somaclonal variability within a cell culture, it is necessary to monitor and assess the genetic constitution and stability of the in vitro-regenerated plants. The methodologies involved in that process include the use of several techniques to assess possible alterations at different levels (Devarumath et al. 2002 ; Bhattacharyya et al. 2015 , 2017a ; Bose et al. 2016 ; Bhattacharyya and Van Staden 2016 ). Flow cytometry and chromosome counting are widely used to assess changes in ploidy and chromosome number; PCR-based DNA markers, random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), random fragmented length polymorphism (RFLP), inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), microsatellite markers, and start codon targeted (ScoT) polymorphism have been successfully used to evaluate genomic stability of regenerated plants (Hu et al. 2008 ; Collard and Mackill 2009 ; Bairu et al. 2011 ; Singh et al. 2013 ; Bhattacharyya et al. 2014 , 2015 ; Rathore et al. 2014 ; Stanišic et al. 2015 ; Bose et al. 2016 ; Govindaraju and Arulselvi 2016 ). An appropriate combination of two or more markers guarantees reliable and efficient testing of genetic fidelity in plants (Palombi and Damiano 2002 ; Bhattacharyya et al. 2016 ).

Cell suspension culture remains the best method for the production of active metabolites, especially natural products, with paclitaxel from Taxus spp. being the most prominent example (Atanasov et al. 2015 ) (Table  1 ). For the production of cell suspension cultures, the calli are first induced in solid media, the cells are then transferred to liquid media. In small laboratories, the cells are first grown in shaking flasks and later transferred to large-scale liquid-phase bioreactors. There are many different types of reactors including tank reactors, bubble beds and rotary rectors (Furusaki and Takeda 2017 ). Comprehensive reviews on industrial bioreactors have been published previously and can be consulted for more information on the subject (Su and Lee 2007 ; Huang and McDonald 2012 ).

A number of limitations are associated with these methods, when compared with microbial cultures, such as the slow growth rates and low and variable yields of metabolites, and these limitations still restrict the industrial use of plant cell suspension cultures (Kolewe et al. 2008 ; Kirakosyan et al. 2009 ). However, the production of important metabolites can be enhanced with modifications to the culture media, such as the addition of elicitors or precursors, or the environmental conditions.

Elicitors stimulate the production of plant natural products that serve as plant defense compounds. Several types of elicitors can increase the secondary metabolite production, including pectin and cellulose (plant cell wall constituents), chitin and glucan (from microorganisms) and salicylic acid and methyl jasmonate (plant immune signaling molecules) (Namdeo 2007 ; Shilpa et al. 2010 ; Sharma et al. 2011 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ). Srivastava and Srivastava ( 2014 ) used different fungal culture filtrates as biotic elicitors in root cultures of Azadirachta indica to promote the production of Azadirachtin. Filtrates of Curvularia lunata yielded the highest production of the target compound compared to control. Saranya Krishnan and Siril ( 2018 ) used yeast extracts, pectin and xylan to elicit the production of anthraquinones in Oldenlandia umbellate cultures, with the addition of pectin resulting in the highest elicitation. The selection of the adequate elicitor will depend on the metabolite being produced and the plant culture employed.

Another strategy is to supplement with precursors that are intermediary compounds of the metabolic pathway of the desired natural product. Supplementing the culture media with precursors of secondary metabolites can enhance the yield of the final product (Rao and Ravishankar 2002 ; Hussain et al. 2012 ), and has been used successfully in several cases, including the production of phenolic compounds (Palacio et al. 2011 ), triterpenoids (Chen et al. 2016b ) and withanolides (Sivanandhan et al. 2014 ). Cultures of Antrodia cinnamomea were fed exogenous sterols including squalene, cholesterol, and stigmasterol to enhance their triterpenoid content, the feeding of high doses of stigmasterol resulted in an increased amount of terpens (Chen et al. 2016b ). When searching for appropriate precursors it is important to look at the entire biosynthetic pathway and include several molecules involved in different steps of the process, incorporating some examples that affect the production of the target compound in indirect ways. Srivastava and Srivastava ( 2014 ) studied the use of precursors to enhance production of azadirachtin including sodium acetate, cholesterol, squalene, isopentenyl pyrophosphate, and others. They found the best results using cholesterol as an indirect precursor. Parra et al. ( 2017 ), evaluated the effect of different biochemical precursors in fatty acids production in cacao cell cultures including biotin, pyruvate, acetate and bicarbonate, they also utilized glycerol because it is involved in triglycerides assembly. The later was found to induce a higher fat production compared to the other precursors and control. It is also important to remember that the precursor must be easier and cheaper to acquire the compound of interest.

An alternative way of increasing natural product production is by manipulation of environmental factors. Plants are heavily influenced by environmental factors to regulate the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, through stress response mechanisms (Zhi-lin et al. 2007 ; Verma and Shukla 2015 ). Abiotic stresses related to environmental factors include light intensity, water availability, temperature (high or low), radiation (UV), gaseous toxins (ozone), pesticides and metals (Ni, Cd, Co, Fe, Zn) (Ramakrishna and Ravishankar 2011 ; Raduisene et al. 2012 ). Water stress is produced when the plant has limited water availability, either because there is no water (drought) or because the water is dissolving a solute (salinity). Drought stress can be induced in vitro by the addition of high-molecular-weight solutes, such as polyethylene glycol (PEG), to the culture media (Verslues et al. 2006 ). It has been proven to enhance the production of saponins in A. salmiana (Puente-Garza et al. 2017b ), phenolics in Poliomintha glabrescens (García-Pérez et al. 2012 ) and rosmarinic acid in Salvia miltiorrhiza (Liu et al. 2011 ). For the induction of salinity stress different concentrations of salts, such as NaCl and Na 2 CO 3 , can be added to the culture media. This type of stress has resulted in increased production of steviol glycoside content in Stevia rebaudiana (Gupta et al. 2016 ); Sorbito in Lycopersicon esculentum (Tari et al. 2010 ) and flavonoids in Hordeum vulgare (Ali and Abbas 2003 ). Light is an essential abiotic environmental component for plants, since it permits photosynthesis; however, high levels of UV radiation can be harmful (Verma and Shukla 2015 ). To protect itself form oxidative damage the plant produces several antioxidant metabolites such as polyphenols and tocopherols (Kaur and Kapoor 2001 ; Argolo et al. 2004 ). UV radiation can, therefore, be used to enhance the production of secondary metabolites, typically by exposing the cultures to UV light using a special lamp for a set period of time. The technique has been used in Vitis vinifera calli to produce flavonols (Cetin 2014 ). Different chemicals, including heavy metals, can cause chemical stress. Metal ions influence the production of secondary metabolites, and depending on the plant species and heavy metal type and concentration can even enhance their production (Ramakrishna and Ravishankar 2011 ; Verma and Shukla 2015 ; Maleki et al. 2017 ). As an example is the case of Thalictrum rugosum cell suspension culture that used CuSO 4 to stimulate the production of berberine (Kim et al. 1991 ).

These improvements, however, are not sufficient to sustain an adequate large-scale production of bioactive compounds, so other methods are still needed.

Alternatives to in vitro plant culture

The low yield of secondary metabolites in cell cultures can be explained as a consequence of a lack of cell differentiation. An alternative strategy to cell culture is the organized culture of roots or shoots (Verporte et al. 2002; Kolewe et al. 2008 ). Hairy root culture is a perfect example; it is induced by infection of roots with Agrobacterium rhizogenes and the subsequent transfer of the Ri plasmid, which induces abundant growth of neoplastic roots that can be maintained in vitro (Ron et al. 2014 ). Grzegorczyk-Karolak et al. ( 2018 ) obtained hairy root culture of Salvia viridis by wounding shoot explants with needles dipped in Agrobacterium rhizogenes strain A4 culture. Some of the advantages provided by hairy root cultures include high growth rates without the need for plant growth regulators, genetically and biochemically stable cultures, and a similar capacity for production of secondary metabolites than cell suspension cultures (Guillon et al. 2006 ; Georgiev et al. 2012 ; Mora-Pale et al. 2014 ). A wide range of natural products has been produced using this system, including lignans, steroids, anthraquinones and alkaloids (Doma et al. 2012 ; Huang et al. 2014 ; Pandey et al. 2014 ; Wawrosch et al. 2014 ). However, metabolite production requires that the compound of interest be one that is normally synthesized within the roots of the source plant, so this limits the versatility of the hairy root system (Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ).

Nevertheless, the greatest limiting factor in the industrial use of hairy rots for the production of secondary metabolites is their scale-up, since it requires the development of appropriate culture vessels that permit mixing without causing shear damage to the interconnected root mat. Binoy et al. ( 2016 ) designed a novel culture vessel by customizing a reaction kettle (2 L) for the culture of Plumbago rosea and production of plumbagin an anticancer molecule. Srivastava and Srivastava ( 2007 ) described the different configurations and parameters of bioreactors for hairy roots culture, which include liquid phase, gas phase and hybrid systems. ROOT Bioactives AG, a Swiss company, has successfully developed and optimized a bioreactor system for large-scale cultivation of hairy roots capable of producing many kinds of bioactive compounds, including secondary metabolites and recombinant glycosylated proteins with pharmaceutical properties (Atanasov et al. 2015 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ). However, many factors influence the scale-up process, such as culture medium properties, hormonal balance, gaseous composition, growth kinetics, inoculum density, culture period, and the species (Ho et al. 2017 ). In the scale-up process, Ho et al. ( 2017 ) recently obtained a 4.01-kg dry root biomass with a yield of 287.12 mg/L of total phenolic productivity for Polygonum multiflorum in a 500 L pilot-scale reactor. Hybrid systems, which include a liquid- and a gas phase, are reactors that attend the disadvantage of the null distribution uniformity of cells in gas-phase reactors, and the limitations of the mass transfer in liquid-phase reactors; these systems offer the best compromise between the two systems, used in alternate way (Srivastava and Srivastava 2007 ). Biomass measurement is one of the major challenges during scale-up of hairy roots culture, however, it is also important to determine the harvest capacity of secondary metabolites and their bioactivity, some examples are phenolic compounds (Ho et al. 2017 ; Thiruvengadam et al. 2014 ), xanthones (Vinterhalter et al. 2015 ), glucosinolates (Chung et al. 2016 ), tetraterpenoids (Thakore and Srivastava 2017 ), among others.

Transformed hairy roots have shown a higher biological activity, compared with non-transformed roots (Chung et al. 2016 ; Jeong et al. 2005 ; Vinterhalter et al. 2015 ). However, it is important to determine the optimal number of subcultures to avoid somaclonal variations that can affect the yield and behavior of plant cell cultures (Martínez-Estrada et al. 2017 ). Additionally, hairy root culture is susceptible to the use of biotic and abiotic elicitors to enhance the production of the desired metabolites, like the examples presented above from Srivastava and Strivastava (Srivastava and Srivastava 2014 ). Furthermore, a combined approach using both types of elicitors can be employed. For instance Wang et al. ( 2016 ) used ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation and methyl jasmonate applied alone or in combination in Salvia miltiorrhiza hairy root cultures and found that the combined treatment exhibited synergistic effects on the expression levels of genes in the tanshinone biosynthetic pathway.

Another way to avoid some of the major difficulties encountered when using cell cultures, such as variability in product biosynthesis, large cell aggregates and shear stress (Yun et al. 2012 ), is to use cultures of undifferentiated cambial meristematic cells. These cultures are not only free of the problems stated above, but the cells are physiologically stable and show high growth rates (Lee et al. 2010 ; Jang et al. 2012 ). Cambial meristematic cells are undifferentiated cells that grow indefinitely, behaving like plant stem cells (Lee et al. 2010 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ). They eliminate the need for dedifferentiating plant cells for the establishment of plant cell cultures, and they offer greater stability in product accumulation over long periods (Lee et al. 2010 ). This type of culture has been established for the production of nutritional, cosmetic and medicinal products and is currently considered a key platform for the large-scale production of natural products (Roberts and Kolewe 2010 ; Yun et al. 2012 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ).

Plant cell cultures rarely present uniform physiological characteristics, most especially callus cultures. Their heterogeneous nature results in the need to select highly productive cell lines to establish profitable production platforms for natural products (Mulabagal and Tsay 2004 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ). A novel cell line can be obtained by employing cell-cloning methods. First, since accumulation of active metabolites is genotype specific, an appropriate selection of suitable species and later organs for callus production is needed (Murthy et al. 2014 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ). The selection process depends on the type of compound intended to produce, if the product of interest is a pigment a spectrophotometric method can be employed, however, if it is not other chemical-based approaches are needed (Fujita et al. 1984 ; Mulabagal and Tsay 2004 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ). A popular method involves the identification of cell lines that exhibit a high level of metabolic flux through the targeted pathway by the exogenous application of an intermediate (Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ). For example, high producing shoots of Mentha arvensis were screened by adding menthol to the culture media. The surviving clones exhibited high menthol tolerance, thus presenting genotypes capable of elevated menthol production (Dhawan et al. 2003 ). Nevertheless, the prolonged use of selected natural product producing cell lines is limited, since they often loose their ability to produce the desired metabolites (Georgiev et al. 2009 ; Wilson and Roberts 2012 ; Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ). The cell lines decrease or loss of active compound biosynthesis is due, in most cases, to genetic instability resulting from somaclonal variations (Ochoa-Villarreal et al. 2016 ).

Despite the problems presented above, there are some commercially available plant cell lines currently in the market. The most popular is Tobacco Bright Yellow-2 cells (BY-2), they are attractive because of their fast growth rate and their ease of Agrobacterium -mediated transformation and cell cycle synchronization (Su and Lee 2007 ). Additionally, the Leibniz Institute DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures have an ample catalog of plant cell lines. They offer 41-plant cell lines, 18 of which are delivered as actively growing cultures and 23 are maintained as cryopreserved cultures. Among the plants offered are some model plants like Solanum tuberosum and Arabidopsis thaliana and some medicinal plants like Echinacea angustifolia, Arnica montana and Valeriana officinalis (Leibniz Gemeinschaft 2018 ). Acquisition of the cell lines would facilitate the establishment of the culture and allow for a more streamline process of plant transformation and metabolite production.

Strategies for the expression of plant biologically active compounds

Low expression levels of plant active metabolites and expression of new important compounds not typically expressed in plants, such as vaccines, create a need for tools that allow the modification of plant genetic material. Plant genetic engineering has been practiced since the 1980s, first with Agrobacterium and later with transformation mediated by particle bombardment. Both techniques have been effective for an array of plants, allowing over-expression of secondary metabolites or the production of plant-made pharmaceuticals. Nevertheless, despite this success, these methods present several challenges that limit their use in many crops (Altpeter et al. 2016 ).

Agrobacterium -mediated transformation can be performed in most dicotyledonous (dicot) plants (however, it is mostly limited to some genotypes within a species) and in a small number of monocotyledonous (monocot) plants (Klee et al. 1987 ; Nam et al. 1997 ). Problems arising from the use of A. tumefaciens for plant transformation include difficulties obtaining licensing (Chi-Ham et al. 2012 ), high costs of securing regulatory approval, and plant innate responses to bacterial infection, such as the activation of some proteins that cause tissue browning and necrosis that, in turn, reduce transformation frequencies (Altpeter et al. 2016 ). Some of these difficulties can be easily avoided with small modifications to the technique, like downregulating infection-responsive genes in the host plants or adding antioxidants to the infection medium (Altpeter et al. 2016 ).

To eliminate the rest of the problems, researchers continue to seek out a novel gene delivery system based on a non-pathogenic organism that will provide high rates of transformation for both dicot and monocot species. Advances have been made with several species of Rhizobium ( Sinorhizobium meliloti, Mesorhizobium loti and NGR 234) known as Transbacter (Zuniga-Soto et al. 2015 ). Another gram-negative bacterial member of the Rhizobiaceae family, Ensifer adhaerens strain OV14, unlike A. tumefaciens, also seems to be beneficial to plants and has been used successfully for the transformation of Arabidopsis thaliana, Solanum tuberosum and Oryza sativa L. (Martin 2002 ; Wendt et al. 2012 ; Zhou et al. 2013 ).

Bioballistics can be used on a wider range of plant genotypes than are amenable to Agrobacterium transformation. This technique lacks the pathogenic characteristic of the bacteria and simplifies the cloning process since it does not require a specific vector (Chen et al. 2014b ; Altpeter et al. 2016 ). However, plant tissues subjected to this technique often show difficulties in regeneration after bombardment and in the transgene performance. The effectiveness seems to depend on particle characteristics, such as type, size, quantity and acceleration; on the DNA amount and structure; and on the tissue type and pretreatment (Zuniga-Soto et al. 2015 ). Advancements in these techniques could potentially enhance the regeneration and transformation responses of a wide range of plants of economic interest (Zuniga-Soto et al. 2015 ).

Genome editing mediated by CRISPR/Cas9, a new development in plant genome transformation, may be a promising solution to most of the problems of the currently available techniques. This new technology allows modification of specific areas of the genome with an increased precision of the insertion, while preventing cell toxicity and offering perfect reproducibility (Voytas 2013 ; Voytas and Gao 2014 ). Genome editing is currently applied in one of three forms: (1) Alteration of a small number of nucleotides, (2) replacement of an allele with a pre-existing one, and (3) insertion of new genes in predetermined regions of the genome (Abdallah et al. 2015 ). Since genome editing techniques create only small traces of DNA alterations, most regulatory procedures associated with transgenic plants are avoided and the technique can be employed for the rapid creation of new crops with pest resistance, enhanced nutritional value and drought tolerance (Voytas 2013 ; Abdallah et al. 2015 ; Li et al. 2015 ). Some successful examples include transformations of solanaceous crop plants like potato and tomato (Van Eck 2018 ), soybean (Li et al. 2015 ) and some cereals, such as barley, maize, rice, wheat and sorghum (Zhu et al. 2017 ).

Perspectives for plant production of bioactive molecules

In vitro tissue culture is a vital tool that can be employed for the rapid production of important metabolites. Once a commercially important compound has been identified and isolated, measures can be taken for its scale-up production, as shown in Fig.  1 . Currently, several systems, such as suspension cultures and hairy roots, allow for the large-scale manufacture of plant compounds (Fig.  1 ) (Xu et al. 2012 ). Nevertheless, as mentioned earlier, the high costs associated with this technology makes it uncompetitive when compared to less expensive but environmentally unsustainable processes such as collection of wild plants or when compared to chemical synthesis. These culture methods also still require the use of sterilizable bioreactors, so their scale-up is limited (Nogueira et al. 2018 ; Buyel et al. 2017 ).

The advent of novel molecular tools now presents new possibilities for the production of important metabolites using plant systems. Chief among these is the use of targeted genome engineering, particularly the previously mentioned genome editing mediated by CRISPR/Cas9. The use of this technological approach creates the possibility of producing new plant varieties without the introduction of foreign genes (Doudna and Charpentier 2014 ; Baltes and Voytas 2015 ; Nogueira et al. 2018 ). Gene editing could potentially be used for the introduction of new alleles, promoter replacement or the introduction of new pathways, all of which could result in the creation of plant-based systems capable of novel expression of useful bioactive molecules (Nogueira et al. 2018 ).

Once the plant has been engineered (either by gene editing by CRISPR/Cas9 or by traditional methods), and has passed through in vitro culture, the genetic material can be stored using master and working seed banks (Sack et al. 2015 ). The plants can then be used for the large-scale production of the desired metabolites, including plant-made pharmaceuticals. Three options are available for the cultivation of the engineered plants: under open-field conditions, if legal, in conventional greenhouses or in vertical farming units, as modeled in Fig.  1 , with the latter two offering ease of scale-up and appropriate containment of the plants (Buyel et al. 2017 ).

Some plants, like medicinal plants, benefit from in vitro conditions (faster growth rates) and should, therefore, be sustained in those settings (Rao and Ravishankar 2002 ). With this in mind, several actions can increase the production of secondary metabolites by plant cells (Fig.  1 ); some of these, like the use of precursors and elicitors, have already been mentioned. The manipulation of environmental factors, including high/low temperature, drought, UV, alkalinity, salinity, exposure to heavy metals, and others, is now emphasized. These conditions, which are potentially damaging to the plants, often increase the capacity for production or even induce de novo synthesis of secondary metabolites in plant in vitro cultures (Korkina et al. 2017 ; Lajayer et al. 2017 ; Moon et al. 2017 ; Puente-Garza et al. 2017b ).

Conclusions

The use of in vitro tissue culture remains a feasible strategy for the production of structurally complex and high-value natural products, especially if the plant source material is an overexploited, slow-growing or low-yielding plant. However, due to the higher costs, a cost–benefit analysis of in vitro culture is wise before implementation of the technique. Similarly, the production of pharmaceuticals using plant culture systems can offer significant advantages, including reduction in costs, rapid production, low burden of human pathogens and scalability; all these advantages are plant product specific and depend on the production efficiencies compared to those offered by alternative sources. In the next decade, tissue culture should reach its full potential with the use of novel technologies such as gene editing and environmental factor manipulation.

Author contribution statement

All authors contributed equally to this work in terms of writing and conception. All authors wrote and reviewed the latest version of this manuscript.

Acknowledgements

The Research Nutriomics Chair Funds and CAT-005 from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias, as well as Postdoctoral fellowships presented to Dr. Claudia Espinosa-Leal by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT), Mexico and Tecnologico de Monterrey supported this research.

Compliance with ethical standards

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

• Abdallah NA, Prakash CS, McHughen AG. Genome editing for crop improvement: challenges and opportunities. GM Crops Food. 2015; 6 :183–205. doi: 10.1080/21645698.2015.1129937. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Afolayan AJ, Adebola PO. In vitro propagation: a biotechnological tool capable of solving the problem of medicinal plants decimation in South Africa. Afr J Biotechnol. 2004; 3 :683–687. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ahloowalia BS, Savangikar VA (2003) Low cost options for energy and labour. Low cost options for tissue culture technology in developing countries. In: Proceedings of a technical meeting organized by the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture and held in Vienna, 26–30 August 2002 (pp. 41–46). Viennam Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency. ISBN 92–0–115903–X
• Ahloowalia BS, Prakash J, Savangikar VA, Savangikar C (2003) Plant tissue culture. Low cost options for tissue culture technology in developing countries. In: Proceedings of a technical meeting organized by the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture and held in Vienna, 26–30 August 2002 (pp. 3–10). Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency. ISBN 92–0–115903–X
• Ali RM, Abbas HM. Response of salt stressed barley seedlings to phenylurea. Plant Soil Environ. 2003; 49 :158–162. doi: 10.17221/4107-PSE. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Altpeter F, Springer NM, Bartley LE, Blechl AE, Brutnell TP, Citovsky V, Conrad L, Gelvin SB, Jackson D, Kausch AP, Lemaux PG, Medford JI, Orozco-Cardenas M, Tricoli D, VanEck J, Voytas DF, Walbot V, Wang K, Zhang ZJ, Stewart CN. Advancing crop transformation in the era of genome editing. Plant Cell. 2016; 28 :1510–1520. doi: 10.1105/tpc.16.00196. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Alvarenga IA, Pacheco FV, Silva ST, Bertolucci SV, Pinto JB. In vitro culture of Achillea millefolium L.: quality and intensity of light on growth and production of volatiles. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2015; 122 :299–308. doi: 10.1007/s11240-015-0766-7. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Argolo AC, Sant’Ana AE, Pletsch M, Coelho LC. Antioxidant activity of leaf extracts from Bauhinia monandra . Bioresour Technol. 2004; 95 :229–233. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2003.12.014. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Assis KC, Pereira FD, Cabral JS, Silva FG, Silva JW, Santos SC. In vitro cultivation of Anacardium othonianum Rizz.: effects of salt concentration and culture medium volume. Acta Sci Agron. 2012; 34 :77–83. doi: 10.4025/actasciagron.v34i1.10984. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Atanasov AG, Waltenberger B, Pferschy-Wenzig AM, Linder T, Wawrosch C, Uhrin P, Temml V, Wang L, Schwaiger S, Heiss EH, Rollinger JM, Schuster D, Breuss JM, Bochkov V, Mihovilovic MD, Kopp B, Bauer R, Dirsch VM, Stuppner H. Discovery and resupply of pharmacologically active plant-derived natural products: a review. Biotechnol Adv. 2015; 33 :1582–1614. doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2015.08.001. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baezas-Lopez P. Cubans enlist the sun in virus-free propagation. Ceres. 1995; 156 :15–16. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bairu MW, Aremu AO, Van Staden J. Somaclonal variation in plants: causes and detection methods. Plant Growth Regul. 2011; 63 :147–173. doi: 10.1007/s10725-010-9554-x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baltes NJ, Voytas DF. Enabling plants synthetic biology through genome engineering. Trends Biotechnol. 2015; 33 :120–131. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2014.11.008. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhattacharyya P, Van Staden J. Ansellia africana (Leopard orchid): a medicinal or- chid species with untapped reserves of important biomolecules—a mini review. S Afr J Bot. 2016; 106 :181–185. doi: 10.1016/j.sajb.2016.06.010. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhattacharyya P, Kumaria S, Job N, Tandon P. Phyto-molecular profiling and assessment of antioxidant activity within micropropagated plants of Dendrobium thyrsiflorum : a threatened, medicinal orchid. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2015; 122 :535–550. doi: 10.1007/s11240-015-0818-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhattacharyya P, Kumaria S, Job N, Tandon P. En-masse production of elite clones of Dendrobium crepidatum : a threatened, medicinal orchid used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) J Appl Res Med Aromat Plants. 2016; 3 :168–176. doi: 10.1016/j.jarmap.2016.04.001. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhattacharyya P, Kumar V, Van Staden J. Assessment of genetic stability amongst micropropagated Ansellia africana , a vulnerable medicinal orchid species of Africa using SCoT markers. S Afr J Bot. 2017; 108 :294–302. doi: 10.1016/j.sajb.2016.11.007. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhattacharyya P, Kumaria S, Bose B, Paul P, Tandon P. Evaluation of genetic stability and analysis of phytomedicinal potential in micropropagated plants of Rumex nepalensis —a medicinally important source of pharmaceutical biomolecules. J Appl Res Med Aromat Plants. 2017; 6 :80–91. doi: 10.1016/j.jarmap.2017.02.003. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhattecheryya P, Kumaria S, Diengdoh R, Tandon P. Genetic stability and phytochemical analysis of the in vitro regenerated plants of Dendrobium nobile Lindl., an endangered medicinal orchid. Meta Gene. 2014; 2 :489–504. doi: 10.1016/j.mgene.2014.06.003. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Binoy J, Silja PK, Dhanya B, Pillai B, Satheeshkumar K. In vitro cultivation of hairy roots of Plumbago rosea L. in a customized reaction kettle for the production of plumbagin—an anticancer compound. Ind Crops Prod. 2016; 87 :89–95. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2016.04.023. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Borchardt JK. The beginnings of drug therapy: ancient Mesopotamian medicine. Drug News Prespect. 2002; 15 :187–192. doi: 10.1358/dnp.2002.15.3.840015. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bose B, Kumaria S, Choudhury H, Tandon P. Assessment of genetic homogeneity and analysis of phytomedicinal potential in micropropagated plants of Nardostachys jatamansi a critically endangered, medicinal plant of alpine Himalayas. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2016; 2 :331–349. doi: 10.1007/s11240-015-0897-x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Buyel JF, Twyman RM, Fischer R. Very-large-scale production of antibodies in plants: the biologization of manufacturing. Biotechnol Adv. 2017; 35 :458–465. doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2017.03.011. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Castilho A, Gattinger P, Grass J, Jez J, Pabst M, Altmann F, et al. N-Glycosylation engineering of plants for the biosynthesis of glycoproteins with bisected and branched complex N-glycans. Glycobiology. 2011; 21 :813–823. doi: 10.1093/glycob/cwr009. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cetin ES. Induction of secondary metabolite production by UV-C radiation in Vitis vinifera L. Öküzgözü callus cultures. Biol Res. 2014; 47 :37. doi: 10.1186/0717-6287-47-37. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chen C-C, Chang C-L, Agrawal DC, Wu C-R, Tsay H-S. In vitro propagation and analysis of secondary metabolites in Glossogyne tenuifolia (Hsiang-Ju)—a medicinal plant native to Taiwan. Bot Stud. 2014; 55 :45. doi: 10.1186/s40529-014-0045-7. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chen Q, Lai H, Hurtado J, Stahnke J, Leuzinger K, Dent M. Agroinfiltration as an effective and scalable strategy of gene delivery for production of pharmaceutical proteins. Adv Tech Biol Med. 2014; 1 :1–21. doi: 10.4172/atbm.1000103. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chen S-L, Yu H, Luo H-M, Wu Q, Li C-F, Steinmetz A. Conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants: problems, progress and prospects. Chin Med. 2016; 11 :1–10. doi: 10.1186/s13020-016-0108-7. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chen Y-T, Shen Y-C, Chang M-C, Lu M-K. Precursor-feeding strategy on the triterpenoid production and anti-inflammatory activity of Antrodia cinnamomea . Process Biochem. 2016; 51 :941–949. doi: 10.1016/j.procbio.2016.05.001. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chi-Ham CL, Boettiger S, Figueroa-Balderas R, Bird S, Geoola JN, Zamora P, Alandete-Saez M, Bennett AB. An intellectual property charing initiative in agricultural biotechnology: development of broadly accessible technologies for plant transformation. Plant Biotechnol J. 2012; 10 :501–510. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7652.2011.00674.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chung IM, Rekha K, Rajakumar G, Thiruvengadam M. Production of glucosinolates, phenolic compounds and associated gene expression profiles of hairy root cultures in turnip ( Brassica rapa ssp. rapa ) 3 Biotech. 2016; 6 :175. doi: 10.1007/s13205-016-0492-9. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Collard BC, Mackill DJ. Start codon targeted (SCoT) polymorphism: a simple, novel DNA marker technique for generating gene-targeted markers in plants. Plant Mol Biol Rep. 2009; 27 :86–93. doi: 10.1007/s11105-008-0060-5. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Corson TW, Crews CM. Molecular understanding and modern application of traditional medicines: triumphs and trials. Cell. 2007; 130 :769–774. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2007.08.021. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cragg GM, Newman DJ. Natural products: a continuing source of novel drug leads. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2013; 1830 :3670–3695. doi: 10.1016/j.bbagen.2013.02.008. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Czyz M, Dembczynski R, Marecik R, Wojas-Turek J, Milczarek M, Pajtasz-Piasecka E, Wietrzyk J, Pniewski T. Freeze-drying of plant tissue containing HBV surface antigen for the oral vaccine againts hepatitis B. Biomed Res Int. 2014 doi: 10.1155/2014/485689. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Czyz M, Dembczynski R, Marecik R, Pniewski T. Stability of S-HBsAg in long-term stored lyophilised plant tissue. Biologicals. 2016; 44 :69–72. doi: 10.1016/j.biologicals.2015.12.001. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Debnarh M, Malik CP, Baisen PS. Micropropagation:a tool for the production of high quality plant based medicines. Curr Pharm Biotechnol. 2006; 7 :33–49. doi: 10.2174/138920106775789638. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Devarumath R, Nandy S, Rani V, Marimuthu S, Muraleedharan N, Raina S. RAPD, ISSR and RFLP fingerprints as useful markers to evaluate genetic integrity of micropropagated plants of three diploid and triploid elite tea clones representing Camellia sinensis (China type) and C. assamica ssp. assamica (Assam-India type) Plant Cell Rep. 2002; 21 :166–173. doi: 10.1007/s00299-002-0496-2. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Devi SP, Kumaria S, Rao SR, Tandon P. Single primer amplification reaction (SPAR) methods reveal subsequent increase in genetic variations in micropropagated plants of Nepenthes khasiana Hook. f . maintained for three consecutive regenerations. Gene. 2014; 538 :23–29. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2014.01.028. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dhawan S, Shasany AK, Naqvi AA, Kumar S, Suman PS. Menthol tolerant clones of Mentha arvensis : approach for in vitro selection of menthol rich genotypes. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2003; 75 :87–94. doi: 10.1023/A:1024684605967. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Doma M, Abhayankar G, Reddy VD, Kavi Kishor PB. Carbohydrate and elicitor enhanced withanolide (withatefin A and withanolide A) accumulation in hairy root cultures of Withania smnifera (L.) Indian J Exp Biol. 2012; 50 :484–490. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Doudna JA, Charpentier E (2014) The new frontier of genome engineering with CRISPR-Cas9. Scinece 1077. 10.1126/science.1258096 [ PubMed ]
• Espinosa-Leal C, Treviño-Neávez JF, Garza-Padrón RA, Verde-Star MJ, Rivas-Morales C, Morales-Rubio ME. Total phenols and anti-radical activity of methanolic extracts from wild and in vitro conditions of Leucophyllum frutescens . Rev Mex Cienc Farm. 2015; 46 :52–56. [ Google Scholar ]
• Espinosa-Leal CA, Garza-Padrón RA, Morales-Rubio ME. Cultivo in vitro como alternativa para la producción de metabolitos. Saarbrücken: Editorial Académica Española; 2017. [ Google Scholar ]
• Etienne H, Berthouly M. Temporary immersion systems in plant micropropagation. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2002; 69 :215–231. doi: 10.1023/A:1015668610465. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fabricant DS, Farnsworth NR. The value of plants used in traditional medicine for drug discovery. Environ Health Perspect. 2001; 109 (supplement):69–75. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fargoso Monfort LE, Vilela Bertolucci SK, Fabri Lima A, Alves de Carvalho A, Mohammed A, Fitzgerard Blank A, Pereira Pinto JEB. Effects of plant growth regulators, different culture media and strength MS on production of volatile fraction composition in shoot cultures of Ocimum basilicum . Ind Crops Prod. 2018; 116 :231–239. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2018.02.075. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fischer R, Vasilev N, Twyman RM, Schillberg S. High-value products from plants: the challenges of process optimization. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2015; 32 :156–162. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2014.12.018. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fujita Y, Takahashi S, Yamada Y. Selection of cell lines with high productivity of shikonin derivatives through protoplasts of Lithospermum erithrorhizon. Proc Eur Congr Biotechnol. 1984; 1 :161–166. doi: 10.1271/bbb1961.49.1755. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Furusaki S, Takeda T. Bioreactors for plant cell culture, reference module in life sciences. Dordrecht: Elsevier; 2017. [ Google Scholar ]
• García-Pérez E, Gutiérrez-Uribe AJ, García-Lara S. Luteolin content and antioxidant activity in micropropagated plants of Poliomintha glabrescens (Gray) Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult. 2012; 108 :521–527. doi: 10.1007/s11240-011-0055-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• George P, Manuel J. Low cost tissue culture technology for the regeneration of some economically important plants for developing countries. Int J Agric Environ Biotechnol. 2013; 6 :703–711. [ Google Scholar ]
• Georgiev V, Ilieva M, Bley T, Pavlov A. Betalain production in plant in vitro systems. Acta Physiol Plant. 2008; 30 :581–593. doi: 10.1007/s11738-008-0170-6. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Georgiev M, Weber J, Maciuk A. Bioprocessing of plant cell cultures for mass production of targeted compounds. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2009; 83 :809–823. doi: 10.1007/s00253-009-2049-x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Georgiev MI, Agostini E, Ludwig-Muller J, Xu J. Genetically transformed roots: from plant disease to biotechnological resource. Trends Biotechnol. 2012; 30 :528–537. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2012.07.001. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Giri A, Narasu ML. Production of podophyllotoxin from Podophyllum hexandrum : a potential natural product for clinically useful anticancer drugs. Cytotechnology. 2000; 3 :17–26. doi: 10.1023/A:1008138230896. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gleba YY, Tusé D, Giritch A. Plant viral vectors for delivery by agrobacterium. Curr Top Microbiol Immunol. 2014; 375 :155–192. doi: 10.1007/82_2013_352. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Goel MK, Kukreja AK, Khanuja SP. Cost-effective approaches fon in vitro mass propagation of Rauwolfia serpentina Benth. Ex Kurz. Asian J Plant Sci. 2007; 6 :957–961. doi: 10.3923/ajps.2007.957.961. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Golle DP, Reiniger LR, Curti AR, León EA. Estabelecimento e desenvolvimento in vitro de Eugenia involucrata DC.: influência do tipo de explante e do meio nutritivo. Ciência Florestal. 2012; 22 :207–214. doi: 10.5902/198050985092. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Govindaraju S, Arulselvi PI. Effect of cytokinin combined elicitors ( l -phenylalanine, salicylic acid and chitosan) on in vitro propagation, secondary metabolites and molecular characterization of medicinal herb— Coleus aromaticus Benth (L) J Saudi Soc Agric Sci. 2016 doi: 10.1016/j.jssas.2016.11.001. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Grzegorczyk-Karolak I, Kuźma Ł, Wysokińska H. The effect of cytokinins on shoot proliferation, secondary metabolite production and antioxidant potential in shoot cultures of Scutellaria alpina . Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2015; 122 :699–708. doi: 10.1007/s11240-015-0804-5. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Grzegorczyk-Karolak I, Kuźma Ł, Skała E, Kiss A. Hairy root cultures of Salvia viridis L. for production of polyphenolic compounds. Ind Crops Prod. 2018; 117 :235–244. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2018.03.014. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Guillon S, Tremouillaux-Guiller J, Pati PK, Rideau M, Ganetet P. Harnessing the potential of hairy roots: dawn of a new era. Trends Biotechnol. 2006; 24 :403–409. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2006.07.002. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gupta P, Sharma S, Saxena S. Effect of abiotic stress on growth parameters and steviol glycoside content in Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) raised in vitro. J Appl Res Med Aromat Plants. 2016; 3 :160–167. doi: 10.1016/j.jarmap.2016.03.004. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gyulai G, Mester Z, Kiss J, Szemán L, Heszky L, Idnurm A. Somaclone breeding of reed canarygrass ( Phalaris arundinacea L ) Grass Forage Sci. 2003; 58 :210–215. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2494.2003.00372.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Haberlandt G. Culturversuche mit isolierten PFlanzellen. Sitzungsber Akad Wiss Wien Math Nat. 1902; 111 :69–91. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hayden CA, Streatfield SJ, Lamphear BJ, Fake GM, Keener TK, Walker JH, Clements JD, Turner DD, Tizard IR, Howard JA. Bioencapsulation of the hepatitis B surface antigen and its use as an effective oral immunogen. Vaccine. 2012; 30 :2937–2942. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2012.02.072. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hayden CA, Smith EM, Turner DD, Keener TK, Wong JC, Walker JH, Tizard IR, Jimenez-Flores R, Howard JA. Supercritical fluid extraction provides an enhancement to the immune response for orally-delivered hepatitis B surface antigen. Vaccine. 2014; 32 :1240–1246. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.01.037. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hayta S, Bayraktar M, Baykan erel S, Gurel A. Direct plant regeneration from different explants through micropropagation and determination of secondary metabolites in the critically endangered endemic Rhaponticoides mykalea . Plant Biosyst Int J Deal Asp Plant Biol. 2017; 151 :20–28. doi: 10.1080/11263504.2015.1057267. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ho TT, Lee KJ, Lee JD, Bhushan S, Paek KY, Park SY. Adventitious root culture of Polygonum multiflorum for phenolic compounds and its pilot-scale production in 500 L-tank. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2017; 130 :167–181. doi: 10.1007/s11240-017-1212-9. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hu J, Gao X, Liu J, Xie C, Li J. Plant regeneration from petiole callus of Amorphophallus albus and analysis of somaclonal variation of regenerated plants by RAPD and ISSR markers. Bot Stud. 2008; 49 :189–197. [ Google Scholar ]
• Huang TK, McDonald KA. Bioreactor systems for in vitro production of foreign proteins using plant cell cultures. Biotechnol Adv. 2012; 30 :398–409. doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2011.07.016. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Huang B, Lin H, Yan C, Qiu H, Qiu L, Yu R. Optimal inductive and cultural conditions of Polygonum multiflorum transgenic hairy roots mediated with Agrobacterium rhizogenes R1601 and an analysis of their anthraquinone constituents. Pharmacogn Mag. 2014; 10 :77–82. doi: 10.4103/0973-1296.126671. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hussain S, Fareed S, Ansari S, Rahman A, Ahmad IZ, Saeed M. Current approaches toward production of secondary plant metabolites. J Pharm Bioallied Sci. 2012; 4 :10–20. doi: 10.4103/0975-7406.92725. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jamwal K, Bhattacharya S, Puri S. Plant growth regulator mediated consequences of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants. J Appl Res Med Aromat Plants. 2018 doi: 10.1016/j.jarmap.2017.12.003. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jang S-H, Yu J-Y, Lee EK, Lim MJ, Hong NJ, Oh IS, T-h Kang, E-m So, Jin YW, Jin Y-S, Jeong Y-S, Jeong H-S, Lee J-C, Jang Y-S. In vitro anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activities of cambial meristematic cells established from Ginko biloba L. J Med Plant Res. 2012; 6 :3048–3058. doi: 10.5897/JMPR11.1784. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jeong QT, Park DH, Ryu HW, Hwang B, Woo JC, Kim D, Kim SW. Production of antioxidant compounds by culture of Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer hairy roots. Appl Biochem Biotechnol. 2005; 121 (1):1147–1157. doi: 10.1385/ABAB:124:1-3:1147. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Juan-jie Z, Yue-sheng Y, Meng-fei L, Shu-qi L, Yi T, Han-bin C, Xiao-yang C. An efficient micropropagation protocol for direct organogenesis from leaf explants of an economically valuable plant, drumstick ( Moringa oleifera Lam.) Ind Crops Prod. 2017; 103 :59–63. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2017.03.028. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Karalija E, Ćavar Zeljković S, Tarkowski P, Muratović E, Parić A. The effect of cytokinins on growth, phenolics, antioxidant and antimicrobial potential in liquid agitated shoot cultures of Knautia sarajevensis . Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2017; 131 :347–357. doi: 10.1007/s11240-017-1288-2. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Karuppusamy S. A review on trends in production of secondary metabolites from higher plants by in vitro tissue, organ and cell cultures. J Med Plants Res. 2009; 3 :1222–1239. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaul S, Das S, Srivastava PS. Micropropagation of Ajuga bracteosa , a medicinal herb. Physiol Mol Biol Plants. 2013; 19 :289–296. doi: 10.1007/s12298-012-0161-3. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaur C, Kapoor HC. Antioxidants in fruits and vegetables—the millennium’s health. Int J Food Sci Tech. 2001; 36 :703–725. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2621.2001.00513.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim DI, Pedersen H, Chin CK. Stimulation of berberine production in Thalictrum rugosum suspension cultures in response to addition of cupric sulfate. Biotechnol Lett. 1991; 13 :213–216. doi: 10.1007/BF01025820. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kirakosyan A, Cseke LJ, Kaufman PB. The use of plant cell biotechnology for the production of phytochemicals. In: Kirakosyan A, Kaufman PB, editors. Recent advances in plant biotechnology. 1. New York: Springer; 2009. pp. 15–33. [ Google Scholar ]
• Klee H, Horsch R, Rogers S. Agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation and its further applications to plant biology. Annu rev Plant Physiol. 1987; 38 :467–486. doi: 10.1128/MMBR.67.1.16-37.2003. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kobayashi Y, Fukui H, Tabata M. An immobilized cell culture system for berberine production by Thalictrum minus cells. Plant Cell Rep. 1987; 6 :185–186. doi: 10.1007/BF00268474. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kodym A, Zapata-Arias FJ. Natural light as an alternative light source for the in vitro culture of banana ( Musa acuminata cv. ‘Grande Naine’) Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 1999; 55 :141–145. doi: 10.1023/A:1006119114107. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kodym A, Zapata-Arias FJ. Low-cost alternatives for the micropropagation of banana. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2001; 66 :67–71. doi: 10.1023/A:1010661521438. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kodym A, Hollenthoner S, Zapata-Arias FJ. Cost reduction in the micropropagation of banana by using tubular skylights as source for natural lighting. In vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant. 2001; 37 :237–242. doi: 10.1007/s11627-001-0042-x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kolewe ME, Gaurav V, Roberts SC. Pharmaceutically active natural product synthesis and supply via plnat cell culture technology. Mol Pharm. 2008; 5 :243–256. doi: 10.1021/mp7001494. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Korkina LG, Mayer W, de Luca C. Meristem plant cells as a sustainable source of redox actives for skin rejuvenation. Biomolecules. 2017; 7 :1–22. doi: 10.3390/biom7020040. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kun-Hua W, Lin-Xuan L, Young-Cai W, Mei-Ying W, Cui L, Jian-Hua M. Tissue culture of Sophora tonkinenss Gapnep. and its quality evaluation. Pharmacogn Mag. 2013; 9 :323–330. doi: 10.4103/0973-1296.117828. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lajayer BA, Ghorbanpour M, Nikabadi S. Heavy metals in contaminated enviroment: destiny of secondary metabolite biosynthesis, oxidative status and phytoextraction in medicinal plants. Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2017; 145 :377–390. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2017.07.035. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lakshmi PS, Verma D, Yang X, Lloyd B, Daniell H. Low cost tuberculosis vaccine antigens in capsules: expression in chloroplasts, bio-encapsulation, stability amd functional evaluation in vitro. PLoS One. 2013; 8 :e54708. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0054708. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Larkin PJ, Scowcroft WR. Somaclonal variation: a novel source of variability from cell cultures for plant improvement. Theor Appl Genet. 1981; 60 :197–214. doi: 10.1007/BF02342540. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee EK, Jin YW, Park JH, Yoo YM, Hong SM, Amir R, Yan Z, Kwon E, Elfick A, Thomilinson S, Halbritter F, Waibel T, Yun BW, Loake GJ. Culture cambial meristematic cells as a source of plant natural products. Nat Biotechnol. 2010; 28 :1213–1217. doi: 10.1038/nbt.1693. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Leibniz Gemeinschaft (2018) Catalogue of plant cell lines. Retrieved April 2, 2018, from Leibniz-Institut DSMZ—Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH: https://www.dsmz.de/catalogues/catalogue-plant-cell-lines.html
• Li Z, Liu Z-B, Xing A, Moon BP, Koellhoffer JP, Huang L, Ward RT, Clifton E, Falco SC, Cigan AM. Cas9-Guide RNA directed genome editing in soybean. Plant Physiol. 2015; 169 :960–970. doi: 10.1104/pp.15.00783. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Liu H, Wang X, Wang D, Zou Z, Liang Z. Effect of drought stress on growth and accumulation of active constituents in Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge. Ind Crops Prod. 2011; 33 :146–151. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2010.09.006. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lubbe A, Verpoorte R. Cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants for specialty industrial materials. Ind Crop Prod. 2011; 34 :785–801. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2011.01.019. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Maleki M, Ghorbanpour M, Kariman K. Physiological and antioxidative responses of medicinal plants exposed to heavy metals stress. Plant Gene. 2017; 11 :247–254. doi: 10.1016/j.plgene.2017.04.006. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Martin M. Predatory prokaryotes: an emerging research opportunity. J Mol Miobiol Biotechnol. 2002; 4 :467–477. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Martínez-Estrada E, Caamal-Velázquez JH, Salina Ruíz J, Bello-Bello JJ. Assessment of somaclonal variation during sugarcane micropropagation in temporary inmersion bioreactors by intersimple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. In vitro cell Dev Biol Plant. 2017; 53 :553–560. doi: 10.1007/s11627-017-9852-3. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Martins JP, Pasqual M, Martins AD, Ribeira SF. Effects of salts and sucrose concentrations on in vitro propagation of Billbergia zebrina (Herbert) Lindley (Bromeliaceae) Aust J Crop Sci. 2015; 9 :85. [ Google Scholar ]
• Methora S, Goel MK, Kukreja AK, Mishra BN. Efficiency of liquid culture systems over conventional micropropagation: a progress towards commercialization. Afr J Biotechnol. 2007; 6 :1484–1492. [ Google Scholar ]
• Moon SH, Mistry B, Kim HD, Pandurangan M. Antioxidant and anticancer potential of bioactive compounds following UV-C light-induced plant cambium meristematic cell cultures. Ind Crops Prod. 2017; 109 :762–772. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2017.09.024. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Morales-Rubio ME, Espinosa-Leal C, Garza-Padrón RA. Cultivo de tejidos vegetales y su aplicación en productos naturales. In: Rivas-Morales C, Oranday-Cardenas MA, Verde-Star MJ, editors. Investigación en plantas de importancia médica. 1. Barcelona: OmniaScience; 2016. pp. 351–410. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mora-Pale M, Sanchez-Rodriguez SP, Linhardt RJ, Dordick JS, Koffas MA. Biochemical strategies for enhancing the in vitro production of natural poducts with pharmaceutical potential. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2014; 25 :86–94. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2013.09.009. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mulabagal V, Tsay H-S. Plant cell cultures—an alternative and efficient source for the production of biologically important secondary metabolites. Int J Appl Sci Eng. 2004; 2 :29–48. [ Google Scholar ]
• Muranaka T, Ohkawa H, Yamada Y. Continuous production of scopolamine by a culture of Duboisia leichhardtii hairy root clone in a bioreactor system. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 1993; 40 :219–223. doi: 10.1007/BF00170370. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Murthy HN, Lee EJ, Paek KY. Production of secondary metabolites from cell and organ cultures: strategies and approaches for biomass improvement and metabolite accumulation. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2014; 118 :1–16. doi: 10.1007/s11240-014-0467-7. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nagella P, Murthy HN. Establishment of cell suspension cultures of Withania somnifera for the production of withanolide A. Bioresour Technol. 2010; 101 :6735–6739. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2010.03.078. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nam J, Matthysse AG, Gelvin SB. Differences in susceptibility of Arabidopsis ecotypes to crown gall disease may result from a deficiency in T-DNA integration. Plant Cell. 1997; 9 :317–333. doi: 10.1105/tpc.9.3.317. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Namdeo AG. Plant cell elicitation for production of secondary metabolites: a review. Pharmacog Rev. 2007; 1 :69–79. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nogueira M, Enfissi EM, Almeida J, Fraser PD. Creating plant molecular factories for industrial and nutritional isoprenoid production. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2018; 40 :80–87. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2017.08.002. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ochoa-Villarreal M, Howat S, Hong S, Jang MO, Jin YW, Lee EK, Loake GJ. Plant cell culture strategies for the production of natural products. BMB Rep. 2016; 49 :149–158. doi: 10.5483/BMBRep.2016.49.3.264. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Palacio L, Cantero JJ, Cusidó R, Goleniowski M. Phenolic compound production by Larrea divaricata Cav. plant cell cultures and effect of precursor feeding. Process Biochem. 2011; 46 :418–422. doi: 10.1016/j.procbio.2010.08.029. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Palombi M, Damiano C. Comparison between RAPD and SSR molecular markers in detecting genetic variation in kiwifruit ( Actinidia deliciosa A. Chev) Plant Cell Rep. 2002; 20 :1061–1066. doi: 10.1007/s00299-001-0430-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pandey R, Krishnasamy V, Kumaravadivel N, Rajamani K. Establishment of hairy root culture and production of secondary metabolites in Coleus ( Coleus forskohlii ) J Med Plant Res. 2014; 8 :58–62. doi: 10.5897/JMPR12.1182. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pandino G, Lombardo S, Antonino LM, Ruta C, Mauromicale G. In vitro micropropagation and mycorrhizal treatment influences the polyphenols content profile of globe artichoke under field conditions. Food Res Int. 2017; 99 :385–392. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2017.05.037. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Parra O, Gallego AM, Urrea A, Rojas LF, Correa C, Atehortúa L. Biochemical precursor effects on the fatty acid production in cell suspension cultures of Theobroma cacao L . Plant Physiol Biochem. 2017; 111 :59–66. doi: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2016.11.013. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pastores GM, Shankar SP, Petakov M, Giraldo P, Rosenbaum H, Amato DJ, Szer J, Chertkoff R, Brill-Almon E, Zimran A. AJH 36-month safety and efficacy results in adult patients with Enzyme replacement therapy with taliglucerase alfa: Gaucher disease previously treated with imiglucerase. Am J Hematol. 2016; 91 :661–665. doi: 10.1002/ajh.24399. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Patwardhan B. Ethnopharmacology and drug discovery. J Ethnopharmacol. 2005; 100 :50–52. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2005.06.006. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pence VC. Evaluating costs for in vitro propagation and preservation of endangered plants. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant. 2011; 47 :176–187. doi: 10.1007/s11627-010-9323-6. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Perassolo M, Cardillo AB, Mugas ML, Núñez Montoya SC, Giulietti AM, Rodríguez Talou J. Enhancement of anthraquinone production and release by combination of culture medium selection and methyl jasmonate elicitation in hairy root cultures of Rubia tinctorum . Ind Crops Prod. 2017; 105 :124–132. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2017.05.010. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pfizer (2014) Pfizer. Retrieved November 15, 2017, from Pfizer and Protalix Biotherapeutics announce FDA approval of pediatric indication for ELELYSO™ (taliglucerase alfa) for injection, for intravenous use for the treatment of type 1 Gaucher disease: https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer_and_protalix_biotherapeutics_announce_fda_approval_of_pediatric_indication_for_elelyso_taliglucerase_alfa_for_injection_for_intravenous_use_for_the_treatment_of_type_1_gaucher_disease
• Pickens LB, Tang Y, Chooi Y-H. Metabolic engineering for the production of natural products. Annu Rev Chem Biomol Eng. 2011; 2 :211–236. doi: 10.1146/annurev-chembioeng-061010-114209. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pniewski T, Czyz M, Wyrwa K, Bociag P, Krajewski P, Kapusta J. Micropropagation of transgenic lettuce containing HBsAg as a method of mass-scale production of standardised plant material for biofarming purposes. Plant Cell Rep. 2017; 36 :49–60. doi: 10.1007/s00299-016-2056-1. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pogue GP, Vojdani F, Palmer KE, Hiatt E, Hume S, Phelps J, Long L, Bohorova N, Kim D, Pauly M, Velasco J, Whaley K, Zeitlin L, Granger SJ, White E, Bai Y, Haydon H, Bratcher B. Production of pharmaceutical-grade recombinant aprotinin and monoclonal antibody product using plant-based transient expression systems. Plant Biotechnol J. 2010; 8 :638–654. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7652.2009.00495.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Puente-Garza CA, García-Lara S, Gutiérrez-Uribe JA. Enhancement of saponins and flavonols by micropropagation of Agave salmiana . Ind Crops Prod. 2017; 105 :225–230. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2017.05.014. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Puente-Garza CA, Meza-Miranda C, Ochoa-Martínez D, García-Lara S. Effect of in vitro drought stress on phenolic acids, flavonols, saponins and antioxidant activity in Agave salmiana . Plant Physiol Biochem. 2017; 115 :400–407. doi: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2017.04.012. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Raduisene J, Karpaviciene B, Stanius Z. Effect of external and internal factors on secondary metabolites accumulation in St. John’s wort. Bot Lith. 2012; 18 :101–108. doi: 10.2478/v10279-012-0012-8. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rahman M, Rajora O. Microsatellite DNA somaclonal variation in micropropagated trembling aspen ( Populus tremuloides ) Plant Cell Rep. 2001; 20 :531–536. doi: 10.1007/s002990100365. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rahman ZA, Noor ES, Ali MS, Mirad R, Othman AN. In vitro micropropagation of a valuable medicinal plant Plectranthus amboinicus . Am J Plant Sci. 2015; 6 :1091. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2015.68113. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ramakrishna A, Ravishankar GA. Influence of abiotic stress signals on secondary metabolites in plants. Plant Signal Behav. 2011; 6 :1720–1731. doi: 10.4161/psb.6.11.17613. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ramírez-Mosqueda MA, Iglesias-Andreu LG, Ramírez-Madero G, Hernández-Rincón EU. Micropropagation of Stevia rebaudiana Bert. in temporary immersion systems and evaluation of genetic fidelity. S Afr J Bot. 2016; 106 :238–243. doi: 10.1016/j.sajb.2016.07.015. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rani V, Raina SN. Genetic fidelity of organized meristem-derived micropropagated plants: a critical reappraisal. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant. 2000; 36 :319–330. doi: 10.1007/s11627-000-0059-6. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rao SR, Ravishankar GA. Plant cell cultures: chemical factories of secundary metabolites. Biotechnol Adv. 2002; 20 :101–153. doi: 10.1016/S0734-9750(02)00007-1. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rathore NS, Rai MK, Phulwaria M, Rathore N, Shekhawat NS. Genetic stability in micropropagated Cleome gynandra revealed by SCoT analysis. Acta Physiol Plant. 2014; 36 :555–559. doi: 10.1007/s11738-013-1429-0. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rizvi MZ, Kukreja AK. In vitro propagation of an endangered medicinal herb Chlorophytum borivilianum Sant. et Fernand. through somatic embryogenesis. Physiol Mol Biol Plants. 2010; 16 :249–257. doi: 10.1007/s12298-010-0026-6. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Roberts S, Kolewe M. Plant natural products from cultured multipotent cells. Nat Biotechnol. 2010; 28 :1175–1176. doi: 10.1038/nbt1110-1175. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ron M, Kajala K, Pauluzzi G, Wang D, Reynoso MA, Zumstein K, Garcha J, Winte S, Masson H, Inagaki S, Federici F, Sinha N, Deal RB, Bailey-Serres J, Brady SM. Hary root transformation using Agrobacterium rhizogenes as a tool for exploring cell type-specific gene expression and function using tomato as a model. Plant Physiol. 2014; 166 :455–469. doi: 10.1104/pp.114.239392. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sack M, Rademacher T, Spiegel H, Boes A, Hellwig S, Drossard J, Stoger E, Fischer R. From gene to harvest: insights into upstream process development for the GMP production of a monoclonal antibody in transgenic tobacco plants. Plant Biotechnol J. 2015; 13 :1094–1105. doi: 10.1111/pbi.12438. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sahu J, Sahu RK. A review on low cost methods for in vitro micropropagation of plant through tissue culture technique. UK J Pharm Biosci. 2013; 1 :38–41. doi: 10.20510/ukjpb/1/i1/91115. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Saito K, Kanehira T, Horimoto M, Moritome N, Komamine A. Biosynthesis of carthamin in florets and cultured cells of Carthamus tinctorius . Biol Plant. 1993; 35 :537. doi: 10.1007/BF02928029. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sakamoto K, Kumiko I, Sawamura K, Hajiro K, Asada Y, Yoshikawa T, et al. Anthocyanin production in cultured cells of Aralia cordata Thunb. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 1994; 36 :21–26. doi: 10.1007/BF00048311. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Saranya Krishnan SR, Siril EA. Elicitor mediated adventitious root culture for the large-scale production of anthraquinones from Oldenlandia umbellata L. Ind Crops Prod. 2018; 114 :173–179. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2018.01.069. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sarasan V, Kite GC, Sileshi GW, Stevenson PC. Applications of phytochemical and in vitro techniques for reducing over-harvesting of medicinal and pesticidal plants and generating income for the rural poor. Plant Cell Rep. 2011; 30 :1163–1172. doi: 10.1007/s00299-011-1047-5. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sharma M, Sharma A, Kumar A, Basu SK. Enhancement of secondary metabolites in cultured plant cells through stress stimulus. Am J Plant Physiol. 2011; 6 :50–71. doi: 10.3923/ajpp.2011.50.71. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shekhawat MS, Kannan N, Manokari M. In vitro propagation of traditional medicinal and dye yielding plant Morinda coreia Buch.–Ham. S Afr J Bot. 2015; 100 :43–50. doi: 10.1016/j.sajb.2015.05.018. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shilpa K, Varun K, Lakshmi BS. An alternate method of natural drug production: eliciting secondary metabolite production using plant cell culture. J Plant Sci. 2010; 5 :222–247. doi: 10.3923/jps.2010.222.247. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Singh SR, Dalal S, Singh R, Dhawan AK, Kalia K. Evaluation of genetic fidelity of in vitro raised plants of Dendrocalamus asper (Schult. & Schult. F.) Backer ex K. Heyne using DNA-based markers. Acta Physiol Plant. 2013; 35 :419–430. doi: 10.1007/s11738-012-1084-x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Singh A, Jani K, Kumari P, Agarwal PK. Effect of MgCl 2 and double con- centration of Murashige and Skoog medium on in vitro plantlet and root cultures generation in halophytic grasswort Salicornia brachiata . Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2015; 129 :501–510. doi: 10.1007/s11240-014-0622-1. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sivanandhan G, Selvaraj N, Ganapathi A, Manickavasagam M. Enhanced biosynthesis of withanolides by elicitation and precursor feeding in cell suspension culture of Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal in Shake-Flask culture and bioreactor. PLoS One. 2014; 9 :e104005. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0104005. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Smetanska I. Production of secondary metabolites using plant cell cultures. Adv Biochem Eng Biotechnol. 2008; 111 :187–228. doi: 10.1007/10_2008_10. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sorace M, de Faria RT, Júnior CV, Gomes GP, Barbosa CM, Vieira FG, Lopes da Silva G, Assari Takahashi LS, Aparecida Schnitzer J. In vitro growth of Oncidium baueri (Orchidaceae) at different macronutrients and sucrose concentrations. Semin Cienc Agrar. 2008; 29 :775–782. doi: 10.5433/1679-0359.2008v29n4p775. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Srivastava S, Srivastava AK. Hairy root culture for mass-production of high-value secondary metabolites. Crit Rev Biotechnol. 2007; 27 :29–43. doi: 10.1080/07388550601173918. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Srivastava S, Srivastava AK. Effect of elicitors and precursors on Azadirachtin production in hairy root culture of Azadirachta indica . Appl Biochem Biotechnol. 2014; 172 :2286–2297. doi: 10.1007/s12010-013-0664-6. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stanišić M, Raspor M, Ninković S, Milošević S, Ćalić D, Bohanec B, Trifunovića M, Petrića M, Subotića A, Jevremovića S. Clonal fidelity of Iris sibirica plants regenerated by somatic embryogenesis and organogenesis in leaf-base culture—RAPD and flow cytometer analyses. S Afr J Bot. 2015; 96 :42–52. doi: 10.1016/j.sajb.2014.10.014. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Su WW, Lee K-T. Plant cell and hairy root cultures—process characteristics, products, and applications. In: Yang S-T, editor. Bioprocessing for value-added products from renewable resources. Boston: Elsevier B.V; 2007. pp. 263–292. [ Google Scholar ]
• Su J, Zhu L, Sherman A, Wang X, Kamesh A, Norikane JH, Streatfield SJ, Herzog RW, Daniell H. Low cost industrial production of coagulation factor IX bioencapsulated in lettuce cells for oral tolerance induction in hemophilia B. Biomaterials. 2015; 70 :84–93. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2015.08.004. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tari I, Kiss G, Deer AK, Csiszar J, Erdei L, Galle A, Gémes K, Horváth F, Poór P, Szepesi Á, Simon LM. Salicylic acid increased aldose reductase activity and sorbitol accumulation in tomato plants under salt stress. Biol Plant. 2010; 54 :677–683. doi: 10.1007/s10535-010-0120-1. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Thakore D, Srivastava AK. Production of biopesticide azadirachtin using plant cell and hairy root cultures. Eng Life Sci. 2017; 17 :997–1005. doi: 10.1002/elsc.201700012. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Thiruvengadam M, Praveen N, Kim EH, Kim SH, Chung IM. Production of anthraquinones, phenolic compounds and biological activities from hairy roots cultures of Polygonum multiflorum Thunb. Protoplasma. 2014; 251 :555–566. doi: 10.1007/s00709-013-0554-3. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Thomas DR, Penney CA, Majumder A, Walmsley AM. Evolution of plant-made pharmaceuticals. Int J Mol Sci. 2011; 12 :3220–3236. doi: 10.3390/ijms12053220. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Thorpe T. History of plant tissue culture. J Mol Microb Biotechnol. 2007; 37 :169–180. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tusé D, Tu T, McDonald KA. Manufacturing economics of plant-made biologics: case studies in therapeutic and industrial enzymes. BioMol Res Int. 2014; 2014 :1–16. doi: 10.1155/2014/256135. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Eck J. Genome editing and plant transformation of solanaceous food crops. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2018; 49 :35–41. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2017.07.012. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Varshney A, Lakshmikumaran M, Srivastava PS, Dhawan V. Establishment of genetic fidelity of in vitro-raised Lilium bulblets through RAPD markers. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant. 2001; 37 :227–231. doi: 10.1007/s11627-001-0040-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Verma N, Shukla S. Impact of various factors responsible for fluctuation in plant secondary metabolites. J Appl Res Med Aromat Plants. 2015; 2 :105–113. doi: 10.1016/j.jarmap.2015.09.002. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Verma P, Mathur AK, Jain SP, Mathur A. In vitro conservation of twenty-three overexploited medicinal plants belonging to the Indian Sub Continent. Sci World J. 2012; 2012 :1–10. doi: 10.1100/2012/929650. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Verpoorte R, van der Heijden R, Memelink J. Engineering the plant cell factory for secondary metabolite production. Transgen Res. 2000; 9 :323–343. doi: 10.1023/A:1008966404981. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Verpoorte R, Contin A, Memelink J. Biotechnology for the production of plant secondary metabolites. Phytochem Rev. 2002; 1 :13–25. doi: 10.1023/A:1015871916833. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Verslues PE, Agarwal M, Katiyar-Agarwal S, Zhu J, Zhu JK. Methods and concepts in quantifying resistance to drought, salt and freezing, abiotic stresses that affect plant water status. Plant J. 2006; 45 :523–539. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-313X.2005.02593.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Vinterhalter B, Krstić-Milošević D, Janković T, Pljevljakušić D, Ninković S, Smigocki A, Vinterhalter D. Gentiana dinarica Beck. Hairy root cultures and evaluation of factors affecting growth and xanthone production. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult. 2015; 121 :667–679. doi: 10.1007/s11240-015-0737-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Voytas DF. Plant genome engineering with sequence-specificnucleases. Annu Rev Plant Biol. 2013; 64 :327–350. doi: 10.1146/annurev-arplant-042811-105552. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Voytas DF, Gao C. Precision genome engineering and agriculture: oportunities and regulatory challenges. PLoS Biol. 2014; 12 :1–6. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001877. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wagner H, Stuppner H, Schåfer W, Zenk M. Immunologically active polysaccharides of Echinacea purpurea cell cultures. Phytochemistry. 1988; 119 :126. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang CH, Zheng LP, Tian H, Wang JW. Synergistic effects of ultraviolet-B and methyl jasmonate on tanshinone biosynthesis in Salvia miltiorrhiza hairy roots. J Photochem Photobiol B. 2016; 159 :93–100. doi: 10.1016/j.jphotobiol.2016.01.012. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wani SH, Sah SK. Biotechnology and abiotic stress tolerance in rice. J Rice Res. 2014; 2 :e105. doi: 10.4172/jrr.1000e105. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wani SH, Kumar V, Shriram V, Sah SK. Phytohormones and their metabolic engineering for abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants. Crop J. 2016; 4 :162–176. doi: 10.1016/j.cj.2016.01.010. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wawrosch C, Schwaiger S, Stuppner H, Kopp B. Lignan formation in hairy root cultures of Edelweiss ( Leontopodium nivale spp. alpinum (Cass.) Greuter) Fitoterapia. 2014; 97 :219–223. doi: 10.1016/j.fitote.2014.06.008. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wendt T, Doohan F, Mullins E. Production of Phytophtora infestance resistance potato ( Solanum tuberosum ) utilizing Ensifer adhearence OV 14. Trans Res. 2012; 21 :567–578. doi: 10.1007/s11248-011-9553-3. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wilson SA, Roberts SC. Recent advances towards development and commercialization of plant cell culture processes for synthesis of biomolecules. Plant Biotechnol J. 2012; 10 :249–268. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7652.2011.00664. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu JF, Dolan MC, Medrano G, Cramer CL, Weathers PJ. Green factory: plants as bioproduction platforms for recombinant proteins. Biotechnol Adv. 2012; 30 :1171–1184. doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2011.08.020. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yamamoto Y. Tissue cultures of Euphorbia species. In: Hanover JW, Keathley DE, Wilson CM, Kuny G, editors. Genetic manipulation of woody plants. New York: Springer; 1988. pp. 365–376. [ Google Scholar ]
• Yao J, Weng Y, Dickey A, Wang KY. Plants as factories for human pharmaceuticals applications and challenges. Int J Mol Sci. 2015; 16 :28549–28565. doi: 10.3390/ijms161226122. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yun UW, Yan Z, Amir R, Hong S, Jin YW, Lee EK, Loake GJ. Plant natural products: history, limitations and the potential of cambial meristematic cells. Biotechnol Genet Eng Rev. 2012; 28 :47–59. doi: 10.5661/bger-28-47. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zeitlin L, Prettitt J, Scully C, Bohorova N, Kim D, Pauly M, Hiatt A, Ngo L, Steinkellner H, Whaley KJ, Olinger GG. Enhanced potency of a fucose-free monoclonal antibody being developed as an Ebola virus immunoprotectant. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2011; 108 :20690–20694. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1108360108. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zenk MH, Juenger M. Evolution and current status of the phytochemistry of nitrogenous compounds. Phytochemistry. 2007; 68 :2757–2772. doi: 10.1016/j.phytochem.2007.07.009. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhi-lin Y, Chuan-chao D, Lian-qing C. Regulation and accumulation of secondary metabolites in plant-fungus symbiotic system. Afr J Biotechnol. 2007; 6 :1266–1271. doi: 10.4314/ajb.v6i11.57436. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhou G, Wang Y, Zhai S, Ge F, Liu Z, Dai Y, Yuan S, Hou JY. Biodegradation of the neonocotinoid insecticide thiamethoxam by nitrogen-fixin and plany-growth-promoting rizobacterium Ensifer adhaerens strain TMX-23. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2013; 97 :4065–4074. doi: 10.1007/s00253-012-4638-3. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhu C, Bortesi L, Baysal C, Twyman RM, Fischer R, Capell T, Schillberg S, Christou P. Characteristics of genome editing mutations in cereal crops. Trends Plant Sci. 2017; 22 :38–52. doi: 10.1016/j.tplants.2016.08.009. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zuniga-Soto E, Mullins E, Didicova B. Ensifer-mediated transformation: an efficient non-Agrobacterium protocol for the genetic modification of rice. Springerplus. 2015; 4 :1–10. doi: 10.1186/s40064-015-1369-9. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Journal of Media, Communication and Culture

About the journal.

JMCC serves as an essential platform for scholars, researchers, and practitioners who are interested in the intricate relationships between media, communication, and cultural phenomena. The journal encourages submissions that are theoretically robust and empirically rich, providing critical perspectives on a wide array of topics including but not limited to digital media, mass communication, media ethics, cultural studies, media representations, and the role of media in shaping social norms and identities.

Through its rigorous publication standards, JMCC aims to foster intellectual discourse and debate surrounding the ever-changing media landscape. It provides a space for the dissemination of innovative research findings, engaging theoretical discussions, and comprehensive reviews of existing literature. The journal particularly values contributions that address the effects of media on society, the intersection of media with cultural practices, and the role of communication technologies in transforming both local and global communities.

JMCC is committed to advancing the understanding of media and communication as crucial elements in the shaping of cultural dynamics. It actively seeks submissions that highlight the interplay between media and cultural diversity, explore the implications of media in different cultural contexts, and examine the role of media in the construction and dissemination of cultural knowledge.

The journal publishes original research articles, critical reviews, film criticism, and methodological papers. It also features special issues that focus on contemporary topics and debates in the field, curated by leading experts. JMCC is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to grasp the complexities of media and its profound influence on culture and society in the 21st century.

Current Issue

Journal of Media, Communication and Culture is an open-access scholarly journal for the publication of original research papers covering significant studies on and analyses of the full range of the media and cultural environment. The journal provides an analysis of the media content of news and entertainment, the cultural diversity of the media world, the digitalization of newspapers, radio and television, film studies, and the wider social and cultural context embedded in it.

All the papers should comply with APA style in format, please see APA Formatting and Style Guide(7th Edition)

Research Articles

Evaluation of chinese mainstream media gender equity level take people’s daily, china women's daily, and the central committee of the communist youth league wechat public platform as examples, nationalism in chinese main melody movies an analysis of wolf warrior ii（zhan lang ii）, american societal issues prevalent in get out(2017) and blackkklansman(2018), film criticism, female gaze and resistance critical analysis of portrait of a lady on fire, information.

• For Readers
• For Authors
• For Librarians
• Français (France)

Make a Submission

Navigating the Ever-Changing Landscape of Media and Culture

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

•  We're Hiring!
•  Help Center

Media and Cultural Studies

• Most Cited Papers
• Most Downloaded Papers
• Newest Papers
• Save to Library
• Last »
• Television Studies Follow Following
• Media Studies Follow Following
• New Media Follow Following
• Cultural Studies Follow Following
• Media History Follow Following
• Digital Media Follow Following
• Popular Culture Follow Following
• Media Industries Follow Following
• Television History Follow Following
• Cultural Theory Follow Following

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• Academia.edu Publishing
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• Research Areas

Culture & Media

Culture is the rituals, practices, and artifacts that shape the behaviors of individuals, groups, and societies. Communication is central to the construction, maintenance, and transmission of culture, as well as to cultural resistance and change. Annenberg researchers explore the complex relationship between communication and cultural practices and its implications.

Photo Credit: Alex Knight / Unsplash

From Philly to Delhi: the Inaugural Global Media Cultures International Doctoral Institute

Organized by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC), the Institute convened students and faculty from Annenberg and the University of Hyderabad.

Call for Artists: Present Futures - Experiments in Feminist Futurity

Llamado de artistas: present futures - experiments in feminist futurity.

Azsaneé Truss Receives Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching

Three Annenberg Doctoral Candidates Awarded 2024 Sachs Program Grants

Present futures: experiments in feminist futurity.

• Annenberg Center for Collaborative Communication
• Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication
• Center on Digital Culture and Society

Sarah Banet-Weiser, Ph.D.

Amitanshu Das

Peter Decherney, Ph.D.

Michael X. Delli Carpini, Ph.D.

Olivia González, Ph.D.

David Grazian, Ph.D.

Jingyi Gu, Ph.D.

Emily Hund, Ph.D.

Zehra Husain, Ph.D.

John L. Jackson, Jr., Ph.D.

Sarah J. Jackson, Ph.D.

Benjamin Todd Jealous

DeMarcus A. Jenkins, Ph.D.

Jasmine E. Johnson, Ph.D.

Malav Kanuga, Ph.D.

Aviv Landau, Ph.D., M.S.W.

Jessa Lingel, Ph.D.

Juan Llamas-Rodriguez, Ph.D.

Florence Zivaishe Madenga, Ph.D.

Carolyn Marvin, Ph.D.

Siva Mathiyazhagan, Ph.D., M.S.W.

Sandeep Mertia, Ph.D.

Danaë Metaxa, Ph.D.

Wazhmah Osman, Ph.D.

Matt Parker, Ph.D.

Desmond Upton Patton, M.S.W., Ph.D.

Litty Paxton, Ph.D.

Jeff Pooley, Ph.D.

Monroe Price, J.D.

Aswin Punathambekar, Ph.D.

Mohammed Rashid, Ph.D.

Carlin Romano, J.D.

Dan Romer, Ph.D.

Julia Ticona, Ph.D.

Joseph Turow, Ph.D.

Arthur Z. Wang, Ph.D.

Kim Woolf, Ph.D.

Guobin Yang, Ph.D.

Barbie Zelizer, Ph.D.

Eszter Zimanyi, Ph.D.

Tukufu Zuberi, Ph.D.

Graduate students.

Anjali DasSarma

Cienna Davis

Christiana Dillard

Arlene C. Fernández

Emilie Grybos

Liz Hallgren

Antoine Haywood

Baird howland.

Darin Johnson, Ph.D.

Staci Jones

Sophie Maddocks, Ph.D.

Nidah Mohammed

Adetobi Moses

Kate Okker-Edging

Devo Probol

Valentina Proust

Yingchuan Qu

Farrah Rahaman

Sara Reinis

Lucila Rozas

Melissa B. Skolnick-Noguera

Taylor L. Smith

Jeanna Sybert

Azsaneé Truss

Ryan Tsapatsaris, Ph.D.

Natasha Williams

Social Media: Influences and Impacts on Culture

• Conference paper
• First Online: 04 July 2020
• Cite this conference paper

• Mui Joo Tang 17 &
• Eang Teng Chan 17  

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1228))

Included in the following conference series:

• Science and Information Conference

3405 Accesses

6 Citations

Advanced technologies of communication have brought influences and impacts on cultures. There are views that the influences and impacts are brought forward by social media which has been a powerful tool that can affect and form human behaviors as well as culture. Social media may have crossed the boundaries of culture due to the concept of borderless. Facebook may have been the social media that connects people around the world with massive cultural backgrounds to meet at the platform. The media content uploaded may spark the invasion of culture. There are many other social media which come with influencers that may shout about different values and practices around. Local cultures had therefore slowly lost their identities and replaced with a cross-cultural phenomenon. The cultural values invaded may include human behaviors, beliefs, values or even fashion and lifestyle. This research is to examine the factors of cross cultural communication, the reasons of culture being influenced by foreign countries through social media and the possibility of cultural invasion through social media. Social Influence theory is used in this research. Social influence occurs when a person’s emotions, opinions or behaviors are affected by others intentionally or unintentionally. Online survey Google Form is used at the target of 150 respondents aged between 18 to 25 years old. There is a contradicting view that people will lose their own culture after viewing too much of online content. The online activities and actions will slowly lead them to the change without their realization.

The authors acknowledged the raw material provided by Khoo Rose Lyn and Yong Zheng Wai.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Furedi, F.: http://www.aspeninstitute.cz/en/article/4-2014-how-the-internet-and-social-media-are-changing-culture/ . Accessed 28 Jan 2019

Kirkpatrick, D.: The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World. Simon & Schuster, New York (2010)

Google Scholar  

Ta, J.Q.: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/impact-social-media-truly-society-0974685#QClV2qf84zb4iRzf.97 . Accessed 13 July 2016

Glucksman, M.: https://www.elon.edu/u/academics/communications/ . Accessed 1 July 2018

Tapinfluence Research. https://www.tapinfluence.com/tp_resource/future-influencer-marketing/ . Accessed 25 May 2019

Kasteler, J.: http://searchengineland.com/how-social-media-is-influencing-your-behavior-4061 . Accessed 1 July 2018

Mariella, A.: https://www.elitedaily.com/life/culture/x-pro-ii-valencia-instagram-choose-neither/614571 . Accessed 15 July 2018

Barcon, L.: http://monroviainquirer.com/2014/05/30/the-importance-of-culture-and-national-identity-in-the-societythe-sad-story-of-liberia/ . Accessed 15 July 2018

Wikipedia: Culture of Malaysia (2019). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Malaysia . Accessed 13 June 2019

NCBI. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792691/ . Accessed 10 Aug 2018

Kevin, H.: Stanford. https://www.business2community.com/brandviews/growing-social-media/social-media-culture-01635249 . Accessed 12 Aug 2018

Cross, T.: http://wallblog.co.uk/2013/11/08/the-culture-of-now-the-rise-of-imagery-in-social-media/ . Accessed 15 Aug 2018

Keller, M.: http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/051313p10.shtml . Accessed 10 Sept 2018

Kelman, H.: Compliance, identification, and internalization: three processes of attitude change. J. Conflict Resolut. 2 (1), 51–60 (1958). https://doi.org/10.1177/002200275800200106

Article   Google Scholar  

Kietzmann, J.H., Hermkens, K.: Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Bus. Horiz. (Submitted manuscript) 54 (3), 241–251 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Mui Joo Tang & Eang Teng Chan

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mui Joo Tang .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Saga University, Saga, Japan

The Science and Information (SAI) Organization, Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK

Supriya Kapoor

Rahul Bhatia

Please Click (✓) For Your Choice

Student ID:   ________________________________________________

Section B – Culture

In your opinion, how has the local culture been influenced?

□ Overseas media/social media content through internet

□ Foreign culture is better than local culture

□ Did not practice own culture well

□ Other than the above:   _______________________

Section C – Social Media and Culture

What is your view if local culture is influenced?

(If POSITIVE , proceed to 7a ; NEGATIVE , proceed to 7b )

If positive, why?

□ It is good if we accept other culture

□ It is more educational

□ Other cultures are better

□ Others:   ________________________________________________________

If negative, why?

□ Culture makes us who we are in identity

□ Culture is important

Section D – Effects of Social Media on Culture

Please Click (✓) Your Choice

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Cite this paper.

Tang, M.J., Chan, E.T. (2020). Social Media: Influences and Impacts on Culture. In: Arai, K., Kapoor, S., Bhatia, R. (eds) Intelligent Computing. SAI 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1228. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52249-0_33

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52249-0_33

Published : 04 July 2020

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-52248-3

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-52249-0

eBook Packages : Intelligent Technologies and Robotics Intelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)

Share this paper

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

The French Journal of Media Studies

Accueil Numéros 5 Media and Diversity The Concept of Culture in Media S...

The Concept of Culture in Media Studies: A Critical Review of Academic Literature

This study examines the way culture has been researched in media studies and suggests how critical intercultural communication could contribute to the field. A literature review was conducted and articles (N=114) published in peer-reviewed journals between 2003 and 2013 were collected. Results show that studies dealing with media and culture do not systematically define the concept of culture. Findings also indicate that culture is oftentimes taken for granted instead of being problematized and addressed as a source of struggle. Advantages of using a critical intercultural communication framework to examine culture are discussed.

Entrées d’index

Keywords: , texte intégral.

• 1 Debra L. Merskin, Media, Minorities, and Meaning: A Critical Introduction (New York: Peter Lang Pub (...)
• 2 Robert M. Entman, “Framing Bias: Media in the Distribution of Power,” Journal of Communication 57, (...)
• 3 Sari Pietikäinen and Helen Kelly-Holmes, “The Dangers of Normativity – The Case of Minority Languag (...)
• 4 Isabelle Rigoni, “Intersectionality and Mediated Cultural Production in A Globalized Post-Colonial (...)

1 Recent directions in the field of media studies have turned culture into a significant object of study. Strong emphasis has been put on representations of minorities in media 1 and their potential biases, 2 minority-language media 3 and ethnic media. 4 However, the increasing attention given to culture has not gone hand in hand with an overall clarification of the concept itself. Defining culture remains a difficult exercise, especially because of its multifaceted nature. The importance of the concept in media studies and its blurry theoretical grounds highlight the need to look back at how it has been used in studies. The present article is built around three main questions. First, it looks at how culture has been researched in media studies . Second, it examines possible limitations of these approaches. Third, it investigates ways in which a critical intercultural communication framework can be beneficial to media studies dealing with culture. For this purpose, this study explores recent academic discourse on media and culture by reviewing studies dealing with issues of cultural diversity, representations of culture, and discourse of culture. In addition to examining approaches to culture and their potential limitations, this article also presents ways in which critical intercultural communication can be used by researchers from different disciplines interested in culture.

2 This article starts by presenting some of the main arguments raised in discussing the use and conceptualization of culture. The way critical intercultural communication contributes to this discussion is presented, followed by reasons why it can be a relevant framework for media studies. This article then looks at previous reviews of academic discourse, especially focusing on the fields of communication and media. Methods for collecting data are detailed before discussing the findings and main implications of this study .

The Concept of Culture

• 5 Robert Brightman, “Forget Culture: Replacement, Transcendence, Relexification,” Cultural Anthropolo (...)
• 6 William H. Sewell Jr, “The Concept(s) of Culture,” in Practicing History: New Directions in Histori (...)
• 7 Ingrid Piller, Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Universit (...)
• 9 Fred Dervin, “Approches dialogiques et énonciatives de l’interculturel : Pour une didactique des la (...)
• 10 Fred Dervin, “A Plea for Change in Research on Intercultural Discourses: A “Liquid” Approach to the (...)
• 11 Sylvie Poirier, “La (dé)politisation de la culture? Réflexions sur un concept pluriel, ” Anthropolog (...)
• 12 Ryuko Kubota, “Critical Approaches to Intercultural Discourse and Communication,” in The Handbook o (...)

3 Culture is a concept that has been discussed extensively, giving rise to multiple approaches and uses of the term across fields of study. As the concept of culture became increasingly important and pervasive, it also became increasingly questioned. Across different fields of studies, scholars discuss whether to keep, change or altogether discard the concept of culture. Brightman brought together some of the main criticisms addressed to culture. 5 His work reveals the variety of arguments used against the concept and the lack of convergence on how to revise it or what to use instead. Sewell also goes through some of the cornerstone issues in conceptualizing culture. 6 The first distinction he mentions, and which he argues is not always explicitly made by researchers, is the one between the use of culture and cultures . The singular use refers to the theoretical approach used for research while the plural use refers to the object of study . Culture is used in contrast to other academic disciplines or analytical tools (e.g. politics, economics) whereas cultures is used when examining different forms of culture and is therefore more concrete (e.g. regional culture, hipster culture). Another distinction which has had a strong impact on the study of culture is the understanding of culture as practice or culture as a system of symbols and meanings . Critical intercultural scholars regard culture as a discursive construction, emphasizing the role played by individuals in performing culture. Inherited from constructionism, this approach emphasizes culture as something people do rather than something people have. 7 Regarding culture as practice is the dominant approach in critical intercultural communication, which tends to be used in opposition to culture as a system of symbols and meanings. This latter approach to culture is often associated with essentialist and positivist views that describe culture as an identifiable and fixed item. 8 Essentialist views of culture have been criticized for pinpointing aspects of cultures (typically reduced to the idea of national cultures) and presenting such characteristics as truths rather than constructions. 9 On the other hand, critical intercultural scholars argue for an approach to culture that is largely embedded within social constructionism. 10 Such an approach emphasizes culture as constructed, political, intertwined with ethics 11 and related to power both within and between societies. 12 From that perspective, culture is understood to be situated rather than objective, and ever changing as opposed to stable.

• 13 Stuart Hall, “Introduction,” in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices , (...)

14 Shi-Xu, A Cultural Approach to Discourse (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 1–13.

• 15 William A. Gamson and Andre Modigliani, “Media discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Con (...)
• 16 Nancy K. Rivenburgh, “Media Framing of Complex Issues: The Case of Endangered Languages,” Public Un (...)
• 17 Ulrika Olausson, “Global warming – Global Responsibility? Media Frames of Collective Action and Sci (...)

4 As Hall stresses, culture is about meaning and as such “permeates all of society.” 13 Representations, practices, values and identities have cultural meanings that are discursively constructed and tap into previous cultural discourses to be meaningful. Critical intercultural communication casts light on ways in which meanings echo cultural knowledge and are therefore difficult to identify and question – even for researchers themselves, hence a strong emphasis placed on reflexivity. 14 The importance of “cultural resonance” has also been pointed out by scholars examining media frames. 15 Rivenburgh stresses the way “media frames that reflect cultural common sense, values, or ideology are both instinctually employed by journalists and easily accepted by the public”. 16 Tapping into cultural resonance may be done consciously or out of habit by journalists and editors who see their cultural environment as natural. The use of culturally resonant frames in media discourse increases their taken-for-grantedness, which enhances their power. Cultural markers create a sense of common sense because of their presence in everyday life experiences which contributes to normalizing them, making them “well-nigh impossible to recognize, question, or resist”. 17 The emphasis that critical intercultural communication puts on culture as having the propensity to normalize representations and practices thus appears especially relevant to media studies.

• 18 Marianne Jørgensen and Louise J. Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London: Sage Pu (...)

19 Chris Barker, The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies (London: Sage Publications, 2004), 64–65.

5 Another aspect where interests of both disciplines meet is the extent to which discursive practices can be ethnocentric. To different extents, critical scholars agree on the idea that discourses construct the way societies represent themselves. 18 Media discourse is probably one of the discursive practices most often cited as constitutive of people’s worldviews, representations of themselves and others. One question put forward by critical intercultural communication is the extent to which such discourses rely on ethnocentric representations. Ethnocentrism refers to people’s tendency to use the standards of their own culture to judge other cultural groups, which is concurrent with people’s tendency to regard their culture as superior to others. 19 Ethnocentrism thus refers to the way cultural standards can pass as implicit norms for people identifying with that culture. As much emphasis is now put on ethnic media, cultural diversity and the effects of globalization on developing transnational media spaces, it is important not to overlook the extent to which national media discourse can still be limited and convey ethnocentric representations. The emphasis put on ethnocentrism in media has strong practical implications for professionals and audiences by encouraging them to be more critical towards news content.

Examining Academic Discourse

• 20 Keith V. Erickson, Cathy A. Fleuriet and Lawrence A. Hosman, “Prolific Publishing: Professional and (...)
• 21 Michael W. Kramer, Jon A. Hess and Loren D. Reid, “Trends in Communication Scholarship: An Analysis (...)

22 Jørgensen and Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method , 175–177.

• 23 Maggie MacLure, Discourses in Educational and Social Research ( Buckingham: Open University Press, 2 (...)

6 Conferences and publications are the main venues for academics to discuss the latest developments and findings from all disciplines. Nowadays, academic debate mostly takes place in journals, whose number has kept on increasing throughout the last decades. 20 It is through these journals that most ideas are expressed, hence the importance of examining their content. Publishing is central for scholars, not only as a way of contributing to the development of their fields of study but also to the development of their career. The notorious “publish or perish” phrase provides an efficient summary of what publications nowadays represent in the academic world. 21 As journal articles have become the main venue for academic discourse, they have also turned into common and natural venues. Such development can be problematic if academic discourse comes to be granted too much legitimacy instead of having its status, form and content constantly challenged. Like other discursive practices, journal articles create and validate certain meanings that progressively become the norm and can, as such, easily pass as natural instead of constructed and contingent. 22 Knowledge expressed in academic discourse is therefore not objective but is, like any other form of knowledge, “‘situated’ – that is, produced by and for particular interests, in particular circumstances, at particular times”. 23 Reflexivity, a central ethical component of research, is therefore especially important when looking at academic discourse as a whole.

• 24 Ronald D. Gordon, “Beyond the Failures of Western Communication Theory,” Journal of Multicultural D (...)
• 25 Molefi Kete Asante, “The Ideological Significance of Afrocentricity in Intercultural Communication, (...)
• 26 Yoshitaka Miike, “Non-Western Theory in Western research? An Asiacentric Agenda for Asian Communica (...)
• 27 Yoshitaka Miike, “An Asiacentric Reflection on Eurocentric Bias in Communication Theory,” Communica (...)

28 Asante, “The Ideological Significance of Afrocentricity in Intercultural Communication,” 10.

• 29 Shi-Xu, “Reconstructing Eastern Paradigms of Discourse Studies ,” Journal of Multicultural Discourse (...)
• 30 Hui-Ching Chang, Rich Holt and Lina Luo, “Representing East Asians in Intercultural Communication T (...)
• 31 Molefi Kete Asante, Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change (Chicago: African American Images, (...)
• 32 Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (London: Routl (...)
• 33 Eric Kit-Wai Ma, “Rethinking Media Studies: The Case of China,” in De-westernizing Media Studies , e (...)

7 Recently, increasing attention has been paid to cultural bias in academic discourse. Some scholars especially criticize the general lack of attention paid to such bias. Gordon, for instance, has looked at communication theories, which he describes as an example of a Western-oriented or Eurocentric approach to research. 24 Gordon highlights the way communication theories have typically been elaborated by Caucasian researchers from the United States who mostly used university students as participants. Western-oriented theories have been criticized for being taken as universally valid despite being anchored in European academic traditions, especially the heritage of the Enlightenment period. In response, some scholars have suggested using different approaches. Asante has, for instance, put forth Afrocentricity as an ideological and methodological approach to conduct research from an African standpoint. 25 Similarly, Miike encourages using Asiacentricity to examine Asian contexts from an Asian perspective. 26 Miike details ways in which the concept of “communication” is defined differently by Asiacentric and Eurocentric approaches, as different aspects and outcomes are emphasized. 27 Afrocentricity and Asiacentricity illustrate ongoing efforts to diversify analytical tools that would help research human activity and capture its plurality. These approaches are meant to open up new perspectives in research by providing scholars with different outlooks on their objects of study. For some scholars, developing new approaches is also meant to create legitimate alternatives to Western theories. Back in 1983, Asante, for instance, pointed out the difficulty for some African scholars to be published in Eurocentric journals because of their different, and non-valued, academic tradition. 28 Shi-Xu advocates the emergence of various academic paradigms that would work “as equal but distinctive interlocutors” and help “redress this cultural imbalance”. 29 However, other voices among academics are more reserved when it comes to developing culture-specific approaches, fearing that it will only turn the problem around instead of solving it. Chang, Holt and Luo raise the question as they discuss Asiacentricity: “If every version of a cultural writing of other is at the same time also the construction of self , might our call for an Asiacentric perspective in explaining communication not fall into the same trap as the often-blamed Eurocentric perspective? Might the reversal of the situation – prioritizing Asians – encounter the same predicament?” 30 Supporters of culture-specific approaches, however, embrace this criticism. From their perspective, culture-specific approaches are beneficial because they are explicitly situated and do not try to reach universal validity. They point out that it is not so much Western-oriented theories being biased and situated that triggered critics as the lack of reflexivity about these limitations. 31 Similar debates are also taking place among media scholars, with issues of “de-Westernizing” media studies being increasingly discussed. 32 Critics claim that Western-oriented media theories are too limited as they are based on European and North American political, economic and media models. Looking specifically at China, Ma argues for a compromise. 33 He questions the benefits of new theories that would risk “essentializing and exoticizing the Asian experience” and proposes adjusting existing theories to fit the Chinese context.

Methods and Results

8 A literature review was conducted in fall 2013 using the academic search engines EBSCO and Web of Science. The keywords “media representation”, “media discourse”, “diversity”, and “cultur*” (the asterisk was used to include other possible endings in the data search) were used to collect peer-reviewed articles published in English between 2003 and 2013. Only articles dealing with issues of cultural diversity and media were included. Some articles in which culture was understood from an agricultural perspective were, for instance, left out. The search was ended once saturation was reached, that is when the same keywords used in different search engines brought up the same articles. In total, 114 articles were collected and reviewed for the purpose of this study. The literature review was conducted inductively and kept as open as possible. The search was not limited to any specific journals because the scope of topics covered by media studies on cultural diversity was expected to be very wide. One aim of this literature review being to see what types of issues were encompassed, it would have been detrimental to limit the search to certain journals.

• 34 See for example Gordon, “Beyond the Failures of Western Communication Theory,” and Miike, “An Asiac (...)
• 35 Annelies Verdoolaege, “Media representations of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commissi (...)
• 36 Jawad Syed, “The Representation of Cultural Diversity in Urdu-Language Newspapers in Pakistan: A St (...)
• 37 Yasmin Jiwani, “War Talk Engendering Terror: Race, Gender and Representation in Canadian Print Medi (...)
• 38 Fabienne Darling-Wolf, “Sites of Attractiveness: Japanese Women and Westernized Representations of (...)
• 39 Maria Andrea Dos Santos Soares, “Look, Blackness in Brazil!: Disrupting the Grotesquerie of Racial (...)
• 40 Anna Bredström, “Gendered Racism and the Production Of Cultural Difference: Media Representations a (...)
• 41 Shanara Rose Reid-Brinkley, “Ghetto Kids Gone Good: Race, Representation, and Authority in the Scri (...)

9 Short descriptions were written about each article to describe their content, which later helped identify recurrent themes, similar approaches and unusual topics. Articles were collected within a 10-year time frame in order to get an overall picture of the state of recent research. No particular evolution or trends were noticed, however, regarding approaches or topics tackled. Oftentimes, authors used eclectic theoretical and/or methodological approaches that, for instance, combined cultural studies and critical discourse analysis (CDA) or feminist theories and CDA. Among studies that explicitly presented their theoretical and/or methodological frameworks, CDA (9%), feminist theories (10%) and cultural/critical frameworks relying on Foucault’s, Gramsci’s or Hall’s theories (29%) were recurrent approaches. As regards analytical tools from journalism or media studies, results indicated that framing theory (10%) was often used as opposed to gatekeeping or agenda-setting theory (2%). Similarly to results from previous reviews of academic discourse, 34 studies from this data set appeared to be mainly conducted from a Western-oriented perspective. This was the case even for strongly situated studies that focused on particular cultures and were published in specific journals. For instance, the article “Media Representations of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Their Commitment to Reconciliation” 35 was published in the Journal of African Cultural Studies using CDA, and the article “The Representation of Cultural Diversity in Urdu-Language Newspapers in Pakistan: A Study of Jang and Nawaiwaqt” 36 was published in the South Asia Journal of South Asian Studies and used Hodder’s approach. In comparison, articles looking at representations of women were found to use various trends of feminist theories such as standpoint theory, 37 postcolonial theory 38 and black feminism. 39 Similarly, articles explicitly dealing with race, for instance, used postcolonial theory 40 and Jackson’s (2006) theory of scripting and media framing of black bodies. 41

42 Kathryn Woodward, Identity and Difference (London: Sage Publications, 1997), 35.

10 As regards the scope of topics tackled, results indicated that the majority of articles investigated representation of minorities in the media (67%), most often dealing with ethnic or religious groups. Articles within this category oftentimes raised the issue of media stereotyping and othering minorities. That is, studies investigated ways in which media discourse sometimes supports the construction of minorities as “Others”, which can emphasize differences between groups and convey negative stereotypical representations. 42 Among articles exploring representations of minorities, several studies dealt with sport and representations of athletes (8%). A significant number of studies examined discourses of diversity (23%), with some focusing exclusively on European discourses of diversity (3%). Other studies investigated what diversity stands for in the media and how it can be approached by newsrooms. On the other hand, some topics appeared to be scarcely tackled, which was the case of foreign-news coverage (4%), newsroom diversity (2%) or integration and acculturation issues (2%). Regarding the type of media investigated, the majority of studies examined newspapers and television (70%), while entertainment and advertisement (19%) were less considered.

Culture: Between Main Focus and Transparent Background

11 Despite explicitly dealing with culture, many articles did not provide a clear definition of the term. Nor did many researchers position themselves as regards the different schools of thought on culture. Instances of culture taken for granted particularly occurred in the literature when (1) culture was associated with nations or (2) the so-called Western world, or (3) when the concepts of race or ethnicity were used.

43 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage Publications, 1995), 6.

• 44 Rona T. Halualani, S. Lily Mendoza and Jolanta A. Drzewiecka, “‘Critical’” Junctures in Intercultur (...)

12 Results from the literature review conducted for this study indicate the recurrent association of culture with that of nation. However, the use of countries as cultural contexts and embodiments of cultures can be problematic for several reasons. A main pitfall is the homogeneous and reduced picture of culture that it conveys. Culture is a multilayered notion and reducing it to the single aspect of nationality can be detrimental to both the idea of nation and culture. Nations are multicultural, in the literal meaning of the word: that is, made out of multiple cultures. Studies that use nation as the unit of reference to talk about culture, language and identity tend to homogenize national cultures and therefore increase chances of being stereotypical instead of deconstructing stereotypes. A second important drawback is the way national culture tends to be presented as normal instead of artificial. This contributes to discourses of “banal nationalism” where individuals are brought up with the idea that the world is divided between nations. 43 It also overlooks the fact that culture is constructed and thus intertwined with power and struggle. When culture is understood as the equivalent of nation, it typically hints at the culture of the dominant group within that nation. Such representation leaves out or even marginalizes other forms of culture within that country, therefore maintaining existing hierarchy instead of deconstructing it. Halualani, Mendoza and Drzewiecka point out the danger of blurring the lines between the concepts of culture and nation: “To accept cultures as nations as inherently and naturally truthful and accurate at a surface level would be to risk reproducing external framings of cultural groups advanced by colonialist governments, dominant nationalist parties, and ruling power interests that benefit from such ‘status quo’ thinking.” 44

45 Piller, Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction , 66–69.

46 Dervin, “A Plea For Change in Research on Intercultural Discourses,” 41.

13 Associating culture to nation thus tends to sustain hierarchy between cultural practices and those who practice or identify to them. By maintaining hierarchical order between cultures, the nation approach implicitly contributes to preserving the persistent dichotomy between “us” and “them”, whether within or between nations. The nation approach to culture is tightly related to essentialist views of culture in that it provides a static and homogeneous picture of culture. Essentialism regards culture as a one-dimensional concept and therefore leaves out issues of race, religion, gender, social status and larger historical and political structures. Critical intercultural communication endeavors to go beyond such limitations by taking into account the multidimensional, constructed, contingent and dynamic facets of culture. The critical intercultural communication approach does not dismiss nations as possible instances of cultures. However, it focuses on exploring which representations of culture and nation are associated, through which processes, and whether such associations vary in time or depending on the context. Critical intercultural scholars emphasize culture as raising questions rather than providing answers that would help predict people’s behaviors. 45 Through its conceptualization of culture, a critical intercultural communication framework helps focus on ways in which people construct their sense of cultural belonging and identity. 46 This approach is relevant to media studies in many ways. It is strongly related to research exploring the relation individuals make between their media consumption and their identity, or research dealing with the way media discourse is intertwined with discourses of (national) identity. The emphasis put on constructing cultural identity and belonging can also help focus on who is represented as “belonging” and who is not, which is a significant aspect of studies on minority media and cultural diversity.

• 47 Malcom D. Brown, “Comparative Analysis of Mainstream Discourses, Media Narratives and Representatio (...)
• 48 Margarida Carvalho, “The Construction of the Image of Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities in Two Portu (...)

14 As mentioned beforehand, results indicated that culture can be taken for granted when it is about “us”. In many cases, “our” culture is used as a background for research, making it look normal and neutral. “Our” culture also appears homogeneous because examining diversity oftentimes consists of examining the “Other”. For instance, the article entitled “Comparative Analysis of Mainstream Discourses, Media Narratives and Representations of Islam in Britain and France Prior to 9/11” examines the construction of Islam, notably referring to the switch from exoticism before 9/11 to terrorism afterwards. 47 The article, however, does not discuss the construction of “British” and “French” but uses them as taken-for-granted cultural representations. Similarly, the article “The Construction of the Image of Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities in two Portuguese Daily Newspapers” discusses the way “their” image is fabricated and thus artificial but does not discuss the construction of the “Portuguese” identity. 48 Of course, focusing on minorities’ identities is highly relevant, but it could be beneficial to consider both majorities’ and minorities’ identities and cultures. Such an approach could help examine diversity among “us” rather than embodied only by “them”. Examining both majority and minority could enable researchers to go beyond this dichotomous opposition and not only look at differences but also cast light on shared cultural representations, practices or identities. Looking at differences and similarities, as well as how those are negotiated, can also help examine the way cultural meanings and identities are constructed in relation to one another. Overall, it would be a way to put all cultural practices and representations on an equal footing by explicitly defining them as constructed and contingent. This could in turn contribute to challenge taken-for-granted perceptions we have of ourselves as well as of others.

49 Anthony P. Browne, “Denying Race in the American and French Context,” Wadabagei 12 (2009): 83.

15 Findings also indicate that the concept of culture tends to be used in different ways depending on whose culture is examined. The “us” is often associated with nationality and presented as legitimate, neutral, acultural, aethnical and aracial while the “them” is often referred to in terms of religious or ethnic denominations. Oftentimes, culture is not directly problematized when the concepts of race and ethnicity are used. Eventually, this paints a picture where “we” seem to be acultural and unproblematic while “they” are described in terms of struggle, race, ethnicity or religious affiliations. The imbalance in such representations is problematic in that it reproduces stereotypical representations of minorities even though most studies intend to deconstruct them. Using alternatives to Western and Eurocentric approaches in media studies could help dismiss such a vicious circle. Enhancing geographical diversity as regards research location could also encourage study of various minority groups. Indeed, findings suggest that numerous studies are located in Europe, North America or Australia: parts of the world that embody the idea of “Western culture”. The lack of diversity in the location of research is a strong shortcoming of academic discourse, especially when it examines representation of minorities. Going through numerous articles dealing with ethnic or religious minorities living in the so-called Western world nourishes the idea that majority and dominant groups are white Europeans while struggling minorities are black, Asians or Muslims. Using a critical intercultural communication framework can discourage researchers from using or describing, even implicitly, certain groups or practices as acultural and neutral and others as only racial or ethnic. This issue has also been raised by scholars working on colorblind ideology. Browne, for instance, argues that in both the United States and France, being white is “the invisible norm against which all other cultural and racial groups are defined and subordinated”. 49 The notion of invisible norm raised by Browne is particularly relevant when it comes to seeing oneself as aracial or acultural and seeing others mostly through their skin color, religious affiliations or cultural practices. The way concepts of race and ethnicity can sometimes be used instead of the one of culture conveys the idea that they refer to different aspects. Nevertheless, race and ethnicity are forms of culture, as gender, nationality or social class can also be. Dismissing culture and using only race and ethnicity can be a drawback in that it contributes to presenting culture as unproblematic and natural, while race and ethnicity are sources of struggle. Using a critical intercultural communication framework is a way to be inclusive and critically tackle all aspects of culture. Bridging the gap between culture, race and ethnicity is also a way to bring together schools of thought (for instance, scholars from the United States and scholars from Europe) that have different stances on the concept of race itself. Examining critically the way race, ethnicity, social status, religious, sexual and gender identities are constructed and conveyed can thus enrich our understanding of culture. Generally speaking, using a critical approach to the concept of culture would help address problematic representations of minority/majority and us/them in academic discourse. Understanding culture as a construction that involves power relations and struggle contributes to include every individual, group and practice, since all aspects and members of societies are cultural. This therefore takes away the pervasive and implicit idea that some people or practices are neutral to some extent. Reflexivity is a central component in order to be able to detach oneself from ethnocentric representations and look at oneself, one’s culture, practices and values as cultural and therefore constructed and ideological. Focusing on cultural identity as constructed is also an asset in decreasing ethnocentrism or cultural bias in academic discourse. Encouraging researchers to be reflexive about their cultural backgrounds can help them problematize what they could otherwise take for granted about their own cultural identities and belongings. As Rorty points out, no one is ahistorical or acultural and therefore “everybody is ethnocentric when engaged in actual debate”. 50 The best way to overcome ethnocentric representations is to make them and the way they are constructed salient. Ethnocentrism in academic discourse is particularly problematic because research aims at being, if not entirely unbiased, at least critical towards its inherent subjectivity. Ethnocentrism as a form of bias is difficult to overcome if not addressed directly. Researchers should therefore aim at being critical towards their personal background as well as their philosophical, theoretical and methodological heritage. Cultural baggage has to be reflected upon at the individual level, that is, in the way personal choices affect the way researchers tackle a topic or analyze data, but also at the academic level, that is, the way they can be blind to the overall schools of thought to which they belong.

16 The concept of culture is regarded by many as ambiguous, difficult to conceptualize, and even non-operational by some scholars. In spite of its difficult reputation, culture remains a prominent object of study. Influences from critical theories and social constructionism make critical intercultural communication a relevant framework for examining representations and discursive constructions of culture. The premise that culture is constructed provides a solid ground to examine ways in which certain representations seem more powerful or natural than others. It also emphasizes the fact that we live in webs of cultural discourses – some invisible to us, depending on contexts – that are intertwined with other discourses. The main aim of using a critical intercultural communication framework is not to uncover what culture really is but to uncover what representations of culture come to appear real, and through which processes. Studies therefore primarily focus on the way we navigate these webs and make sense of them, the way they are constructed, interrelated and empowered. The main asset of this framework is its emphasis on problematizing culture, which reduces risks of taking it for granted. As such, critical intercultural communication also encourages researchers to be reflexive about their academic and cultural background. This can help one be aware of the extent to which one’s knowledge is situated, and therefore contributes to decreasing cultural bias in academic discourse. Generally, being aware of the representations we have of ourselves and others, as well as the reasons why these representations are constructed and conveyed, is central to developing understanding and tolerance towards others. This is especially relevant now that more and more people cross borders and that communication between cultures is faster, easier, and therefore increasingly common.

Bibliographie

Asante, Molefi Kete. “The Ideological Significance of Afrocentricity in Intercultural Communication.” Journal of Black Studies 14(1) (1983): 3–19.

—. Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change. Chicago: African American Images, 2003.

Barker, Chris. The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies . London: SAGE Publications, 2004. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446221280 .

Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism . London: Sage Publications, 1995.

Bredström, Anna. “Gendered Racism and the Production of Cultural Difference: Media Representations and Identity Work among ‘Immigrant Youth’ in Contemporary Sweden.” Nora: Nordic Journal of Women’s Studies 11(2) (2003): 78–88.

Brightman, Robert. “Forget Culture: Replacement, Transcendence, Relexification.” Cultural Anthropology 10(4) (1995): 509–546.

Brown, Malcolm D. “Comparative Analysis of Mainstream Discourses, Media Narratives and Representations of Islam in Britain and France Prior to 9/11.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 26(3) (2006): 297–312.

Browne, Anthony. “Denying Race in the American and French Context.” Wadabagei 10(1) (2009): 73–91.

Carvalho, Margarida. “The Construction of the Image of Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities in Two Portuguese Daily Newspapers.” Portuguese Journal of Social Science 9(2) (2010): 165–176.

Chang, Hui-Ching, Rich Holt, and Lina Luo. “Representing East Asians in Intercultural Communication Textbooks: A Select Review.” The Review of Communication 6(4) (2006): 312–328.

Curran, James and Myung-Jin Park. “Beyond Globalization Theory.” In De-Westernizing Media Studies , edited by James Curran and Myung-Jin Park, 3–18. London: Routledge, 2000.

Darling ‐ Wolf, Fabienne. “Sites of Attractiveness: Japanese Women and Westernized Representations of Feminine Beauty.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21(4) (2004): 325 – 345.

Dervin, Fred. “ Approches dialogiques et énonciatives de l’interculturel : pour une didactique des langues et de l’identité mouvante des sujets. ” Synergies Roumanie 4 (2009): 165–178.

—. “A Plea for Change in Research on Intercultural Discourses: A ‘Liquid’ Approach to the Study of the Acculturation of Chinese Students.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 6(1) (2011): 37 – 52.

Entman, Robert M. “Framing Bias: Media in the Distribution of Power.” Journal of Communication 57(1) (2007): 163 – 173.

Erickson, Keith V., Cathy A. Fleuriet, and Lawrence A. Hosman. “Prolific Publishing: Professional and Administrative Concerns.” Southern Journal of Communication 58(4) (1993): 328 – 338.

Gamson, William A., and Andre Modigliani. “Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 95(1) (1989): 1 – 37.

Gordon, Ronald D. “Beyond the Failures of Western Communication Theory.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 2(2) (2007): 89 – 107.

Hall, Stuart. “Introduction.” In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices , edited by Stuart Hall, 1 – 12. London: Sage Publications, 1997.

Halualani, Rona Tamiko, S. Lily Mendoza, and Jolanta A. Drzewiecka. “‘Critical’ Junctures in Intercultural Communication Studies: A Review.” The Review of Communication 9,(1) (2009): 17 – 35.

Jiwani, Yasmin. “War Talk Engendering Terror: Race, Gender and Representation in Canadian Print Media.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 1(1) (2005): 15 – 22.

Jørgensen, Marianne and Louise J. Phillips. Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method . London: Sage Publications, 2002.

Kramer, Michael W., Jon A. Hess, and Loren D. Reid. “Trends in Communication Scholarship: An Analysis of Four Representative NCA and ICA Journals over the Last 70 Years.” The Review of Communication 7(3) (2007): 229 – 240.

Kubota, Ryuko. “Critical Approaches to Intercultural Discourse and Communication.” In The Handbook of Intercultural Discourse and Communication , edited by Christina Bratt Paulston, Scott F. Kiesling, and Elizabeth S. Rangel, 90 – 109. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.

Ma, Eric Kit-Wai. “Rethinking Media Studies: The Case of China.” In De-westernizing Media Studies , edited by James Curran and Myung-Jin Park, 17 – 28. London: Routledge, 1994.

MacLure, Maggie. Discourses in Educational and Social Research . Buckingham: Open University Press, 2003.

Merskin, Debra L. Media, Minorities, and Meaning: A Critical Introduction . New York: Peter Lang, 2011.

Miike, Yoshitaka. “Non-Western Theory in Western Research? An Asiacentric Agenda for Asian Communication Studies.” The Review of Communication 6(1 – 2) (2006): 4 – 31.

—. “An Asiacentric Reflection on Eurocentric Bias in Communication Theory.” Communication Monographs 74(2) (2007): 272 – 278.

Olausson, Ulrika. “Global warming – Global Responsibility? Media Frames of Collective Action and Scientific Certainty.” Public Understanding of Science 18(4) (2009): 421 – 436.

Pietikäinen, Sari, and Hellen Kelly-Holmes. “The Dangers of Normativity – The Case of Minority Language Media.” In Dangerous Multilingualism: Northern Perspectives on Order, Purity and Normality , edited by Jan Blommaert et al ., 194–204. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Piller, Ingrid. Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011.

Poirier, Sylvie. “ La (dé)politisation de la culture ? Réflexions sur un concept pluriel.” Anthropologie et sociétés 28(1) (2004): 7–21.

Reid-Brinkley, Shanara Rose. “Ghetto Kids Gone Good: Race, Representation, and Authority in the Scripting of Inner-City Youths in the Urban Debate League.” Argumentation & Advocacy 49(2) (2012): 77 – 99.

Rigoni, Isabelle. “Intersectionality and Mediated Cultural Production in a Globalized Post-Colonial World.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35(5) (2012): 834 – 849.

Rivenburgh, Nancy K. “Media Framing of Complex Issues: The Case of Endangered Languages.” Public Understanding of Science 22(6) (2013): 704 – 717.

Rorty, Richard. “Solidarity or Objectivity.” In Knowledge and Inquiry. Readings in Epistemology , edited by K. Brad Wray, 422 – 437. Peterborough, ON, Canada: Broadview Press, 2002.

Sewell Jr, William H. “The Concept (s) of Culture.” In Practicing History: New Directions in Historical Writing After the Linguistic Turn , edited by Gabrielle M. Spiegel, 76 – 95. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Shi-Xu. A Cultural Approach to Discourse . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

—. “Reconstructing Eastern Paradigms of Discourse Studies.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 4(1) (2009): 29 – 48.

Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. Unthinking Eurocentrism. Multiculturalism and the Media . New York: Routledge, 1994.

Soares, Maria Andrea Dos Santos. “Look, Blackness in Brazil!: Disrupting the Grotesquerie of Racial Representation in Brazilian Visual Culture.” Cultural Dynamics 24(1) (2012): 75 – 101.

Storey, John. What is Cultural Studies? A Reader . London: Arnold, 1996.

Syed, Jawad. “The Representation of Cultural Diversity in Urdu-Language Newspapers in Pakistan: A Study of Jang and Nawaiwaqt.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 31(2) (2008): 317 – 347.

Verdoolaege, Annelies. “Media Representations of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and their Commitment to Reconciliation.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 17(2) (2005): 181 – 199.

Woodward, Kathryn ed., Identity and Difference . London: Sage Publications, 1997.

Note de fin

1 Debra L. Merskin, Media, Minorities, and Meaning: A Critical Introduction (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2011).

2 Robert M. Entman, “Framing Bias: Media in the Distribution of Power,” Journal of Communication 57, (2007).

3 Sari Pietikäinen and Helen Kelly-Holmes, “The Dangers of Normativity – The Case of Minority Language Media,” in Dangerous Multilingualism: Northern Perspectives on Order, Purity And Normality , ed. Jan Blommaert et al . (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 194–204.

4 Isabelle Rigoni, “Intersectionality and Mediated Cultural Production in A Globalized Post-Colonial World,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35 (2012).

5 Robert Brightman, “Forget Culture: Replacement, Transcendence, Relexification,” Cultural Anthropology 10, (1995).

6 William H. Sewell Jr, “The Concept(s) of Culture,” in Practicing History: New Directions in Historical Writing after the Linguistic Turn , ed. Gabrielle M. Spiegel (New York: Routledge, 2005), 76–95.

7 Ingrid Piller, Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 15.

9 Fred Dervin, “Approches dialogiques et énonciatives de l’interculturel : Pour une didactique des langues et de l’identité mouvante des sujets,” Synergies Roumanie 4 (2009): 166–167.

10 Fred Dervin, “A Plea for Change in Research on Intercultural Discourses: A “Liquid” Approach to the Study of the Acculturation of Chinese Students,” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 6 (March 2011): 38.

11 Sylvie Poirier, “La (dé)politisation de la culture? Réflexions sur un concept pluriel, ” Anthropologie et sociétés 28 (2004): 10 – 13.

12 Ryuko Kubota, “Critical Approaches to Intercultural Discourse and Communication,” in The Handbook of Intercultural Discourse and Communication , ed. Christina Bratt Paulston et al . (Malden, USA: John Wiley & Sons, 2012), 95.

13 Stuart Hall, “Introduction,” in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices , ed. Stuart Hall (London: Sage Publications, 1997), 3.

15 William A. Gamson and Andre Modigliani, “Media discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach,” American Journal of Sociology 95 (1989): 5.

16 Nancy K. Rivenburgh, “Media Framing of Complex Issues: The Case of Endangered Languages,” Public Understanding of Science 22 (2011): 706.

17 Ulrika Olausson, “Global warming – Global Responsibility? Media Frames of Collective Action and Scientific Certainty,” Public Understanding of Science 18 (2009): 423.

18 Marianne Jørgensen and Louise J. Phillips, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (London: Sage Publications, 2002), 175–177.

20 Keith V. Erickson, Cathy A. Fleuriet and Lawrence A. Hosman, “Prolific Publishing: Professional and Administrative Concerns,” The Southern Communication Journal 58 (Summer 1993): 328–329.

21 Michael W. Kramer, Jon A. Hess and Loren D. Reid, “Trends in Communication Scholarship: An Analysis of Four Representative NCA and ICA Journals over the Last 70 Years,” The Review of Communication 7 (July 2007): 229–230.

23 Maggie MacLure, Discourses in Educational and Social Research ( Buckingham: Open University Press, 2003), 175.

24 Ronald D. Gordon, “Beyond the Failures of Western Communication Theory,” Journal of Multicultural Discourse 2 (2007).

25 Molefi Kete Asante, “The Ideological Significance of Afrocentricity in Intercultural Communication,” Journal of Black Studies 14 (1983).

26 Yoshitaka Miike, “Non-Western Theory in Western research? An Asiacentric Agenda for Asian Communication Studies,” The Review of Communication 6, (2006).

27 Yoshitaka Miike, “An Asiacentric Reflection on Eurocentric Bias in Communication Theory,” Communication Monographs 74 (2007).

29 Shi-Xu, “Reconstructing Eastern Paradigms of Discourse Studies ,” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 4 (2009): 33.

30 Hui-Ching Chang, Rich Holt and Lina Luo, “Representing East Asians in Intercultural Communication Textbooks: A Select Review,” The Review of Communication 6 (2006): 325–326.

31 Molefi Kete Asante, Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change (Chicago: African American Images, 2003), 61.

32 Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (London: Routledge, 1994); James Curran and Myung-Jin Park, De-westernizing Media Studies (London: Routledge, 2000).

33 Eric Kit-Wai Ma, “Rethinking Media Studies: The Case of China,” in De-westernizing Media Studies , ed. James Curran et al . (London: Routledge, 1994), 32.

34 See for example Gordon, “Beyond the Failures of Western Communication Theory,” and Miike, “An Asiacentric Reflection on Eurocentric Bias in Communication Theory”.

35 Annelies Verdoolaege, “Media representations of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and their Commitment to Reconciliation,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 17 (2005).

36 Jawad Syed, “The Representation of Cultural Diversity in Urdu-Language Newspapers in Pakistan: A Study Of Jang And Nawaiwaqt,” Journal of South Asian Studies 31 (2008).

37 Yasmin Jiwani, “War Talk Engendering Terror: Race, Gender and Representation in Canadian Print Media,” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 1 (2005).

38 Fabienne Darling-Wolf, “Sites of Attractiveness: Japanese Women and Westernized Representations of Feminine Beauty,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21 (2004).

39 Maria Andrea Dos Santos Soares, “Look, Blackness in Brazil!: Disrupting the Grotesquerie of Racial Representation in Brazilian Visual Culture,” Cultural Dynamics 24 (2012).

40 Anna Bredström, “Gendered Racism and the Production Of Cultural Difference: Media Representations and Identity Work among ‘Immigrant Youth’ In Contemporary Sweden,” Nora: Nordic Journal of Women’s Studies 11 (2003).

41 Shanara Rose Reid-Brinkley, “Ghetto Kids Gone Good: Race, Representation, and Authority in the Scripting of Inner-City Youths in the Urban Debate League,” Argumentation & Advocacy 49 (2012).

44 Rona T. Halualani, S. Lily Mendoza and Jolanta A. Drzewiecka, “‘Critical’” Junctures in Intercultural Communication Studies: A Review,” The Review of Communication 9 (January 2009): 24.

47 Malcom D. Brown, “Comparative Analysis of Mainstream Discourses, Media Narratives and Representations of Islam in Britain and France Prior to 9/11,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 26 (2006).

48 Margarida Carvalho, “The Construction of the Image of Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities in Two Portuguese Daily Newspapers,” Portuguese Journal of Social Science 9 (2010).

Richard Rorty, “Solidarity or Objectivity,” in Knowledge and Inquiry. Readings in Epistemology , ed. K. Brad Wray (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2002), 432.

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique.

Mélodine Sommier , «  The Concept of Culture in Media Studies: A Critical Review of Academic Literature  » ,  InMedia [En ligne], 5 | 2014, mis en ligne le 17 octobre 2014 , consulté le 25 juin 2024 . URL  : http://journals.openedition.org/inmedia/768 ; DOI  : https://doi.org/10.4000/inmedia.768

Mélodine Sommier

Mélodine Sommier is a doctoral student in intercultural communication at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. She has particular interests in migration and acculturation issues as well as discourses of culture in the media.

Droits d’auteur

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-NC 4.0 . Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

• Index de mots-clés

Numéros en texte intégral

• 9.1. | 2021 Film and TV-induced Tourism: Some Contemporary Aspects and Perspectives
• 8.2. | 2020 What do Pictures Do? (In)visibilizing the Subaltern
• 8.1. | 2020 Ubiquitous Visuality
• 7.2. | 2019 Documentary and Entertainment
• 7.1. | 2018 Visualizing Consumer Culture
• 6 | 2017 Fields of Dreams and Messages
• 5 | 2014 Media and Diversity
• 4 | 2013 Exploring War Memories in American Documentaries
• 3 | 2013 Cinema and Marketing
• 2 | 2012 Performing/Representing Male Bonds
• 1 | 2012 Global Film and Television Industries Today

Tous les numéros

Appels à contribution.

• Appels en cours
• Appels clos
• Editor's Statement
• Editorial Board
• Contents and Submission Guidelines
• International Scientific Board
• International Correspondents

Informations

• Politiques de publication

Suivez-nous

Lettres d’information

• La Lettre d’OpenEdition

Affiliations/partenaires

ISSN électronique 2259-4728

Voir la notice dans le catalogue OpenEdition  

Plan du site  – Flux de syndication

Politique de confidentialité  – Gestion des cookies  – Signaler un problème

Nous adhérons à OpenEdition Journals  – Édité avec Lodel  – Accès réservé

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search

MINI REVIEW article

Cross-cultural communication on social media: review from the perspective of cultural psychology and neuroscience.

• 1 School of International Economics and Management, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, China
• 2 School of Economics, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, China
• 3 Institute of the Americas, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Introduction: In recent years, with the popularity of many social media platforms worldwide, the role of “virtual social network platforms” in the field of cross-cultural communication has become increasingly important. Scholars in psychology and neuroscience, and cross-disciplines, are attracted to research on the motivation, mechanisms, and effects of communication on social media across cultures.

Methods and Analysis: This paper collects the co-citation of keywords in “cultural psychology,” “cross-culture communication,” “neuroscience,” and “social media” from the database of web of science and analyzes the hotspots of the literature in word cloud.

Results: Based on our inclusion criteria, 85 relevant studies were extracted from a database of 842 papers. There were 44 articles on cultural communication on social media, of which 26 were from the perspective of psychology and five from the perspective of neuroscience. There are 27 articles that focus on the integration of psychology and neuroscience, but only a few are related to cross-cultural communication on social media.

Conclusion: Scholars have mainly studied the reasons and implications of cultural communication on social media from the perspectives of cultural psychology and neuroscience separately. Keywords “culture” and “social media” generate more links in the hot map, and a large number of keywords of cultural psychology and neuroscience also gather in the hot map, which reflects the trend of integration in academic research. While cultural characteristics have changed with the development of new media and virtual communities, more research is needed to integrate the disciplines of culture, psychology, and neuroscience.

Introduction

Cross-cultural communication refers to communication and interaction among different cultures, involving information dissemination and interpersonal communication as well as the flow, sharing, infiltration, and transfer of various cultural elements in the world ( Carey, 2009 ; Del Giudice et al., 2016 ). With more than half of the world’s population using social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and WeChat, communication across culture has become smoother and more frequently ( Boamah, 2018 ; Chin et al., 2021 ). Subsequently, cultural exchanges, collisions, conflicts, and integration among various nationalities, races, and countries on these platforms have become obvious, and related research articles by scholars in different disciplines have increased ( Papa et al., 2020 ). In traditional cross-cultural research, experts often divide different cultures based on their boundaries, such as countries, races, languages, and so on. However, with the development of digitalization, new cultural relationships have been formed both within and outside geopolitical boundaries, and new understanding and theories are needed to explain the motivation, process, and implications of cross-cultural communications in the digital era ( Chin et al., 2020 ). Research in this field is an emerging area, and scholars are studying from different perspectives ( Xu et al., 2016 ; Santoro et al., 2021 ). Cultural psychology and neuroscience are two main base theories, and they show a trend of integration, such as cultural neuroscience and cultural neuropsychology. In this case, it is important to highlight the important achievements of this field and identify potential research gaps to provide potential directions for further research. This review aims to provide an overview of cross-cultural communication research from the perspective of cultural psychology and neuroscience and identify the integrating trend and potential directions.

Method and Source

We used the Web of Science (WoS) database to select relevant articles published between January 2010 and December 2021. The following inclusion criteria were used:

1. The document types should be articles rather than proceedings papers or book reviews. And the articles should be included in the Web of Science Core Collection.

2. When searching for articles, the topic should include at least two keywords: “cultural psychology,” “neuroscience,” “social media.”

3. Articles must be published after 2010 to ensure the content of the literature is forward.

4. This study should investigate the integration of cultural psychology and neuroscience or explore cultural issues in social media from the perspective of cultural psychology or neuroscience. The content could be cultural conflict and integration on social platforms, explanations of cultural conflict and integration on social platforms, or integration of neuroscience and cultural psychology.

Based on the above inclusion criteria, 85 relevant studies were searched, analyzed, and evaluated. These documents were identified according to the procedure illustrated in Figure 1 . The following combinations of keywords were used: (cultural psychology AND social media), (neuroscience AND social media), (cultural psychology AND neuroscience), [social media AND (cross-cultural communication OR cultural conflict OR cultural integration)], and (neuroscience, cultural psychology, and cross-cultural). The number of studies was further reduced by limiting the document type and time range. Consequently, we obtained an initial pool of 544 articles. To ensure the relevance of the literature in the initial pool, we reviewed the titles and abstracts of these articles. Articles targeting pure neuroscience and information technology were excluded and 72 articles were retained. We selected 65 articles after reviewing the full text. For most papers excluded from the initial pool, cultural issues on social media were not the main topic but digital media or culture itself. The most typical example of irrelevant articles was that culture or cultural psychology was only briefly mentioned in the abstracts. Moreover, 20 additional relevant articles were identified via full-text review of citations and first author searches. Using the above steps, 85 articles were selected for the literature review.

Figure 1 . Schematic representation of literature search and selection procedure.

Overview of Selected Articles

Here, frequency refers to the percentage of occurrences of an item in the total number of studies. The keywords “acculturation,” “cultural evolution” occurred frequently together with “social media,” “culture,” and “neuroscience.” This is as expected because psychologists and economists have long known that human decision-making is influenced by the behavior of others and that public information could improve acculturation and lead to cultural evolution. The popularity of social media clearly gives public information an opportunity to spread widely, which has caused an increase in research on the cross-cultural communication of social media. In the last decade, the link between cultural issues and social media research has grown. This is reflected in the knowledge graph ( Figure 2 ). Keywords “culture” and “social media” generate lots of links with “social media” and “mass media,” which is shown in blue node groups and white node groups. “Social media” and “cultural globalization,” “biculturalism,” “acculturation” also form node convergences. The integration of neuroscience and cultural psychology is also represented in Figure 2 as an orange node group. These integration trends can also be verified in the time dimension. As time passes, keyword frequencies have changed from a single component of “social media” or “culture” to a multi-component of “social media,” “culture,” “acculturation,” “neuroscience,” “cultural evolution.” The frequency of all keywords is presented through the overall word cloud.

Figure 2 . Keywords knowledge graph.

We identified three different research topics from the 85 selected articles: cross-cultural communication on social platforms, explanation of cultural conflict and integration on social platforms, and the integration of neuroscience and cultural psychology. Existing literature has analyzed and studied the interaction between cross-cultural users, enterprises, and countries on social media. For instance, some scholars have found that social media play a significant role in negotiating and managing the identity of transient migrants relating to the home and host culture during the acculturation process ( Cleveland, 2016 ; Yau et al., 2019 ). Social media usage by expatriates also promotes cultural identity and creativity ( Hu et al., 2020 ). In addition to the discussion of existing phenomena, many articles have discussed the causes of social media cultural transmission. A new research field, cultural neuroscience, indicates the integration of neuroscience and cultural psychology. These issues are reviewed in the following sections.

There were 44 articles on cultural communication on social media, which accounted for 51.76% of the 85 selected papers. Among these, there were 26 studies on cultural communication on social media from the perspective of psychology, five articles from the perspective of neurology, four articles about enterprises using social media for cross-cultural operations, and nine articles about how governments use social media for cross-cultural communication. Although there are 27 articles that discuss the trend of integration of psychology and neuroscience, few use integrated methods to analyze the behavior of cross-cultural communication.

From Perspective of Cultural Psychology

Cultural psychology researchers have focused on why information is shared. Some scholars have divided the reasons into individual and network levels ( Wang et al., 2021 ). Studies have explored information sharing within a specific domain, such as health information and news dissemination ( Hodgson, 2018 ; Li et al., 2018 ; Wang and Chin, 2020 ). Cultural psychology provides a rich explanation for the factors that influence cultural communication. Cultural background affects the process of cultural communication, such as self-construal, which the host country may alter it ( Huang and Park, 2013 ; Thomas et al., 2019 ). This may influence communication behaviors, such as people’s intention to use social media applications, attitudes toward social capital, social media commerce, and sharing behavior itself ( Chu and Choi, 2010 ; Han and Kim, 2018 ; Li et al., 2018 ).

Factors other than culture cannot be ignored: public broadcast firms and fans promote communication, controversial comments may draw more attention, the sociality of the social media capsule expands the scope of information communication, and how news is portrayed has changed ( Meza and Park, 2014 ; Jin and Yoon, 2016 ; Hodgson, 2018 ). Demographic factors, such as sex and age, are not ineffective ( Xu et al., 2015 ). The experiential aspects have also been noted ( Wang et al., 2021 ). Scholars have also noted the importance of cultural intelligence ( Hu et al., 2017 ).

The topic that researchers are most interested in is the relationship between society and individuals. Many studies have focused on the influence of collectivist and individualist cultures, such as social media users’ activity differences, attentional tendencies, and self-concept ( Chu and Choi, 2010 ; Thomas et al., 2019 ). There are some other interesting topics, such as the relationship among multicultural experiences, cultural intelligence, and creativity, the evaluation of the validity of the two measures, the changing status of crucial elements in the social system, and the government effect in risk communication ( Hu et al., 2017 ; Ji and Bates, 2020 ). Extending to the practical level, mobile device application usability and social media commerce were evaluated ( Hoehle et al., 2015 ; Han and Kim, 2018 ).

At the methodological level, researchers have bridged the gap between reality and online behaviors, and the feasibility of social media dataset analysis has been proven ( Huang and Park, 2013 ; Thomas et al., 2019 ). Some new concepts have been examined and some models have been developed ( Hoehle et al., 2015 ; Li et al., 2018 ). The most common method is to quantify questionnaire information ( Chu and Choi, 2010 ; Hu et al., 2017 ; Han and Kim, 2018 ; Li et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2021 ). The online survey accounted for a large proportion of respondents. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is used to evaluate other measures ( Ji and Bates, 2020 ). Researchers are particularly interested in the metric approach ( Meza and Park, 2014 ). Some combine other methods, such as profile and social network analyses ( Xu et al., 2015 ). Scholars have used qualitative research to obtain detailed feedback from respondents ( Jin and Yoon, 2016 ; Hodgson, 2018 ). Content analysis was also used ( Yang and Xu, 2018 ).

From Perspective of Neuroscience

Neuroscientific explanations focus on understanding the mechanisms of cultural conflict and integration. Neuroscience researchers are concerned about the effects of the brain on cultural communication and the possible consequences of cultural communication on human behavior and rely on the study of the brain as a tool. Neuroscience can be used to study how people behave in reality. Given the similarity between offline and online behaviors, neuroscience can study online behaviors and link them to cultural communication ( Meshi et al., 2015 ). Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, both inside and outside the laboratory, have become the subject of neuroscience studies. One example of long-term studies outside the laboratory is the study of natural Facebook behavior that was recorded for weeks ( Montag et al., 2017 ).

Motivation research is a well-documented topic. The reason for using social media, motivation to share information, and neural factors related to sharing behavior have been discussed ( Fischer et al., 2018 ). Many scholars have connected motivation with social life based on the inseparable relationship between online behaviors and social life. Some academics hope to provide predictions of real life, such as forecasting marketing results, while some warned of the risks, in which tremendous attention has been paid to the situation of adolescents ( Motoki et al., 2020 ). They are susceptible to acceptance and rejection ( Crone and Konijn, 2018 ). Behavioral addiction and peer influence in the context of risky behaviors also lead to public concern ( Meshi et al., 2015 ; Sherman et al., 2018 ).

On a practical level, neuroscience studies have made predictions possible through the findings of activity in brain regions linked to mentalizing ( Motoki et al., 2020 ). Judgments of social behavior are also warranted, and peer endorsement is a consideration ( Sherman et al., 2018 ). Thus, the dangers of cultural communication can be alleviated.

At the methodological level, the feasibility of linking directly recorded variables to neuroscientific data has been proven, which provides a methodological basis for further studies linking neuroscience and cultural communication ( Montag et al., 2017 ). Neuroscience researchers have shown a preference for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods, which include functional and structural MRI scans ( Montag et al., 2017 ; Sherman et al., 2018 ). Although some scholars have pointed out the shortcomings of MRI research and attempted to use the electroencephalographic (EEG) method, most scholars still use MRI and combine it with other methods, such as neuroimaging ( Motoki et al., 2020 ). Despite the similarities in the methods used, there were differences in the scanned areas. Some researchers scan multiple regions, such as the ventral striatum ( VS ) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), while others focus on analyzing the content of a single region, such as the nucleus accumbens (NAcc; Baek et al., 2017 ). Related characteristics have been discussed, such as theta amplitudes that affect information sharing ( Fischer et al., 2018 ). Some inquire whether the different properties of brain regions can lead to different results ( Montag et al., 2017 ).

Integration of Neuroscience and Cultural Psychology

Of the 85 papers we selected, 27 discussed the integrated development of psychology and neuroscience, and the number of articles in this discipline increased. Cultural psychology has made remarkable progress in identifying various cultural traits that can influence human psychology and behavior on social media. Cultural neuroscience as a cross-subject of the rise in recent years, through the integration of psychology, anthropology, genetics, neuroscience, and other disciplines, explains the interaction of culture and the human brain, and how they jointly affect the neural mechanism of cognitive function. At an early stage, scholars presented the interactive dynamic evolutionary relationship between the brain and culture from multiple perspectives ( Moffittet et al., 2006 ). However, with technological improvements in brain imaging, it is possible to solve and explore interactions between the human brain, psychology, and cultural networks using an empirical approach.

Cultural characteristics have dramatically changed during the last half-century with the development of new media and new virtual ways of communication ( Kotik-Friedgut and Ardila, 2019 ). Existing research has shown that the neural resources of the brain are always adapted to the ever-increasing complexity and scale of social interaction to ensure that individuals are not marginalized by society ( Dunbar and Shultz, 2007 ). The interaction between biological evolution and cultural inheritance is a process full of unknowns and variables. Therefore, research on the relationships between culture, psychology, and neuroscience will progress together.

At the methodological level, communication on social media by users from different backgrounds provides a new research environment and massive data for cross-disciplinary research. Big data on social media and AI technology can analyze not only the reactions, emotions, and expressions of an individual but also the relevant information of an ethnic group or a cultural group. A number of neurological and psychological studies are beginning to leverage AI and social media data, and the two disciplines are intertwined with each other ( Pang, 2020 ; Wang et al., 2021 ). This quantitative analysis also helps enterprises and government departments to understand and affect cultural conflicts and integration ( Bond and Goldstein, 2015 ).

Different Schools of Thoughts

Social media provides platforms for communication and facilitates communication across cultures; however, the specific content exchanged is considered from the perspective of cultural proximity. Although some scholars think that social media can significantly promote mutual acceptance and understanding across cultures, others have realized that digital platforms actually strengthen the recognition and identity of their respective cultures ( Hopkins, 2009 ). To study the motivations, results, and implications of cross-cultural communication in virtual communities and conduct an empirical analysis, psychologists and neuroscientists provide their grounds and explanations.

Current Research Gaps

Although there are many articles discussing the trend of integration of psychology and neuroscience, few of them use integrated methods to analyze the behavior and implications of cross-cultural communication, mainly on cultural evolution and social effects. There are both practical and theoretical needs to be addressed to promote deep integration. For example, both private and public departments urgently need to learn scientific strategies to avoid cultural conflicts and promote integration. Further, a systematic and legal theory is also needed for scholars to conduct research in the sensitive field, which may be related to privacy protection and related issues.

Potential Future Development

For the research object, the classification of culture in emerging research is general, while with the development of big data methods on social media, cross-cultural communication among more detailed groups will be a potential direction. For the research framework, although cultural neuroscience is already a multidisciplinary topic, the ternary interaction among the brain, psychology, and culture in a virtual community will be very important. For the research method, brain imaging technology-related data and social media data may cause issues, such as privacy protection, personal security, informed consent, and individual autonomy. These legal and ethical issues require special attention in the development process of future research.

Cross-cultural communication research in the digital era not only needs to respond to urgent practical needs to provide scientific strategies to solve cultural differences and cultural conflicts, but also to promote the emergence of more vigorous theoretical frameworks and methods. Existing articles have mainly studied the reasons and implications of cultural communication on social media from the perspectives of cultural psychology and neuroscience separately. The CiteSpace-based hot topic map also shows the clustering trend of keywords related to cultural psychology and neuroscience, reflecting the intersection of the two fields. At the same time, there are many links between the two keyword nodes of “culture” and “social media,” which indicates that there is no lack of studies on cultural communication on social media from the perspective of cultural psychology. While cultural characteristics have changed with the development of new media and big data and related technologies have improved significantly, more research is needed to integrate the disciplines of culture, psychology, and neuroscience both in theory and methods.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

This paper was funded by the Beijing Social Science Fund, China (Project No. 21JCC060).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Baek, E. C., Scholz, C., O’Donnell, M. B., and Falk, E. B. (2017). The value of sharing information: a neural account of information transmission. Psychol. Sci. 28, 851–861. doi: 10.1177/0956797617695073

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Boamah, E. (2018). Information culture of Ghanaian immigrants living in New Zealand. Libr. Rev. 67, 585–606. doi: 10.1108/GKMC-07-2018-0065

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Bond, P., and Goldstein, I. (2015). Government intervention and information aggregation by prices. J. Finance 70, 2777–2812. doi: 10.1111/jofi.12303

Carey, J. W. (2009). Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society. Routledge.

Google Scholar

Chin, T., Meng, J., Wang, S., Shi, Y., and Zhang, J. (2021). Cross-cultural metacognition as a prior for humanitarian knowledge: when cultures collide in global health emergencies, J. Knowl. Manag. doi: 10.1108/JKM-10-2020-0787 [Epub ahead-of-print]

Chin, T., Wang, S., and Rowley, C. (2020). Polychronic knowledge creation in cross-border business models: a sea-like heuristic metaphor. J. Knowl. Manag. doi: 10.1108/JKM-04-2020-0244 [Epub ahead-of-print]

Chu, S.-C., and Choi, S. M. (2010). Social capital and self-presentation on social networking sites: a comparative study of Chinese and American young generations. Chin. J. Commun. 3, 402–420. doi: 10.1080/17544750.2010.516575

Cleveland, D. J. (2016). Brand personality and organization-public relationships: impacting dimensions by choosing a temperament for communication.

Crone, E. A. M., and Konijn, E. A. (2018). Media use and brain development during adolescence. Nat. Commun. 9:588. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03126-x

Del Giudice, M., Nicotra, M., Romano, M., and Schillaci, C. E. (2016). Entrepreneurial performance of principal investigators and country culture: relations and influences. J. Technol. Transfer. 42, 320–337.

Dunbar, R. I., and Shultz, S. (2007). Evolution in the social brain. Science 317, 1344–1347. doi: 10.1126/science.1145463

Fischer, N. L., Peres, R., and Fiorani, M. (2018). Frontal alpha asymmetry and theta oscillations associated with information sharing intention. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 12:166. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00166

Han, M. C., and Kim, Y. (2018). How culture and friends affect acceptance of social media commerce and purchase intentions: a comparative study of consumers in the U.S. and China. J. Int. Consum. Mark. 30, 326–335. doi: 10.1080/08961530.2018.1466226

Hodgson, P. (2018). “Global learners’ behavior on news in social media platforms through a MOOC,” in New Media for Educational Change. Educational Communications and Technology Yearbook. eds. L. Deng, W. Ma, and C. Fong (Singapore: Springer), 141–148.

Hoehle, H., Zhang, X., and Venkatesh, V. (2015). An espoused cultural perspective to understand continued intention to use mobile applications: a four-country study of mobile social media application usability. Eur. J. Inf. Syst. 24, 337–359. doi: 10.1057/ejis.2014.43

Hopkins, L. (2009). Media and migration: a review of the field. Australia and New Zealand Communication Association.

Hu, S., Jibao, G., Liu, H., and Huang, Q. (2017). The moderating role of social media usage in the relationship among multicultural experiences, cultural intelligence, and individual creativity. Inf. Technol. People 30, 265–281. doi: 10.1108/ITP-04-2016-0099

Hu, S., Liu, H., Zhang, S., and Wang, G. (2020). Proactive personality and cross-cultural adjustment: roles of social media usage and cultural intelligence. Int. J. Intercult. Relat. 74, 42–57. doi: 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2019.10.002

Huang, C.-M., and Park, D. (2013). Cultural influences on Facebook photographs. Int. J. Psychol. 48, 334–343. doi: 10.1080/00207594.2011.649285

Ji, Y., and Bates, B. R. (2020). Measuring intercultural/international outgroup favoritism: comparing two measures of cultural cringe. Asian J. Commun. 30, 141–154. doi: 10.1080/01292986.2020.1738511

Jin, D. Y., and Yoon, K. (2016). The social mediascape of transnational Korean pop culture: Hallyu 2.0 as spreadable media practice. New Media Soc. 18, 1277–1292. doi: 10.1177/1461444814554895

Kotik-Friedgut, B., and Ardila, A. (2019). A.r. luria’s cultural neuropsychology in the 21st century. Cult. Psychol. 26, 274–286. doi: 10.1177/1354067X19861053

Li, Y., Wang, X., Lin, X., and Hajli, M. (2018). Seeking and sharing health information on social media: a net valence model and cross-cultural comparison. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 126, 28–40. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2016.07.021

Meshi, D., Tamir, D. I., and Heekeren, H. R. (2015). The emerging neuroscience of social media. Trends Cogn. Sci. 19, 771–782. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.09.004

Meza, V. X., and Park, H. W. (2014). Globalization of cultural products: a webometric analysis of Kpop in Spanish-speaking countries. Qual. Quant. 49, 1345–1360. doi: 10.1007/s11135-014-0047-2

Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., and Rutter, M. (2006). Measured gene-environment interactions in psychopathology: concepts, research strategies, and implications for research, intervention, and public understanding of genetics. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 1, 5–27. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00002.x

Montag, C., Markowetz, A., Blaszkiewicz, K., Andone, I., Lachmann, B., Sariyska, R., et al. (2017). Facebook usage on smartphones and gray matter volume of the nucleus Accumbens. Behav. Brain Res. 329, 221–228. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2017.04.035

Motoki, K., Suzuki, S., Kawashima, R., and Sugiura, M. (2020). A combination of self-reported data and social-related neural measures forecasts viral marketing success on social media. J. Interact. Mark. 52, 99–117. doi: 10.1016/j.intmar.2020.06.003

Pang, H. (2020). Is active social media involvement associated with cross-culture adaption and academic integration among boundary-crossing students? Int. J. Intercult. Relat. 79, 71–81.

Papa, A., Chierici, R., Ballestra, L. V., Meissner, D., and Orhan, M. A. (2020). Harvesting reflective knowledge exchange for inbound open innovation in complex collaborative networks: an empirical verification in Europe. J. Knowl. Manag. doi: 10.1108/JKM-04-2020-0300 [Epub ahead of print]

Santoro, G., Mazzoleni, A., Quaglia, R., and Solima, L. (2021). Does age matter? The impact of SMEs age on the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategy and internationalization. J. Bus. Res. 128, 779–787. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.05.021

Sherman, L. E., Greenfield, P. M., Hernandez, L. M., and Dapretto, M. (2018). Peer influence via Instagram: effects on brain and behavior in adolescence and young adulthood. Child Dev. 89, 37–47. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12838

Thomas, J., Al-Shehhi, A., Al-Ameri, M., and Grey, I. (2019). We tweet Arabic; I tweet English: self-concept, language and social media. Heliyon 5:E02087. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02087

Wang, S., and Chin, T. (2020). A stratified system of knowledge and knowledge icebergs in cross-cultural business models: synthesizing ontological and epistemological views. J. Int. Manag. 26:100780. doi: 10.1016/j.intman.2020.100780

Wang, X., Riaz, M., Haider, S., Alam, K., Sherani,, and Yang, M. (2021). Information sharing on social media by multicultural individuals: experiential, motivational, and network factors. J. Glob. Inf. Manag. 29, 1–24. doi: 10.4018/JGIM.20211101.oa22

Xu, W. W., Park, J. Y., and Park, H. W. (2015). The networked cultural diffusion of Korean wave. Online Inf. Rev. 39, 43–60. doi: 10.1108/OIR-07-2014-0160

Xu, W. W., Park, J.-y., and Park, H. W. (2016). Longitudinal dynamics of the cultural diffusion of Kpop on YouTube. Qual. Quant. 51, 1859–1875. doi: 10.1007/s11135-016-0371-9

Yang, W., and Xu, Q. (2018). “A comparative study of the use of media by Chinese and American governments in risk communication — the use of social media.” 2018 International Joint Conference on Information, Media and Engineering (ICIME).

Yau, A., Marder, B., and O’Donohoe, S. (2019). The role of social media in negotiating identity during the process of acculturation. Inf. Technol. People. [Epub ahead-of-print].

Keywords: cross-culture communication, social media, cultural psychology, neuroscience, cultural neuropsychology, social neuroscience

Citation: Yuna D, Xiaokun L, Jianing L and Lu H (2022) Cross-Cultural Communication on Social Media: Review From the Perspective of Cultural Psychology and Neuroscience. Front. Psychol . 13:858900. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.858900

Received: 20 January 2022; Accepted: 14 February 2022; Published: 08 March 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Yuna, Xiaokun, Jianing and Lu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Han Lu, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.