scholarly journals Illusion vs. Disillusion: Chinese Viewers’ Articulation of “House of Cards”

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-128
Author(s):  
Zhaoxi (Josie) Liu

This study explores how Chinese viewers articulate the meaning of the Netflix series “House of Cards” through analyzing viewer comments posted on Sohu Video, which streamed the show in China. A qualitative textual analysis of the comments reveals that the Sohu viewers turned the commenting of the show into articulations of democracy and China’s political conditions. In their articulation, some endorsed American democracy as a superb political system, while others resented it as being dark and corrupt, similar to the one in China. Still other viewers made a connection between “Cards” with China’s lack of freedom of speech. These connections were made under certain social conditions, including China’s internet providing a space for political discourse, tensions among different social forces and conflicting meaning systems existing in today’s China, and Chinese people’s increasing consumption of foreign media content and assumptions. Analyzing a particular case of transnational communication, this study demonstrates how the audience can make meaning of a foreign media product by connecting with their own social context, and how such articulations can be plural and multifaceted.

Ideology is a mystification, a mythologizing of reality. The purpose of ideology is to formulate a simple image of reality that will be clear to the average person; to develop an arsenal of techniques and methodologies for the mystification of the socio-political system. Ideology is related to the social structure, economic system of production and politics. Each ideology determines the forms of government, economic systems, social guarantees. The study of ideology is very important in political discourse, ideology influences the strategies of society. Ideology is always an escape from reality. Ideology as well as fiction is very attractive, the real world is imperfect, and ideology offers a perfect world. In favorable political conditions (authoritarianism, totalitarianism), ideology becomes a privileged and hidden form of government, a powerful way of manipulating consciousness in conditions of poverty, despair, social crisis. Ideology forms a vector on which the understanding of important political concepts is built at different ends: rights and freedoms, legality, economy, power, civic institutions, and so on. The action of ideology is determined, on the one hand, by irrational attitudes, on the other - by the context of communication and socio-cultural features of society. In contrast to highly specialized disciplines, philosophy is able to reach a universal level of generalization, which allows us to look at ideology as a systemic, holistic phenomenon. The study of ideology is not defined by political parties and ideals, it also covers the economy, education, health care, army, etc., but still, most ideology is manifested in the political space, where in addition to left-right ideology, in modern realities is gaining momentum populist ideology (populism). the problem of finding a new strategy for the development of the state. Democratic institutions, ways of overcoming corruption and raising the level of education of citizens, formation of critical thinking can overcome rigid ideology.


Author(s):  
Ross McKibbin

This book is an examination of Britain as a democratic society; what it means to describe it as such; and how we can attempt such an examination. The book does this via a number of ‘case-studies’ which approach the subject in different ways: J.M. Keynes and his analysis of British social structures; the political career of Harold Nicolson and his understanding of democratic politics; the novels of A.J. Cronin, especially The Citadel, and what they tell us about the definition of democracy in the interwar years. The book also investigates the evolution of the British party political system until the present day and attempts to suggest why it has become so apparently unstable. There are also two chapters on sport as representative of the British social system as a whole as well as the ways in which the British influenced the sporting systems of other countries. The book has a marked comparative theme, including one chapter which compares British and Australian political cultures and which shows British democracy in a somewhat different light from the one usually shone on it. The concluding chapter brings together the overall argument.


1968 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-269
Author(s):  
André Vachet

Division of power and social integrationExplanation of some of the recent challenges to western democracy may be found in a re-examination of Montesquieu's thought. Here we find the theory of the separation of power to be far more complex than is implied in the simple divisions of legislature, executive, and judiciary. For Montesquieu, the separation of power is more a social division than a political or juridical one. He contemplated returning the organs of political power to various social forces, e.g. monarchy, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie, and that then the self-assertion of forces would be restrained by the resistance of other social groups. The realization of its goals would require every important social group to integrate itself both to society and to the state and to seek its goals through realization of the general good.Since Montesquieu's time, political structures would seem to have been very little changed even though social structures have been greatly altered by the rise of economic powers. Political institutions have been losing touch with the vital forces of society and these have had to find other channels of expression. The personalization of power, the rise of the executive, violence, and increasing paternalism may be viewed as phenomena of compensation by which attempts are being made to bridge the gap between the structures of political power and those of a society which has been restructured.Revigoration of parliamentary democracy would seem to require that all vital social forces be reintegrated into the political system and be given meaningful channels of political expression. Failure to make such changes opens the way to identification of the political powers with technocracy and the increasing general use of violence in the resolution of social problems.


1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reginald Cline-Cole

The existence of competing or contradictory orthodoxies in Nigerian forestry is a long recognised, if little explored research problem. Far from being the product of a monolithic culture, regional forestry, or, more inclusively agrosilvipastoral landscapes and fuelscapes, are social products which have been described as often construed in a plurality of ways and invested with diverse if not antithetical meanings by different individuals and social groups. They represent sites of contestation and cooperation for human agents and state agencies engaged in constructing, maintaining and modifying woodfuel and other forestry-related discourses. The author juxtaposes several such contests, their meanings, and the discourses of which they are a part. He does so with particular reference to perceived linkages between fuelwood use and production, on the one hand, and vegetation and degradation and other environmental change, on the other. The geographical focus is dryland Nigeria, in particular its regional forestry spaces and landscapes. In the conceptual framework empirical theorisation is combined with discourse and landscape analyses. The author concludes that the juxtaposition of forestry discourses, which he attempts, creates spaces for different landscape visions to be seen as virtual realities, which are shaped and sustained by social forces and (technologies of) representation.


Author(s):  
Nataliya M. Velikaya ◽  
◽  
Irina S. Shushpanova ◽  
Vladimir A. Afanas’ev ◽  
◽  
...  

The article analyzes the socio-political views of Russian citizens about the future of the Russian state and Russian society. Analyzing the dynamic data series of the monitoring “How do you Live, Russia?” and its last wave of November–December 2020, the authors consider the changes in mass consciousness in terms of assessing the effectiveness of the government’s efforts to ensure the most important rights, freedoms and norms of the social state and the democratic regime, which manifests itself in the attitude to the existing political system and affects the level of trust in the government, where the executive power traditionally leads. Identifying the expectations of Russian citizens about the possible development of the country in the political, economic and cultural spheres, the authors conclude that the level of socio-political optimism allows one to describe the existing political system as fairly stable, on the one hand, with a high level of legitimation, on the other with a high level of alienation of citizens from power


Author(s):  
Pavel S. Rakhmanov

The problems of changing the position of the Ministry of Internal Affairs after the events of February–March 1917 in the Tambov Governorate are investigated. We study the state policy, the attitude of local authorities and the public to representatives of this socio-professional group, individual features of the adaptation of its representatives to new socio-political conditions. The relevance of the research is due to both significant gaps in the historiography of the issue, especially at the regional level of the study of the problem, and a certain consonance with the modern problems of Russian law enforcement agencies in the context of transformations. It is concluded that representatives of the broad popular strata and the soldier masses treated former em-ployees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs extremely negatively, which was especially pronounced in the period that followed the revolutionary events of February 1917. However, the leadership of both the governorate as a whole and in individual counties pursued an ambivalent policy towards representatives of this social and professional group. On the one hand, the tasks were set for the maximum removal of former law enforcement officers from participation in public and political life, and on the other, their professional skills were in demand in the newly created militia bodies.


2018 ◽  
pp. 142-171
Author(s):  
Devin Caughey

This chapter conducts a systematic statistical analysis of congressional representation in the one-party South. Overall, the evidence presented in the previous chapters suggests a political system that was responsive not to a narrow elite only, but to a broad swath of the white public. As such, this chapter examines the responsiveness of Southern members of Congress (MCs) to their white constituents, both cross-sectionally and over time, and compares them to non-Southern MCs. It also shows that Southern MCs responded to the income of the median voter, and examines their ideological bias relative to non-Southern MCs. The chapter then highlights the ways that congressional representation did differ across regions, and discusses how these findings help resolve the “puzzle” of Southern conservatism. In marked contrast to the conventional wisdom, this chapter not only shows that Southern MCs were responsive to their white constituents, but also finds little indication that congressional responsiveness was weaker in the one-party South than in the two-party North, though the mechanisms and character of responsiveness did differ between regions.


1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-13
Author(s):  
Andrzej Zoll

The changes brought about in Poland and elsewhere in Europe by the fall of Communism have given rise to hopes for the establishment of a political system differing from the one which had been the fate of these countries. In place of totalitarianism, a new political system is to be created based on the democratic principles of a state under the rule of law. The transformation from totalitarianism to democracy is a process which has not yet been completed in Poland and still requires many efforts to be made before this goal may be achieved. One may also enumerate various pitfalls jeopardising this process even now. The dangers cannot be avoided if their sources and nature are not identified. Attempts to pervert the law and the political system may only be counteracted by legal means if the system based on the abuse of the law has not yet succeeded in establishing itself. Resistance by means of the law only has any real chance of success provided it is directed against attempts to set up a totalitarian system. Once the powers which are hostile to the state bound by the rule of law take over the institutions of the state, such resistance is doomed to failure.


2020 ◽  
pp. 001872672091596
Author(s):  
Young-Chul Jeong ◽  
Huseyin Leblebici ◽  
Ohjin Kwon

How do macro social forces shape the career profiles of organizational leaders? The aim of the article is to answer this question by examining how institutional and ecological forces have influenced the careers of law school deans in the US from the late 19th century to the present. Specifically, we focus on the coexistence of two social forces—professionalization and the diversity of an organizational population. On the one hand, we view professionalization as a converging institutional force that promotes homogeneity among leader career profiles. The diversity of an organizational population, on the other hand, is viewed as a diverging ecological force that increases heterogeneity among leader career profiles. We show how these two opposing forces have left different imprints on leader career profiles with a unique career data of 1396 deans in American law schools from 1894 to 2009. We utilize optimal matching analysis to assess the degree of similarity (or dissimilarity) among deans’ career sequences and test our hypotheses. This study contributes to our understanding of the link between macro social transformations and leader career profiles.


Author(s):  
Pedro Francisco Ramos Josa

El presente artículo tiene por objeto analizar la finalidad y utilidad de la institución del Colegio Electoral en el sistema político de Estados Unidos. Para dicho propósito haré un repaso histórico de los orígenes constitucionales del Colegio Electoral, seguido de una descripción de su evolución a lo largo de más de 200 años de existencia, finalizando con un análisis de su influencia en el resultado de las últimas elecciones presidenciales del pasado 8 de noviembre de 2016. Por último, y teniendo en cuenta todo lo anterior, valoraré la relación entre el Colegio Electoral y la democracia estadounidense.It is the object of the present article to analyze the purpose and usefulness of the institution of the Electoral College in the United States political system. For that purpose I will make a historical review of the Electoral College constitutional origins, followed by a description of its evolution throughout more than 200 years of existence, to conclude with a review of the main arguments for and against the Electoral College. Finally, and bearing in mind the aforementioned, I will assess the relationship between the Electoral College and the American democracy.


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