Language as social practice

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Amouzadeh
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Analytical Investigation ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Discourse Processes ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
The Media ◽  
Stage Development ◽  
The One

This paper aims to investigate the language used by newspapers in post-revolutionary Iran. More precisely, the paper sets out to analyze how such a language is deployed to represent relevant hegemonic ideologies. The approach adopted for this purpose draws inspiration mainly from critical linguistics, where it is hypothesized that, as far as the pertinent metadiscourse goes, media genres serve to activate and perpetuate social power relations. In keeping with this theoretical stance, the paper argues that socially constructed texts can be said to perform two complementary functions; on the one hand, they shed light on the realities experienced in social life; on the other, they reveal such aspects of those realities as are constructed through the use of language. It is thus in this context that the media language used in the post-revolutionary Iran lends itself to analytical investigation, where the available data reveal the co-existence of three competing discourse processes of ‘Islamization’, ‘Iranian Nationalism’ and ‘Western liberalism’, relating to the third stage development of post-revolutionary Iran.

scholarly journals Ecological perspectives and children’s use of the Internet: exploring micro to macro level analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian O’Neill
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Ecological Model ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Effects Of Media

Age-old debates on children’s encounters with media technologies reveal a long, fractured and contentious tradition within communication and media studies. Despite the fact there have been studies of effects of media use by children since the earliest days of broadcasting, the subject remains under-theorised, poorly represented in the literature and not widely understood in media policy debates. Old debates have intensified in relation to the study of children and the internet. Pitted between alarmist accounts of risks, excessive use and harmful effects on the one hand and the many accounts about "digital natives" and the transformational power of technology is the empirical project – represented by EU Kids Online among others – of building an evidence base for understanding the evolving environment for youth online engagement. In this paper, I situate that body of work in an ecological context, both in the sense of the Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model that has been so important in the new sociology of childhood, as well as in the more loosely defined theoretical approach of media ecology. The latter tradition, associated primarily with McLuhan and later Postman, frames the media environment as a complex interplay between technology and society in which modes of communication and mediated interaction fundamentally shape human behaviour and social life. These strands offer the basis for framing some of the issues of evidence-based policymaking relating to internet governance, regulation and youth protection online.

The Ladies’ Home Journal, Sororal Publics, and the Wages of White Womanhood

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Travis M. Foster
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
White Women ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Women's Culture ◽  
Intimate Friendship ◽  
The One ◽  
White Womanhood

Chapter 2 argues that the Ladies’ Home Journal fashioned white women’s culture as a mediating force for racial sorority—an imagined sisterhood that provided the comforting sense of familiarity across distance—while also responding to a perceived crisis in women’s intimate friendship by providing detailed guidance for befriending. I argue that both scales of white social practice (sorority and intimate friendship) attached white women’s social forms to antiblackness. On the one hand, the Journal infused its imagined sisterhood with a deep sense of white supremacy (through frequent use of racist humor, for instance), providing white women a compensation that at least partially made up for the harms produced by gender inequality. On the other hand, by revitalizing intraracial friendship as a necessary departure from antiseptic social life, the Journal engaged an Aristotelian politics of friendship in which the precondition for befriending (whiteness) naturalized itself as the precondition for citizenship.

scholarly journals Tromsø som samisk by? – Språkideologier og medienes rolle i språkdebatten

Nordlit ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Florian Hiss
Keyword(s):  
Letters To The Editor ◽  
The Public ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Administrative Area ◽  
The Media ◽  
One Year ◽  
The One ◽  
Language Conflict

This article presents a critical analysis of the discursive practices in the public debate on Sámi language in Tromsø. The conflict around the political plan of Tromsø municipality to join the administrative area for the Sámi language lasted for about one year and was largely  carried out in  the  local  newspapers,  which  had  established  themselves  as  an arena and broker in the conflict. The focus of this study is, on the one hand, on the role of the media in the debate and, on the other hand, on the socially constructed relations between Sámi and Norwegian language and social meanings, which get expressed in a highly  ideological  picture of  language  and  local  identity  and  form  the  ground  for the language conflict. The analytic strategy is twofold: as a first step, the study focuses on the reproduction of  language  ideologies  in  letters  to  the  editor  and readers’  contributions  to  the  local papers’  discussion  pages.  The identification  of  the  three  semiotic  processes  of iconization (rhematization),  fractal  recursivity,  and  erasure  reveals  how  the writers’ expressions of opinion are anchored in a language ideology that connects Sámi language with  certain  social  values  and  ignores  a larger  linguistic  and  cultural  diversity  in  the town of Tromsø. As a second step, the analysis explores the journalistic treatment of the multitude of conflicting voices in the debate and critically sheds light on the construction of a journalistic voice. Although the journalists claim to construe a seemingly neutral ground for their reports (or independent comments), the analysis shows that journalists use  the  representation of  various  voices  in  their  texts  to  construe  a positioned, evaluating, and  ideologically  anchored  journalistic  voice.  In  face  of  the  highly ideological character of the language debate in Tromsø, I argue that local journalism has failed in countering the ideological picture of language and society through information and independent journalism. 

scholarly journals Fashion, Media and the Elite: Ethnography of the Exploitation of the Slovenian Transitional Media Promenade

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 471
Author(s):  
Vlado Kotnik
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Differentiation ◽  
Social Force ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Social Distinction ◽  
The Media ◽  
Visual Order ◽  
The One ◽  
The Masses

The article is an attempt to represent a particular social practice, which has, due to its currency and ubiquity in the media as of late, gained a surprisingly naturalized legitimacy within the Slovenian mediascape. After Slovenia gained its independence in 1991, two parallel processes could be observed. On the one hand, the state itself was searching for a new identity which it could project both inward and outward, it was looking for a way to communicate the national tale of itself through numerous ruling discourses of politics, economy, tourism, sports and culture. On the other hand, the transitional ruling class and the emergent social force of postsocialist rich, chosen and owners needed new elements in the process of social differentiation. Fashion became one of the reinvented refuges or simply “discoveries” of the new Slovenian political, economic and media elite, which used the media to establish a visual order of transitional social differentiation. At the core of fashion as a mode of social distinction is a ceremonialized and spectacularized display of cultural differences within a society. Elites have been caught in the social obligation of constant invention of novelty, in order to create the necessary social difference from the non-elite or the masses. Namely, difference itself has no wider social value if there is no one to notice or desire it. This article methodologically authenticates the conclusions through the analysis of specific media perceptions and an ethnography conducted among actors on these levels: producers of fashion as social distinction (the elite) vs reproducers of fashion as social distinction (the media) vs consumers of fashion as social distinction (the audience).

scholarly journals Cynical References to Political Correctness in Hungarian Media in the 2000s

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 58-69
Author(s):  
Erzsébet Barát
Keyword(s):  
General Practice ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Correctness ◽  
Language Use ◽  
The Other ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Social Scale ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One

In this paper I analyze the strategy in Hungarian public discourse for discrediting feminism in the media in the early 2000s. The strategy consists in the systematic conflation of feminism with the demand for “politically correct” language. My analysis will show that the motivation for the conflation occurs, on the one hand, in the name of tolerance or, on the other, to the determent of feminism. These apparently very different discourses, however, overlap and are effects of the same strategy of discreditation. They both rest on the assumption that feminism is an exclusionary ideology hence it is to be tolerated at best, or to be fought mercilessly. Despite the apparent opposition between the two approaches, their goals are the same. The reduction of feminism to political correctness and its representation as the manifestation of some general practice of ‘language cleansing’ “benignly” masks the real object of feminist language criticism, namely, sexist and homophobic exclusionary language use and their symbolic and material consequences. These are found everywhere in contemporary Hungary. I shall argue that the alarming similarity of the two perspectives is a recent phenomenon in Hungarian public discourse that emerged in the first decade of the millennium. It replaces the strategy of the 1990s that represented feminism as a matter of some individual and isolated efforts and as such eventually harmless on a social scale. The turn of the first decade re-imagines feminism as a social practice that is argued to be an intolerant or aggressive attempt at purging language use. This change in the meaning of the concept is caused in part, I shall argue, by the stereotypical conceptualization of language use itself. The concept is stereotypical in that it draws on (value) judgments expected to be understood as self-evident hence able to preempt any need for reflexivity on the part of the reader.

Social theory and law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Cotterrell
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Power ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The One

Social theory embodies the claim that philosophical analyses, reflections on specific historical experience and systematic empirical observations of social conditions may be combined to construct theoretical explanations of the nature of society – that is, of patterned human social association in general and of the conditions that make this association possible and define its typical character. Social theory, in this sense, can be defined broadly as theory seeking to explain systematically the structure and organization of society and the general conditions of social order or stability and of social change. Since law as a system of ideas can also be thought of as purporting to specify, reflect and systematize fundamental normative structures of society, it has appeared as both a focus of interest for social theory and, in some sense, a source of competition with social theory in explaining the character of social existence. The relation of legal thought to social theory is, thus, in important respects, a confrontation between competing general modes of understanding social relationships and the conditions of social order. In one sense, this confrontation is as old as philosophy itself. But as an element in modern philosophical consciousness it represents a gradual working-out in Western thought, over the past two centuries, of the implications of various ‘scientific’ modes of interpreting social experience, all in one way or another the legacy of Enlightenment ideas. From the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, criteria of ‘scientific’ rationality were carried into the interpretation of social phenomena through the development of social theory. These criteria also significantly influenced the development of modern legal thought. The classic social theory of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which established an enduring vocabulary of concepts for the interpretation of social phenomena, treated law as an object of social inquiry within its scope. It sought scientific understanding of the nature of legal phenomena in terms of broad systems of explanation of the general nature of social relationships, structures and institutions. In the late twentieth century the relationship between social theory and law has been marked by fundamental changes both in the outlook of social theory and in forms of contemporary regulation. On the one hand, social theory has been subjected to wide-ranging challenges to its modern scientific pretensions. It has had to respond to scepticism about claims that social life can usefully be analysed in terms of historical laws, or authoritatively interpreted and explained in terms of founding theoretical principles. On the other hand, the inexorable expansion of Western law’s regulatory scope and detail appears, sociologically, as largely uncontrollable by moral systems and relatively unguided by philosophical principles. Hence, in some postmodern interpretations, contemporary law is presented as a system of knowledge and interpretation of social life of great importance, yet one that has ultimately evaded the Enlightenment ambition systematically to impose reason and principle – codified by theory – on agencies of political and social power.

Murder with Impunity: The Construction of Arab Masculinities and Honor Crimes

1970 ◽  
pp. 38-45
Author(s):  
May Abu Jaber
Keyword(s):  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One ◽  
Male Authority ◽  
Cultural Networks ◽  
Gender Specific

Violence against women (VAW) continues to exist as a pervasive, structural,systematic, and institutionalized violation of women’s basic human rights (UNDivision of Advancement for Women, 2006). It cuts across the boundaries of age, race, class, education, and religion which affect women of all ages and all backgrounds in every corner of the world. Such violence is used to control and subjugate women by instilling a sense of insecurity that keeps them “bound to the home, economically exploited and socially suppressed” (Mathu, 2008, p. 65). It is estimated that one out of every five women worldwide will be abused during her lifetime with rates reaching up to 70 percent in some countries (WHO, 2005). Whether this abuse is perpetrated by the state and its agents, by family members, or even by strangers, VAW is closely related to the regulation of sexuality in a gender specific (patriarchal) manner. This regulation is, on the one hand, maintained through the implementation of strict cultural, communal, and religious norms, and on the other hand, through particular legal measures that sustain these norms. Therefore, religious institutions, the media, the family/tribe, cultural networks, and the legal system continually disciplinewomen’s sexuality and punish those women (and in some instances men) who have transgressed or allegedly contravened the social boundaries of ‘appropriateness’ as delineated by each society. Such women/men may include lesbians/gays, women who appear ‘too masculine’ or men who appear ‘too feminine,’ women who try to exercise their rights freely or men who do not assert their rights as ‘real men’ should, women/men who have been sexually assaulted or raped, and women/men who challenge male/older male authority.

Representasi Moralitas Dalam Iklan Teh Botol Sosro Versi “Semeja Bersaudara”

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-59
Author(s):  
Aji Sulistyo
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Television Advertisement ◽  
Stuart Hall ◽  
The Media ◽  
Promotional Messages ◽  
Social Messages

Television advertisement is an effective medium that aims to market a product or service, because it combines audio and visuals. therefore television advertisement can effectively influence the audience to buy the product or service. Advertisement nowadays does not only convey promotional messages, but can also be a medium for delivering social messages. That is one form of the function of the media, which is to educate the public. The research entitled Representation of Morality in the Teh Botol Sosro Advertisement "Semeja Bersaudara" version analyzed the morality value in a television advertisement from ready-to-drink tea producers, Teh Botol Sosro entitled "Semeja Bersaudara" which began airing in early 2019. In this study researchers used Charles Sanders Peirce's Semiotics theory with triangular meaning analysis tools in the form of Signs, Objects and Interpretations. In addition, researchers also use representation theory from Stuart Hall in interpreting messages in advertisements. The results of this study found that the "Semeja Bersaudara" version of Teh Botol Sosro advertisement represented a message in the form of morality. There are nine values of morality that can be taken in this advertisement including, friendly attitude, sharing, empathy, help, not prejudice, no discrimination, harmony, tolerance between religious communities and cross-cultural tolerance. The message conveyed in this advertisement is how the general public can understand how every human action in social life has moral values, so that the public can understand and apply moral values in order to live a better life.

INNOVATIVE SOCIETY: A SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM IN CHINA

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-59
Author(s):  
Weichzhen` Gao
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Educational Mission ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Road Project ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
The One ◽  
And Behavior

The basic principles of SCS implementation are as follows: Formation of sustainable social structure and its operational management; Monitoring and correction of social transformations and behavior of the general population: transparency as a major factor in the life of an innovative society; Stimulating competition as a motivation for success. Due to the transparency of social life, different patterns of behavior in different conditions are published in the information space of the society. Accordingly, actionable life scenarios are made available to the general public, which is fulfilling an educational mission regarding adaptation mechanisms in an innovative society; the SCS system is a significant component of the national strategy of integration and consolidation of the Chinese innovation society; carrying out softpolicy foreign policy: The positive experience of the Chinese innovation society in implementing SCS is a prerequisite for expanding its area of application in Asian, African and Latin American countries, especially the countries participating in the One Belt One Road project. SCS covers all spheres of social life of the modern Chinese citizen, forms a sustainable form of accountability to the society for the content and flow of their daily activities, aspirations and preferences.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from ethics: the 2019 Israel Folau media controversy as a case study

2021 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2199289
Author(s):  
Jay Daniel Thompson ◽  
Denis Muller
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Rugby Player ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
Framing Analysis ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One

This article examines how freedom of speech is framed in the media controversy surrounding the Australian rugby player Israel Folau’s April 2019 Instagram post. A content analysis and framing analysis of newspaper reportage reveals that the controversy has been largely discussed in terms of whether or not Folau’s speech was being curtailed and whether this curtailing indicates a broader, ideologically motivated censoriousness. This discussion is problematic in that it says little about the actual substance of Folau’s post. This article argues that debates surrounding freedom of speech such as the one involving Folau could and should be enriched by an engagement with ethical principles. This engagement is premised on a commitment to the free exchange of views, while acknowledging that ‘speech’ is not always inherently beneficial for democracy, nor worth defending.

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