Censorship and Political Editing

Author(s):  
Joseph Hone

Recent scholarship has increasingly recognized literary editing as a political activity. This final chapter examines Pope’s overlooked role as the editor of Buckingham’s posthumous Works, published at the height of the Atterbury Plot in 1723. This controversial book was seized upon publication and censored by the government; as the editor, Pope himself was taken in for questioning. This episode was the most politically dangerous of Pope’s career. This chapter sheds light on Pope’s involvement in the edition and his immersion in the conspiratorial diaspora of Buckingham House. The subscription for the edition was used to disguise fundraising for Atterbury’s plot for a Stuart restoration; Atterbury, the Duchess of Buckingham, John Barber, and Mary Caesar were all involved in this plan. Why did Pope return to the conspiratorial fold after his retirement from political affairs in 1714? He too must have known about the plan and believed that it could succeed. By editing and emending Buckingham’s Works for the press, this chapter suggests, Pope found an opportunity to express ideas that he simply could not afford to ventilate under his own name.

1972 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gene R. Garthwaite

Great power rivalry in nineteenth and early twentieth century Iran and the Qajar dynasty's dependence upon British and Russian support have long attracted the attention of western scholars. Recent scholarship also has begun tocus on internal power shifts in response to these conditions. An important element in these processes, but one which has been relatively unstudied, is political change within the great tribal confederations, especially the Bakhtiyâri. A number of elements contributed to the political transformation of the Bakhtiyâri. To begin with, the heightening of political activity in the tribe coincided with a decline of central power and authority and the growth of Anglo-Russian rivalry in Iran. Also significant was the concentration of powerand wealth within one princely family of the Bakhtiyâri. In addition a number of economic and strategic factors played a role in creating a new alignment of power among the Bakhtiyâri and Tehran and Great Britain. Chief among these elements were the increasing strategic and economic importance of the Bakhtiyâri winter pasture area in Khuzistan following the discovery of the oil fields there and the new national political role played by the Bakhtiyâri following the Persian Revolution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Trisna Awaludin Harisman ◽  
Raden Muhammad Mulyadi ◽  
Widyo Nugrahanto

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui latar belakang pembredelan surat kabar Pikiran Rakjat pada 1965 setelah munculnya peraturan bagi pers untuk berafiliasi dengan partai atau organisasi politik tertentu. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian sejarah kritis yang terdiri dari empat tahapan kerja: heuristik, kritik sumber, interpretasi, dan historiografi. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa pada awal tahun 1965, kegiatan pers surat kabar Pikiran Rakjat sempat diberhentikan oleh pemerintah disebabkan terlambatnya surat kabar ini untuk terlibat dalam aktivitas politik. Pada 24 Maret 1966 atas dorongan Pangdam Siliwangi para wartawan yang di wakili Sakti Alamsyah sepakat untuk melakukan kerjasama untuk menerbitkan surat kabar Angkatan Bersenjata Edisi Jawa Barat. Belum setahun surat kabar ini terbit, Kementeriaan Penerangan mencabut kembali peraturan tentang afialiasi dalam dunia politik. Kondisi ini menyebabkan pada 24 Maret 1967 surat kabar Angkatan Bersenjata Edisi Jawa Barat berubah nama menjadi Harian Umum Pikiran Rakjat dibawah pemimpin umum redaksi yaitu Sakti Alamsyah.    The purpose of this study is to determine the background to the banning of the Pikiran Rakjat Newspaper in 1965. The ban came after the government issued a regulation of requiring the press to be affiliated with certain political parties or organizations. This study uses a critical historical research method consisting of four stages of work, namely heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, and historiography. The results of this study show evidence that in the beginning of 1965 the government banned the newspaper because it was considered too late to engage in political activity. At the instigation of Commander of Military Regional Command/Siliwangi, it was on 24 March 1966 that journalists represented by Sakti Alamsyah agreed to cooperate in publishing Angkatan Bersenjata Newspaper West Java edition. However, when it was not yet a year old, the Ministry of Information revoked the regulations on obligating the press to affiliate with the political world. It was on March 24, 1967 that Angkatan Bersenjata Newspaper West Java edition consequently changed its name to Harian Umum Pikiran Rakjat and was operated under the editor-in-chief Sakti Alamsyah.


MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 


Author(s):  
Michael D. Metelits

The Arthur Crawford Scandal explores how nineteenth century Bombay tried a British official for corruption. The presidency government persuaded Indians, government officials, to testify against the very person who controlled their career by offering immunity from legal action and career punishment. A criminal conviction of Crawford’s henchman established the modus operandi of a bribery network. Subsequent efforts to intimidate Indian witnesses led to litigation at the high court level, resulting in a political pressure campaign in London based on biased press reports from India. These reports evoked questions in the House of Commons; questions became demands that Indians witnesses against Crawford be fired from government service. The secretary of state for India and the Bombay government negotiated about the fate of the Indian witnesses. At first, the secretary of state accepted the Bombay government’s proposals. But the press campaign against the Indian witnesses eventually led him to order the Government of India, in consultation with the Government of Bombay, to pass a law ordering those officials who paid Crawford willingly, to be fired. Those whom the Bombay government determined to be extorted were not to be fired. Both groups retained immunity from further actions at law. Thus, Bombay won a victory that almost saved its original guarantee of immunity: those who were fired were to receive their salary (along with periodic step increases) until they reached retirement age, at which time they would receive a pension. However, this ‘solution’ did little to overcome the stigma and suffering of the fired officials.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 1084-1113
Author(s):  
Jianjun Zhang ◽  
Pei Sun ◽  
Kunyuan Qiao

ABSTRACTManagerial networking with political actors has long been recognized as a crucial co-option strategy to navigate the challenging institutional environment in emerging economies. However, we know much less about what drives the variation of political networking investment by private ventures. Drawing on resource dependence theory, we unpack the dyadic business-government relations and identify the key organizational and environmental factors that shape the power dependence relationships between private ventures and the government. By examining power imbalance and mutual dependence in this dyadic relationship and considering both the necessity and the capability of political networking, we develop hypotheses regarding the ways in which size-, connection-, and location-based dependencies affect firms’ political networking intensity. These hypotheses are tested through a unique survey of Chinese private ventures. Our study finds that political networking intensity (1) has an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm size, (2) is negatively associated with the presence of embedded political ties while positively associated with that of achieved political connections, and (3) is smaller when the focal firm is located in business development zones. This research bears rich implications for our understanding of corporate political activity in emerging economies from a resource dependence lens.


1980 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fay Gadsden

This paper discusses the African press in Kenya in the years between 1945 and 1952. The growth of an extensive vernacular press was caused by the political frustrations suffered by Kenya's Africans and the political, social and ethnic divisions which separated them. The press can be divided into three major categories: moderate nationalist, regional vernacular and populist newspapers. The moderate nationalist newspapers were edited by members of the educated elite who campaigned for constitutional change and social reforms. The regional vernacular papers were concerned more with local than national issues. The populist press was edited by semi-educated men active in politics at the grassroots level who came to reject the moderate leadership. All these papers publicized the activities of the Kenya African Union and demanded an improvement in the political and social position of Africans in Kenya. But they also expressed the ethnic, political and social hostilities which divided their editors. The decline of moderate leadership was reflected in the closure of their newspapers. The radicals who seized power in K.A.U. in 1951 were supported by the populist press and began new newspapers in 1951 and 1952.Some of the African newspapers achieved quite large circulations, were distributed by agents throughout the towns of Kenya and attracted some advertising revenue. But they all suffered from lack of money and found it difficult to find and pay a printer, and they suffered also from the lack of experience of their editors. Many newspapers lasted only a short time. But throughout these years there were always a number of newspapers published. These were widely read and were politically influential. The populist press played a direct role in stimulating militant resistance. Government attempts to curb the African press and to replace it with government newspapers were not successful. Only in 1952 when a State of Emergency had been imposed and the government had assumed powers to refuse printing licences and to suppress newspapers could the African press be silenced.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-164
Author(s):  
Baykal Erol

During the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) Istanbul suddenly found itself at the frontline of an unexpectedly disastrous conflict with its Balkan neighbours. One direct consequence of these wars, through troop mobilisation and refugee movement, was a major outbreak of cholera in the Ottoman capital. While entrepreneurs tried to turn this calamity into profit, by selling (useless) medication, the government tried to control the flow of information regarding the disease in order to better combat the epidemic and both parties used the press to achieve their goals. Despite the chaos of the war and the size of the outbreak, the acted efficiently and successfully prevented a potential disaster.


1991 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara L. Hunt

The licentious career of Caroline of Brunswick, the most notorious queen in modern British history, was only exceeded by that of her husband, George IV, and the scandal that emerged when he attempted to obtain a divorce inspired one of the most unusual episodes of nineteenth-century British history. For six months the attention of the country was focused on the queen's trial; massive demonstrations in her support were familiar sights in London streets and news of the matter dominated the columns of the press. The popular outpouring of support for the queen often took the form of reviling the king and his ministers, and revolution seemed to be in the air, yet because no lasting political change resulted from this tumult, historians have tended to dismiss the affair as relatively unimportant. However, to view this interlude primarily in terms of party politics is to overlook the fact that the majority of the people who formed the massive crowds that so alarmed the government were neither radicals nor reformers, and many, if not most of them were unenfranchised. In order to better understand the implications of this unrest, it is important to identify those factors that inspired British men and women to openly denigrate their ruler and to heap opprobrium on the members of government in defense of a woman who, ironically, many believed to be guilty as charged. Such an examination makes it clear that this was an event of profound cultural significance and was in some respects the first wide-spread popular expression of the moral standards that have come to be labelled “Victorian.”Any attempt to judge “public opinion” is fraught with difficulty. Most of the surviving journals, memoirs, and collections of letters from this period were written by members of the gentry and aristocracy; most of the middle and working-class people who actively demonstrated in support of the queen or who signed the numerous addresses sent to her have tended to remain silent and anonymous. Newspaper and other written accounts of the affair were often extremely partisan, for British society was sharply divided on this issue. Political caricatures, however, overcome some of these difficulties.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-139
Author(s):  
Jean Guillaume Forand ◽  
Gergely Ujhelyi

Many countries place restrictions on the political rights of government workers. This includes limitations on political activities such as taking an active part in political campaigns. Are such restrictions desirable? We present a formal welfare analysis of this question. Bureaucrats’ political activities affect voter perceptions of the government and this can have informational benefits. However, they can also induce policy mistakes and are susceptible to ‘noise’ from some bureaucrats’ innate desire for political expression. When politicians have limited control over bureaucrats and successfully coordinate with voters, bureaucrats’ political activities can be desirable. In most cases, however, banning political activities is optimal.


Orthodoxia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 111-124
Author(s):  
F. A. Gayda

This article deals with the political situation around the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Empire in 1912 (4th convocation). The main actors of the campaign were the government, local administration, liberal opposition and the clergy of the Orthodox Russian Church. After the 1905 revolution, the “official Church” found itself in a difficult situation. In particular, anti-Church criticism intensified sharply and was expressed now quite openly, both in the press and from the rostrum of the Duma. A consequence of these circumstances was that in this Duma campaign, for the first time in the history of Russian parliamentarianism, “administrative resources” were widely used. At the same time, the authorities failed to achieve their political objectives. The Russian clergy became actively involved in the election campaign. The government sought to use the conflict between the liberal majority in the third Duma and the clerical hierarchy. Duma members launched an active criticism of the Orthodox clergy, using Grigory Rasputin as an excuse. Even staunch conservatives spoke negatively about Rasputin. According to the results of the election campaign, the opposition was even more active in using the label “Rasputinians” against the Holy Synod and the Russian episcopate. Forty-seven persons of clerical rank were elected to the House — three fewer than in the previous Duma. As a result, the assembly of the clergy elected to the Duma decided not to form its own group, but to spread out among the factions. An active campaign in Parliament and the press not only created a certain public mood, but also provoked a political split and polarization within the clergy. The clergy themselves were generally inclined to blame the state authorities for the public isolation of the Church. The Duma election of 1912 seriously affected the attitude of the opposition and the public toward the bishopric after the February revolution of 1917.


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