Pandemic, censorship and creative protests via grassroots visual mobilization

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 167-191
Author(s):  
Meiqin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Online Support ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Visual Discourse ◽  
Government Leadership ◽  
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In early 2020, Chinese people engaged in several rounds of extraordinary online campaigns in response to the government’s handling of the outbreak of coronavirus. During these campaigns, visual images played a crucial role in facilitating netizens to inform each other, escape official censoring machinery, express anger and frustration, excavate truth, document reality and mobilize online support and protest. In particular, images related with Dr Li Wenliang, one of whistle-blowers of the soon-to-be pandemic who himself died of the virus, and Dr Ai Fen, the first doctor to share information about a possible coronavirus diagnose among her colleagues, became the focal points of the unprecedented online mobilization successively. Millions of netizens participated in the effort to circulate these images (and stories behind them) and invented ingenious ways to continue the endeavour when confronted by the heightened censorship. Various art communities and individuals have done their share to fuel in this momentum of visual mobilization and there was a surge of call for public participation in responding to the pandemic through participatory public artworks. Maskbook, initiated by artist Wen Fang, and One More Day led by MeDoc, are two exemplary cases. Through analysing these images, this article discusses China’s grassroots visual mobilization to claim for freedom of speech and access to truth in the wake of the massive health crisis and articulates its contribution to the formation of a bottom-up visual discourse that challenges the state’s media discourse in interpreting the pandemic as a victory of government leadership.

Media framing of COVID-19 pandemic in the transitional regime of Serbia: Exploring discourses and strategies

2021 ◽  
pp. 016344372098600
Author(s):  
Irina Milutinović
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Media Framing ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Transitional Regime ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Crisis ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Hybrid Regime

The subject of this study is media discourse on the Covid-19 pandemic in the Republic of Serbia. The study seeks to contribute to the understanding of the communication aspects of the current public health crisis within the transitional (hybrid) regime of Serbia. One of the paper’s objectives is to explore how Serbian media frame the discourse on the Covid-19 pandemic. The second objective is to examine whether journalists produce investigative and analytical contents on this pressing topic independently or just mediate to the public patterns created by the public health crisis management. By applying language analysis and intertextual analysis methods to a sample of 230 media texts, we point to the incoherence of media discourse on the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as to the lack of media independence in an environment of the permanent political campaign.

Preparing the People for Mass Clemency: The 1956 Japanese War Crimes Trials in Shenyang and Taiyuan

2011 ◽  
Vol 205 ◽  
pp. 152-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
The People ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
War Crimes Trials ◽  
Preparatory Work

AbstractThe lack of official government attention to Japanese war crimes during the Mao years has been widely acknowledged. Yet in the summer of 1956, years of preparatory work by Zhou Enlai culminated in the little-known and summarily dismissed trials of 1,062 self-confessed Japanese war criminals in Shenyang and Taiyuan. The extraordinarily lenient sentences given to 45 of the worst offenders – and wholesale pardons of 1,017 – were prompted by larger geopolitical considerations that effectively hamstrung PRC authorities from bringing the trials into closer alignment with previous ones in Europe and Japan. Zhou's determination to adopt a “policy of leniency” towards the Japanese prisoners, however, was sorely at odds with the sentiments of the general public. The need to prepare the people for a counterintuitive mass clemency saw a sudden and drastic shift in media discourse in 1954, followed by a series of remarkable cultural and intellectual campaigns that were designed to persuade the Chinese people that they should henceforth let bygones be bygones.

Visual images of well-being in consumer culture: analysis and interpretation of the images

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-32
Author(s):  
Liudmila Vyacheslavovna Beskrovnayia ◽  
Nataliya Aleksandrovna Luk'yanova
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Social Conventions ◽  
Visual Discourse ◽  
Visual Semiotics ◽  
Public Consumption ◽  
Artistic Images ◽  
Constructed Self ◽  
The Impact

This article analyzes the impact of the visual images of well-being upon interpretation of the concept of well-being in consumer culture. The object of this research is the paintings by postmodern artists, constructivists. and hyperrealists – A. Warhol, R. Rauschenberg, J. Jones, L. Lawler, T. Matin, as well as the posters of advertising constructors of A. Rodchenko. Examination is conducted on the artworks, since the time horizon of paintings is not limited to the “here and now”. The author discusses the images from semiotic and hermeneutical perspectives, which allow revealing the content of meanings expressed in the visual form. Artistic images become the object of research in the field of visual semiotics. The scientific novelty consists in the comprehensive socio-philosophical research of the process of creation, proliferation, and inverting meanings in the visual discourse on well-being. The article employs philosophical, rather than art history discourse. As a result, the author establishes correlation between visual images, social culture, and social conventions. The conclusion is made that the visual images of well-being emphasize the social component of well-being, dictate the logic of public consumption, and manipulate collective consciousness. Visual images become the markers of social well-being, translators of the myths on consumer culture, delicately manipulating the constructed Self.

scholarly journals Web-based support of spatial planning in Serbia

Spatium ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 67-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragana Bazik ◽  
Omiljena Dzelebdzic
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Planning ◽  
High Speed ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Planning Model ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Place And Space ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
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High-speed access to the Internet and mobile broadband create a new web-based support of spatial planning in Serbia. Perhaps most importantly, this support provides unprecedented opportunities to empower individuals across all social and economic strata. The authors present this view within the framework of two fundamental focal points: (i) relational approach to spatial planning that recognizes the multiple dimensions of diverse people who interact with place and space in complex and unpredictable ways; and (ii) democratic achievement in spatial planning model and governance framework to share information and collaborate across a municipalities? hyperconnected ecosystem.

scholarly journals The Visual Discourse of Protest Movements on Twitter: The Case of Hong Kong 2014

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irmgard Wetzstein
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Image Interpretation ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Protest Movement ◽  
Visual Discourse

The article presents the results of a qualitative documentary image interpretation of the visual discourse of the Hong Kong protests on the Twitter hashtag #hongkongprotests. Visual thematic patterns, the actors depicted, and the relations between actors as well as visual perspectives were analyzed to derive the function of visual images and to give insights into visual protest storytelling. Visuals and image-text relations in Tweets within #hongkongprotests revealed an application of images in clear favor of the protest movement taking an ‘at the scene’/‘on the ground’ perspective, with media workers being active in front of the camera rather than mere observers behind the camera. While the approach used proved to be suitable for the research project, the research design comes with some limitations, for example in terms of the non-generalizability of results.

scholarly journals Investigating the Self-Reported Health Status of Domestic and Overseas Chinese Populations during the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 3043
Author(s):  
Zhuxin Mao ◽  
Bohao Chen ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Paul Kind ◽  
Pei Wang
Keyword(s):  
Health Status ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Health It ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Chinese Populations ◽  
Reported Health ◽  
Self Reported Health Status

To control the spread of COVID-19, governments in different countries and regions implemented various types of lockdown and outdoor restrictions. The research aimed to describe and compare the health status of Chinese people both domestically and abroad in this global health crisis. An online questionnaire survey was distributed to Chinese mainland citizens living in Hubei (the lockdown province), outside Hubei, and those living abroad in 2020. A total of 1000 respondents were recruited and reported worse health status compared with Chinese population norms. People living in Hubei reported worse health status than those living outside Hubei but revealed better health status than overseas respondents. It was clear that the pandemic as well as strict lockdown and outdoor restriction policies affected Chinese people’s health. It is important for the Chinese government to be aware of the negative impact of such strict policies and to take measures to reduce the panic of society when implementing similar policies in the future. It also implies that governments in other countries should promote social support for those who live far from home and actively call for support for non-discriminatory attitudes toward ethnic minorities.

The naturalisation of nineteenth-century German Railways as depicted in visual discourse

2021 ◽  
pp. 002252662110311
Author(s):  
Zef Segal
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Natural Landscape ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
Visual Discourse ◽  
Travel Guide ◽  
Pastoral Landscapes ◽  
Railway System ◽  
Train System ◽  
Rapid Transformation

Despite the dramatic effect of the railway age on the natural surroundings, it was not seen necessarily as destructive to nature. Railways were both the epitome of progress as well as integral features in pastoral landscapes. This seemingly paradoxical perception of railways is partially explained by historicising the “naturalisation” of the German train system. This article describes the rapid transformation of the German train from a symbol of dynamic industrialisation to an integral part of the landscape. Visual images, such as lithographs and postcards, were the catalysts in this process. Railway companies, local elites and travel guide publishers promoted the process of “naturalisation” for economic reasons, but the iconography was a result of visual discourse in nineteenth-century German culture. This paper shows that unlike American, British and French depictions of railways, German artists portrayed a railway system, which rather than conquering nature, was blending peacefully into an existing natural landscape.

Twitter Usage Using Common Reference to Tinnitus

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-217
Author(s):  
Jianyuan Ni ◽  
Monica L. Bellon-Harn ◽  
Jiang Zhang ◽  
Yueqing Li ◽  
Vinaya Manchaiah
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Temporal Analysis ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Common Reference ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Sectional Analysis ◽  
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Objective The objective of the study was to examine specific patterns of Twitter usage using common reference to tinnitus. Method The study used cross-sectional analysis of data generated from Twitter data. Twitter content, language, reach, users, accounts, temporal trends, and social networks were examined. Results Around 70,000 tweets were identified and analyzed from May to October 2018. Of the 100 most active Twitter accounts, organizations owned 52%, individuals owned 44%, and 4% of the accounts were unknown. Commercial/for-profit and nonprofit organizations were the most common organization account owners (i.e., 26% and 16%, respectively). Seven unique tweets were identified with a reach of over 400 Twitter users. The greatest reach exceeded 2,000 users. Temporal analysis identified retweet outliers (> 200 retweets per hour) that corresponded to a widely publicized event involving the response of a Twitter user to another user's joke. Content analysis indicated that Twitter is a platform that primarily functions to advocate, share personal experiences, or share information about management of tinnitus rather than to provide social support and build relationships. Conclusions Twitter accounts owned by organizations outnumbered individual accounts, and commercial/for-profit user accounts were the most frequently active organization account type. Analyses of social media use can be helpful in discovering issues of interest to the tinnitus community as well as determining which users and organizations are dominating social network conversations.

From the Editor of a Special Edition-Division 1/Division 9 Newsletter

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Collaborative Effort ◽  
Special Edition ◽  
Hearing Disorders ◽  
Division 1 ◽  
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It is my pleasure to introduce this newsletter, which is the first collaborative effort between Division 1, Language Learning and Education and Division 9, Hearing and Hearing Disorders in Childhood to share information we believe affiliates from both divisions will find useful.

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