scholarly journals “Kung Flu”—The Dynamics of Fear, Popular Culture, and Authenticity in the Anatomy of Populist Communication

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Kurilla
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
News Media ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The People ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Empirical Material

The article presents results of a study on the dynamics between Donald Trump’s use of terms that relate COVID-19 to China and news media publications concerning this use. Qualitative content analysis with elements of discourse analysis was conducted to 1) describe the case as a type of populist discourse on COVID-19, and 2) illustrate the following hypotheses with the help of empirical material: 1) News media and the dynamics of political communication based on the difference of friend and enemy help legitimizing populist claims and directing public attention toward them while feeding into a narrative of a diffuse category of threats that creates objects of angst and thereby enhances social cohesion. 2) With resources derived from popular culture, populists exploit the culture of political correctness, which is facilitated through the ascription of authenticity. The hypotheses emerged in the course of organizing and preliminarily examining the data collected for an ongoing broader study on populist communication and its repercussions in different public spheres in view of the following assumptions: 1) Political communication is guided by the distinction of friend and enemy. 2) In populist communication, this distinction appears as the difference of ‘the people’ and allegedly corrupt elites, including news media. 3) Angst enhances social cohesion among the audiences of populist speakers directly or mediated by fear. 4) Populist communication is more likely to produce a type of fear that populists benefit from when it depicts the elite as a diffuse category composed of various interlinked enemies. Trump’s contextualized use of the following terms in the time period between March 13 and September 15, 2020, was examined: China flu, China plague, China virus, Chinese plague, Chinese flu, Chinese virus, Wuhan virus, and Kung flu. 38 speeches from Trump’s election campaign or rallies, 28 talks at presidential events or meetings, 47 interviews, 37 press conferences, 35 tweets and seven re-tweets as well as selected news media responses were subjected to analysis. The case has been successfully described as a type of populist discourse on COVID-19 and both hypotheses have been illustrated with empirical material.

scholarly journals A Sociolinguistic Study of Choosing Names for Newborn Children in Jordan

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abeer Harb Al-Qawasmi ◽  
Fawwaz Al-Abed Al-Haq
Keyword(s):  
Random Sample ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
The People ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Civil Status ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Clear Change

<p>This study aims at the study of newborn names in Jordan of a sociolinguistic perspective. This study tries to detect the difference in naming newborns in Jordan over the decades - from the seventies to 2015 due to the result of some factors that may have affected the Jordanian society, whether historical, religious and/or social. The data necessary to complete the study was obtained from the Civil Status Department and the Department of Statistics. The data obtained consisted of names of both sexes during the time period from the seventies until the early year of 2015, a random sample of personal names within the same family were also provided. The data was analyzed quantitatively. The study revealed that there is a clear change in the choice of newborn names-male and female-in Jordan, whether a change in sounds or in morphemes. In specific, names during the seventies were strongly linked to the culture and the values, religious or social, in which the people believed in. During the eighties and nineties, names were associated with certain social values, however, some names were shown to be affected by urbanization or modernization. And with the beginning of 2000 up to 2015, peoples directions towards naming newborns changed due to the advent of globalization, associating with development and urbanization, and moreover, the influence of different cultures on the community.</p>

Praising the fallen heroes: Storytelling in US war presidential rhetoric, from Johnson to Obama

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-328
Author(s):  
Pere Franch
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Presidential Rhetoric ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Myth ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
Political Differences

This paper analyses the use of storytelling by United States presidents in their war speeches, from the Vietnam War to the War on Terror. The study proposes a dual concept of storytelling in political communication: first, the global story that lies behind the presidential rhetoric aimed at justifying war; and second, the use of a specific technique consisting of inserting particular, personal stories into the speeches in order to communicate specific messages to the audience. The methodology used consists of an in-depth, interpretive, qualitative content analysis of a sample of presidential speeches. The findings confirm, firstly, that US presidents’ war storytelling aims to reinforce the political myth of America’s duty to preserve freedom, an argument that helps make the burden of the war understandable and bearable for the people, thereby reaffirming American collective identity. It is a reductionist narrative, as all wars are presented as having the same causes and goals. Secondly, the presidential use of personal stories is confirmed to have increased exponentially from the Vietnam War era. In most cases, these stories consist of a personification of some basic values attributed to the whole nation, by means of which these values are reinforced: heroism, patriotism, sense of duty, and, above all – again – the defence of freedom. The results also show that, in this aspect of their war rhetoric, the differences between George W. Bush and Barack Obama are at least blurred, despite their ideological and political differences.

IMPACT OF HYPERLOCAL MEDIA ON LOCAL COMMUNITIES

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 401
Author(s):  
Sandra Murinska
Keyword(s):  
Community Involvement ◽  
News Media ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Local Television ◽  
News Source ◽  
The People ◽  
News Websites ◽  
The Media

Nowadays one of the channels to get information about the local environment is hyperlocal news media. It is another way to reach an audience online,  as a number of users of local television, radio and newspapers is decreasing. Hyperlocals come in many different forms, but their main characteristics show them as a news source. Hyperlocal news media have much in common with weekly community newspapers – these sites focus on a small, geographically defined area, as theoretical literature about local media say. Such news sites are becoming an important part of information space because of their fastness, digital possibilities and variety of content authors. Thus, uncertainty of staff raises questions about values, behaviours and ethics of journalism.The aim of the paper is to examine the types and functions of hyperlocal news media to clarify what kind of content is produced in hyperlocal news media and what their role is in a local community in Latvia. There were seven Latvian hyperlocal news websites analysed; the quantitative and qualitative content analysis was made to explore research questions.An analysis of the content of the hyperlocal news media showed that it was primarily an initiative of people working in the media, not an initiative of the people themselves. Hyperlocal news media mainly inform about what is happening in the city, municipality or village, but community involvement is minimal. Overall, function to give information dominates, but the personification with the local community is not common, so it is difficult for the community to identify themselves with the media, and thus with the community.  

scholarly journals STRUCTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS AS A METHOD OF STUDYING THE ETHNIC RELIGION OF OSSETIANS.

Kavkaz-forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
С.Г. КЦОЕВА
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Religious Worldview ◽  
The People ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Problems ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Structural Universals ◽  
Scientific Truth ◽  
First Time

Этническая религия осетин – сложный объект для изучения по ряду причин. Актуальность ее исследования возрастает с каждым днем. Не­смотря на то, что в последнее десятилетие она переживает некоторое возрождение, современное этнорелигиозное мировоззрение осетин суще­ственно отличается от дореволюционного, об аспектах которого мы имеем возможность судить, в частности, благодаря массиву нарратив­ных источников, фиксирующих народные легенды, предания, травелоги путешественников с описанием элементов традиционной культуры народа. Поэтому необходима конкретизация временного периода, в рам­ках которого мы исследуем этнорелигиозное мировоззрение. Не менее важным является учет социальной среды, поскольку социально-группо­выми различиями (прежде всего, территориально-населенческими) опре­делялась разница и религиозного мировоззрения. Мы изучаем религиозные представления, бытовавшие в среде горской части осетинского этноса в конце XIX – начале XX в., поскольку именно эти люди являлись носите­лями того, что можно считать квинтэссенцией традиционной осетин­ской религии. Этническая религия осетин, безусловно, самобытна, в силу чего мо­жет представлять сложность для исследователя, по логике нуждающе­гося в разработке уникального исследовательского инструментария под стать изучаемому объекту. В настоящей статье впервые представлена апробация структурной методологии Клода Леви-Стросса как наиболее оптимальной для изучения традиционных культур, в частности, рели­гиозной культуры осетинских горцев в указанный период. В этом заклю­чается новизна настоящего исследования. Нашей целью является демон­страция того, как метод структурной антропологии Леви-Стросса спо­собствует поискам научной истины в области реконструкции аспектов религиозного мировоззрения в традиционном осетинском обществе. Для этого в рамках статьи мы решили ряд исследовательских задач, к числу которых, помимо изложения сути методологии Леви-Стросса, относится поиск структурных универсалий в рамках традиционной религии осе­тин и их анализ по аналогии с подобными объектами в иных культурах. The ethnic religion of the Ossetians is a difficult subject and a number of reasons make its study complex. The relevance of its research is increasing every day. Despite the fact that in the last decade it has been experiencing some revival, the modern ethno-religious worldview of the Ossetians differs significantly from the pre-revolutionary one, the aspects of which we can judge, in particular, thanks to the array of narrative sources that record folk legends, traditions, travel logs of travelers with descriptions of elements of traditional culture of the people. Therefore, it is necessary to concretize the time period within which we study the ethno-religious worldview. It is no less important to take into account the social environment, since social and group differences (primarily, territorial and population ones) determined the difference in religious worldview. We study the religious ideas that existed among the mountainous part of the Ossetian ethnos in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, since it was these people who were carriers of what can be considered the quintessence of the traditional Ossetian religion. The ethnic religion of Ossetians is undoubtedly original, which makes it difficult for a researcher who logically needs to develop a unique research tool to match the object under study. In this article, for the first time, the approbation of the structural methodology of Claude Levi-Strauss is presented as the most optimal for the study of traditional cultures, in particular, the religious culture of the Ossetian highlanders during this period. This is the novelty of this study. Our goal is to demonstrate how the Levi-Strauss method of structural anthropology contributes to the search for scientific truth in the field of reconstruction of aspects of religious worldview in traditional Ossetian society. To this end, within the framework of the article, we solved a number of research problems, which, in addition to stating the essence of the Levi-Strauss methodology, include the search for structural universals within the traditional religion of the Ossetians and their analysis by analogy with similar objects in other cultures.

Between High Culture and Low Culture; and also The Difference Between Popular Culture and Folk Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Kunal Debnath
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Folk Culture ◽  
Common People ◽  
High Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Low Culture

High culture is a collection of ideologies, beliefs, thoughts, trends, practices and works-- intellectual or creative-- that is intended for refined, cultured and educated elite people. Low culture is the culture of the common people and the mass. Popular culture is something that is always, most importantly, related to everyday average people and their experiences of the world; it is urban, changing and consumeristic in nature. Folk culture is the culture of preindustrial (premarket, precommodity) communities.

ЕКАТЕРИНА ВЕЛИКАЯ И ДИАЛЕКТИКА ПРОСВЕЩЕННОЙ МОНАРХИИ

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
С. И. Дудник ◽  
И. Д. Осипов
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The People ◽  
Specific Interpretation ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Conservative Values

The article discusses the problems of evolution and the formation of the ideology of an enlightened monarchy in Russia. In this regard, the philosophical and political ideas of Catherine the Great, as well as their theoretical and ideological premises, are analyzed. It is noted that the philosophy of education in Russia was closely connected with the concepts of Voltaire, Didro, Montesquieu, Beccaria, Bentham, their views on natural law and human freedom, humanism and the rule of law. These concepts in the philosophy of Catherine received a specific interpretation, due to the sociocultural conditions of Russia. This was manifested in the famous work of Catherine the Great “The Nakaz”, which recognized Montesquieu's argument in favor of the autocracy, but at the same time, his point of view on the separation of powers was rejected. The specificity of the doctrine of enlightened monarchy lies in the combination of liberal and conservative values, which form eclectic forms. This was the dialectic of the supreme power, the difference between the enlightened monarchy and the ideology of absolutism. The article also notes that education in Russia is associated with fundamental socio-political reforms, processes of secularization of culture. At this time, the natural and human sciences are developing. The changes positively influenced the development of medicine, beautification of towns and public education. Also considered are the views on the autocracy of the opposition nobility intelligentsia: A. N. Radishchev and noted that his criticism of the autocracy was determined by an alternative cultural policy, proceeding from the protection of the interests of the people. The doctrine of enlightened monarchy is characterized by internal worldview inconsistency and political inconsistency, which did not allow solving the pressing social problems of the establishment of legal state, democratization of society and the abolition of serfdom.

Welcome to the Party

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khadijah Costley White
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Audience Appeal

This chapter lays out the Tea Party’s history as a mass-mediated construction in the context of journalism, political communication, and social movement studies. It argues that the news coverage of the Tea Party primarily chronicled its meaning, appeal, motivations, influence, and circulation—an emphasis on its persona more than its policies. In particular, the news media tracked the Tea Party as a brand, highlighting its profits, marketability, brand leaders, and audience appeal. The Tea Party became a brand through news media coverage; in defining it as a brand, the Tea Party was a story, message, and cognitive shortcut that built a lasting relationship with citizen-consumers through strong emotional connections, self-expression, consumption, and differentiation.

The Architecture of Our Discontent

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online Media ◽  
First Year ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Right ◽  
Integrated Media ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

This chapter presents the book’s macrolevel findings about the architecture of political communication and the news media ecosystem in the United States from 2015 to 2018. Two million stories published during the 2016 presidential election campaign are analyzed, along with another 1.9 million stories about Donald Trump’s presidency during his first year. The chapter examines patterns of interlinking between online media sources to understand the relations of authority and credibility among publishers, as well as the media sharing practices of Twitter and Facebook users to elucidate social media attention patterns. The data and mapping reveal not only a profoundly polarized media landscape but stark asymmetry: the right is more insular, skewed towards the extreme, and set apart from the more integrated media ecosystem of the center, center-left, and left.

scholarly journals Introduction to special issue about election reporting: Why journalism (still) matters

Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 985-993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Cushion ◽  
Daniel Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Campaign Coverage ◽  
Election Coverage ◽  
Social Media Platforms

This introduction unpacks the eight articles that make up this Journalism special issue about election reporting. Taken together, the articles ask: How has election reporting evolved over the last century across different media? Has the relationship between journalists and candidates changed in the digital age of campaigning? How do contemporary news values influence campaign coverage? Which voices – politicians, say or journalists – are most prominent? How far do citizens inform election coverage? How is public opinion articulated in the age of social media? Are sites such as Twitter developing new and distinctive election agendas? In what ways does social media interact with legacy media? How well have scholars researched and theorised election reporting cross-nationally? How can research agendas be enhanced? Overall, we argue this Special Issue demonstrates the continued strength of news media during election campaigns. This is in spite of social media platforms increasingly disrupting and recasting the agenda setting power of legacy media, not least by political parties and candidates who are relying more heavily on sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to campaign. But while debates in recent years have centred on the technological advances in political communication and the associated role of social media platforms during election campaigns (e.g. microtargeting voters, spreading disinformation/misinformation and allowing candidates to bypass media to campaign), our collection of studies signal the enduring influence professional journalists play in selecting and framing of news. Put more simply, how elections are reported still profoundly matters in spite of political parties’ and candidates’ more sophisticated use of digital campaigning.

scholarly journals Varying Psychological Impacts of COVID-19 and Functional/Dysfunctional Coping Strategies: A Mixed-Method Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 097206342110115
Author(s):  
Parul Rishi ◽  
Suchitra Acharya ◽  
Sushovan Das ◽  
Anushka Sood
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Method ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Global Business ◽  
Skill Sets ◽  
Mixed Method Approach ◽  
The People ◽  
Psychological Impacts ◽  
Care Family ◽  
Method Approach

The current focus on the transmission of COVID-19 infection all over the world may probably distract public attention from psychosocial consequences of the outbreak in the affected individuals and in the general population. However, there is limited empirical information about its psychological impact on the people of diverse regions and nationalities. Hence, the study aims to understand the psychological impacts of COVID-19 and associated pandemic distress on the demographically diverse Indian population and the ways people are adopting to cope with them. A total of 261 respondents aged 18−73 years, representing more than 17 states of India, filled an electronic survey questionnaire. Survey research methodology following the mixed-method approach adopting both qualitative and quantitative methodologies was adopted. Results of the first phase of the study indicated significant psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on respondents during the first three weeks of lockdown, especially the pandemic anxiety and social isolation. Physical health, fitness, self-care, family connect, learning of the new skill sets and self-growth opportunity were found to be some of the functional ways to cope with pandemic in this phase, whereas passive acceptance was expressed as a dysfunctional strategy to cope with pandemic coupled with negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, frustration and irritability for others. However, phase two of the study with 20% of respondents in the sixth week of lockdown revealed the exhaustion of the learning phase, limited efforts for self-growth and increasing anxiety and frustration. A great proportion of respondents expressed fear of losing global business scenario and its direct or indirect impact on them. A need for consistent and dedicated mental health care was recommended.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document