scholarly journals #EsteVirusloParamosUnidos: War-like political communication on Twitter. Creating homogeneous communities in the Covid-19 crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 1227-1241
Author(s):  
Anna Tous-Rovirosa ◽  
Daria Dergacheva
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
The Government ◽  
Relationship Of

This article analyses the political communication on Twitter of the Government of Spain at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The #estevirusloparamosunidos campaign on Twitter is monitored during the dates with the worst results in terms of fatalities (March 31th- April, 4th, 2020). The sample included in total 398 523 tweets in four data sets. Through the Social Network Analysis, the main actors and the main interactions between users are identified. The research shows a high coincidence between the typology of the Press Conference Spokespersons and the main actors on the analyzed hashtag, prioritizing the Spanish Administration and the Armed Forces. There was also a high relationship of the main opinion leaders with their “natural spectrum”. We conclude that in this hashtag there was a “war-like” atmosphere. Via the computer-based text analysis we identify that the word ‘government’ was mentioned more than medical words and that there are present some military-like terms.

scholarly journals “The British Soldier is no Bolshevik”: The British Army, Discipline, and the Demobilization Strikes of 1919

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Butler
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
British Army ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Civilian Life ◽  
Daily Mail ◽  
Winston Churchill ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Military

Abstract This article considers the breakdown in discipline in the British Army which occurred in Britain and on the Western Front during the process of demobilization at the end of the First World War. Many soldiers, retained in the army immediately after the Armistice, went on strike, and some formed elected committees, demanding their swifter return to civilian life. Their perception was that the existing demobilization system was unjust, and men were soon organized by those more politically conscious members of the armed forces who had enlisted for the duration of the war. At one stage in January 1919, over 50,000 soldiers were out on strike, a fact that was of great concern to the British civilian and military authorities who miscalculated the risk posed by soldiers. Spurred on by many elements of the press, especially the Daily Mail and Daily Herald, who both fanned and dampened the flames of discontent, soldiers’ discipline broke down, demonstrating that the patriotism which had for so long kept them in line could only extend so far. Though senior members of the government, principally Winston Churchill, and the military, especially Douglas Haig and Henry Wilson, were genuinely concerned that Bolshevism had ‘infected’ the army, or, at the very least, the army had been unionized, their fears were not realized. The article examines the government’s strategy regarding demobilization, its efforts to assess the risk of politicization and manage the press, and its responses to these waves of strikes, arguing that, essentially, these soldiers were civilians first and simply wanted to return home, though, in the post-war political climate, government fears were very real.

scholarly journals Narracje i strategie argumentacyjne w dyskursie IV RP jako narzędzia wyznaczania granic wspólnot w polskim społeczeństwie

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-165
Author(s):  
Marcin Kotras
Keyword(s):  
Social Space ◽  
Round Table ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
Political Rivalry ◽  
Polish Society ◽  
The Government ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
The Masses

This article concerns discourse in the 4th Republic and its role in creating the divisions and cleavages of Polish society. The author analyzes the argumentation strategies used by the press supporting the government and its so-called “good change” (the weeklies Sieci and Uważam Rze, which were published in the years 2012–2017). He concentrates on selected rhetorical practices such as labeling, categorization, and discrimination, and determines that the center of the argumentation strategy of the weeklies analyzed is a discursively constructed division between the “elites” and the “masses” ordinary people”). This type of strategy allows the building of a Me-Them dichotomy, which serves not only to strengthen divisions but also to de-legitimize the social space of the 3rd Republic and give legitimacy to the “good change” of the 4th Republic. These activities are exemplified by the manner in which the writers in opinion-forming weeklies describe and explain selected topics and events, such as the Round Table Talks or the migration crisis. The author finds that in the argumentation strategies analyzed, the “nation” is understood as an exclusive community defined from an essentialist perspective. He relates these and other findings to the problem of the new, simplified form of political rivalry and contemporary election campaigns.

Big Collusion

2016 ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Garry Robson ◽  
C. M. Olavarria
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Behavior ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
Individual Privacy ◽  
Digital Surveillance ◽  
Financial Benefits ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The U.S

In the post-Snowden digital surveillance era, insufficient attention has been paid to the role of corporations and consumers in the onslaught on digital privacy by the largest surveillance state – the U.S. The distinction between corporations and the government is increasingly difficult to pinpoint, and there exists an exclusive arrangement of data sharing and financial benefits that tends towards the annihilation of individual privacy. Here the role of consumers in facilitating this alliance is examined, with consideration given to the “social” performances treated as free and exploitable data-creating labor. While consumers of the digital economy often assume that everything should be free, the widespread tendency to gratify desires online inevitably leads to hidden costs and consequences. The permanent data extracted from consumer behavior helps agencies sort and profile individuals for their own agendas. This trilateral relationship of ‘Big Collusion' seems to have gained an irreversibly anti-democratic momentum, producing new transgressions of privacy without proper consent.

Of “Takers” and “Makers”: A Social Psychological Analysis of Class and Classism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather E. Bullock ◽  
Harmony A. Reppond
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Psychological Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Psychological Research ◽  
The Government ◽  
Relationship Of

During the 2012 United States presidential campaign, the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates drew a stark line between “takers” and “makers,” claiming that too many Americans are “takers” because they receive more from the government and society than they contribute. In this chapter, we employ a critical social psychological framework to understand and deconstruct the political discourse surrounding “makers” versus “takers” and to illuminate the social psychology of social class and classism. This chapter focuses on attitudes and beliefs about social class that legitimize economic inequality and class disparities and the relationship of these beliefs to interclass relations and social and economic policy. In doing so, this chapter identifies the important role of social psychological research and justice-oriented frameworks in alleviating class-based disparities and classism.

Where Ideas Go to Die

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McDevitt
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
News Media ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Relationship Of

Where Ideas Go to Die explores the troubled relationship of US journalism and intellect. A defender of common sense, the press is irked at intellect yet often dependent on its critical autonomy. A postwar observation from Richard Hofstadter applies to contemporary journalists: “Men do not rise in the morning, grin at themselves in their mirrors, and say: ‘Ah, today I shall torment an intellectual and strangle an idea!’ ” The book nevertheless documents the prowess of news media in policing intellect. Control extends beyond suppression of ideas and ways of thinking to the aggressive rendering of dissent into deviance. The social control of intellect by journalism is accompanied by social control of journalism in newsrooms and in classrooms where norms are cultivated. Anti-intellectualism consequently operates like dark matter in media, a presence inferred by its effects rather than directly observed or acknowledged. When journalists anticipate a punitive public, the reified resentment is no more real than the fiction of omnipotent citizens in democratic theory, yet the audience imagined compels how intellect is rendered in the news as nuisance, deviance, or object of ridicule. Journalism’s contribution to the social control of ideas is poignantly democratic: audiences are cast in consequential roles that affirm their wisdom in a closed, self-referential system. The book concludes with a discussion about what intellectual journalism would look like. Interviews with 25 “dangerous professors” demonstrate how alliances in the academic-media nexus can seed intellect in newswork.

Life And Work of a Journalist

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-126
Author(s):  
Phạm Trần
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Government Control ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
South Vietnam ◽  
The Press ◽  
First Republic ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

This chapter recounts the major events and developments in the press scene in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). It first considers the press under the First Republic (1960–1963) and afterward the Second Republic (1963–1975). Under the First Republic, the press was controlled in two ways to keep it from opposing the government. First, the government gave newspapers coupons to buy newsprint at subsidized prices. Next, all the newspapers had to work with the exclusive distributor Thống Nhất, a commercial entity under government control. From 1964 until 1965, the press in South Vietnam was very much controlled by the various semicivilian, semimilitary governments and was heavily influenced by the armed forces. To conclude, the chapter briefly discusses the Press Law and other forms of press control in today's communist Vietnam for the purpose of comparison.

Bolivia at a Crossroads: Is Consolidation of a ‘Divided Society’ Feasible?

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-163
Author(s):  
T. A. Vorotnikova
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Social ◽  
Divided Society ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Government ◽  
Internal Balance

A protest wave which began in 2019 has swept across many Latin American countries. The Multinational State of Bolivia, where rapid destabilization of political situation has led to a serious internal crisis, was no exception. The paper examines the prospects for conflict resolution in Bolivia through the lens of the ‘divided society’ concept. The first section identifies the key fault lines in Bolivia including ethnic, cultural, and civilizational differences, economic disproportions, and high levels of social and political polarization. The author shows how the regime of Evo Morales managed to reach an internal balance and maintain it for quite a long time through complex balancing, concessions, and compromises. The second section identifies the causes behind the 2019 crisis. These include miscalculations of the government which has revealed general instability of the country’s political system and threatened to erode democratic institutions; changes in electoral behavior of the population; the increasing role of the armed forces. The author links the possibilities to overcome these challenges faced by Bolivia with the expansion of the social protection in conjunction with the principle of consociationalism, but stresses that even so the consolidation of the Bolivian society will be a time-consuming process.

The Great Rumor Mill: Gossip, Mass Media, and the Ninja Fear

2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 723-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Herriman
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Press ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
The Government

Different methods of communication imply different social and political relations. Generally, mass media are distributed through centralized broadcast stations or presses and controlled by the elite. Face-to-face communications, which circulate through physically close contact between people, have more subversive potential. The author analyzes rumors spread in the press and by word of mouth during October and November 1998 in East Java, Indonesia. Conspirators and ninjas were suspected of killing many alleged sorcerers and persecuting the traditionalist Muslim majority. In response, local residents established guards against, attacked, and even killed suspected ninjas. Suspicion also was directed against the government, elites, and the armed forces. This subversive content is attributed to the interaction of two forms of communication: oral rumors became written rumors, and vice versa.

scholarly journals Social Security Policy in Response to the Pandemic COVID-19: A Case Study from Vietnam

2021 ◽  
pp. 193672442110269
Author(s):  
Le Hoang Viet Lam
Keyword(s):  
Health Service ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Social Consensus ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Social Security Policy ◽  
Level Resistance

On the international scale of measurement, Vietnam stands out as a country that has successfully accomplished the objectives of minimizing the spread of COVID-19. These objectives have been achieved through several factors, including the Government’s commitment, excellent success of the health service, and the “wholeheartedness” of the armed forces, especially the social consensus, which is clearly reflected in the decisions and policies made. Among those crucial decisions, the stable social security system has been the key priority of the government of Vietnam because it provides a strong foundation for the disadvantaged, who are not expected to overcome the pandemic based on their low-level “resistance.” The article aims at illustrating Vietnam’s social security interventions and strategies when faced the global COVID-19 pandemic and it also draws some experience that need to be referenced in implementing Social Security Society witnessed from Vietnamese reality.

Meinungsdynamiken in fundamentalistischen Gruppen. Erklärungshypothesen auf der Basis von Simulationsmodellen

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Baurmann ◽  
Gregor Betz ◽  
Rainer Cramm
Keyword(s):  
Simulation Model ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Innovative Approach ◽  
Opinion Formation ◽  
Mutual Adaptation ◽  
The Social ◽  
First Results ◽  
Computer Based

AbstractIf we want to understand how fundamentalist group ideologies are established, we have to comprehend the social processes which form the basis of the emergence and distribution of such beliefs. In our paper we present an innovative approach to examining these processes and explaining how they function: with the method of computer-based simulation of opinion formation we develop heuristic explanatory models which help to generate new and interesting hypotheses. The focus is thereby not on individuals and their idiosyncrasies but on the dynamic mutual adaptation of beliefs in a group. These dynamics can produce an incremental establishment of ‘charismatic’ opinion leaders and an increasing radicalization and alienation. A prototype of such a simulation model has produced promising first results which are presented and discussed.

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