Ideological Standpoint Research Articles

Critical analysis of academic psychological discourse on terrorism

The following article contains a critical analysis of nine psychology articles published in the journal American Psychologist, which examine the topic of terrorism from different angles. In these articles, the authors discuss the process of radicalization through cognitive opening, with possible causes of becoming a terrorist including emotions, social identity and mental health problems. Through analysing these discourses, it will be argued that the a priori goal of such mechanistic models and theories of terrorism is the delegitimization of the political phenomenon, thereby implicitly or openly reflecting the ideological standpoint of their authors.

The Role of Facebook in Shaping Voting Behavior of Youth: Perspective of a Developing Country

This paper explores Facebook’s role in shaping the political perception of youth during the 2018 general elections in Pakistan. It also gauges the ideological standpoint of youth in Pakistan that influences their voting decisions. An online campaign has become an indispensable source for politicians to influence the masses without the constraints of distance and time. It is a quantitative study based on a questionnaire survey of young Pakistani voters. Findings show that Facebook has presumed the role of an instigator in shaping the voting behavior of educated youth. Respondents perceived Facebook as biased while expressing views and assisted political entities in manipulating the data to increase their vote bank. Though the majority of them haven’t experienced fake news so either they are not conscious or they trust blindly the information. Furthermore, respondents’ cognitive abilities are not obstructed by politicians using Facebook, instead, friends and family network seems more persuasive in determining voters’ choice. Results manifest that ideological standpoint impacts voters’ decisions substantially. There is no statistical difference in the voting behavior of respondents based on gender and/or age. The individuality of this study is that it focuses on the medium of communication between politicians and youth instead of emphasizing the social cleavages and their impact on voters’ decisions, which Pakistani scholars largely study. This study will prompt the field of psephology in Pakistan, which is largely ignored, and help scholars to move out of the domain of identity politics.

How does the male gaze construct our understanding of sexual power — using the example of Chinese film female characters

China's increasing development and the people's giowing reliance on online social networking have led to social phenomena on social media becoming more prominent and. to some extent, deepening. Nowhere is this more evident than in the phenomenon of misogyny and men-pleasing, a gender debate that has been ongoing unresolved for over a century. The subject of this research paper is an in-depth analysis of the male gaze and a critique of the solutions that have been proposed. The research perspective of this paper will be based on the dissection of the male gaze by Foucault and Laura Mulvey, as well as postmodem feminist perspectives, to present and judge the gender issues that exist and are potential. From a theoretical perspective, the male gaze inherently influences plot and characterization in film, and the latter functionally deepens the impression on the masses on a societal scale. On the other hand, from an ideological standpoint, it can be argued that cunent attempts to counteract and diminish the male gaze are overly one-sided and may actually deepen society's ambivalence towards this social issue.

Women Exploitation under ISIS: Ideology, Sexual Enslavement and Consequences

ISIS is an infamous acronym for Islamic States of Iraq and Syria, having strong hold on these two regions. It had established itself as a self-declared Caliphate. It possesses one of the largest terrorist threats to the international society and to global peace and security. There leaders have introduced a specific interpretation of sharia law, which is intensely harsh and brutal, one-sided with a very little regard to the human life. Among the whole human community, one of the worst sufferers are the women living in the ISIS controlled regions. Women faced brutal suppression and maltreatment under the ISIS rule. They forbid women education and impose stringent dress codes. Strict laws are made for marriage which gives a year-to-year guide that at which age a girl should be married and how later a woman should live her life. Women are brutally punished if they do not follow rules made by the ISIS like public execution. Irrespective of any sect all women face the brunt of strict oppressive behavior undermining their basic human rights. ISIS heavily sexualizes women as an object, “sex slaves”. This paper will focus on ideological standpoint behind different forms of violence against women in ISIS controlled territories, consequences of both direct and indirect violence on women and a case study on the sexual enslavement of the Yazidi women.

Analysis of the Integration of "the Superior Statement of Chinese Stories" into the Course of Ideological and Political Theory in Colleges

"The superior statement of Chinese stories" plays a positive role in adhering to the ideological standpoint of Marxism in Colleges. It improves the teaching effect of ideological and political courses. The history of national development, the curriculum setting of ideological and political theory courses are closely related to the superior statement of Chinese stories. For this reason, ideological and political teachers in colleges must be able to the superior statement of Chinese stories and pay attention to positive energy. At the same time, it is recognized that "the superior statement of Chinese stories" is not the whole of ideological and political theory courses. Maintaining rigor, avoiding distorting history and tampering with reality is necessary.

‘In this country, women are also soldiers’: interrelations between age and gender in the women’s section of the Romanian Legionary Movement

ABSTRACT This article examines the interrelations between age and gender in the Romanian Legionary Movement. The Legionary Movement, also known as Iron Guard, was an ultranationalist and antisemitic movement founded by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu in 1927. The movement was one of the major protagonists on the Romanian interwar political scene. Its political development followed a complex path marked by extraordinary successes and dramatic crises. Several works have explored the Legionary Movement’s history, but a systematic analysis from the standpoint of gender relations and women’s participation is still at an incipient stage. This article wants to contribute to this analysis by following the development of the legionary women’s section during the movement’s political history. Gender is used as a category of analysis in its interaction with age, in particular by exploring the concept of youth and its practical consequences for women’s participation. After the introduction, the first section analyses the concept of youth and its importance in the construction of legionary ideology. The second section will explore the foundation and development of the women’s section through the lenses of youth and gender. Women’s participation and political activity was often the result of the gendered elements constitutive of the concept of youth. From the ideological standpoint, the construction of women’s youthfulness interacted with and was limited by marriage and motherhood; at the same time, however, in the movement’s political practices these limits proved to be more flexible and reshaped by experience.

Ideological and pragmatic transformations: the adoption of neoliberal ideas by Finnish and Swedish conservative parties since the 1970s

ABSTRACT The article examines the extent to which Finnish and Swedish conservative parties adopted neoliberal ideas from the 1970s onwards. It does so by comparing their published programmes and contextualizing them politically and economically. Neoliberalism is understood as an intellectual tradition centred around the objective of increasing the role of the market mechanism in society. Concrete neoliberal programmatic ideas include critiques of the public sector and taxes, especially progressive taxation, and promoting the marketization of the public sector and liberalization of other sectors of society, such as finance and labour markets. The article shows that Swedish conservatives adopted neoliberal ideas considerably earlier than their Finnish counterparts and were more ideological in pursuing them. Both parties have traditionally called for tax cuts, but only Swedish conservatives called for a deregulation of financial markets and marketization of public services already in the late 1970s. The neoliberal ‘breakthrough’ only took place among Finnish conservatives in the 1990s, though they justified most reforms as pragmatic necessities rather than desirable from an ideological standpoint. These differences are explained especially by Finland’s different geopolitical position during the Cold War and its tradition of shifting coalition governments, which led to milder ideological contestation than in Swedish bloc politics.

A Discursive Engagement of Ideological Issues in Ilaje Zionist Gospel Songs: Lekan Remilekun-Amos and Debo Ojubuyi as Exemplars

The ideological practices of Christian groups in Nigeria and beyond, as evident in their songs, have received considerable attention from scholars across disciplines, including linguists. However, the songs and music of the Ilaje Zionist Christian movement, which constitutes a major bloc in the Nigerian “white garment” Christian circle, have not received serious scholarly attention. To address this gap in the literature, this article explores ideological issues in Ilaje Zionist gospel songs. Two prominent male artistes within the Ilaje Zionist Christian movement are sampled as case studies. The theoretical framework for this study is critical discourse analysis with emphasis on Fairclough’s analysis on ideology and insights from Odebunmi’s notion of shared cultural knowledge. The study identifies the following ideological themes that reverberate in this Christian movement: life is a battle, human wickedness, life is a matter of time and season, you reap what you sow, and life is vanity. The findings reveal that there are areas of complementarity between the Yorùbá ideological standpoint and the Christian biblical principles about life, as evident in the analysed songs. While the songs of the Ilaje Zionist Christian movement are gospel in nature, they reveal the people’s ideological attachment to their indigenous roots as a sub-group of the Yorùbá.

Demography of Censorship: Examining Correlations Between Community Demographics and Materials Challenges in Canadian Libraries

This study examines materials challenges in Canadian libraries, compiled by the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA), with the intention of identifying demographic trends in patron challenge behaviour. By cross-referencing the CFLA data with five demographic fields from the 2016 Canadian census of population (median age, city size, educational attainment level, median income, and political representation), the study aims to determine whether challenges of a certain nature are more likely to occur in communities with certain demographic profiles. The study identifies twenty-two challenge categories derived from user complaints and three ideological alignments of challenges based on the political ideology standards set by moral foundations theory. Though the available sample is too small to draw any definitive conclusions, some strong trends were apparent. Findings show that the most common challenge types, challenges to racist content and sexual content, are fairly consistent throughout demographic groupings, but notable correlations were found between demographic profiles and materials concerning LGBTQIA+ issues. Progressive-leaning communities were far more likely to challenge homophobic/transphobic materials while conservative-leaning communities challenged more LGBTQIA+-positive works. From an ideological standpoint, young communities tend to be the most progressive in their challenge behaviour, while communities with a low level of educational attainment tend to be the most conservative in their challenge behaviour.

Interculturality in language education in the Japanese context

ABSTRACT The discussion of interculturality in the Japanese context is often associated with Nihonjinron (the theory of Japanese people), which is constructed around the ideological standpoint that Japanese identity is racially and linguistically homogeneous. This study aims to explore foreign language teachers’ perceptions and practices and reflections on interculturality in language education in the Japanese context. Data were collected from 67 foreign language teachers in Japan through a web-based survey and interviews. The results of the survey indicated the general tendency not to practice an intercultural approach, despite teachers' willingness to integrate cultures, as demonstrated by previous studies conducted in various parts of the world. However, during the interviews, teachers started to realise that they were integrating culture into their teaching more than they had thought. Thus, the necessity of integrating interviews into the studies on teachers’ perceptions and practices was revealed. Secondly, language teachers’ reflections on their intercultural experiences, in the classroom and beyond were explored relying on the notion of critical reflexive interculturality (Dervin, F., and Jacobsson, A., 2021. Teacher Education for Critical and Reflexive Interculturality. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan). Implications of the study on language education, teacher education, and curriculum development will be discussed.

Problematizing Contemporary Islamic Discourse: A Conceptual Modeling of New Heroes in Indonesian Islamic Biographical Films

PurposeThis study problematizes the interconnectedness between religion and media once again within the context of Indonesian biopics. This paper looks at the pattern of transformation of two Islamic elite-authoritative figures into Islamic-popular heroes that are thematically intertwined with Islamic discourse in Indonesia’s reform era. MethodThe research in this article combines several theoretical concepts by examining the relationship between text and context. The social semiotic paradigm of Kress becomes the main theory for disecting the text, while the concept of cultural commodities from Fiske and discourse formation from Foucault become the frame of reference for viewing the relationship between text and context. Results/findingsThe binary modes in those two biopics are not identical, according to this article, but both have transformed the stable concept of historical figures into more complex ones that generate polysemic ideas from an ideological standpoint. This article also explains how the process of meaning formation in the film's two Islamic figures are affected by three entities forming a three-party dialectic model. ConclusionIn the case of two biopics, Sang Pencerah (2010) and Sang Kiai (2013), this article confirms a dynamic model of conceptual design that connects texts and context. It demonstrates the existence of some variables that contribute to the polarization of contemporary Islam discourses in Indonesia.

THEMATIC AMPLIFICATION: A STUDY OF PETER OMOKO’S CHARACTERISATION CRAFT IN CRUDE NIGHTMEN AND MAJESTIC REVOLT

A literary writer communicates a wide range of ideas and concerns about his society, whether past or present. This is done with the ultimate aim of making his readers benefit from his ideological standpoint. But the manner of expression is crucial to the reception accorded, and the successful interpretation of the literary text by the intended reader. A writer considers a number of literary tools to enable him to express his ideas effectively. The consideration for the deployment of the different literary tools in communicating these ideas makes a writer the successful artist he desires to be and equally acknowledged by the reader. This we can say of Peter Omoko who has written a number of plays. His works are loaded with different shades of literary themes suitable for critical scrutiny. There are few critical works done on his plays but mostly focus on the surface thematic analysis. It suffices to say that no work has been dedicated to investigating how the playwright uses the tool of characterization to reinforce his thematic concerns. This paper examines how the writer creates characters for the purpose of furthering the themes in the chosen play texts. The analytical procedure is anchored on new criticism which supports analyzing the intrinsic elements of the texts. The Paper finds out that the playwright slightly deploys odd characters to explain abnormal situations created by regular characters. It concludes that this particular method is the hallmark of the playwright’s characterization craft that makes him stand unique as a writer among his contemporaries.

Philosophy of Censorship and Safety in Libyan Cinema: Before and After the Libyan Uprising

This research examines the problem of censorship in the Libyan context from a historical and ideological standpoint. Libyan cinema has not gotten as much academic attention as Middle Eastern nations like Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. In addition to providing a historical overview of Libyan cinema, this study carefully investigates the settings that influenced Libyan national cinema from the perspectives of people who work in this industry there. To learn more about the problems with censorship in Libyan cinema before and after 2011, 25 individuals were interviewed informally between July 2018 and February 2019. Twenty-five people were the maximum because many were reluctant to give interviews due to safety concerns, which participants also mentioned. Data analysis was done using Nvivo 14. The data gathered identified two problems—safety and censorship—that have long plagued Libyan cinema. All panelists agreed that the Libyan film industry needs to advance in governing authorities, censorship, inventiveness, and how films engage with society's members.

Dichotomous conceptualisations of female friendship in 20th and 21st century Italian literature – a comparison of Alba de Céspedes, Anna Banti, Elena Ferrante, and Donatella Di Pietrantonio

Female friendship played a minor role in 20th century Italian narrative and this theme seems to have emerged only recently in Italian and European literature. Nevertheless, it offers an interesting lens through which to reflect on female narrative across time. This paper will first analyse the conceptualisation of female friendship by two authors who were the cornerstones of 20th century Italian (female) narrative – Anna Banti and Alba de Céspedes. It will then compare it to the representation of female friendship in contemporary authors, like Elena Ferrante and Donatella Di Pietrantonio. I will argue that Banti and de Céspedes’ representations of female friendships are dichotomous. The young protagonist of Banti’s Itinerario di Paolina (1937) avoids female bonds as a consequence of her attempts to escape from patriarchal restrictions, while Alessandra in de Céspedes’ Dalla parte di lei (1949) conceptualises female bonds as constitutive of her own and free identity from a very tender age. Building on this analysis, this paper shall then assess the extent to which 21st century authors like Ferrante and Di Pietrantonio have echoed or changed the representation of female bonds and in turn reproduce the dichotomous conceptualisation of female friendship in their narratives. It will argue that while reproducing a dichotomous representation of female friendships similar to that of de Céspedes and Banti, this is actually underpinned by the same ideological standpoint in both authors, because they both see female friendship as the ground to forge women’s identities and fight the patriarchal struggles of their times.

The Impact of Ideologies on the Translator’s Work: A Conceptual Reflection and Application

This paper addresses the translator’s role from an ideological standpoint and seeks to show that the actions of translators are not completely arbitrary and may be influenced by a wide array of factors and especially ideologies. The basic assumption is that translators can detach texts neither from the ideologies of the source nor the target culture. This study results from qualitative research, namely a critical conceptual analysis of the selected theories of translation studies (Baker, 2006; Lefevere, 1992; Venuti, 1995). The conceptual reflection implies that translations serve as an infinite source of culture and history, serving the target but not the source culture. The critical discourse analysis of English translations of two selected novels that contain the ideologies of socialist and post-socialist era, and the Nazi ideology, suggests that the tendencies in translation strategies vary depending on diffusion of the languages, and awareness of the target culture and history.

Alternative media framing of COVID-19 risks

Early media coverage of COVID-19, between 1 January and 31 March 2020, provided Alternative Media Personalities (AMPs) an opportunity to provide conspiratorial misinformation to their online audiences. Far-right AMPs may reframe sociopolitical aspects of risk to produce ‘fake-news’, amplifying future risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) to define factors of risk amplification, this study conducted a framing analysis upon 1,895 minutes of streamed video content from a popular, far-right, AMP regarding COVID-19. Significant differences in frame expression suggested that AMPs hold greater value in specific frames when providing infotainment based upon authentic interpretations of risk. A lack of significant change in frame expression over time suggests that AMPs may rely upon media templates when communicating risk to their audience. Qualitative data suggest that different aspects of risk amplification work in concert to provide discursive contexts for far-right AMPs to define risks from their ideological standpoint. The data provided by this study better outline some of the complexities facing scientific communications strategies which seek to directly address misinformation online.

On Second Thought

On Second Thought

Русские писатели в чешской среде первой половины 1920-х гг.: периодика левого политического крыла (газета «Руде право»)

The paper examines perceptions of Russian literature in the first half of the 1920s by a Czech literary criticism of the left-wing political orientation, namely by Rudé Právo, newspaper of the communist party of Czechoslovakia. On the one hand, at this time, the Russian classics are being rethought in terms of their usefulness for the purposes of proletarian movement, up to discrediting individual authors (for example, F. M. Dostoevsky) and adjusting ideas of other writers to the communist ideology (L. N. Tolstoy). On the other hand, much attention of the editors is paid to the modern literature of post-revolutionary Russia, whose representatives are evaluated and selected for translation and review, provided they accept and praise the revolution (first of all, this is the poem The Twelve by A. A. Blok, poetry by V. V. Mayakovsky, prose by M. Gorky and V. G. Korolenko), whereas their work is assessed one-sidedly, exclusively in the ideological aspect. The first attempts of writing generalizing materials on the contemporary literary process (for example, Peasant revolutionary poetry by I. Weil) are being made. In general, Russian literature is viewed from an ideological standpoint, only with varying degrees of categoricality by individual critics. As the author reveals it was of great importance for the shaping of the ideological position and cultural program of the Czech communists, and compared with other literatures, its role is identified as leading.

MEMORY AND IDEOLOGY IN MOHSIN HAMID’S THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST

Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, published in 2007, is a novel that focuses on the ideological standpoint of a young Pakistani man, Changez, who seeks for a solid standing ground in his own cultural origins after his educational and professional life in the US that westernized him fully. The novel, narrated within a frame story, is set on a single evening in Lahore where Changez tells his life back in America to an American in a café. Changez’s narration follows the story of his past with flashbacks and he leads the reader through his ideological change. Thus, purpose of this study is to question Changez’s ideological change after the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York 2001. As memory traces his own past through what he went under during the 9/11 attacks, his approach to his western acquaintance in the Lahore café changes. This paper, therefore, raises questions as to whether memories change one’s ideology in terms of their political stance, or one’s cultural origins that determine them.

Slovenci, Jugoslavija in začetek vojne

Po oblikovanju Banovine Hrvaške 26. avgusta 1939 so se jeseni 1939 v katoliškem taboru, ki je v Dravski banovini – jugoslovanski Sloveniji imel absolutno oblast, začeli pripravljati na vzpostavitev posebne Banovine Slovenije. V vprašanje državnopravne emancipacije v Kraljevini Jugoslaviji so se leta 1939 poglobili tudi v opozicijskem ljudskofrontem gibanju. Narodni demokrati, krščanski socialisti in komunisti so oblikovali tri zelo določne, izvirne in radikalne avtonomistično-federalistične narodne programe. Ob narodni so bile na Slovenskem poudarjene tudi idejnopolitične opredelitve. V katoliškem taboru so zaostrili ideološki boj ne le proti liberalizmu, temveč posebej proti socializmu in komunizmu. Obenem je v njem prišlo do cepitve, saj so krščanski socialisti s katoliško politiko pretrgali vse vezi. Ideološko stališče večinskega dela katoliškega tabora so leta 1939 izrazili na VI. Mednarodnem kongresu Kristusa Kralja 25. do 30. julija 1939 v Ljubljani z zahtevo po nujni katoliški obnovi. Živo je bilo narodnoobrambno gibanje, ki je spodbujalo povezovanje ljudi, društev in organizacij ne glede na politično pripadnost zaradi obrambe pred zunanjo nevarnostjo fašističnih držav in v boju zoper hitlerizem. Leta 1939 je izšel tudi znani Spominski zbornik Slovenije, Univerza v Ljubljani je praznovala dvajsetletnico obstoja, Antonu Korošcu pa so ob tem podelili naslov častnega doktorja prava. Leta 1939 je postal tudi častni ljubljanski meščan. Vojna in bojazen, za marsikoga že prepričanje, da Jugoslavije ne bo obšla, so ob pričakovanju demokratičnih sprememb v državi, ideoloških in političnih razhajanjih ter odločenosti braniti Jugoslavijo spremljali Slovence po začetku druge svetovne vojne 1. septembra 1939. Ko je novi svetovni spopad dobro leto in pol kasneje vase potegnil celotni slovenski narod ter njegovo idejno in socialnopolitično zaznamovanost, sta nastopila najtežja zgodovinska preizkušnja Slovencev in v njej njihovo srečanje samih s seboj.