test 1 Flashcards
Pop culture
the domain of mass entertainment consumed, distributed, and created according to shifting and entrenched tastes
- has to do w masses, common man can relate
Populism
the political doctrine that suggests that the common people are exploited by a privileged elite; there are different varieties of populism, that run from left to right of the ideological spectrum;
but overall, populism is guided by the belief that political and social goals are best achieved by the direct actions of the ‘people’
- related to democracy
Political efficacy
a citizen’s level of trust in government and the belief that she can understand and influence political affairs
- idea that citizen has that they have a voice in politics, can implement change
Gender
used to describe those characteristics of women and men, which are socially constructed, while sex refers to those which are biologically determined.
People are born female or male but learn to be girls and boys who grow into women and men.
This learned behaviour makes up gender identity and determines gender roles
- candidate’s gender is used to infer certain personality traits and leadership characteristics
Commodification
To turn into or treat as a commodity; make commercia
Spin
the age of news and information that is manipulated or slanted to affect its interpretation and influence public opinion
John Oliver effect
The playful use of political satire, comedic pop culture-driven journalism, and social criticism to expose political issues and often clarify misinformation, expose politicians, corporate and military leaders, and promote worthy causes that were not getting exposure on public airwaves
- How comedy and satire are tools of political change
- Live in a post-truth era - era of fake news; do not know who is telling the truth or what the truth is
Military-entertainment complex
A term describing the cooperation and sharing between the military and entertainment industries to their mutual benefit, especially in such fields as multimedia and virtual reality.
e.g. homeland
Political satire
the use of irony, humour and/or sarcasm to examine and criticize states of affair or controversial issues or events within the political arena;
more an attempt to expose tensions, errors, absurdity and hypocrisy than trying to offer particular solutions to a particular problem (different from political protest or dissent).
Zoon politikon
an animal intended to live in a city; a political animal“ (Aristotle)
Thought humans reached highest potential when interacting and associating as humans in political situations
□ Highest potential when they think of themselves as citizens and interact as citizens
Political
those things that are of the polis or city-state, and of concern to the those who are citizens
Idealism
asserts the priority of ideals, principles, values, and high-level goals over concrete realities and restrictions.
Idealists tend to represent the world as it might or should be
From the ancient Greek word, idein (ἰδεῖν), meaning “to see“; the attempt ‘to see’ beyond the limitations of pragmatic politics.
Realism
asserts the priority of real and actual power politics based primarily on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than explicit idealistic notions or moral or ethical premises.
Sophists
travelling teachers who taught young men how to make and win arguments in courts of law
one who teaches practical skills, such as rhetoric and deceptive accounting practices of questionable legality, that they need to be personally successful in public life
○ Realist
Sophism
a method of teaching in ancient Greece based on techniques and practices of persuasion; taught that there was no truth, just strong or weak arguments; practitioners of sophism sought to gain influence through argumentation.
Utopia
the perfect or ideal place (but one that doesn’t really exist); ancient Greek pun: ‘eu-topos’= ‘good place’/‘ou-topos= ‘no place’
Dystopia
the imperfect society or bad place, often depicted as a futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral or totalitarian control.
The Obama effect
A theory that the electorate — especially undecided voters — can be influenced by celebrities because they inherently seek to reduce their own uncertainty
Ideology
A system of frames and a neural process of framing information
mechanism that ‘frames’ the way you look at and perceive things in order to achieve one main goal: to convince one to buy into a set or system of beliefs and values, and thus direct behaviour and actions
- structures our reality
- tells us what to desire & how to desire
Conceptual framework
make sense of the world using personal experiences, preferences, and expectations
Idealist period
two decades between the world wars were marked by efforts to envision and attain a perfectly peaceful world
League of nations
comprised of an international court of justice, a legislative body, and lots of bureaucracy
○ Appeared to be substantial step towards global democracy
Political theory
- aimed at developing knowledge
○ Usually complex, logically robust, written for a select audience
○ In a way they are timeless → raise questions and provide answers for problems that have persisted throughout the centuries
Political ideology
- diff varieties of political systems of belief that have historically emerged
- organizing and directing goal-oriented action
○ Created to convince large numbers of people to buy into a belief system
○ Often also includes how-to instructions for assembling that utopia
○ Are temporal
○ Exception of classic conservatism, all ideologies presume human beings can make rational decisions and that people can mold their destinies
Classic liberalism
- rooted in theories of freedom articulate by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and were explicitly made part of the American insurrection against their divinely appointed British monarch, Adam Smith added economic freedom as a key variable
○ Classic liberal’s utopia would be a country in which the government provides for maximum human freedom by staying out of the way
Libertarianism
- believe government should provide military protection, a police force, and basic infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges), but do a little more
Classic conservatism
- rational, considered belief that existing processes and norms have evolved into highly efficient and effective institutions
- tradition is more important than constant change
○ Developed as reaction to excesses resulting from French revolution
○ Generally associated with 18th century British parliamentarian Edmund Burke
○ Believe people should be wary of changing things until they understand all of the ramifications of the proposed changes, because almost any change is certain to unleash unintended consequences, such as the havoc that followed the French revolution
○ Their perfect world is a picture of the anarchy that might result from the careless elimination of treasured institutions
Communism
- classless society in which justice and fairness would prevail
○ Marx’s utopia → no need for government because enough material goods for all
Bourgeoisie
- capitalists who control entire machinery of state and benefit from inequalities created by capitalistic system
Proletariat
- working class; workers who were paid only a fraction of the worth of the goods they produced and services they provided
Members of proletariat did not make enough to purchase the goods they supplied → resulted in constant overproduction and recurrent economic depressions
Imperialism
- exploitation and colonization of countries by advanced capitalist countries
Democratic socialism
- believe that people are inherently social beings and that classic liberalism places too great a stress on individualism
- using democratic means to achieve a socialist state
○ Like Marx - envisioned society with social, political, and economic equality
○ Unlike Marx - prefer operating political parties in democratic countries to achieve their ends
§ Marx believed in violent overthrow of capitalist societies
○ Eduard Bernstein - active in German social democratic party
Democratic socialists vs social democrats
○ Democratic socialists - believe socialist state can be achieved through democratic means
○ Social democrats - aim merely to modify the harshness of capitalism through the infusion of some elements of socialism
Reform liberalism
- argue that government has a role to play in regulating the economy and removing the major inequities inherent in the capitalist system
○ Thomas Hill Green
○ Believe in positive and negative liberty
Negative liberty
- governments remove the obstacles that hinder people from pursuing their individual goals
Positive liberty
- guarantee opportunities for those who might not otherwise be able to take advantage of this type of freedom by providing education, job training, health care, a safety net, and so forth
Reform liberals vs classic liberals
○ Classic liberals agree with negative liberty, do not agree with positive liberty
○ Reform liberals want a government who ensures no one is left behind
§ Classic liberals believe any governmental interference negatively effects the economy
Fascism
- argues for supremacy and purity of one group of people in a society
○ Believe in strong military rule headed by a charismatic dictator that exercises total control over all aspects of social and cultural life
○ Nationalism plays a strong role in fascism
Politics
consists of individual or combined actions of individuals, governments, and/ or groups aimed at getting what they want accomplished when those actions have public consequences
Experimental reality
- composed of things we directly we directly experience
Agreement reality
- can be derived from interaction with parents, friends, authority figures, religious doctrines, celebs, media, teachers
Decaf capitalism
- a sort of humanized capitalism that manages to hold together both enormous wealth accumulation and significant global inequality by attending to the worst manifestations of such inequality through charity
○ Celebrity humanitarianism that helps decaffeinate capitalism, doing the bare minimum to stabilize the system, preventing it from spinning out of control
Charity
a markedly Christianized concept associated with Christ-like ‘love’ for others
Philanthropy
means ‘love of humankind’, which is expressed through generous donations to ‘good causes’
Humanitarianism
concern for human welfare
fetishistic disavowal
- know what you do, but continue to do it even though you know better
○ e.g. you buy shoes made in Indonesia - you know they’re made in a sweatshop, but you still buy them because they’re cheap
celeb humanitarianism
- When celebs speak for the Third World on issues of debt or poverty, or NGOs act as ‘witnesses’ on behalf of disaster ‘victims’, they reduce the Other into passive bystander, unilaterally representing her/his needs and desires
When the spectacle of humanitarian relief focuses on the ‘show’, as it most often does, it ends up valuing the crisis’s outwardly visible and photogenic aspects, diverting public attention away from the latter’s long-term and structural causes
Medium is the message
- Perception influences communication - which influences how we perceive politics
- Medium influences various messages (e.g. media on political campaigns)
- Images of vietnam war, nixon going on tv - has subtle effects on the viewer that can change opinions
- how things are marketed to us affects our opinions
Framing
- Medium frames info that we receive and perceive - diff media frame messages in diff ways
- How things are framed - create networks in our brains - influence our feelings and attitudes
- Frames can influence unconsciously by using subtexts
- Liberals use hope, rational - conservatives use fear, marketing
○ Conservatives frame their message in a way that gets them elected
Politics is …
- About power, how people seek to influence once another.
- About partnerships and public interactions (e.g. Aristotle)
- The pop culture of ancient Greece was theatre (not television or digital media as in today).
Culture industry
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer
their theory:
- popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods — films, radio programmes, magazines, etc. — that are used to manipulate mass society into passivity
Politics and pop culture in ancient greece
- One of first societies to bring together politics and pop culture
○ Through theatre/ drama
○ Hosted festivals in their cities - whole cities would shut down so everyone would come
○ Dionysus
○ Men and women were divided - at these festivals divisions didn’t really matter
○ Tragedy - men would wear goat skins & compete
○ Festival of Dionysus would have theatre showcasing tragedy
§ Thespas (?) - one actor that would play everyone - why ppl called thespian
Greeks would perform 3 tragedies in a row, then a comedy
○ 3 ppl - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides
○ End with a comedy to lighten mood
§ Actor was Aristophanes
§ Play was about women who used their sexuality to stop wars
§ Used to criticize policies that Greek men were pushed to go out to war instead of finding a way to peace
Franklin Roosevelt’s (FDR) 4 freedoms
freedom of speech
freedom of worship
freedom from want
freedom from fear
The ancient debate - plato & aristotle
- Plato - society ruled by wisdom, in harmony, power in hands of benevolent leaders who chose what was fair
- Aristotle - perfect societies do not exist in reality
○ Politics is about practical issues - what does exist, not what should exist
○ Plato’s student - Plato used his teacher Socrates in his play
○ Socrates sentenced to death for teaching idealism
○ In The Republic - plato dramatized convo between socrates and thrasymachus
§ Socrates disliked sophists - because sophism is only about using the best argument to win, not what you believe in
□ Socrates thought it was toxic
characteristics of a dystopian society
- propaganda used to control citizens
- info, independent thought, freedom restricted
- figurehead or concept worshipped by citizens
- citizens perceived to be under constant surveillance
- citizens fear the outside world
- citizens live in dehumanised state
- natural world is banished and distrusted
- citizens conform to uniform expectation - individuality and dissent are bad
- society is an illusion of a perfect Utopian world
