The overweight female body in Malaysian slimming advertisements: problem and solution

This study analyses image and text to investigate the way slimming advertising exploits women’s fear of being overweight to the extent that they feel obliged to do something about their own bodies. We show how Malaysian slimming advertisements construct certain types of female body which reinforce cultural stereotypes, namely the overweight body that exceeds culturally acceptable limits of desirable body size, and the desirable and attainable slim body with no excess fat. Three sample advertisements were selected from a Malaysian English newspaper and analysed using Jewitt and Oyama’s framework to identify the way images and text are used to give specific meanings relating to the female body. The images were examined in terms of representational, interactional and compositional meanings, and the analysis provides evidence of how the extremely overweight female body is pathologised, making it the focus of critical scrutiny. The advertisements use body images to illustrate the problem of being very overweight and the desirability of being slim, and the consumption of slimming services as a quick and easy solution to the problem.     

“非虚构写作”在网络舆情事件中的情感动员功能与表达逻辑

社交媒体时代,舆论生态的“后真相时代”特征日益鲜明,情感与信念成为网络舆情事件的主要动力。“非虚构写作”作为将纪实报道与文学创作结合起来的写作手法,在网络舆情事件中发挥着强大的情感动员功能。通过将悲情叙事、身份标签、戏谑表达等传统的网络情感动员表达逻辑与“文史合一”、忧患意识等“非虚构写作”本土概念巧妙嫁接,“非虚构写作”引发了一系列重大网络舆情事件,呈现出社会学观察、原型叙事、文化冲突三种表达逻辑。“非虚构写作”在舆情表达、舆论监督、社会观察等方面发挥着积极作用。同时,带有深刻情感色彩的“非虚构写作”也蕴含着网络民粹主义、网络暴力、网络虚假信息等诸多风险因素。如何实现“非虚构写作”批判与建设、解构与建构、破与立等方面的平衡,这为互联网生态建设提出了新的内容和新的问题。     

意识形态安全视域下社会思潮的新发展态势及其批判

在新中国70多年的社会发展变革中,多样化社会思潮不断涌现,并与马克思主义意识形态产生了激烈的论争,呈现出新的发展态势:在理论演进上,从注重抽象的学术争辩转向注重现实政治诉求;在现实关切上,从宏观的社会发展道路转向微观的利益分配;在国际交互态势上,从国外思潮不断向国内思潮转化;在话语辐散上,从知识分子话语扩展到大众话语;在传播方式上,从传统媒体时代的单向度传播转向全媒体时代的多向度传播。新时代马克思主义意识形态建设要科学把握社会思潮新的发展态势,切实增强马克思主义意识形态对当代中国多样化社会思潮的凝聚力与引领力,从而保障国家意识形态安全,提升国家治理效能。     

Peasant,Patriot, Environmentalist: Sustainable Development Discourse in Havana

Private urban agricultural ventures, initially a spontaneous response to food shortages during the Special Period, soon became a state‐sponsored project, related to global notions of sustainability. This article explores the relationship between sustainability discourse and its local dimensions to reveal the role of sustainability in the reformulation of the Revolution. Urban gardeners engage with international discourses of sustainability and interact with the Cuban state's articulation of these discourses. While this process forces urban gardeners to adapt to the changing meanings of growing food, it also provides a different language through which gardeners define themselves, especially in the context of a changing relationship with the state.     

西方对中国的“污名化”及其应对:框架理论的视角

中国在奋力实现中华民族伟大复兴的同时,也为促进世界共同发展作出了重要贡献。然而,西方污名化中国的浪潮此起彼伏,并有愈演愈烈之势。污名化是社会舆论阴影下施污者出于特定目的、对特定个体或群体形象的负面建构。其中,施污者的框架建构是理解污名化过程的关键所在,受众的框架共鸣是评估污名化影响的基本指标,受污者的反框架是去污名化斗争的重要举措。西方对中国的"污名化",正是通过框定中国的"他者"意象及其对西方主导国际秩序的"威胁",架构种种涉华负面话语以煽动国际社会共同打压中国,进而建构一种"污名化中国"框架。这一框架虽缺乏可信度,但极大损害了中国国际形象,乃至危及中国核心利益。百年变局下,国际社会更加关注中国的一言一行,西方或将趁机加大污名化中国的力度。中国要做好进行长期去污名化斗争的准备,揭露西方污名化中国框架的狭隘性,推进中国话语和中国叙事体系建设,提升中国主体性框架的国际传播力。     

党的意识形态话语权建构的发展脉络与经验启示——基于建党100周年的审视

中国共产党历经百年奋斗实践,意识形态话语权建构已成为一项系统工程伴随其发展的全过程。意识形态话语权作为意识形态建设中的一个子系统,对维护国家政权稳定、有效引导社会发展、正确规范个体行为具有重要的意义。值此建党百年之际,回顾总结中国共产党在成立、发展和建设过程中争夺、探索、提升、升华意识形态话语权的百年历史进程,能够获得宝贵的经验和深刻的启示。新时代,党的意识形态话语权建构要加强和完善党的意识形态话语主体的建设,拓展和丰富党的意识形态话语内容的广度,探索和创新党的意识形态话语载体的运用,以及实现对党的意识形态话语场域的净化。     

公共话语中隐喻语言的表意系统研究——基于隐喻的复杂系统分析法

隐喻语言是思维的载体，在公共话语中担任认知方式的表达媒介，是话语分析的重要考察对象。当前，多数聚焦隐喻的公共话语分析基于概念隐喻理论展开。相关研究从具身体验角度考察了公共话语中概念隐喻产生的心理过程，但未描写和解释语境中隐喻语言的表意网络创设。文章采用隐喻的复杂系统分析法，以英文报刊对金砖国家概念的隐喻构建为例，考察公共话语语境中隐喻语言的表意系统性。研究显示，隐喻语言在公共话语语境中自下而上形成系统隐喻、隐喻情节和隐喻叙事，三者环环相扣，受到话语目的、社会文化、语言语境及认知活动的交互施动。研究发现，隐喻的复杂系统分析法能有效捕捉语境中隐喻语言的协同表意，利于揭示公共话语中隐喻语言产生修辞论辩效果的复杂动因。     

The security-prejudice nexus: “Islamist” terrorism and the structural logics of Islamophobia in the UK

ABSTRACT

A growing body of evidence documents that Islamophobia is a significant social issue in the UK. This evidence also reveals an empirical link to “Islamist” terrorism, revealing a nexus between security and the social emergence of prejudice. Drawing on critical approaches to security and applying them to the case of the UK in 2017, this article explores this nexus conceptually and empirically. To do so, it examines the discourses of various governance institutions (including the media, the political elite, and security professionals) as they respond to “Islamist” terrorist events. It argues that these governance institutions individually and collectively – and often unwittingly – stigmatised and securitised “Muslim” identity. The structural emergence (i.e., the institutionalisation) of Islamophobia in the UK, this article contends, can largely be understood through these processes. This article therefore offers an illustration of some of the logics of how prejudice is embedded in societal structures, which has normative implications for how these processes might be successfully contested.     

The Discourse of the Extreme Right and Its Ideological Implications: The Case of the Alleanza nazionale on Immigration

Against the background of research on Italian parliamentary debates on immigration, ter Wal looks at the ideological positions of the extreme-right Alleanza nazionale (AN) concerning both immigration and integration policy. In order to unravel the ideological implications she focuses on examples of various rhetorical strategies enacted in speeches by several of the party's MPs: including stategies of self- and other-presentation, and of justification and causal explanation. This analysis shows how the AN manages to propagate an ideology of ethnic nationalism that eschews the egalitarian norms and cultural pluralism necessary for full participation by migrants. The AN's transformation and re-interpretation of the meaning of the key values of equality andsolidarietàfunction as a justification for the restriction of migrants' rights. Speakers shift the perspective from immigrants' problems to the socio-economic problems of Italians in order to recommend a policy of 'the own people first'. While the AN's discourse thus continues to build on traditional extreme-right beliefs and claims, on the other hand it also espouses New Right ideologies of cultural relativism. Moreover, unlike that of radical-right parties, the AN's discourse does not express blatant forms of ethnic prejudice in the form of stereotypical beliefs and negative representations of immigrants' personal characteristics, nor does it blame immigrants, who are rather represented, and sympathized with, as victims. The moderation of and internal contradictions in its discourse makes the AN difficult     

Multimodal narratives in SIA's “Singapore Girl” TV advertisements – from branding with femininity to branding with provenance and authenticity?

This paper analyses the multimodal narratives in Singapore Airlines (SIA)’s TV advertisements. Adapting the concept of the foreground–background continuum in multimodal interaction analysis, the first section of this paper analyses the narratives in 10 TV commercials available online from 1970s to 2013. Following the comparative analysis, a close investigation from a social semiotic perspective is conducted on SIA's latest TV advertisement in 2013. Through the analysis, this study shows how gendered representations of the Singapore Girl are manipulated in SIA's advertisements. It also reveals how these gendered representations adopted by SIA are married with contemporary branding philosophies, which also work to cloak them in relation to the use of increasingly well-rounded narrative structure. This study hopes to shed light on the understanding of how gender and sexist ideologies and representations are discursively embodied in contemporary branding strategies used by large-scale advertisements and campaigns spanning a long period.