Obscuring sexual crime: examining media representations of sexual violence in Megan’s law

Sexual violence remains a pervasive and persistent social problem. In 1996, Congress enacted Megan’s Law, dictating mandatory community notification and potential civil commitment for those deemed by the State to be dangerous sexual offenders. In 2013, Megan’s Law continues to influence the treatment of sexual offenders under law and the social construction of a highly publicized, yet statistically rare, sexual crime – the rape and murder of a young female child by a depraved male stranger. This influence highlights the extent to which this personalized crime bill shapes the social construction of sexual violence in terms of sex and gender systems. This paper examines how sex and gender shape media discourses of the sexual offender and victim that are mobilized in the legislative debate on Megan’s Law. Drawing on theoretical ideas from cultural studies and feminist legal scholarship, we employ discourse analysis to analyze the legislative debate on Megan’s Law. We find that high-profile media images of sex offenders and victims are relied on to construct a singular image of sexual violence, whereby a child is victimized by an adult sexual predator. These images draw on traditional, conservative notions of gender and sexuality.     

Abolishing the Audit Commission: Framing,Discourse Coalitions and Administrative Reform

The abolition of the Audit Commission in England raises questions about how a major reform was achieved with so little controversy, why the agency lacked the institutional stickiness commonly described in the literature on organisational reform and why it did not strategise to survive. In this paper, we apply argumentative discourse analysis to rich empirical data to reveal the pattern and evolution of storylines and discourse coalitions, and the ways in which these interact with and affect the practices of Parliament, the media and the Audit Commission itself. Our analysis shows that the politics of administrative reform are as much about discursive framing and the ability of pro-reformers to gain discursive structuration and institutionalisation as they are about the material resources available to a newly elected government and its ministers. Questions of technical feasibility are unlikely to derail a reform initiative once its promoters gain discursive ascendency.     

A critical discourse analysis of pavement advertisements of herbal medicine and spiritual healing services in Central Johannesburg

Abstract

This article discusses the language in a range of advertisements for herbal medicines and spiritual healing services, as found in fliers distributed on the pavements of the Johannesburg central business district. The socio-cognitive approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) was employed to analyse the language used. The purpose was to identify the ways in which the producers of the advertisements, through careful choice of discourse, attempt to manipulate potential customers. It was established that the producers purported to have solutions to a broad range of problems affecting society. These included sexual, marital, business-related and social problems, for which the healers claimed to have quick and permanent solutions. Stylistic techniques include the use of juxtaposition, rhetorical questions, hyperbole, punctuation marks, indigenous languages, first-person narratives in testimonies, illustrations and the naming of herbs. The conclusion can be drawn that the advertisements demonstrate a perceived power imbalance between their producers and the target audiences. This may lead certain clients to be deceived by the herbalists and spiritual healers, sometimes with disastrous consequences. It is, however, acknowledged that not everyone in South African society believes all the claims made in these advertisements.     

THE PAST IN THE PRESENT: THE SHAPING OF IDENTITY IN LOYALIST ULSTER

This article discusses Loyalist identity formation in Ulster, as Unionists and Loyalists strive to reconcile with or, conversely, distance themselves from the fundamental political changes that have followed in the wake of the paramilitary ceasefires of the mid-1990s and the 1998 Good Friday Belfast Peace Agreement. It is argued that in the unresolved questions surrounding identity and allegiance lie the keys to conflict and its resolution in Northern Ireland. The article has four specific objectives. First, these revisionist identity authorings are set within a conceptual context that links three closely related ideas that are crucial to the emerging identities of post-1994 Loyalist Ulster: resistance; subalternity; and Thirdspace. Secondly, the implications of these ideas for the renegotiation of Loyalist identities are explored, before, thirdly, a brief examination of the subject matter, content and resources—the heritage—for those identities. Finally, the article isolates some of the major themes of these identities in order to elicit the repercussions of Loyalist self-imaging. Particular emphasis is given to the Somme mythology and the Ulster-Scots movement.     

扎实推进社会主义文化强国建设思想的价值逻辑——建构中国特色社会主义文化话语体系的理论特色

党的十八大报告把中国特色社会主义文化建设推向了一个新的高度。＂扎实推进社会主义文化强国建设＂思想凝结着中国共产党文化建设思想的智慧,体现了建构中国特色社会主义文化话语体系理论特色的价值逻辑。其蕴含的新观点、新精髓、新思路、新提法,丰富了建构社会主义文化话语体系的先进特色、民族特色、和谐特色、时代特色的重要理论内涵。新观点体现了建构中国特色社会主义文化话语体系先进特色的价值目标。新精髓形成了建构中国特色社会主义文化话语体系民族特色的理论核心。新思路体现了建构中国特色社会主义文化话语体系和谐特色的发展导向。新提法体现了建构中国特色社会主义文化话语体系时代特色的实践创新。     

建国以来警政文本的叙事话语及其实践析评——以20次全国公安会议为视角

透过文本、话语实践和社会实践三个向度,我们发现建国以来20次全国公安会议警政文本的核心话语经历了革命→治安→服务→稳定的发展演变过程,其演进是建国后三代政治精英治国理政话语的基本反映和重要支持。警政话语及其实践的发展流变始终围绕着政治合法性展开,而决定政治合法性建构的核心因素是经济社会变迁,因此,自觉地吻合、满足经济社会需要是警政话语及其实践的首要规定性。     

The Internet,alternative public sphere and political dynamism: Korea's non-gaek * (polemist ) websites

Abstract

This paper explores the development of Korea's online alternative public sphere and illuminates the characteristics of this space, ‘activated’ by non-gaek websites. These websites host highly partisan discourses which are produced and disseminated by a focused political agenda that aims at political reform. Such a method of conducting discourse has led to the dissimilitude of the alternative public sphere, resulting in the birth of a multiplicity of spheres that represent divergent political views. This paper argues that although the overall extent of the alternative public sphere is expanded by non-gaek websites, it is becoming at the same time an exclusive and intolerant space. Furthermore, it is argued that to facilitate functional operation of the alternative public sphere, an institutionalization of rules and norms that can solve such problems is necessary.     

Political science,political ideas and rhetoric

The article reviews ‘ideational’ analysis and theory in political science. It argues that this is an important area of research limited by lack of a clear sense of what ideas in politics are and of how to analyse them as directly as possible. It is argued that political science should learn from the ‘rhetorical turn’ in various areas of the social sciences, developing ways, appropriate to political science, of analysing the language, rhetoric and argumentation of political and policy discourse in its governmental contexts. Such an approach rests on a strong sense of the dynamic, contested and creative nature of political activity.     

More than a ‘war of words’: identity,politics and the struggle for dominance during the recent ‘political reform’ period in Hong Kong

Patten's arrival as Governor in 1992 Marked a new stage inthe Sino-British struggle over ‘decolonization’ in Hong Kong. This struggle ishighly rhetorical and the local mass media call it a ‘war of words’.However, by adopting a strategic-relational approach, this article reveals a dual struggle over the politics of identity and the social basis for a new economic and political regime in the approach to 1997. The key protagonists (Patten and Chinese officials) have deploye various discursive strategies as economic and political circumstances in Hong Knog have changed. Global, regional and local factors and forces are shaping the emergence of two new, but still unstable, power blocs with different social bases. Whether these actions have an effect upon transforming the structural forms depends on the balanceof forces which is increasingly mediated by changes in discourses and discursive practices over time.     

Bullying Widespread

Abstract

The issue of bullying features prominently in educational administration, academic research, journalism, and public discourse. In this paper, I present a critical examination of research on bullying by addressing dominant themes and preoccupations in the literature. I argue that the proliferation of policies and programs purported to reduce bullying in schools are anchored by what appears to be a common, but problematic, understanding of the notion of bullying. Such policies and programs are utilitarian but misguided. Here, I problematize the very notion of bullying and contextualize it within broader frameworks of educational administration and social oppression. By contrast, I highlight educational theorists who conceptualize school violence in social and political terms rather than psychological, behavioral, and individualistic ones.