Analize - Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies, 2020
While Korean popular culture is gaining ground and is able to influence foreign political discour... more While Korean popular culture is gaining ground and is able to influence foreign political discourses, mini-markets with Chinese noodles and dumplings do not become third places for groups of C-pop fans who put on Chinese make up, sing Chinese pop songs and eat Chinese noodles. Nor do C-pop and C-drama fans gather in "We love China" cultural associations to spread Chinese culture and language. These cultural activities have been backed by the Chinese state through its Confucius Institutes, but they have not won the hearts and minds of millions of people around the world. I try to debunk in this research on the Romanian-based Korean and Chinese pop culture fandom the reasons why the same pop culture consumers of Chinese and Korean media products tend to favour the Korean over the Chinese. Based on two concepts, Joseph Nye Jr's soft power from international relations and Michel Foucault's biopower and biopolitics from anthropology, I analyse the reactions of Romanian fans to both currents to point out that gender targeted pop culture using women's bodies to promote political ideas cannot work if they are backed by an authoritarian non-charismatic state.
Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in early 2011, Lebanon has seen a drastic deterioration i... more Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in early 2011, Lebanon has seen a drastic deterioration in security: domestic supporters and opponents of the Syrian government have confronted each other in armed clashes and Lebanese groups also got involved in the war in Syria. The extremist groups that emerged in Syria also found supporters in Lebanon and a series of suicide bombings rocked civilian areas. Violent conflict affected several regions in Lebanon, but Tripoli, in particular, was called “little Syria” because it seemed to mirror the hostilities in the neighboring country. Many authors have pointed at the Syrian crisis spillover in order to explain the conflict in Tripoli. The thesis aims at explaining the mechanisms that led to polarization and radicalization in the Sunni community in Tripoli. It looks at the conflict through the lens of sectarian identity, explaining how the already existing political polarization turned to sectarian conflict in the presence of the catalysts provided by the Syrian crisis.
Korean pop culture is one of the most cited models of soft power in the age of global information... more Korean pop culture is one of the most cited models of soft power in the age of global information. If most political science literature looks at soft power by employing the state level approach, few if any look at how consumption of pop culture turns into soft power: technically how the consumption of pop culture from a certain region of the world turns into political influence. Also very few sociologists and anthropologists look at the political aspect of popular culture, and when they do they analyse the case of the United States or Japan. The thesis aims at determining what makes a given group consume Korean pop culture and how this pop culture is lived and embodied by members of a certain group and becomes what Joseph Nye called soft power – the „ability of a country to attract others arises from its culture, its values and domestic practices, and the perceived legitimacy of its foreign policies”. In other words, tries to explain the mechanism that turns Romanian women fans of Korean popular culture into political agents working to spread a message sent by a foreign state.
Analize - Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies, 2020
While Korean popular culture is gaining ground and is able to influence foreign political discour... more While Korean popular culture is gaining ground and is able to influence foreign political discourses, mini-markets with Chinese noodles and dumplings do not become third places for groups of C-pop fans who put on Chinese make up, sing Chinese pop songs and eat Chinese noodles. Nor do C-pop and C-drama fans gather in "We love China" cultural associations to spread Chinese culture and language. These cultural activities have been backed by the Chinese state through its Confucius Institutes, but they have not won the hearts and minds of millions of people around the world. I try to debunk in this research on the Romanian-based Korean and Chinese pop culture fandom the reasons why the same pop culture consumers of Chinese and Korean media products tend to favour the Korean over the Chinese. Based on two concepts, Joseph Nye Jr's soft power from international relations and Michel Foucault's biopower and biopolitics from anthropology, I analyse the reactions of Romanian fans to both currents to point out that gender targeted pop culture using women's bodies to promote political ideas cannot work if they are backed by an authoritarian non-charismatic state.
Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in early 2011, Lebanon has seen a drastic deterioration i... more Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in early 2011, Lebanon has seen a drastic deterioration in security: domestic supporters and opponents of the Syrian government have confronted each other in armed clashes and Lebanese groups also got involved in the war in Syria. The extremist groups that emerged in Syria also found supporters in Lebanon and a series of suicide bombings rocked civilian areas. Violent conflict affected several regions in Lebanon, but Tripoli, in particular, was called “little Syria” because it seemed to mirror the hostilities in the neighboring country. Many authors have pointed at the Syrian crisis spillover in order to explain the conflict in Tripoli. The thesis aims at explaining the mechanisms that led to polarization and radicalization in the Sunni community in Tripoli. It looks at the conflict through the lens of sectarian identity, explaining how the already existing political polarization turned to sectarian conflict in the presence of the catalysts provided by the Syrian crisis.
Korean pop culture is one of the most cited models of soft power in the age of global information... more Korean pop culture is one of the most cited models of soft power in the age of global information. If most political science literature looks at soft power by employing the state level approach, few if any look at how consumption of pop culture turns into soft power: technically how the consumption of pop culture from a certain region of the world turns into political influence. Also very few sociologists and anthropologists look at the political aspect of popular culture, and when they do they analyse the case of the United States or Japan. The thesis aims at determining what makes a given group consume Korean pop culture and how this pop culture is lived and embodied by members of a certain group and becomes what Joseph Nye called soft power – the „ability of a country to attract others arises from its culture, its values and domestic practices, and the perceived legitimacy of its foreign policies”. In other words, tries to explain the mechanism that turns Romanian women fans of Korean popular culture into political agents working to spread a message sent by a foreign state.
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