The article, "The Naked Emperor," is an article about how Chinese leaders use propaganda in the cyber world to steer online conversations. The Communist party used the cyber world as a tool because in the present, more than a 100 million people in China uses the internet, so they took this opportunity to "fool around." The first thing they attempted was to "mess around" by posting a message on Sina Weibo, China'
s twitter. Their goal was to spread propaganda through the cyber world in order to achieve support from their people. The message posted on Sina Weibo was about how one of the leaders of the party wept five times during the president's opening speech. The party thought that by posting messages like this, people would feel proud and give support to the party, but the results were the opposite of what they had expected. The people of China saw this as a joke and created a ridiculously funny version of it, for example she wept five times because of eating spicy noodle. This shows that manipulation and propaganda do not work and the people are not conceived from what the government are trying to do.
Mr. Zhu wrote in this article that: "Ordinary people like us all know the emperor is not wearing any clothes. The emperor himself knows that he is naked. he also knows that we know. And yet he stilled walked out like this." This means that the people of China knows that the Chinese government is trying to depict and portray themselves as great heroes to the people of China through the usage of manipulation, even though everybody knows that they are faking it.
This is similar to Orwell's 1984 because in the novel, the Party try to manipulate and brainwash the people of Oceania through means of media and propaganda. It is a very similar situation because in both cases, there are people who the government fail to manipulate and have a thought of their own, like Winston and the people of China. In my opinion, I think that this is a great article because it expresses the thought of a Chinese who knows that the government is trying to manipulate their people and dares to speak out to the world about the failure of the government and to humiliate them in a way.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
1984 Chapter 6 & 7 Analysis
Feminist view
Chapter 6 (Perth) A feminist would view chapter 6 of 1984 negatively because in this chapter, Winston describes the experience he had with a prostitute three years ago. The female prostitute is one of the few female characters that appear since the beginning of the novel and the portrayal of women being prostitutes seem nasty and disgusting. We could also tell that this book was written long ago before the 21st century, because during the 21st century, women have more equality and rights than they did before. By comparing men as ‘masculine’ or as the people working and comparing women as a ‘prostitute’ clearly shows that men had an advantage and were more superior than women at that time. But as we all know, these ideas and concepts are just thoughts that are constructed by culture. In conclusion, throughout the chapter, women are shown as weak, powerless people who are under the control of men and their purpose is to follow given orders and to pleasure men. This can be seen from the role of Katherine, Winston’s wife, and the prostitute Winston met a while ago.
Chapter 7 (Little V) - upload soon
Chapter 7 (Little V) - upload soon
Psychoanalytic view
Chapter 6 (Little V)
In a psychoanalytic view, the main goal would be to investigate the cognitive processes that are being presented such as memory or behavior. Winston’s prediction that the Party only viewed sex as a process in producing new Party members can be viewed as a psychological stereotype or a situational factor of behavior. Winston’s depression and suppressed feeling towards females because how the Party thinks females are an excess duty and how they are merely tools of reproduction can be caused by either not knowingly agreeing to the common belief of the Party that pleasures should not be made from sexual acts or that he believes he should follow a certain belief simply because everybody else is. The most likely case of Winston’s feeling is a situational factor case, where he, individually, would not hate women in his own perspective or according to personality, but instead, it is more likely that surroundings and encountered context have made him believe differently. Another important factor is fright. Since the Party has negative views towards females, Winston feels that having sex without any other purpose than pleasure is rebellious and would possibly anger the Party. He has no hatred for sex but when he and his wife Katherine separated, he became desperate for a sexual affair, mentioning in his diary that even the prostitute that was old and ugly, he continued along with the sex nonetheless.
Chapter 7 (Perth)
This chapter narrates about how the Party manipulates the people by feeding them false information. The Party is brainwashing the people to believe in what they want them to. By doing so, the Party is able to control the people the way they want. In this chapter, the Party provides the people with false information to deceive them from reality. In my opinion, I feel that this chapter is a portrayal of a communist society or a dictatorship, where the ruler controls the information people have and twist information to suit the purpose of the ruler. It is a horrible concept to provide people with false knowledge because it would come to a shock when the people know the truth, but on the other hand, this is a very complicated and intriguing concept to think about.
Questions
1) Why did you initially choose the theory you did to break down your chapter(s)?
I chose to analyse Chapter 6 of 1984 in a feminist perspective because chapter 6 is one of the few chapters in this novel that has the appearance of a female, so I decided that it would be a good opportunity to analyze this is a female's point of view. Another reason was because I have tried analyzing text in different views and would like to try see things in another perspective. I, myself, is a male and would like to discover how a female would handle and see situations differently than men. This was why I chose to analyze in this view. For chapter 7, I analyzed it in a psychoanalytic perspective because my partner chose it for chapter 6.
2) How did viewing the chapter(s) through this scope (and the scope of your partner) change your interpretation of your reading?
I feel that analyzing the chapters 6 and 7 in different views give me a different perspective and a wider insight on the chapter. I understood the chapter with more depth and also in a different side. This helps develop my analyzing skills and gave me a need experience in interpretation of text and made me understand the text in different ways. Rather than just reading it normally, I also had to think more than I usually do.
In a psychoanalytic view, the main goal would be to investigate the cognitive processes that are being presented such as memory or behavior. Winston’s prediction that the Party only viewed sex as a process in producing new Party members can be viewed as a psychological stereotype or a situational factor of behavior. Winston’s depression and suppressed feeling towards females because how the Party thinks females are an excess duty and how they are merely tools of reproduction can be caused by either not knowingly agreeing to the common belief of the Party that pleasures should not be made from sexual acts or that he believes he should follow a certain belief simply because everybody else is. The most likely case of Winston’s feeling is a situational factor case, where he, individually, would not hate women in his own perspective or according to personality, but instead, it is more likely that surroundings and encountered context have made him believe differently. Another important factor is fright. Since the Party has negative views towards females, Winston feels that having sex without any other purpose than pleasure is rebellious and would possibly anger the Party. He has no hatred for sex but when he and his wife Katherine separated, he became desperate for a sexual affair, mentioning in his diary that even the prostitute that was old and ugly, he continued along with the sex nonetheless.
Chapter 7 (Perth)
This chapter narrates about how the Party manipulates the people by feeding them false information. The Party is brainwashing the people to believe in what they want them to. By doing so, the Party is able to control the people the way they want. In this chapter, the Party provides the people with false information to deceive them from reality. In my opinion, I feel that this chapter is a portrayal of a communist society or a dictatorship, where the ruler controls the information people have and twist information to suit the purpose of the ruler. It is a horrible concept to provide people with false knowledge because it would come to a shock when the people know the truth, but on the other hand, this is a very complicated and intriguing concept to think about.
Questions
1) Why did you initially choose the theory you did to break down your chapter(s)?
I chose to analyse Chapter 6 of 1984 in a feminist perspective because chapter 6 is one of the few chapters in this novel that has the appearance of a female, so I decided that it would be a good opportunity to analyze this is a female's point of view. Another reason was because I have tried analyzing text in different views and would like to try see things in another perspective. I, myself, is a male and would like to discover how a female would handle and see situations differently than men. This was why I chose to analyze in this view. For chapter 7, I analyzed it in a psychoanalytic perspective because my partner chose it for chapter 6.
2) How did viewing the chapter(s) through this scope (and the scope of your partner) change your interpretation of your reading?
I feel that analyzing the chapters 6 and 7 in different views give me a different perspective and a wider insight on the chapter. I understood the chapter with more depth and also in a different side. This helps develop my analyzing skills and gave me a need experience in interpretation of text and made me understand the text in different ways. Rather than just reading it normally, I also had to think more than I usually do.
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