Monday, October 22, 2012

4 Types of Politics

1) Informational
  • According to the article about the four empirical cases that we discussed last week, informational politics moves to make information more available to the public and lets the public know the reality of certain situations. This is found in the article about the viral video. When an unpaid worker in China stars in a parody about conditions in China, she names a Chinese official. In this way, key information was let out, and it became more well-known as the video became viral and was scattered all over the internet. Through this, it is clear that informational politics is prominent.

2) Symbolic
  • Symbolic politics is found when someone or something is used as a symbol for a cause. In the article about the four empirical cases, the face of the girl that was murdered at Beijing University was used to raise awareness of the situation. In this article about the viral video, symbolic politics is highly apparent; the person in the viral video is used as a symbol. Because of the popularity this video gained, the migrant worker who starred in it became the symbol for the conditions she and other workers had to work in.

3) Leverage
  • The article on the four empirical cases defines leverage politics as using well-known people, mainly celebrities, to stand up for the public in order to change a situation or bring awareness. For instance, when Christian Bale went to China to find out why an artist's family was being held under house arrest, this was leverage politics. This is not present in the viral video. While the other types of politics are, no well-known figure was attached to this and helped the cause; It was solely the migrant worker and someone playing a reporter. 

4) Accountability
  • Accountability politics is used to hold a specific person or group responsible for their wrongdoings by proving their affiliations and making it known to the public. The migrant worker did this by naming a specific Chinese official in the video, which was later spread all over the internet. Everyone came to know that this official was responsible for the conditions of migrant workers and China and he was forced to take responsibility.

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