Prior reputation and the transition from image repair to image makeover: The case of Hosni Mubarak

Through an analysis of Hosni Mubarak's speeches made over the course of the Arab Spring, this study examined Mubarak's response to criticism about his role in the crisis and the resultant attempt to repair his image. The study thereby draws attention to the image repair strategies of an individual with a negative prior reputation in a crisis. Data indicate that Mubarak's negative prior reputation resulted in his attempting not just an image repair as image repair discourse theory would suggest but rather a more complex image makeover. The cultural significance of his rhetorical choices and the implications for theory are discussed.     

President Bush's image repair discourse on Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the surrounding area on August 29, 2005. This storm was devastating, causing death, injury, dislocation, and massive property damage. President Bush came under fire for the apparently slow and inept federal response. On September 15 President Bush gave a speech to repair his image. He employed three principal strategies: bolstering, defeasibility, and corrective action. An evaluation of how these strategies were used in his persuasive message judged his image repair effort to be largely ineffective. Bolstering did not counteract the slow response (e.g., Bush waited days to visit the area). Defeasibility is risky for a president to use because it explicitly portrays him as unable to solve the problem. Corrective action was too little (often proposals rather than direct action—and proposals with important unanswered questions) too late. Evidence of the public reaction is consistent with this unfavorable evaluation.     

Dramatic performances in the play of politics: Egypt,Obama and the works of Jeffrey Alexander

This review article explores Jeffrey Alexander's cultural theory of political transformations. In his two recent works Performative Revolution in Egypt (2011) and The Performance of Politics: Obama's Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power (2009), Alexander analyses the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the rise of President Barack Obama, respectively. Alexander challenges the idea that revolutions depend primarily on the material conditions of a population, demographic changes, and the capacity of a group of contenders to gather material support for an overthrow. He also argues that the stagecraft of the political horserace matters for national elections. The strong versus weak dramaturgical performances of presidential candidates (rather than macroeconomic or geopolitical changes) proved consequential for changes in the poll numbers of Obama versus McCain, for example. Macroeconomic conditions had to be filtered, interpreted, and made meaningful; the candidate who could cast these material conditions onto the sacred side of civil discourse improved his likelihood of victory. Curiously, many social scientists and political pundits have largely taken performances for granted in the democratic struggle for power, and have therefore rendered the charismatic speeches and the grand narratives (culture) as epiphenomena, plays in the shadow of large structural shifts – a residual variable, or else as shifting, evanescent meanings produced in local, face‐to‐face settings. In the newer understanding, ‘culture’ is a level of analysis researchers use to investigate symbolic patterns and meaningful practices that structure how people act, how they define identities, even how they define what counts as ‘strategic’ or instrumental. Since the 1980s, sociologists working with this notion of culture have crafted different approaches to political culture, in national, organizational, and informal everyday arenas. Their different culture concepts carry different strengths and liabilities for research and they rely on different assumptions about action and meaning. This article reviews these arguments and asks what the limits to Alexander's performative theory are, how his theory can be reformulated to address settled versus unsettled political regimes, and how disaggregating Alexander's concept of audiences along with their roles in political change would provide the theory with greater predictive power.     

Image repair in President Bush's April 2004 news conference

As the war in Iraq heated up in March and April of 2004 and casualties continued to climb, President George W. Bush's reputation continued the downward spiral it had experienced during the past year (from 71% approval to 49%) as more and more voters questioned his policies and fitness for office. He responded to this situation by holding only his third prime time press conference on April 13, 2004.     

论习近平“七一讲话”的哲学向度

习近平总书记“七一讲话”蕴含深刻的哲理,彰显了实践向度、真理向度、价值向度等三大哲学向度。“七一讲话”中“三次飞跃”的科学论断高度概括了中国共产党带领人民通过中国革命、建设和改革实践所带来的实践客体的变化;“三个永不动摇”作为对以往经验的科学总结,体现了科学的真理性;八个“不忘初心,继续前进”的要求彰显了深刻的理论价值和实践价值。习近平总书记“七一讲话”在人民实践观的基础上实现了真理与价值的有机统一,最终指向社会和人的全面发展。     

《总统先生》艺术表现方法论析

阿斯图里亚斯代表性作品《总统先生》在使用现实主义文学创作手段之外 ,还运用了刻意渲染恐怖场景与气氛 ,把畏惧心理外化为客观物象 ,以及幻觉描写、梦境描写、神鬼人混杂描写等表现方法 ,使小说具有突出的表现力和强烈的感染力