Translation of ‘America’ during the early Cold War period: a comparative study on the history of popular music in South Korea and Taiwan

Abstract

The evaluation of the cold war influences played by the US on the rest of the world should not only be accounted economically and politically, but also culturally. In this paper we see the US influences on South Korea and Taiwan from the value‐laden concept of Americanization and through which we examine comparatively specific practices of domestic popular music development in these two countries. Setting this paper as a historical comparative study, we see the working of Americanization in relation to popular music as a value regime in which American is constructed as an ideal model imaginatively and discursively, which was made possible by economic, social and cultural forces in South Korea and Taiwan. Focusing on the Cold War period, circa 1950s to 1960s, levels and aspects of Americanization were therefore ways of translation, to use Said’s concept of traveling theory analogically; Anglo‐American music genres traveled to these countries to be incorporated contextually as new or trendy conventions of music‐making, which in turn helped form local music genres. The socio‐historical contexts of South Korea and Taiwan, with respect to the presence of American army forces, and similar postwar anti‐communist political forces, in nation‐building (north–south Korea, red China–free China antagonism respectively) are central to our understanding of the visibility of Americanization in different music cultures in these two countries. This paper will go into each country’s historical trajectory of music practices that took Japanese colonial influences up to the postwar time and then blending with Anglo‐American genres in indigenizing that eventually marked their different paths, as we comparatively reveal their institutional, political and national cultural conditions, which were necessary in shaping each country’s music‐making conventions, entertainment business, and consumption cultures of popular music – and that might implicitly inform tentatively the present rivalry between ‘offensive’ Korean Wave and ‘defensive’ Taiwanese ‘rockers’ in the globalization era.     

Moderation impact of national culture on international firm’s environmental,social, governance and financial performance

We examine whether country-level national culture dimensions might moderate an international firm’s environmental, social, governance performance to strengthen or weaken its financial performance based on the Institutional Difference Hypothesis. We find that low power distance, high individualism, high masculinity, high uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgent national culture would moderate a firm’s environmental, social, governance performance to strengthen its financial performance further. On the contrary, high power distance, collectivism (low individualism), feminine, low uncertainty avoidance, short-term orientation, and restraint dimensions would be expected to weaken a firm’s financial performance by discouraging firms from undertaking superior environmental, social, governance performance. GLOBE’s findings such as low power distance, collectivistic institutional and in-group national culture, high uncertainty avoidance, future orientation, all report a significant positive moderation impact on a firm’s environmental, social, governance performance to strengthen its financial performance further. However, high gender-egalitarian national culture and high assertiveness would negatively moderate firm’s financial performance and environmental, social, governance performance. Overall, we think that our findings would further propagate the institutional difference hypothesis as we observe that each of our studied national culture dimensions would moderate firm’s environmental, social, governance performance and financial performance associations significantly.     

The ‘Isle of Vice’? Youth,class and the post-war holiday on the Isle of Man

This article broadens our knowledge of post-war holidaymaking (c. 1950–80) by adopting the Isle of Man as a case study. A popular holiday resort from the late nineteenth century, the Isle of Man experienced considerable political turbulence during the 1950s and 1960s about how best to stay competitive as a seaside resort, where authorities employed uniquely stringent methods to contain rowdiness and protect the island’s ‘respectable’ atmosphere. The first two sections examine the leisure habits of the young and working class in a holiday context, integrating this analysis with perceptions of their behaviour gleaned from oral interviews with local residents. The concluding section explores how the presence of holidaymakers on the Isle of Man – uniquely among seaside resorts in the British Isles – informed (and in some cases emboldened) a sense of national identity. Oral history, complemented by the Hansard reports of the Isle of Man parliament and local press coverage, sheds light on the activities of the post-war working class at play, and how the presence of holidaymakers fortified Manx national consciousness.     

The Left and Indonesia’s 1960s: the politics of remembering and forgetting

Abstract

This article examines a pivotal decade in the recent history of Indonesian society: the 1960s. It examines the context within which the Left came to be decisively, and violently, defeated as a social and political force. It then studies the consequences of this defeat for Indonesia’s subsequent historical trajectory. The article also suggests that history‐writing anywhere is nothing less than the politics of remembering (and forgetting). What is at stake in these exercises is ultimately tied up with the legitimacy of entire social orders and systems of power. Thus, in Indonesia, the trauma of 1965 and its aftermath banished, from the collective memory of Indonesians, the political role of the Left – except in the form that runs through New Order‐era discourse on Indonesian communism. For Indonesians born or raised after 1965, the ‘communist treason’ became, arguably, the most critical element of the grand narrative of post‐colonial Indonesian history, which was so important in legitimising New Order authoritarianism. The current inability of Indonesian society and its elites to acknowledge and confront the reality of the horrors of the 1960s might prove to be a major impediment to a more genuine and substantive democratisation process.     

The Impact of Receivers’ Nationality and Cultural Orientation on the Effects of Fear Appeals in Health Communication

Participants from the Netherlands (n = 52), China (n = 50), and South Africa (n = 166) either read a self-targeted or a family-targeted fear appeal message about chlamydia. Seven aspects of individual cultural orientation were measured, and six effects of the different messages. Interactions between nationality and target of threat were found on perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, and danger control. Only for perceived susceptibility, a difference in cultural orientation partly explained this interaction. The outcomes add to the doubts about claims in earlier literature about the relevance of receivers’ nationality and cultural orientation for developing a fear appeal message.     

‘The Talke of the Towne’: News,Crime and the Public Sphere in Seventeenth-Century London

This article reconsiders ideas of the public sphere in the seventeenth century, by focusing on how public opinion is shaped by the movement of information between media and between receivers. It contends that the scholarly preoccupation with a public sphere viewed exclusively in terms of politics obscures the fact that contemporaries did not distinguish between politics and subjects such as crime in their newsgathering. Examining the case study of James Turner, a burglar in the 1660s who became a cause célèbre in London and beyond, this article shows how crime news were eagerly exchanged, informing discussions and constructing public opinion.     

Staying connected: Effects of social connectedness,cultural intelligence,and socioeconomic status on overseas students’ life satisfaction

This study investigated the relationship between social connectedness and overseas life satisfaction in addition to the mediating effect of cultural intelligence (CQ) and the moderating effect of socioeconomic status (SES) respectively. We adopted the social capital theory to support the relations among the proposed variables. Data were collected through online questionnaires from Taiwanese students studying abroad; 431 valid responses were analyzed. The results demonstrated that social connectedness was positively related to CQ; moreover, CQ was positively related to students’ overseas life satisfaction, and partially mediated the relationship between social connectedness and overseas life satisfaction. Concurrently, SES was observed to moderate the relationships of social connectedness with CQ and CQ with overseas life satisfaction. Furthermore, the indirect effect of social connectedness on overseas life satisfaction through CQ was moderated by varying SES levels. Our findings confirm that social connectedness affects CQ, and that CQ serves as the mediation mechanism between social connectedness and life satisfaction among overseas students. In addition, SES plays a significant role in the moderated mediation relationship. Limitations of this study and recommendations for future studies are also discussed.     

The representation of ‘Asia’, ‘occupational forces’ and ‘women’ against the backdrop of post‐war Japanese culture: from the system of censorship to the present

This paper is one of the attempts to show how each East‐Asian regional country’s memory of the war has been related to the post‐war literatures and movies restricted by the structure of the Cold War. In particular, this paper takes up the issue of how the structure of Japanese culture after World War II was heavily influenced by the Cold War. When Japan was under the Occupational Forces, Japanese writers and film directors settling on the subject matter of the war were not free from the strain of the systematic censorship by GHQ. Translating into mechanisms of their works using the body or woman (comfort woman) by squarely facing the facts of the East‐Asian history, this paper reconsiders the body of post‐colonial Japan.     

‘Of lost fathers and broken sons’: Farish Noor on the politics of love and the new thought in Malaysia

Abstract

This paper addresses the polemical and intimate writings of one of Malaysia’s leading public intellectuals, Farish Noor. Straddling secularism and Islamism, Noor’s ideas are informed by a compassion that seeks to bypass monotheism and an ethnically informed nationalism. An advocate of a multiethnic and plural society, Noor does not merely reject Islamism; rather, his thinking seeks to reconcile and transcend what he perceives as a false dichotomy between a system of reason and a system of belief. The achievement of this transcendence is a fraught one for it sometimes seems that Noor involuntarily contradicts himself. To resolve this contradiction I turn to Gille Deleuze’s work, Pure Immanence, which, I argue, provides a key in‐road into understanding the complexivity of Noor’s thought, in particular his valorization of love and his canny and novel attempts to interpret what he calls an ‘other Malaysia.’     

Making American Friends: The Effects of Musical Tastes and English Proficiency on Chinese International Students’ Social Networks in the United States

This study investigated the relationship between Chinese international students’ social networks in the United States and their musical tastes. Based on concept of homophily, this study used a self-reported Social Network Analysis (SNA) survey to examine whether sharing similar musical tastes affected Chinese international students’ relationship, their musical tastes, and music consumption. The results showed that having high musical taste similarity predicted closer relationship between respondents and their alters, and higher likelihood of new music consumption. This study also found that frequent American English-language songs listeners were more likely to have Americans in their social network than less-frequent American English-language songs listeners.     

The effects of positive affectivity on expatriate creativity and perceived performance: What is the role of perceived cultural novelty?

This study set out to investigate the effects of positive affectivity (PA) on expatriate creativity and perceived performance in the host country workplace. Most importantly, the study examined the moderating role of perceived cultural novelty in the relationship between PA and creativity and its consequences for the indirect association between PA and perceived performance as mediated via creativity. Data from 297 expatriates in Denmark were collected and hypotheses were tested using regression-based analyses. Consistent with predictions, findings showed a positive relationship between PA and creativity. In addition, PA was positively associated with perceived performance. Results of mediation analysis indicated that creativity mediated the effects of PA on perceived performance. While a moderating effect of perceived cultural novelty in the relation between PA and creativity was found, this moderation was in the opposite direction of the postulated hypothesis, i.e. the positive association between PA and creativity was strongly attenuated at high levels of perceived cultural novelty. Subsequent moderated mediation analysis showed that the identified mediation ceased to exist at high levels of perceived cultural novelty.     

Stewart,O’Reilly,and The Rumble 2012: Alternative Political Debate in the Age of Hybridity

This study explores the internet-only political debate held in the run-up to the 2012 U.S. presidential election between political-entertainment personalities Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly. Independently produced and financed through a version of crowd-funding, the debate offers a window into the fundamentally hybrid nature of contemporary mediated political discourse. A novel form of hybrid celebrity politics afforded by emergent technological, economic, and cultural forces, the so-called “Rumble in the Air Conditioned Auditorium” interwove televisual celebrity, political advocacy, affective spectacle, and deliberative exchange. In so doing, it spoke to the increasingly complicated nature of representation, authenticity, and the possibilities of political speech in a hybrid media age.